Author's Note:This is the seventeenth story in my Legacy Universe and like the others it can be read as a stand alone.

I lifted up the office garbage can and winced as the gut wrenching odor assaulted my nose. It smelled like someone puked in it, which they probably had. I had to fight back the urge to gag as I emptied it all into the garbage cart and put a fresh bag into the can.

There were some days I really hated my job as a janitor...like nearly every day. Today however was especially bad.

"How the hell did I end up here?" I muttered with a shake of my head and a feeling of self-disgust. This was certainly not the life I'd imagined for myself.

My name is Derek Holmes and just a few years ago things had been quite different for me. Those had been the glory days. Back in high school I'd been a popular jock and one of the star players on both the football and wrestling teams. I was tall and athletic as well so had no problems getting girls. And of course, there was the other thing...the thing I didn't want to think about at the moment. The thing I usually spent far too much time dwelling on ironically.

I shook my head, wondering how I'd gone from the glory days with a great future ahead of me to living this life. I wish I could say that I blew out my knee or something since that would at least be dramatic. The truth was, I was a great football player in high school, but just wasn't good enough to get a scholarship. Nor, unfortunately, was I smart enough to get an academic scholarship. After high school all my options seemed to dry up leaving me with little to do but get this crappy job as a janitor for a research company.

Of course I was still 6 foot 2 and fairly athletic though I was starting to get a bit flabby. If I didn't get back to working out on a regular basis again I knew that in just a few years I'd lose it all. I shuddered as I thought of George, one of the other janitors who worked here. He was a fat and balding guy who'd been doing janitor work for decades. And unfortunately, I could see that I was on the path to become him but couldn't seem to step off it.

"I've become a damn stereotype," I grumbled to myself, wondering how much longer before I had my own son that I'd be pressuring to be good in sports just so I could relive my glory days.

I grimaced as I finished cleaning up in this office then began pushing the cart full of trash to the next one. This was easy work though certainly not pleasant. It also left me with a little too much free time to reminisce about the glory days and think about where things went wrong.

Just seconds later I saw Doctor McKormick walking down the hall towards me, or at least staggering since he was walking very slowly and carefully with a cane. He always looked unsteady on his feet and had become even more so over the last few months due to some sort of degenerative disease he had. It was his office that I'd just finished cleaning and probably his vomit in the can.

"Hey." I nodded to Doctor McKormick as we passed each other though he ignored me, other than the slight deepening of his scowl that is.

I didn't take Doctor McKormick's rudeness personally, not when he was rude to just about everyone. After all, I'd probably be in a pretty pissy mood too if I was sick like that. Of course whatever disease it was he had was certainly motivating him since he'd been working on a cure for it pretty hard. Who know, maybe someday his misery and bad attitude would let other people get better if nothing else.

Then again, regardless of his excuse I still though Doctor McKormick was a jerk. "What an asshat," I muttered as I turned to look back at him. I saw him entering his office, pausing at the door with a nervous look on his face that struck me as being out of place on him. However I shrugged and turned back to my work. "Yeah...definitely an asshat."

A short time later I was finished with my morning rounds and ready for lunch. I went to the company cafeteria with my boxed lunch planning to sit in the back corner and eat. We janitors weren't forbidden from using the cafeteria, but we did tend to get a lot of dirty looks from the researchers and office employees when we did. I guess they liked what we did for them, but didn't want to be reminded of it, especially when they were trying to eat.

I had just entered the cafeteria when I noticed her, a gorgeous young woman about my own age sitting alone at a table. She had shoulder length blonde hair which was dyed with a crimson streak that hung down one side. She had a stud through her nostril as well as by one of her eyebrows, which created an image that wasn't quite the professional look that everyone else around here maintained. However her clothes were a little more sedate at the moment, especially as she was wearing a white lab coat.

"Hey Nikki," I greeted her as I sat down by the one ray of light in my currently drab existence.

"Derek," Nikki responded back, "I thought I smelled something funny."

I just grinned at that, used to her rather insulting greetings, but not getting offended since I knew she didn't really mean them. I'd love to ask her out, though knew there was no chance of that happening, not since Nikki had made it very clear that I just wasn't her type. For one, she wasn't into jocks...or even ex jocks...and for another, she just wasn't into guys period.

As I sat across from Nikki, it was hard to believe she was the same girl I'd gone to high school with. Back then she'd been Nicole Castle, the prettiest, richest, and most popular girl in the entire school. She'd even been the prom queen...not to mention a little out of even my league.

When I first started working here six months ago, Nikki was already here ahead of me working as an intern for a research project. She'd changed so much since the last time I'd seen her that I barely recognized her and might not even have recognized her at all if it hadn't been for the access badge she wore with her name on it. Not only was Nikki a bit edgier looking with her piercings and crimson streak in her hair, she'd also had a reputation as a bit of a bimbo back in high school so definitely wasn't the kind of person I'd ever expect to see working in science.

Nikki had been kind of cold towards me at first which was funny because we barely even knew each other in high school. I later realized it was because she saw me as a link to her past life which she was trying to forget. However once she was sure she'd convinced me there was no chance for anything between us, she mellowed and we ended up becoming friends. The fact that we'd even ended up as friends was a bit of a surprise to me considering that we'd both changed since high school and had gone in such different directions.

"You know," Nikki told me, seemingly unaware that I'd tuned out the first part of what she was saying, "I don't think that idiot is going to last much longer if he can't even handle something as simple as the metric system..."

I just nodded along, having no idea which idiot she was talking about this time. She often complained about different people she worked with, sometimes coming up with unique ways of describing her low opinions of them.

"I swear that man has the IQ of a grapefruit," Nikki shook her head, then paused to look at me with a curious look. "What?"

"You know," I laughed, "I still don't know what to make of you... I mean, you're part prom queen, part goth, and part nerd..." I shook my head that that while Nikki stuck her tongue out at me.

"I just don't like being compartmentalized with just one label," she joked back. Then she paused to give me an intense look. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied, turning my attention to the lunch I'd brought.

Nikki gave me a skeptical look and took a deliberate bite of her salad. Once she'd finished with that bite, she turned her attention back to me. "Liar. You're still depressed about working here as a janitor."

"Yeah," I admitted, feeling embarrassed about it. It wasn't as though this was a secret since we'd talked about it before but it always made me feel like a whiner for bringing it up again. "I just thought that I'd be doing something else with my life...something important." Then I gestured around me and winced. "Not that I'd end up stuck in some dead end job."

"Something important?" Nikki raised an eyebrow. "Like playing football?"

"Those were the glory days," I joked.

"Gory days is more like it," Nikki responded with a deep scowl.

I snorted, "Come on...high school wasn't that bad for you. I mean, you were the most popular girl in school..."

"It was a nightmare," she responded emphatically, giving me a flat stare. "A living hell." Then she shook her head, saying, "I spent years pretending to be some perfect princess...trying to be what everyone else expected me to be...especially my father. I had to always look my best at all times... I had to always act nice and perfect... I had to get good grades...but not too good..." Nikki rolled her eyes. "My father thought that it was unfeminine for girls to be too intelligent."

"Damn," I muttered.

"Not even all those supposed friends I had were real." Nikki shook her head sadly. "They were like accessories picked because they went well with a specific look. None of them even knew the things I really liked and cared about." She let out a sigh and told me, "You have no idea how frustrating it is living your entire life as someone you're not."

I frowned and nodded, not sure what to say to that. "I didn't realize it was so bad..."

Nikki gave me a forced smile and shrugged. "The best thing I ever did was come out of the closet and tell my father I wasn't going to live like that anymore..."

"But didn't your dad disown you?" I asked, immediately biting my tongue as I realized I shouldn't have said this.

However instead of being offended, Nikki gave me a sad smile. "I never said it was the easiest thing I ever did...or without consequences. But it was the best." Then she suddenly switched gears. "But enough about me...this is about you. You just need to figure out what you really want to do with your life and then go do it."

"Maybe," I shrugged, knowing what I really wanted wasn't really an option anymore.

"Maybe you should think about the military," Nikki suggested.

I blinked at that. "What?"

"Think about it," Nikki pointed out, "it could give you some direction as well as help take care of college so you could get whatever it is you really want... Besides, I think you'd make an awesome Marine..."

"Maybe," I responded with a shrug, though actually I had already been thinking about enlisting. However the idea of basic training and taking orders from bossy people didn't really sit well with me.

"Well, I'm sorry to cut this short and run," Nikki told me as she began to get up, "but my lunch time is over and I've got to get back to work."

"Have fun." I forced a grin only to get one back.

"I will...once work is over." Nikki winked at me and added, "June and I are going out tonight for a bit of fun..."

"June is one lucky girl," I told Nikki, trying hard not to stare at her body as I envied her girlfriend.

"You bet your ass she is," Nikki chuckled. Then she added, "You should think about what I said though... Try finding something to work towards rather than just remembering your glory days playing football..."

With that Nikki turned and left while I watched her closely, not being nearly as guarded with my attention now that I knew she wasn't looking. Then I let out a sigh and tore my eyes away, knowing it was pointless since she was only into girls. Still she might not be interested in me but at least she was a good friend...one of the few I actually had anymore.

"And she gives great advice about girls," I chuckled, remembering that she'd helped me land more than one date.

Then I sighed and began digging into my lunch with a little more gusto, thinking about what Nikki had said. Of course she was right, I needed to stop daydreaming about my past glory days and lost dreams and focus on my present and future instead. But there was one thing that Nikki had wrong about the whole thing. When I thought about my glory days, I wasn't thinking about my time on the football field or being popular in school. Instead I thought about the other thing I did in high school...the thing that truly made me feel alive and as if I was doing something important. For me, my glory days were the days I spent as a super hero.

Back in high school I'd been a super hero called Kid Kaboom and had been part of a group called the Crusaders. Only one of us was a real developed though. Kelly...also known as Catalyst had the power to give other people powers for about an hour or so. She'd give us powers and we'd use them to fight bad guys and do all the things that super heroes did.

I felt a surge of regret as I thought of those days. I'd loved being a super hero even more than playing football and getting cheered on by the other students. I'd even had dreams of one day going on to the big leagues and joining a group like the Protectorate or Faction Zero. Of course, I knew those dreams had been foolish because I didn't have any permanent powers of my own, only what Kelly had given me. And once she decided to quit and run away she'd forced the rest of us to retire as well...whether we wanted to or not.

Then with a sigh and a shake of my head, I held up my can of soda and gave a toast to an imaginary companion. "To the glory days."

It was late afternoon and nearly the end of my work day for which I was very thankful. In less than an hour I'd be out of here and my swing shift replacement George would be in to take over cleaning after these slobs. It always amazed me just how messy some of these people with big brains could really be.

"Just a little longer," I told myself as I emptied the large garbage can on my cart into the dumpster in front of the building.

Once I was finished dumping the garbage, I paused to look around, taking advantage of the opportunity for a quick break. The building I worked out of was a big concrete block that looked far less impressive than you'd expect for a company that specialized in 'scientific research and innovation'. There was a small strip in front of the building followed by the road and the employees parking lot on the other side.

I sighed as I looked around, eager to get away from this place. Then I braced myself to go back to work and finish some of the worst cleaning before my shift ended. I still had two bathrooms to clean and one of them was always a complete and total mess.

"You'd think those eggheads could figure out how to clean up after themselves," I grumbled.

Then I saw a man leaving the building and coming towards me, noticing him only because he was acting in a way I could only think of as suspicious. He wore a trenchcoat with the collar up as well as a broad brimmed hat which made it difficult to see his face. He was also walking very fast, giving a quick glance back at the building as he obviously hurried to get away from it.

When this man walked past me I saw that he was wearing large sunglasses as well which helped obscure his face even more, to the point where I couldn't make out any real details. However I did notice that he was clutching some kind of glass container about the size and shape of a coffee thermos.

The man started walking across the road toward the parking lot, not even bothering to go further down to the crosswalk. He paused to look back at the building again and then stumbled, dropping the container to the ground. He frantically grabbed for it, picking it up and examining it to see if it was damaged but not seeming to even notice that he was doing this in the middle of the street...or that there was a car coming right towards him.

"LOOK OUT!" I yelled, already in motion.

I tackled tackled the man just like I was on the football field, hitting him at the same time the driver finally slammed on the breaks and knocking him out of the way just moments before the car slid through the spot where he'd been standing. The two of us hit the ground hard though the man I'd just saved took the brunt of the impact from my tackle.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I got to my knees.

"Get off me you oaf," the man demanded angrily, quickly getting to his feet, then exclaiming, "No... You... You ruined it."

"What?" I gasped in surprise and seeing that he was pointing to the ground where his glass container had shattered and spilled its contents. It was then that I noticed I'd been lying right in the puddle and was soaked. "I'm sorry about that," I started.

"You destroyed it," the man snarled at me, shaking with rage. "After all I did..." Then he paused to look at the building again before spitting out, "You'll pay for that..." Without another word he turned and ran off, leaving me feeling confused.

"What the hell?" I demanded, growing angry myself. I'd just saved the bastard's life and didn't even get so much as a thank you for it. Instead he just went off about how he'd lost his bottled water. "What an asshat," I muttered, turning to look at the car that had nearly hit us and seeing that it was driving away too. The driver hadn't even bothered to check on us and was getting out of there as fast as he could. "This fucking place is full of asshats..."

I shook my head and muttered a few profanities to myself as I went back to my garbage cart so I could get back to work. I was more than a little annoyed by both the driver and the man I'd saved but I couldn't help but feeling good about it too. Being able to save that man's life, even if he didn't seem to appreciate it, was almost like having a taste of being a super hero again.

Before long, I was actually in a good mood especially as my shift was coming to an end. However my good mood came crashing down the moment I saw a bunch of cops wandering through the building. I had no idea what was going on, only that it couldn't be anything good.

"What's happening?" I asked one of the security guards, gesturing down the hall to one of the cops who'd rushed past.

"It's Doctor McKormick," the security guard told me with a grim expression. "He was murdered."

Life sucks, especially when you're up to your elbows in shit. Technically it wasn't quite that deep, but it sure smelled as though it were. One of the toilets in this bathroom had overflowed all over the floor right after it had been used and guess whose job it was to clean it up. Yeah, mine. Lucky me.

As far as I was concerned, this horrible stench and mess were only icing on the cake since today had been a living hell all the way around. For one thing, I'd been stuck several hours late last night answering questions from the cops. They were sure that the guy I saved had been the one to shoot Doctor McKormick, but unfortunately I didn't get a good look at his face, so hadn't been able to give them anymore than that he was a skinny white guy about four inches shorter than me. However that hadn't stopped them from asking me the same questions over and over again, until I was sure I was going to go insane.

Unfortunately, as bad as last nights interrogation and my current puddle of shit were, the fact that I felt like crap made it all a hundred times worse. It had started last night with nothing more than an annoying rash, mostly where I'd gotten soaked with that bottled water and where my wet clothes seemed to have rubbed my skin. This morning though, I ended up with full fledged flu that left me feeling sick and nauseous with all sorts of muscle aches.

"I haven't hurt like this since Ladybug tried blowing me up with a missile," I muttered to myself. Then I shook my head and chuckled weakly. "Those were the days..."

I gagged my way through the rest of the job, surprising myself that I didn't empty my own guts and add to the mess. Eventually though I was able to leave the bathroom and reopen it for normal business. However instead of getting grateful thanks from the man who immediately went in, I got a muttered complaint about how I'd taken too long.

"I definitely need a new job," I told myself, not for the first time, but probably with the most certainty. There was no way I could keep this up much longer without going totally bonkers. "If I stay here much longer I'll end up like the Human Banana..." I shook my head as I remembered the old super villain. Actually, he hadn't been so much a super villain as an escaped mental patient who just really liked wearing bright yellow.

Then I suddenly heard Nikki's voice from behind me. "Hey Derek..."

"Hey." I turned and nodded to Nikki. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad," Nikki shrugged. "But everyone is freaking out over Doctor McKormick..." Then she abruptly paused to give me an appraising look before announcing, "You look like something the cat threw up."

"I feel like it too," I admitted, going into coughing fit that caused her to step back away from me.

"Well whatever you've got," Nikki said with a scowl, "just don't give it to me..."

"I wouldn't dream of it," I rolled my eyes. "After all, your not catching my cold is my highest priority..."

"Well it should be," Nikki joked. Then she asked, "Did you hear much about McKormick?"

"Not much," I answered with a shake of my head. "The cops were more interested in asking questions than answering them..."

Nikki nodded as though she'd expected that. "Someone shot him, smashed all his equipment, and then destroyed the hard drive on his computer... I guess this guy really didn't want anyone to get at McKormick's work..."

"The guy was a bit of an asshat," I told Nikki with a scowl, "but he didn't deserve that..."

"I heard you saw the guy who did it?" Nikki said, giving me a look that said she expected all the details.

I let out a sigh, then began to tell her everything I'd told the cops. And like I'd told them, there really wasn't much to tell since I never got a good look at his face. Whoever he was, he made sure to protect his identity which meant this probably wasn't some spur of the moment thing.

Once I was finished and I told Nikki I had to get back to work. She nodded and told me, "Just try to take it easy, okay. I wasn't kidding when I said you look terrible. You should probably think about going home..."

"I'll think about it," I told her with a forced smile, knowing that she was right. As it was, I probably would have called in sick if it wasn't for the fact that I didn't have any sick time and couldn't afford to miss work.

I tried to keep going and just tough it out, remembering what my old football coach used to say about players who gave up just because they had a little 'boo boo'. However I started feeling even worse and after an hour had to finally call it quits and go home.

Once I got home I immediately climbed into bed to get some rest, or at least to try to. The nausea and aches in my muscles only continued to get stronger, until suddenly every muscle in my body cramped at once. I tried to scream out from the sudden burst of intense pain, but even my throat muscles were seized and wouldn't work right.

Just as the aches turned to cramps the cramps soon turned to pure searing agony that not only burned through my muscles, but through even my bones. Every fiber of my body felt as though it were simultaneously on fire and being crushed. Then when this pain finally receded I was so overwhelmed with complete and utter exhaustion that I could do nothing more than lay there and sink into darkness.

Pain. Sleep. Pain. Sleep. This was the cycle that my life followed as I spent a period of time awake but in agony and unable to move followed by a period where I'd slip back into the mercy of unconsciousness. This was what my life had become and during this time my mind was so fogged with pain and exhaustion that I could barely remember it being any other way.

Eventually the cycle changed and the burning pain receded to a dull ache. I could move again, as well though was still too tired to take any advantage of this. Instead I remained where I was as I slowly came out of my daze, sleeping several more times in the process though not nearly as deep.

At the moment I was awake and aware enough that I could think about actually getting up though I had yet to find the willpower to do so. I finally gathered my energy and slowly sat up in bed, noticing that while the pain was gone my muscles were still a little sore. It was like the soreness that came after a good workout though and even that seemed to be fading. However I also noticed that something felt really off, though I was still a bit too dazed to see what.

After a few minutes of just sitting there with my feet hanging over the side, I realized that I had something on me. I looked at my arm, seeing that it was covered with some sort of greasy brown goo. In fact, my whole bed was full of it. I was immediately disgusted, thinking that I must have really shit myself good while I was sick.

"I definitely need a shower," I half mumbled, looking down at my covered body and wincing in disgust, "Bad."

Again I was hit with the strong feeling that there was something really wrong, something that I was missing. I stood up then paused to catch my balance, feeling a little as though all of my muscles had turned to rubber. This distracted me from the growing certainty that I was missing something extremely important.

I slowly made my way across my apartment, waking up a little more as I did so while also losing some of that jello feeling in my body. It was good to get the blood flowing again which only made me wonder just how long I'd been out.

Then just as I was about to go to the bathroom to get that much needed shower, someone started knocking on my door. I ignored it at first but it got more insistent. Finally a woman's voice came from the door. "Derek... Are you in there...? Derek? Come on...open up." It took me a few seconds to recognize Nikki's voice.

"I'm coming," I grumbled weakly, reluctantly turning to get the door. Then I remembered I was still in my birthday suit with nothing on but that greasy brown smear. I felt embarrassed and was about to yell at her to come back later when I noticed the blanket I had draped over my old second-hand couch to cover a couple holes. I grabbed that and draped it over my body, holding it closed with one hand as I began to unlock the door. "Hey Nikki," I greeted her as I finally opened the door.

Nikki stood in the door way dressed more casually than how I usually saw her at work, wearing a black T-shirt with a red skull picture on the front. I knew it was a girl skull because it had a bow and long lashes. However Nikki herself stared at me with a look of blank confusion then of disgust.

"Who are you?" Nikki demanded. "And what the hell is that shit all over you...?"

"What?" I blinked, once again overwhelmed by the feeling that something was extremely wrong. Maybe it was the fact that Nikki looked like she'd grown taller. I glanced down to her feet but she wasn't wearing high heels.

"Where's Derek?" Nikki insisted, pushing past me to come inside.

"I know I probably look like crap," I grumbled, "but I'm still Derek..."

Nikki ignored me and began calling my name as she quickly went through my apartment and looked through each door, including the closet. When she looked into my bedroom however and saw the mess of my bed she paused and stared at it with a look of disgust before turning to glare at me.

"What the hell is going on here and where is Derek?" Nikki demanded again. "I'm obviously in the right place because you called me by name..."

"I don't know what your game is Nikki," I told her with a shake of my head, "but I'm not in the mood to play. You said I looked like something that cat barfed up and should go home so I did. I've been stuck in bed with the worst case of flu you can imagine and only got up a few minutes ago... What are you going on about...and how did you know where I live? I don't think I ever told you..."

Nikki just stared me with a look of shock and confusion, then after a few seconds she became visibly shaken. She took a couple steps towards me and just stared at me in disbelief. "Derek...? Is that really you..?"

"Yeah...why?" I asked, suddenly becoming afraid. I'd had the growing feeling that something was seriously wrong and Nikki's reactions just confirmed it.

"Who was the high school prom queen?" she abruptly asked me. I blinked in surprise at the question then reminded her that she'd been the prom queen. She quickly followed that up with, "And who was the prom king?"

"Jason Fisher," I answered, muttering, "smug bastard..."

"It is you," she gasped, shaking her head. "How in the world...?"

"What...?" I started to pull the blanket back for a better look at myself, but then paused since Nikki was standing right there. However I did become more aware of how my body now felt...and of a strange weight on my chest. I'd been so distracted by everything else I'd missed this.

Before I could think of what to do, Nikki grabbed my shoulders, being careful to keep her hands on the blanket and not touch my goo covered skin. Then she gently pushed me towards the bathroom, stopping me in front of the mirror and snapping, "Does this look normal to you?"

I saw myself in the bathroom mirror and my eyes went wide in shock and disbelief. My skin and hair were still smeared with that greasy brown stuff, but it was also immediately obvious that this wasn't my face beneath it. It was the face of a young woman.

"What the hell?" I gasped, feeling completely stunned. I dropped the blanket to the floor, no longer caring that Nikki was there. A single look was enough to reveal that my body matched my face. I had the body of a chick including a pair of tits. "How in the world...?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me," Nikki muttered, taking a step back and wincing. She took a step back and hesitated a moment before saying, "Maybe you should take a shower and clean up... I mean...you're kind of gross right now and you really stink..."

With that Nikki rushed backed out of the bathroom so I could have some privacy to shower, though I suspected she also intended to give me the opportunity to check out my transformed body. Of course she could just have been completely and totally freaked out over what had happened to me. I knew I was. I was in complete shock.

I just stared down at myself for several minutes, trying to take in what had happened to me. How could I not have noticed this sooner? How could I have missed these two mounds on my chest? How could I have been so dazed that I hadn't even noticed I'd turned into a fucking chick? It all made no sense. I guess I was a LOT sicker than I'd even realized.

After a few minutes I finally climbed into the shower, eager to get this goo off me and get clean. I scrubbed at myself in near desperation to get clean, and perhaps almost as if I'd be able to scrub these weird changes away while I was at it. Of course there was no luck with that because even once I'd gotten the goo off me I still had a girl's body.

I climbed out of the tub and stared down at myself in stunned disbelief, unable to believe that this was really my body. I was definitely smaller than before, about 5 foot 7 or so and a lot less muscular though I still looked fit and firm. My new tits were nice, round, and firm...as well as probably about a C or D cup. I imagined that they'd look awesome...on some other chick.

Then I looked into the mirror again, taking a look at my reflection for the first time without it being covered by that nasty shit. I definitely looked like a chick, there was absolutely no doubt about that. I also happened to look like a hot one, though one who didn't look like a complete stranger.

"No fucking way," I whispered, running a hand over my face then pausing to look down at my hand and noticing that it was different too. It was much more feminine looking and my nails were a bit longer as well, though if I was a real girl I'd say my nails needed a manicure. "Hell no..."

I turned my attention back to my face, noticing that I still had the same dark hair that I'd had before though now it was much longer, hanging down past my shoulders. It was also really messy and in need of a haircut if I didn't want to look like some homeless person or something. My skin also still had the same permanent light tan it always had, courtesy of some Mediterranean heritage on my dad's side.

"I look like I could be my own sister," I blurted out, definitely seeing signs my own face in the mirror though a much softer and feminine version of it. "If I had a sister that is..."

For several minutes I just stared at my reflection, making faces at myself and seeing my reflection make them back. This whole thing seemed kind of surreal, like I was in some kind of trippy dream.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to the rest of my body, slowly feeling up my new tits then running my hands over the rest of my body. My skin seemed so soft and smooth...not to mention strangely short of hair. I even reached betwen my legs, feeling the empty spot and wincing.

"I'm a fucking chick," I grimaced, hardly able to believe it. It made absolutely no sense but I couldn't deny what I felt...and what I didn't feel. "How...?"

Of course the 'how' was the million dollar question with other expensive questions being the 'what' and the 'why'. I had absolutely no idea what had happened to me and looking over my transformed body did little to answer any of them. The only thing I knew for sure was that my body had somehow become a chick's.

"I can't stay in here forever," I grimaced, grabbing my largest towel and wrapping it around myself as I knew girls did. Even then, I couldn't help but stopping to stare into the mirror again.

When I left my bathroom I was pleasantly surprised to find that Nikki hadn't just run off and abandoned me. Instead she had just put a large garbage bag next to the door which was full of the filthy sheets and blankets from bed. I noticed she was wearing my leather work gloves, obviously not wanting to touch any of them with her bare hands.

"These are going in the garbage," she stated firmly, gesturing to the bag before adding, "you'll need to throw out your mattress too... It's ruined..."

"Thanks," I said self-consciously, giving myself another look before hurrying to my room.

I quickly got dressed in some of my clothes which were now far too large for me. I felt almost like a little kid wearing his dad's shirt or something though I didn't really have much other choice at the moment. None of my clothes would fit anymore. It was weird feeling so uncomfortable in my own cloths as well as awkward since it helped drive in the point that my body had somehow been changed.

Once I was done getting dressed, I made my way to the kitchen, not yet sure what I could say to Nikki. This was such a weird situation not to mention extremely embarrassing. I wasn't sure if I should ask her to leave so I could deal with this in private or thank her for staying so I wouldn't have to.

"I'm starving," I told Nikki with a weak smile as I started digging through the fridge for leftovers. There was half a pizza in there, so I eagerly started gulping it down, only thinking about offering Nikki some after I'd taken several bites.

"No thanks." She shook her head, watching me with an expression that was difficult to read. After a moment she sat down at the table across from me and said, "You said earlier that after you left work, you came home and went right to bed."

"Yeah," I answered, shuddering as I remembered how much I'd been hurting. If nothing else, I was damn grateful that was over.

"Then it's no wonder you're starving," Nikki told me. "That was three days ago..."

"Three days?" I gasped in surprise.

"I guess when you didn't come back," she told me with a faint chuckle, "they just assumed you were freaked out about Doctor McKormick's murder and quit..." She stared at me for a few seconds then admitted, "I got a little worried, so got your address from HR and came over to check on you..."

I just shook my head, muttering, "Three days..." I shuddered at the thought of having spent three straight days in bed going between agony and sleep. "Damn."

"No wonder you're so hungry," Nikki mused thoughtfully. "You probably used up a lot of energy changing like this..." Then she frowned for a moment. "And that stuff all over your bed is probably your excess body mass... The question remaining though is how did this happen? Or more accurately perhaps, what exactly is it that happened?"

I grunted as I continued eating, wishing I knew. I had a million questions and absolutely no answers at all. All I knew was that I wanted to get back to normal as fast as possible.

Nikki just sat there while I ate, watching me with a thoughtful expression. When I finished eating she asked, "Did you happen to have any incidents or have anything happen in any of the research labs?"

"No," I shook my head. "I have to have an escort for the labs I am allowed to go in and I'm not even allowed into any of the ones with the important work." I thought about it for a moment before adding, "The only thing weird that happened at work was that guy I saved from being run over."

Nikki nodded at that. "I was thinking about that and what you told me a couple days ago. It seems odd that someone running away from a murder would bother bringing bottled water with them and stranger that he'd freak out over losing it." She gave me a steady look as she added, "Whatever he spilled on you...I don't think it was water."

"Oh shit," I grimaced, knowing she was right. I had just been thinking the guy was crazy to be more worried about the water than about nearly dying, but if there was really something else in the container... something that could do THIS to a person. I shook my head. "But what could do THIS to me?" I gestured down at myself with an embarrassed disgust.

"I'm not sure," Nikki admitted, "but I have heard of several things that can change people or make them developed powers. I think I might have an idea though..."

With that Nikki stood up and looked at me again, her expression difficult to read as a variety of different emotions ran over her face. She still looked a bit shocked by my transformation, though obviously not nearly as much as I was. However she also seemed concerned, curious, and...something else. She looked me over with an expression that might have been one of appreciation. However that quickly passed as well.

"I think I need to go to a hospital," I said finally, not sure where else I could possibly go with this problem. Unfortunately I didn't think any doctors could really do much for something like this.

"I don't think it would do much good," she said, echoing my own thoughts. "At worst you might even end up as some sort of guinea pig. I want to check into a few ideas first... I need to go get some things... I'll be back in a few hours..." She went to the door, then stopped to give me one more look, saying, "I'll try helping...if I can."

A moment later Nikki was gone, leaving home along with just my own thoughts for company. I let out a yawn, feeling tired again, though it wasn't the same kind of exhaustion as before. More likely I'd just pushed myself a little too much. I thought about going back to bed again, then remembered the state it was in.

"Damn," I muttered to myself with a shake of my head, "it looks like my couch and I are going to be spending a lot of time together..."

I sat down on the couch, physically exhausted, though my mind and emotions continued racing. In fact, without Nikki here to act as a distraction they were running rampant, leaving me a bundle of nerves and fighting off the urge to just scream.

I tried getting hold of myself and looked down at my transformed body, especially at the two mounds which pushed out from my chest. I had to fight back the impulse to just grab hold of them to make sure that they were indeed real. Nothing about this whole situation felt real. In fact it felt more like some kind of nightmare.

"Damn," I muttered, closing my eyes and taking several deep breaths in order to calm myself down again. "This is crazy..." I'd seen some weird shit back during my time as Kid Kaboom but nothing like this.

After a few minutes I got back up and went to the closet where I pulled out an old picture I had stored in the back, hidden away rather than being displayed on the wall, because it might cause a few questions if anyone saw it. It was a picture of five people dressed in super hero costumes, a picture of my old team, the Crusaders.

All five of us were standing there posing for the picture with me being on the far left. I had dark hair and permanently tanned skin thanks to my Mediterranean heritage, though of course you couldn't actually see my skin in the picture since I wore a red mask that covered my entire face. My old Kid Kaboom costume was red and gray with some gold trim and it covered my entire body, leaving nothing exposed except for my hair.

Standing on the far end of the row was Kelly...or Catalyst as she was called in costume. She had on the blue cloak she always wore and the gold face mask which kept anyone from seeing who she really was. I scowled faintly, remembering how useless she used to be in a fight... always getting in the way rather than helping. It was ironic to think that she was also the most important member of the Crusaders because without her none of the rest of us would have been able to do anything at all.

Rachael, Kyle, and Jeff were there in costume too, or Guardian Girl, Charger, and Dodger as they were also known. I smiled faintly as I looked over the picture, remembering them all in action. I also remembered all the times we just hung out as friends even before Kelly suddenly developed her own powers and started to give us ours. It was sad to think that those days were gone for good since I've barely talked to any of them since high school.

"Ladybug, Butterfly, Jumping Jack, the Shrinker...and even Doctor Echo." I sighed as I named off some of our worst villains. "None of them was as bad as this..."

I reached down and cupped my tits, feeling both curious and selfconscious as I did so. I shook my head and let out a sigh, realizing that my attempt to distract myself had worked in a way. My emotions had stabilized a bit, but now I was left feeling mostly depressed. My life had been going nowhere fast for a long time, ever since high school ended. My career as a super hero was over. My time as a star on the football field or as a popular guy around school had ended. I was stuck in a crappy job with absolutely no future. Now now this... It seemed as though the entire world was out to get me, to see how much it could take from me before I finally snapped.

After a minute I hesitantly felt my crotch and the empty spot that now existed there. Then I reached under my shirt and felt my tits, touching the nipples. They felt strange and sensitive yet oddly nice at the same time. I couldn't resist rubbing them further, feeling them harden and feeling even nicer.

"I've got my own tits," I whispered, feeling guilty about how good they felt to touch.

I have no idea how long I just laid there on my couch feeling myself up and absorbing the sensations. All I knew was that I was completely exhausted and had used up what energy I did have with my emotional meltdown. So as strange as this way, it was also nice in a way to just sit back and relax which is exactly what I did until I fell back asleep.

"You've got to be kidding me," I grumbled as I looked into the mirror, not exactly thrilled with what I saw.

At the moment I was wearing girl clothes that Nikki had brought over a short time ago. She'd decided I needed clothes that actually fit me, so took all the old clothes that she and her girlfriend June were going to donate to charity and gave them to me instead. I wasn't quite sure what to think of that as I felt both gratitude and embarrassment.

I was currently wearing a pair of black slacks and a red shirt with a black cat printed across the front. They certainly weren't a perfect fit, with the pants being just a little too short and a bit loose at the waist, but I had to admit that this all fit much better than my own clothes could at the moment. There was something about having clothes that actually fit which made me feel a little better, even if they were girl clothes.

Unfortunately I was also wearing a bra, though I'd had little choice in the matter. As Nikki said, "If you insist on looking like a woman then I insist you dress like one." However I certainly don't remember remember having any choice in the matter, much less insisting on it.

"Much better," Nikki said, nodding her approval from behind me. "You almost look presentable now." She raised an eyebrow and added, "Almost."

"Almost?" I asked with a frown.

Nikki grinned. "Well, your hair really needs styling and you could use some makeup...but at least you'll be able to leave the house."

"Great." I rolled my eyes, having absolutely no intention of leaving the house while I looked like this. Then I looked down at myself and gulped, realizing that I probably wouldn't have any choice.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remind myself that this wasn't the end of the world and that things were better than yesterday. Yesterday I'd still been a bit sore and at least half asleep for most of it. Today that soreness had vanished entirely and I felt wide awake and full of energy. In fact I felt pretty damn good... physically at least. If it hadn't been for the fact that I was now a chick, I'd say that I've never felt this good in my life.

I stood up as tall as I could, which admittedly wasn't as much as last week and stretched. It felt good. I continued stretching, moving my body in different direction as I did so, even bending down and touching my toes. I was absolutely amazed at just how light and flexible my transformed body felt. However I quickly stopped what I was doing and clamped down on those thoughts. There was no way I was going to like anything about this situation.

"Damn," I muttered in embarrassment, blushing as I looked back at Nikki who was watching me with a look of interest that vanished the moment she saw me looking back. "This is weird..."

Nikki nodded. "I'd imagine so..."

Nikki continued staring at me, blushing slightly at first, though her expression quickly turned serious. I grimaced, knowing that we were finally going to talk about the subject we'd been dancing around since she'd come over.

Last night Nikki had come back over just like she'd promised and had brought with her several small pieces of test equipment she'd 'borrowed' from one of the research labs at work. She'd used these to test me and even took a sample of my blood. When she'd left, it was the promise that she'd come back today to tell me what she found out. The fact that she hadn't actually told me yet indicated that it wasn't good news.

Nikki sighed then went to my kitchen, so I followed her. She gestured for me to sit down at my small table, though she went to my kitchen counter and picked up the bottle of Southern Comfort I had sitting there. She poured us each a little while I just grimaced, knowing that this was definitely not a good sign. I clenched my fists nervously while she set a glass of the whisky in front of me, then took a sip of her own.

"It's that bad?" I finally asked.

"It depends," Nikki said with a forced smile. "On what your definition of bad is I mean." Then she took another sip before asking, "What do you know about Doctor McKormick's work?"

I thought about it for a moment before shrugging, "Just that he was trying to cure...whatever it was he had."

"I didn't know much about it either until last night," Nikki admitted with a forced smile. "But it seemed like the obvious place to look." She paused to give me a sympathetic look before continuing, "He was working with nanites...microscopic machines that could go into your body and actually fix damaged pieces of DNA. That way he'd be able to cure certain genetic based diseases..."

"You think that's what did this to me?" I asked hopefully as I gestured down at myself.

"I know it," Nikki told me. "I found the nanites in your blood..."

Then Nikki abruptly said, "I don't know much about biology... My interest is technology...machines." She paused again, looking a little embarrassed. "Bigger machines. Nanites are way out of my scope. But I broke into Doctor McKormick's lab last night and took a look around. Whoever killed him wiped out his computer and destroyed the machines he used to make the nanites... However...Doctor McKormick did have a few notes still there on paper. There wasn't anything technical like how the nanites were made or how he programmed them, just some of his observations."

"Okay," I urged Nikki to continue, feeling my stomach knot up in anticipation. "But how does fixing a disease do this?"

"I'm getting to that," Nikki said slowly with a thoughtful look on her face. "From what I understand, these nanites were designed to attatch to someone's DNA and change just one or two specific parts, then to replicate those changes through the body as fast as possible, improving general health as they go. But McKormick's notes said each batch of nanites had to be custom made because the programming of where to change is hardwired in when each batch is made." She scowled and gave me a steady look before adding, "They also indicated each batch could only exist outside the human body for about an hour before they go completely dormant and lock up."

I just nodded though I didn't fully understand what she was saying. Most scientific technical talk was like mumbo jumbo to me though she was dumbing it down enough so that I thought I was getting the basics.

Nikki didn't look at me as she continued, "The police found out that an unknown person has made several large payments to McKormick in the last couple months...though they don't know yet if it's related to his murder." She took a deep breath then looked me in the eyes. "What I do know was that someone intentionally created that batch of nanites to attack a Y chromosome and turn it into an X...and may have done more. This was done either shortly before McKormick's death or even after it because the nanites hadn't gone dormant yet when you were infected. In fact, whoever killed him might have made this batch before destroying the equipment. I just don't know..."

"Damn," I whispered, staring down at my hands which clutched my glass. I took a sip and sat there for a moment in silence before asking the question that I feared I already knew the answer to. "But can I be changed back?"

"I don't think..." Nikki started, then looked away and answered, "No."

I closed my eyes and muttered and grimaced, taking several deep breaths as I did so. That might have been the answer I was expected though it certainly hadn't been the one I wanted to hear. Then again, I reminded myself, Nikki might not be right. She was only an intern...not an actual scientist herself.

"The nanites are still in your body," Nikki told me quietly, "embedded into your cells and making sure your DNA doesn't try changing back. I'm pretty sure you can't remove the nanites without killing you and their programming is hardwired into them, so I don't think it's even possible to reprogram them." She paused to finish off her Southern Comfort before giving me a sympathetic look. "Admittedly, I don't know much about nanites and even less about biology... McKormick might have been able to reverse what his nanites did, but I wouldn't have the first idea of where to even start."

I downed the rest of my drink with a single gulp, then just sat there in stunned silence. Having feared and even expecting this result wasn't quite the same as actually having it conformed.

"Maybe someone else at the company could help," I thought aloud, relieved when Nikki didn't get offended by the suggestion.

"Maybe," Nikki agreed. "There are researchers there who know more about nanites than me...though I don't think any of them are experts. But without McKormick's notes or equipment I don't really think any of them would be able to do anything either. And worse, messing with the nanites might end up tearing you up from the inside out..." She shook her head and added, "There's also another problem..."

"As if I don't have enough of those," I grimaced.

Nikki gave me a sympathetic smile and said, "If you show up infected with Doctor McKormick's work then the police might decide you had something to do with his murder."

"What?" I gasped in surprise.

Nikki shrugged. "I'm not saying they will...only that they might. The police are overworked and underpaid so it's been my experience that if they can close a case and get rid of some of their workload with an easy and obvious answer they usually will...even if it isn't the right one." She shook her head as she pointed out, "A lot of innocent people end up going to jail because of things like that and you don't want to be one of them."

Unfortunately I had to admit that Nikki was probably right. Back when I'd been in the super hero business, I'd dealt with a few cops who were generally just trying to do their jobs. But if they could make their jobs easier they usually would.

Then as I was considering what the cops might do I also began to wonder about the company I worked for. Even if it was proven that I didn't have anything to do with McKormick's death, I still had his work inside me. This was work that the company had paid for. I could just imagine the company suing me to get their property back somehow or doing other things to make life even more difficult for me. I might be able to find help for my situation if I was open about it but that would also be very risky. This whole situation reminded me of exactly why we used to keep our real identities secret back when we were out doing the super hero thing.

"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" I moaned, knowing that I no longer even had a job. I certainly couldn't go back to work like this. In fact I realized that I probably no longer even had a job. After all, I hadn't shown up at all in days and hadn't even called in sick once. "I can't live like this..."

"Sure you can," Nikki put a hand on my arm and tried to reassure me. "Trust me, being a woman isn't a bad thing."

I just glared at her, feeling a surge of anger as I snapped, "And how would you like it if you woke up tomorrow as a guy?"

Nikki blinked and took a step back before chuckling, "That might actually be kind of interesting... There are some things I'd like to try...and some ladies who aren't interested in me right now..." Then she paused, noticing the look on my face before sighing, "You're right. It would be a bit of a shock."

I nodded at that, trying to force myself to stay calm. It would be so easy to freak out and go into a panic or even a long bout of self-pity. In fact I'd already been doing a bit of both since my transformation. Of course I suddenly realized that I've been wallowing in self-pity ever since my forced retirement from being Kid Kaboom. It's just that my current circumstances made my old problems seem like nothing and I couldn't help but feeling like I'd been some kind of whiner for the last few years.

"And I thought I had something to complain about before." I shook my head with a snort.

One thing I'd learned as a hero was to ignore my own fear and frustrations or at least put them aside long enough to deal with the business at hand first. After all, you couldn't fight a bad guy if let yourself freak out over what he might potentially do to you. I guess I hadn't been very good at that lately though decided that I'd have to at least try for now.

"I have no idea what to do now," I thought aloud, trying to keep the self-pity from my voice.

I'd always been perfect happy as a guy and never had any interest or desire in being a chick. Of course now I had no choice in the matter but that didn't mean I had to like it. I just had to figure out how to survive as a chick without going crazy, though I still hoped I'd be able to eventually find a way to get back to normal.

"I feel like a stranger in my own body," I grumbled with a look down at myself.

"Then maybe your first step should be to get more used to it," Nikki suggested, giving me a strange look then quickly turning her eyes away with a blush. "I mean, you're a lot smaller than you used to be and probably a whole lot weaker. You don't want to accidentally try lifting something too heavy and hurt yourself..." She looked back at me again with a thoughtful expression. "But you are a lot more flexible too... You should probably learn what your new limits are..."

I nodded at that, not having any better idea. Besides, it made sense and as much as I dreaded the answer I was curious about just how much weaker I'd become. Fortunately my apartment building might be low budget, but it did have a small workout room where I'd be able to find out just how much strength I'd lost.

Fifteen minutes later we were down in the gym and I was relieved to see that it was empty of anyone besides the two of us. I was relieved at that since I didn't need an audience to see my upcoming humiliation. It would be bad enough with Nikki watching, but I'd feel bad about asking her to leave when she was only there trying to help. I looked over the rather limited exercise equipment and felt nervous.

"Let's see how bad this is," I announced, going to the bench press first. I decided to start with nothing but the bar just in case this was the worst case scenario. With the way things were going lately I wouldn't be surprised.

To my relief I was able to lift the bar with no more effort than I would have put into it before. I added more weight and tried again. I continued doing this, adding more and more weight and being surprised when I reached the 200lb mark. I was absolutely shocked when I reached my new limit at just over 300lbs.

"Holy shit," I exclaimed in amazement. I not only hadn't lost any strength in my transformation, but seemed to have gained a little as well.

After taking a minute to absorb this I moved to the other equipment, trying out some curls and then squats and finding similar results. I was able to lift a lot more than a real girl with this build should, though this hardly qualified as super strength. After all, I was still within normal human range...albeit that of a strong man. Back when I'd been Kid Kaboom and had powers, super strength had never been one of them, but I sort of imagined this was about what it would feel like.

Nikki thought that this was probably a side effect of the nanites rebuilding my body, since part of their programming was to improve physical heath. She also said something about how they might have helped me reach my full physical potential, though I wasn't paying much attention to what she was saying at this time. I didn't care how I could lift so much weight, only that I could. It made me feel a whole lot better about my situation since I knew I wasn't going to be stuck being weak and helpless.

"We're not done yet," Nikki told me as I was getting ready to leave the weight room. "You have a better idea about how strong you are now...but you still need to get a better sense of your own balance...and flexibility." She gave me a broad grin as she said that then winked, "Come on girl, we've still got work to do..."

I felt self-conscious as I walked down the sidewalk beside Nikki, well aware of the attention we were receiving. Actually I was pretty sure that Nikki was the one getting most of the male attention, though I knew I was getting some of it as well. As uncomfortable as this made me I was also kind of happy to be out and about as well.

For the last few days I'd been locked up in my apartment and had been feeling increasingly claustrophobic. Nikki spent most of the day working and, though she came by after work to see me each day, I still spent most of the time by myself. And while that gave me plenty of opportunity to familiarize myself with my new body and limits, it also gave me a lot of time to think about all the problems facing me.

My two biggest problems at the moment, other than the obvious, were that I no longer had a job and wouldn't be able to pay the bills. When my rent came due and I missed it, I'd probably end up out on the street. My other problem was that I couldn't use my own drivers license or identification. Legally I didn't really exist anymore, which meant I couldn't just go and get another job. I knew that I'd have to find something under the table that didn't ask a lot of questions. Unfortunately I didn't like the jobs that came to mind for someone who looked like I now did.

At the moment though I was more or less in a good mood and grateful to Nikki for coming over on her day off and getting me out of the apartment. I'd made a few short trips out on my own, but had been a bit nervous about how to react to people who now saw me as a chick. I guess I just wanted some company for backup on my first real trip out. I was so grateful to Nikki that I'd barely even protested when she announced she was taking me to the salon.

"If you're going to be a woman you might as well do it right," Nikki told me. "Besides, I'm not going to hang out with someone who looks only a step up from being homeless..." And with that she'd gently tugged on my hair before dragging me out of the apartment.

I looked over at one of the guys we passed who was paying us particularly strong attention, blushing brightly when his eyes seemed to settle on my tits for a few seconds. I quickly looked away, hoping we didn't meet eyes in case he got the wrong idea. The very idea made me shudder a little.

"Trust me," Nikki told me with a chuckle, "I know exactly how you feel..."

I just snorted skeptically at that. Nikki might not be interested in guys, but I seriously doubted she had any idea of just how disturbing the idea of being with a guy was for me.

Then over I noticed Nikki frowning slightly and realized that she'd been doing that a lot since she'd come over today. "Are you pissed at me?" I abruptly asked, afraid that I must have done something to make her made. I had no idea what it might be, but that was absolutely nothing new when dealing with chicks.

Nikki looked surprised and quickly told me, "No... It's just..." She hesitated for a moment, and looked at the ground before answering, "It's June..." She frowned and shook her head. "We kind of had an argument last night..."

"I'm sorry," I told her sympathetically then asked, "What about?" I quickly bit my tongue, realizing that it was none of my business.

Nikki hesitated for a moment before saying, "Nothing..." However after a few more seconds she frowned. "She called me secretive..." Nikki was silent for nearly half a minute before continuing, "I mean, it's not like I can tell her about work... I signed a confidentiality agreement. I did tell her you were sick and I was helping you out... I just didn't tell her about what happened to you."

"Why not?" I asked out of curiosity, though I was also relieved that Nikki hadn't been spreading this around. This was embarrassing enough that I didn't want anyone else to know about it unless I had to.

"That's your secret," Nikki told me with a faint smile. "It's not my place to share it." Then she paused and gave a broad grin and pointed, "We're here..."

I stepped into the salon and looked around, feeling self-conscious as I did so. This was one of those bastions of femininity like a lingerie store or a woman's locker room. There was only one other guy in there at the moment, or I should say just one guy in there since I no longer qualified. I was already half sure he was gay.

"She's here for the works," Nikki told one of the women working there.

"But I can't afford that," I protested to Nikki quietly.

"Don't worry," Nikki smirked, "I'll take care of it."

Before I realized what was happening I was brought to the back room and stripped of my clothes. The next thing I knew, I was laying down on a bench while some woman was giving me a thorough massage that hurt, yet felt great at the same time.

I moaned in delight as the woman rubbed the muscles in my back and I could hear Nikki on the next bench over enjoying the massage just as much as I was. The massage seemed to go on forever, yet was over far too soon.

I got up feeling a little like a wet noodle as they gave me a robe to wear for the rest of my trip here to the salon. Nikki was finished with her massage and joined me a minute later, giving me a smug grin.

"I told you that you'd like it," Nikki told him.

Next came part of the work that I definitely needed, yet felt the most apprehensive about. I was set in a chair while a woman began to wash and then style my hair. My hair had grown during my transformation, but not into any sort of neat or convenient haircut. It had just gotten a lot longer and messier, so there was no doubt that I needed a haircut. However all this treatment seemed just a bit excessive.

I hardly knew what to think about all this attention or about what the stylist was doing with my hair. This was definitely a lot more than a simple haircut, though as she finished it up and showed me the results in the mirror, I couldn't help but feeling impressed. My hair was still down past my shoulders, but it looked much nicer and somehow seemed to even be brighter and silkier.

"Very nice," Nikki told me once she'd looked over the results. "I think I can even be seen in public with you now."

"Gee, thanks," I told her wryly.

"It's not over yet," Nikki smirked. "Next comes my favorite part."

After this they began working on my nails, both hands and feet. It was difficult to sit there while strangers played with my fingers and toes, but I had to admit there was something rather calming about this as well.

While I was sitting there getting my manicure and pedicure, I began listening to what two women nearby were saying to each other. I felt vaguely guilty for eavesdropping, though not enough to stop. Besides, it wasn't like I had much choice about hearing when they were talking so close to me.

"I was so scared," one of the women exclaimed. "I mean, I was right there when this guy in a costume burst in and robbed the jewelry store... If that wasn't scary enough he actually had two black monsters with him..."

That immediately caught my attention and I listened as the woman kept going over how some super villain robbed a jewelry store while she was there, taking nearly everything while two monsters smashed the wall and destroyed some property nearby. I grimaced, feeling that old itch that came from wanting to throw on a costume and take care of the villain. Of course those days were long gone, but that didn't meant I liked it.

"Where are those super heroes when you need them," the second woman eventually said. "Didn't we used to have some local super heroes around here...?"

"I think they were called the Guardians or Crusaders or something like that," the first woman responded. "I don't know what happened to them. I don't think anyone has heard from them in years..."

"They probably got killed," the second woman told her, sounding almost happy about it. "I mean, what else do you expect doing something dangerous like that. I'm sure they either got killed or came to their senses and quit... I mean, what kind of person puts on a silly costume and intentionally goes looking for trouble..."

I bit my tongue at that, fighting back the urge to interrupt them and tell them exactly what kind of person becomes a super hero. However I took several deep breaths and forced myself to ignore them. It wasn't too difficult as a few minutes later their conversation had drifted to a different topic and they began discussing which kind of dog made the best pet.

Eventually they were finished and I was ushered in front of a mirror so I could get a good look at myself and the work they'd done on me. I gasped and could hardly believe the beautiful young woman staring back from the mirror was actually me.

Not only did my hair look like that of a real woman who took care of it rather than like some crazy person who had no idea how to manage long hair, I also had makeup on. One of the women had applied it while I was getting my manicure. I blinked several times to make sure this was me, feeling self-conscious about just how feminine I looked, though I couldn't help, but feeling at least a little pleased. After all, if I was going to be stuck being a chick at least I was a pretty good looking one.

"This is...strange," I told Nikki as we left, not sure what to think or feel about this. I'd actually enjoyed the whole salon experience and felt a bit ashamed because of it. "I can't believe that's me..." I shook my head, never having imagined that I could look like this even after my transformation. "Thank you...but..." I paused, then added, "This must have cost a lot..."

"Don't worry about it," Nikki told me with an amused smile. "I can afford it. Besides, it was worth every penny to see you like this."

I blushed at that, not sure what I could say especially since she gave me a very appreciative look...one which reminded me perhaps a little more than I would have liked about how I'd always looked at her when she couldn't see me looking. This just made me suddenly wonder if I'd ever been nearly as successful at hiding my stares as I'd thought which only made me blush more.

"You know," Nikki said abruptly, "I was thinking about some of the problems we were talking about earlier..."

"Which ones?" I asked with a faint smile, "I have a pretty long list going..."

Nikki laughed at that. "I guess you do. I was thinking more about the whole identification thing. After all you can't even get a decent job if you don't legally exist." She hesitated a moment before saying, "I know someone...or I should say...I know someone who knows someone who can help."

"A fake ID?" I asked in surprise, then smiled. "That might help a bit."

"No," Nikki shook her head. "I'm not talking about some fake drivers license to get you into a bar... I'm talking about something a little more...thorough. Something a little more useful."

I stared at Nikki for a moment before sighing. "And probably something a lot more expensive..." Without my job I wouldn't be able to pay my rent this month much less buy afford anything expensive.

"Don't worry about it," Nikki shrugged it off, "I'll take care of it..."

I nearly choked at and stared at her in disbelief. "First the salon and now this..." I shook my head and protested, "That's a lot of money..."

Nikki just laughed and responded, "Don't worry... I can afford it..." At my skeptical look she told me, "I've got a small trust fund..." She chuckled and added, "It's not enough to let me live a life of idle luxury...but I could probably go without having to work if I didn't want to."

"I thought your dad cut you off," I said in surprise.

"He did," Nikki said with a frown. She hesitated a few seconds before continuing, "He died of a heart attack six months after our argument... before I ever even got to see him again." She shook her head and muttered more to herself, "The old bastard always was a workaholic and it caught up to him..." Then she shrugged. "He didn't leave me a dime in his will...but the trust fund was already set up before then and he hadn't been able to touch it."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling guilty for bringing the subject up. I knew Nikki's relationship with her dad was a sore subject for her. I never would have imagined it back in high school, though because she'd always seemed to have her act together so well. Back then, I'd always thought her life was perfect. "I didn't mean to..."

"Its all right." Nikki gave me a weak smile then changed the subject. "What we need to do before getting you a new identity is to first find you a new name..." She gave me a wry look with a raised eyebrow and pointed out, "You certainly don't look like a Derek anymore."

I grimaced, knowing she was right and hating it. I refused to completely give up on ever being a guy again and the idea of taking a girl name sort of felt as, though I was. "Maybe we should wait on all that," I said uncomfortably. "I mean, if we figure a way to change me back..."

"Did you hit your head too many times when you were playing football?" Nikki asked me with a sharp look. "Or are you just stupid?" She shook her head and snorted at my look of surprise. "Sure, there might be a way to change you back to a man eventually...but even if there is it might take years to find. Face reality, you're going to be a woman for a very long time if not permanently."

"I know," I responded quietly, knowing she was right and hating it. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of my earlier resolve to deal with my problems rather than just complaining about them. "What kind of name should I use? I don't think there's a female version of Derek and I don't think my parents ever came up with a name to use if I'd been born a girl."

Nikki suggested a few names which I considered for a moment, then decided against for one reason or another. Then she suggested more names, some of which made me shudder. I came up a few possibilities of my own, not because I could even imagine using them myself, but because I didn't want her to be the only one offering suggestions.

This conversation lasted for the rest of the walk to the parking lot where we'd left the car and we just stood next to the car while we continued it. Eventually Nikki offered one suggestion which had me shaking me head in absolute refusal.

"No way," I shuddered. "I knew a Darlene once... Total psycho slut." Then I mused, "Maybe Erin though... I kind of like that name. It doesn't sound too girly."

"Not bad," Nikki agreed. "It could work..."

Then Nikki suddenly paused and turned to look at something. I followed her gaze and saw some guy walking away from a Camero and coming right towards us. He was tall and athletic looking in a way that reminded me of my normal self, though he also had a cocky grin, the kind I probably had back in high school, but haven't really had much reason to use since.

"Hey ladies," he greeted us with a broad grin that made my skin crawl.

Nikki gave him a flat look. "We're not interested."

"Hey, I'm just trying to say hi," he responded, not looking bothered by her attempted brush off nor seeming to get the hint. "I'm Jake..."

"And we were just leaving," I told him.

"Don't be like that," Jake smirked, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I'm just being friendly is all."

"A little too friendly," Nikki responded coldly.

I grimaced and grabbed his hand and yanked it off my shoulder, twisting it with my considerable strength until he gasped in pain and dropped to his knees. "Listen here you asshat," I said to him with a sickeningly sweet smile. "We said we're not interested..."

"I'd listen to her if I were you," Nikki laughed.

I let go of Jake and he glared at me for a moment before spitting out, "Fucking dykes," and turning to leave.

"Damn," I shook my head in annoyance, "I hope I was never that bad."

Nikki was still chuckling as she turned to me and grinned, "You ready to go...Erin?"

I was still smiling as well and stared at her for a moment as I absorbed the name she'd called me. After a few seconds I nodded, "Sure..."

I stared at my reflection in the mirror with mixed feelings, still finding it hard to believe that this was actually me. Not only did I have the chick face that had been staring back at me for the last couple days, but I was also wearing makeup. This wasn't makeup that someone else had put on me like they had at the salon yesterday, but makeup that I'd actually put on myself.

"Not too bad," I admitted with a sigh.

For a moment I just closed my eyes, wondering why I was sitting here putting on makeup. At least at the salon I'd had the excuse that I was humoring Nikki and it was all just part of the salon experience she was paying for. Of course Nikki had bought me this makeup kit yesterday after the salon, saying that I'd looked so good after what they did for me that I should learn to do it myself.

"So here I am," I muttered, opening my eyes and taking another look, trying to think critically about it and see what I could do better. "Time for another try."

With that I went to work wiping all the makeup off and getting a blank slate so I could start again. Of course this wasn't the first time I'd done this. This was actually the sixth time I'd tried putting on makeup today and I was getting a little better each time.

"Good thing I paid attention when they were putting it on yesterday," I frowned as I began to apply the makeup again. Of course Nikki had given me some suggestions and tips after she'd bought me the makeup kit as well and had strongly suggested I practice on my own.

I wasn't really sure if Nikki actually expected me to try putting on makeup by myself or if she was just teasing me. Maybe she planned on coming over later and actually giving me some lessons. What I did know, though was that as strange as this was, it had become a matter of pride. I was determined to surprise Nikki by actually doing a decent job by myself, maybe by even having it put on nicely the next time she came over.

"I know she doesn't think I can do it," I said, determined to prove her wrong.

While I was putting on my makeup again, I absently listened to the TV that was playing in the background. I hadn't given it much thought while I was doing this and had only kept it on for background noise. However a local news story came on that caught my attention and had me turn away from the mirror for a better look.

The news story was about another super villain attack, reporting that the same villain who'd recently robbed a jewelry store had shown up again, but this time he'd gone after an electronics store. According to the reporter, he robbed them not only of the money they had on hand, but had also taken a bunch of stereo and computer equipment.

"And he had two huge black monsters with him," one witness exclaimed with a look of horror. "They just went through the parking lot smashing all the cars..."

I just stared at the TV for a moment before shaking my head and muttering, "Damn..." I clenched my firsts, desperately wishing that I had my powers and could do something about that. Then I grimaced and turned off the TV, muttering, "Too bad the Crusaders are retired..."

After a minute I returned my attention back to my makeup. I frowned, having lost track of where I was at, so deciding that I might as well just wipe it all off and start over yet again. After all, practice makes perfect.

"And I'll need all the practice I can get if I want to show off for Nikki," I sighed.

I put the makeup on two more times before I was really satisfied with the results. My earliest attempts left me looking somewhat like a clown, though I did get better with each attempt. It had taken a bit of practice to get it looking right and light enough that I didn't end up looking like some kind of slut or hooker either.

"Not as nice as what the salon did," I admitted, though I thought that I'd definitely done a decent job. The salon left me looking as though I was supposed to be a movie star or model, while what I put on actually looked a little more like what a normal chick would wear when she went out.

I couldn't help but having mixed feelings as I looked over my work. On one hand, I'd done a damn good job and felt proud of myself for doing so. On the other hand, I was wearing makeup that I'd actually put on myself. Needless to say, that left me feeling just a bit uncomfortable.

Just then someone started knocking on my door. When I opened the door and saw Nikki standing there, I felt rather smug for a moment and wondered how long it would take her to notice my makeup job. However that smugness vanished when I realized that Nikki didn't look good. Her eyes were red and it looked like she'd been crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I let her in.

"I'm fine." Nikki gave me a forced smile, sitting down on my couch and letting out a sigh. She hesitated a moment before admitting, "Okay, I'm not really all right..."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Nikki gave me a weak smile before answering, "June..." She frowned, staring down at her hands for several seconds then saying, "She dumped me."

"What?" I blinked.

"I guess I knew it was coming." Nikki shook her head. "We'd been arguing a lot lately...but I didn't expect it to come so fast."

"I'm sorry," I told her sympathetically. "What happened?"

"One of her friends saw the two of us together yesterday," Nikki admitted, looking a bit embarrassed. "She had the wrong idea and told June..."

"I'm sorry," I gasped, suddenly feeling guilty. "Can't you tell her...?"

Nikki shook her head. "No... It wouldn't do any good." She gave me a wry smile. "Like I said, I knew this was coming. This just sped up the clock is all..."

I didn't know what to say to that so decided to do the same thing I'd do for one of my guy friends. I went and poured a glass of whiskey for Nikki, getting one for myself as well. Then I sat next to her while we both drank in silence.

After a few minutes Nikki gave me an odd look and asked, "Are you wearing makeup?"

"Um...yeah," I answered in embarrassment.

"It looks good on you," she told me with an amused smile. She bent forward and gave me a closer look.

I was suddenly aware of just how close Nikki was to me...just how close her lips were to mine. At the same time she seemed to become aware of it too, though instead of pulling back she hesitated a moment and suddenly came closer until our lips met. I was surprised by the kiss, though that didn't stop me from kissing back.

When we pulled apart again, Nikki gave me a surprised look and whispered, "I probably shouldn't have done that..."

"Probably not," I responded reluctantly, unable to take my eyes off her and just as unable to stop thinking about good her lips felt against mine. "But I'm kind of glad you did."

"I...I've imagined doing that since I first saw you transformed," she said quietly then corrected herself. "Or at least since I first saw you cleaned up that is..."

"I've dreamed about it since high school," I admitted.

"We should pretend this never happened," Nikki said awkwardly. "It'll just ruin things..."

"Yeah," I agreed, already leaning towards her again.

Our lips met again for another kiss, though this one started off as hesitant then became more intense. I could feel my body already starting to respond in familiar yet strangely different ways as well. My nipples hardened and began to push through my shirt, making me very aware of them. At the same time my groin felt all warm and gooey.

"We shouldn't do this," Nikki whispered, sounding as though she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

"I know," I agreed again. However that didn't stop us from going in for another kiss.

This time we didn't break apart again after a brief kiss, but continued going at it even more passionately. Then I felt her hand cupping one of my tits, making me all the more excited somehow. I returned the favor and reached for hers, finally fulfilling a fantasy that I'd had for quite some time.

It didn't take long before we were fumbling with each other's clothes and dropping them to the floor piece by piece. We were half naked as we went at each other on the couch and getting even more naked by the minute.

I gasped as Nikki played with my nipples then moaned in delight. It felt so strange having my nipples feel so sensitive like this and in a way completely wrong because of it. It felt wrong, but oh so very good.

When we eventually reached the bed and began going at it even more seriously, I found myself hesitating with a strange dilemma. My mind and all my past experience screamed at me to penetrate her, but not only did I no longer have the physical equipment to do that anymore, my body had other ideas and I felt a strange urge to have something up inside of me as well. However Nikki took care of my moment of confusion by grabbing hold of me and gently slipping a finger up inside of me.

"Oh God," I gasped in surprise at the strange yet incredible sensation.

It soon became quite obvious that Nikki had a lot of experience bringing a female body to pleasure and she used every bit of that experience on me, making me feel things that I never even thought possible. My whole both thrummed with sexual tension and finally exploded into an orgasm unlike any that I'd ever felt before.

Of course I used every bit of my own experience pleasuring a woman on her, though I was forced to realize just how lacking it was now that I no longer had the tool that I'd always used for that. However I might never have been a good student back in high school, but I was quick to learn from Nikki and use her own tricks on her.

Eventually we were both completely worn out and just lay there in bed covered in sweat and more intimate fluids. My whole body felt warm and gooey and tingly. I felt good...oh so damn good. So this was the afterglow I'd heard women talking about.

I still had a lot of conflict about the idea of spending the rest of my life as a woman, but at the moment I couldn't help but savoring the awesome sensations that even now still filled my body. The sex had been more than incredible...it had been the best I'd ever had in my life.

I reached over and absently ran a finger over one of Nikki's absolutely perfect breasts, smiling faintly as I traced one of my own with the other hand. There was no doubt in my mind that I could get used to this.

I had my eyes closed as I took a deep breath and just listened to all the sounds that surrounded me. There were the ever present sounds of cars in the near distance, but there were also the sounds of birds nearby as well as of children playing. I smiled faintly as I opened my eyes and looked across the park to where a half dozen kids played on the playground.

At the moment I was sitting on a park bench in the middle of a small park about a block away from my apartment. Nikki sat beside me, watching the surroundings with a look of faint amusement. I just looked at her and smiled, hardly able to believe the direction our relationship had taken.

I slowly looked around, reminding myself that we hadn't just walked here in order to stretch our legs and relax at the park. We'd also come here so I could get more experience being out in public with my new body and get used to other people seeing and treating me as a chick. Strangely that part was harder to get used to than the new female body itself. In spite of everything, I still thought of myself as really being a guy inside.

I had to admit though that there is one good thing to come out of my sex change. Nikki. Before this we'd been friends, though not the type to actually hang out and do a lot together. Still we shared some stories about girls and she gave me some advice on how to get their interest, but ever since my transformation we'd become a lot closer...closer in the way that I'd only been fantasizing about since high school and had never thought was possible, especially not since learning she was gay.

"You know," I started to say, trying to think about how I could phrase my question without offending Nikki. After all I wondered what would happen between us if I ever got changed back to normal.

Suddenly I was interrupted by a roaring sound followed a second later with a loud thud as something dropped from the sky and hit the ground less than twenty yards in front of us. Not something...someone.

"What the hell..." I demanded, jumping to my feet and staring at the figure who just stood there looking in our direction.

It was a man wearing a suit of chitenous red armor. It wasn't the bright red of a fire engine, but was several shades darker and the armor was trimmed with some even darker red that came close to being black. There was no helmet covering the head, so I could see the man's face quite clearly. He was a black man with short cropped hair, but thick sideburns.

Just seconds after seeing this man land I realized who he was. After all I'd been hearing his description in the local news quite a bit since he'd started robbing stores during the last week. The police even figured out his real identity, which couldn't have been difficult since he didn't wear any helmet or mask. They said he was a small time criminal who'd somehow acquired this suit of power armor and had started calling himself the Brick.

Then I nervously looked around and let out a faint sigh of relief when I didn't see any sign of the two monsters which had been reported as helping him during his robberies. However that sense of relief only lasted half a second, until he held out a small device and pointed it right at Nikki and me.

"Look out," I cried, shoving her out of the way from what I was sure was going to be an attack. However no attack came quite yet.

"It's one of you," the Brick exclaimed with a look of satisfaction. Then he started walking towards us, pointing the device first at Nikki then at me. A moment later he stopped and stared right at me. "It's you... You're the bitch the boss sent me to find..."

"What do you want with me?" I demanded, taking a nervous step backwards as I clenched my fist in frustration.

This was a robber...a super villain. This was the kind of guy I used to fight with all the time back when I'd been Kid Kaboom. A large part of me screamed that I should charge at him the way I used to and take him down, but the smart part of me was well aware of the fact that without my powers I wouldn't stand a chance against him. After all I'd fought people in power armor plenty of times so had a good idea of what I was up against.

"Run," I told Nikki, not knowing why Brick was after me, but not wanting her to get caught up in it any more than necessary. However she made no move to run and when I looked at her she was staring at Brick with an intense expression that seemed far more annoyed than afraid.

"I finally found you bitch," Brick smirked. "I've been looking for you for days..."

"But why?" I demanded again, taking another step back, though it did little good as the Brick took two more steps towards me.

"Because the boss told me to," Brick grinned, looking more cocky than threatening at the moment. "She gave me this armor and made me the bad ass I am today. And all I have to do for it is run a few errands for her...like find you and bring you to her." At that his expression darkened and became much more dangerous as he began coming at me.

I jumped back while Brick grabbed the bench we'd been sitting on it and tore it free from the concrete slab it had been bolted to, doing so with an ease that revealed just how strong he was in that suit. Of course I hadn't expected much else. I grimaced with a mixture of fear and anger, partly wanting to hit him and take him down and partly wanting to just run and get away. I hated the part that wanted to run away, even if it was the smart part.

Brick came at me slowly while I backed away, showing off more than trying to actually capture me at the moment. He paused just long enough to push down a tree, then began coming at me again. I recognized the signs of someone drunk on their own power. This kind of thing was pretty common with new villains, guys who hadn't had their butts kicked by heroes yet and who still seemed to think that they were unstoppable.

"What I wouldn't give for a baseball bat," I growled to myself, noting that he might be wearing armor, but he still had no head protection. Any football player knew better than to charge into a game without a helmet. A good swing upside the head would be enough to take him down, armor or no armor.

I snarled in frustration, then turned and ran, though it didn't do any good. Brick launched himself into the air and smashed into the ground just a short distance ahead of me. It looked like I wasn't going to get away that way, which only pissed me off even more. I was so sick and tired of feeling helpless against this guy.

Then I noticed Nikki coming at him from behind with a large stick she'd picked up, apparently having the same idea I had, though she'd been able to find something to use as a baseball bat. She swung it right at Brick's head, but he moved and she caught his shoulder instead. He snapped around and grabbed her, smirking as he casually tossed her aside.

"I guess I got me two bitches to play with after all," he exclaimed.

That was the last straw and I charged Brick, determined that I was going to take him down. Armor or no armor I was going to smash his fucking face in. My blood felt like it was on fire while I burned with rage, running straight at Brick and punching him as hard as I could. My original intention had been to go for his face, though somehow in the moment I ended up hitting his chest instead.

Suddenly there was a burst of light and explosion which left me momentarily blinded and stunned. After blinking for a second I saw Brick was now laying on the ground a short distance away, the front of his armor badly cracked and damaged where I'd hit him.

"Holy shit," I exclaimed in stunned amazement.

Brick sat up looking just as stunned and even more confused, especially as he looked down and saw just how much damage had been done to his armor. He looked back at me with an expression of shock which turned to one of fear, as hard as that was to believe.

"The boss never said anything about this," Brick muttered, still watching me with a wary expression almost as though afraid I was going to come after him again.

Brick snarled and glared at me for a moment before flames began to burst from several slits on his back and sides. Then he shot up into the air and took off, more jumping than actually flying. A moment later he was gone.

"What an asshat," I muttered while simultaneously thinking, "Thank God." Then I went to check on Nikki, letting out a sigh of relief when I saw she wasn't hurt. "Let's get out of here before he comes back."

"What the hell just happened?" Nikki demanded, looking at me then where I'd hit Brick with a look of confusion on her face.

"Let's get out of here first," I told her, looking around nervously as I remembered the two monsters that had been reported with him previously. "I don't want to be here if he comes back with friends..."

Nikki nodded and came with me, stopping just long enough to pick up the device that Brick had dropped while playing his cat and mouse game with us. Then she told me, "At least now we know this must be the guy who killed Doctor McKormick..."

"No." I shook my head in response with a grimace. I hadn't gotten a good look at the guy who'd spilled the nanites all over me and his face had been too obscured to make out any of his features. However there was one thing I had been able to make out. The guy I'd saved from the car had been white. "It's not him...but I'd bet you anything they're connected."

We hurried back to my apartment as fast as we could, though I spent the entire trip being simultaneously worried that Brick would come back and thinking about what had just happened. One thing kept coming to mind. One thing made sense. My heart raced at the very idea...

Once we were safely back at my place with the door locked behind us Nikki demanded, "What was that back there? What happened to that guy?"

I just clenched my fist and held it up, staring at it for a moment with an intensity that I hadn't felt in a long time. My fist began to glow orange and tiny bubbles of orange energy formed around it. My heart nearly skipped a beat at the familiar sight. It was a familiar sight, but one I hadn't seen in a long time and had been sure I never would again.

"My powers," I whispered in stunned amazement. "My powers are back..."

"Powers?" Nikki demanded, staring at me suspiciously.

I took a deep breath, feeling a little guilty about having kept this secret from her the entire time I'd known her. Before this, my having once been a super hero had been irrelevant. However things had suddenly changed and my past had become very relevant. Besides, I told myself, Nikki deserved to know the truth.

"I used to be a super hero," I admitted quietly, then slowly looked up to meet her eyes. She was staring at me with a look of surprise. "I used to be a member of the Crusaders before I lost my powers and retired..."

"You were with the Crusaders?" Nikki gasped, now looking even more shocked if that was possible.

"You heard of us?" I said, more as a statement than a question since it was obvious she had.

Nikki stared at me with a deep scowl. "Everyone around here has... The school paper did several articles on the Crusaders..." Then she paused and suddenly exclaimed, "Kid Kaboom...! You're Kid Kaboom..."

"I...I was," I responded with a wince. "How did you know...?"

"Your height and body type," she answered, then paused to correct herself. "Your old height and body type. The effect of your power in the park. And that..." She pointed at my hand which was still glowing.

I quickly turned off my power and said, "It was a long time ago..."

However Nikki was staring at me with an expression that was nearly one of horror. "I...I've got to go," she blurted out. Then before I knew what was going on, she'd rushed out of my apartment and ran away as fast as she could which left me stunned and confused.

"DAMN IT," I grimaced a few minutes later, clenching my fists until both of them started to glow.

I wanted to unleash my frustration by punching something, by unleashing my newly returned powers. However I was well aware of what would happen if I did that. That was something I really didn't want to see inside my home no matter how angry I was.

"I can't believe I scared her away," I spat out bitterly, letting out a long stream of profanity which seemed a much safer outlet for my emotions.

Of course I couldn't really blame Nikki from running away...not really. I mean, she'd stuck around through all the weirdness of my sex change, but then all this got thrown at her as well. Nikki had probably never even seen a real super villain before much less had her life threatened by one. And then she finds out I've been lying to her about my past... No, I couldn't blame her, though I certainly could blame myself. I couldn't really think of anything I could have done differently other than to have told her about being Kid Kaboom before, but that didn't really matter.

Finally I collapsed onto my couch, letting my powers go rather than causing an accident. My emotions jumped all over the place. I shook my head in disgust at the irony, that after years of wanting to get my powers back I finally do, but only while losing everything else in my life. I lost my job, my own body...and even Nikki. Getting my powers back no longer seemed the glorious thing I'd always imagined.

After awhile I went and got myself some booze from my kitchen, finishing off the Southern Comfort and starting on a bottle of Jaegermeister I've had sitting around for awhile. To my annoyance I found that I actually had to drink more than normal in order to get a buzz and that it faded a lot faster as well.

Still, while I was drinking I pulled out my picture of the Crusaders as well as my old costume. It had been hidden in the back of my closet, kept in good condition in case I ever had a chance to use it again. Again, I was struck with the irony of the situation. I finally had my powers back, but my old costume no longer fit me in the least.

"Fucking asshat Brick," I cursed several times, deciding that this was all his fault. Him and that mysterious boss of his that is. I still had no idea why he'd really come after me, but at the moment I didn't care. I was just happy to have someone to blame for my problems other than myself.

Eventually I even began to cry a bit which is something I haven't done since I was a kid, yet found myself doing all too easily now. I gave myself the excuse that it was my new female hormones, though I wasn't sure if that really had anything to do with it or if it just made a good excuse. What I did know was that being a chick now somehow made it feel a little more acceptable to cry.

I was stating to finally drift off to sleep when a knocking on the door woke me up and caused me to bolt up on my couch. I hesitated a moment as the knocking continued and looked out the window, realizing how dark it was and just how long I'd been sitting here soaking in my morass of depression.

"Damn," I muttered, going to the door and hesitating before opening it. To my surprise it was Nikki standing there with a very uncomfortable look on her face.

"Can I come in?" Nikki asked quietly, not quite meeting my eyes. When I nodded she came in, still not meeting my eyes. Then she took a deep breath and held up the device she'd taken from Brick. "This is a scanner to track your nanites," she stated, slipping into a lecture mode, but still not quite looking at me. "It doesn't have a very long range though and I almost had to be on top of you before it picked your nanites up. If this is what Brick was using to track you it's kind of amazing he managed to actually find you." Then she paused for a moment before adding, "I could probably make a jammer to keep one of these from finding you pretty easily..."

"Um...okay," I responded, not sure what to think of Nikki's behavior. "Thanks..."

Nikki finally looked up and met my eyes and I could see she looked extremely nervous and even a bit embarrassed. I also noticed that her eyes were red as though she'd been crying too.

"I'm sorry I ran off like that," Nikki apologized quietly. "I...I just sort of freaked out..."

"I understand," I responded with a nervous smile. "I guess this is all a lot to deal with..."

Nikki nodded then gave me a nervous smile of her own. "So...you were a super hero..."

Once Nikki and I were both comfortable on the couch and each had a beer in hand I started. "We started off as friends before we became heroes..." I smiled faintly as I remembered it. "I suppose it's a little strange though because even after we became heroes only one of us was a real developed..."

"What?" Nikki blinked in surprise. "I thought all the Crusaders had powers... Well, everyone, but that Catalyst girl..."

I nearly laughed at that. "Actually she was the only one of us who really was developed." At Nikki's blank look I explained, "Catalyst had the power to make other people temporarily gain powers... She could give other people powers for about an hour at a time..."

A look of understanding filled Nikki's eyes. "Damn," she muttered, "and I thought she was just your mascot or something..."

"So did we," I admitted quietly. "I suppose we all got so caught up in being heroes and fighting villains that we forgot where our powers came from and took her for granted." I shook my head, wishing I'd realized this a lot earlier. I'd never given a lot of thought about how the situation must have been for Kelly. "She decided to quit and the rest of us were forced to retire too..."

"But why?" Nikki asked with a frown. "Why be heroes at all?"

I just grinned at that. "Because those was the glory days...the best days of my life. Not playing football..."

"So it's an adrenaline thing." Nikki frowned thoughtfully.

"Maybe a bit," I admitted reluctantly. "But it's also the only time in my life where I actually felt like I was doing something important... like I made a difference." I closed my eyes as I remembered those days. "I never knew exactly what I'd be doing and it was usually exciting. But it was exciting not because we were doing something dangerous, but because we were doing something important like stopping a robber or saving someone's life."

Then I held my hand out in a fist and made it glow with the orange energy again. "I just wish I knew why my powers are back... I mean, Catalyst isn't anywhere nearby and it's been a lot longer than an hour..."

"I'm certain the nanites in your system have something to do with it," Nikki pointed out. "When they improved your general health they must have just reactivated your old powers..."

I nodded at that. "That makes sense I guess... I mean, we used to have a theory back in the day..." I closed my eyes and tried to remember the details. It was difficult because I'd never been a huge part of those conversations and hadn't cared at the time. Now I wish I had.

"Go on," Nikki told me.

"A couple of the others had this idea that just about everyone had some kind of potential power," I explained. "It was just that they were dormant and sort of locked up, but that just about everyone had some kind of key that could unlock them...if they could find it. It's like a hundred people get hit with radiation and most of them die...but one or two of them have their powers unlocked instead. We just thought that Catalyst's real power was to just temporarily unlock this... That sort of explains why everyone she gives powers to gets a different power, but why every time she uses it on someone that person gets the same power they had before."

"It makes sense in a way," Nikki mused thoughtfully. "However I can see several flaws in the theory...such as powers given by magic."

I just shrugged to show that I had no real idea. After all it wasn't my theory and I didn't know how it all worked. I just knew that Catalyst's powers did work and worked well

Nikki sat there with a thoughtful look on her face before suddenly saying, "You said you were friends with the others before you became the Crusaders... I think I remember the group you hung out with back in high school..." She frowned for a moment. "From height, body type, and the long blonde hair...I'm guessing that cheerleader Rachael was Guardian Girl." She must have seen she'd guessed right from the look on my face because she grinned at me and looked a lot more confident as she continued with her guessing game. "Kyle Netter was Charger. And that skinny guy you used to hang around with... The nerdy one with the glasses..." She scowled as she tried remembering his name, finally blurting out, "It was Jeff something or other... He was Dodger..."

"Damn," I winced, feeling a mixture of being impressed at how easily she was figuring out everyone's identities and a little nervous. After all, if she could figure this out when the only thing I told her was that I was just a member of the Crusaders, then it may have been a miracle none of our enemies discovered our identities. Even now, that knowledge could be dangerous since old enemies might possibly want revenge when we could no longer defend ourselves. Or at least, while the others couldn't.

"And Catalyst," Nikki mused. "She always wore a cloak and mask that made it difficult getting a good look at either her face or body type..." Then Nikki suddenly paused with her eyes going wide. "Kelly..." she whispered with an expression that looked like she'd just swallowed something sour. "Kelly was Catalyst..."

I stared at Nikki for a moment and wondered why she was reacting this way before I remembered. Back in high school, Nikki...or Nicole as she went by then had been nice to just about everyone in that sort of false superficial sort of way. However there had been one or two exceptions and Kelly had been one of those. Nicole had gone out of her way to be mean to Kelly and make her life miserable.

"You were a real bitch to Kelly," I said, wondering how I'd forgotten about that. "She once told me that you were making her life a living hell at school... Why the hell did you hate her so much? She never did anything to you...not that I know of anyway."

"I didn't hate her," Nikki responded quietly after a long silence. She gave me a self-conscious smile and added, "I had a crush on her."

"What?" I gasped in surprise.

Nikki chuckled at my reaction. "Back then, I had no idea how to deal with that. I had no idea how to react..." She shook her head and continued, "I knew she wouldn't be interested in me that way. I also had my reputation to keep and I couldn't afford to have anyone even suspect me of being gay." Nikki frowned deeply and sighed, "I knew I couldn't be with her so I guess I just tried pushing her away as hard as I could." She sat there for a moment before looking at me and giving me a weak smile, "I'm actually kind of ashamed about how I behaved back then."

"Damn," I muttered, "I never knew..."

"Of course not." Nikki gave me a weak smirk. "That was the whole point." Then she abruptly changed the subject and said, "If you were a hero you must have had some villains... Did you have any interesting ones?"

"We had a few." I laughed, then pointed out, "But we weren't in the big leagues and never fought anyone like Grendel or Baron Nevermore. Our bad guys were usually a bit more low level."

Nikki shrugged and gave me an interested look. "Well who did you fight then?"

"Well," I mused, scratching my chin thoughtfully. "There was the Shrinker...a guy with a stolen shrink ray. He was a lot of trouble before we eventually caught him and destroyed his shrink ray." I shuddered slightly at the memory of having spent several hours the size of an action figure before the effects wore off. "Damn I hate squirrels..."

"What?" Nikki blinked in confusion.

"Um...nothing," I told her in embarrassment. "Just a bad memory is all." Then I said, "We also used to go up against this guy called Jumping Jack. He wore a suit that was made of this stuff sort of like Flubber..." I shook my head. "He bounced all over the place and was really hard to catch. Bullets even bounced off him." Then I frowned for a moment and added, "I heard that about a year ago another villain who just called himself Jack killed him...apparently because he didn't want to share his name or something."

"Ouch," Nikki chuckled weakly. "I guess being a bad guy is pretty dangerous."

"Let's see," I mused, trying to think of all the villains we'd fought. "There was the Butterfly, Sister Vicious, Devour..."

"But did any of them really stand out?" Nikki asked me curiously.

I nodded at that, not even having to think about it. "Ladybug," I answered. "She was sort of our arch enemy..."

"Not a very threatening name," Nikki chuckled. "She couldn't have been much of a villain with a name like that."

"You'd be surprised," I responded with a shrug.

I told Nikki a few stories about Ladybug as well as some of the other villains we'd faced. She got a particularly good laugh when I told her how we defeated a villain called Megamax, a man with the power to become stronger and tougher the more confident he felt. It has to have been the only time a powerful villain has ever been defeated by getting pantsed in front of a crowd and then laughed at.

It didn't take long though before we both grew bored of the stories and found something else to do together, something much more pleasant. We began making out on the couch again and this time didn't even bother going to the bedroom before moving into hot lesbian sex.

Nikki and I stepped out of her car and looked over the Dump, an area of rocky ground, overgrown scrub brush, rusty cars and abandoned kitchen appliances. This place wasn't an official dump, but had once been used by some people as a place to get rid of things that they didn't want to pay to have hauled away or dropped off at the landfill. It hadn't been used for those purposes in a couple decades, but no one had bothered to come and clean it up either.

Nowadays the Dump had different uses, though not ones that a most people really approved of. It was far enough out of town and private enough that it was a popular place for high school students to hold loud parties without having to worry about being busted up for underage drinking. Of course some dirt bikers liked to come and use the trails around here as well, but that was beside the point.

"This is perfect," I said, looking around and seeing no one else beside the two of us. I didn't want anyone else around for what I was about to do.

"So now you can show me your powers," Nikki smiled, stepping back to give me room.

I grinned back at her then began to stretch, bending down and touching my toes, then leaning from one side to the next. It still amazed me just how light and flexible I was now, not to mention the fact that I hadn't lost any strength at all. And thanks to the nanites giving my body a tune up during my transformation, I felt better than ever.

"Now to see if my powers are as good as ever," I exclaimed, making both of my fists glow with the orange energy I could generate. This was the first time I'd had a chance to really try out my powers since they came back and I was more than eager to do so.

I went to one of the rusted out cars and punched it with my glowing fist. There was a burst of light and an explosion of energy the moment my fist connected with the car. A moment later the car was a smoldering ruin while I stood there completely unharmed. Even the sweat suit I was wearing hadn't gotten singed or dirty in the least, not that I'd expected it to.

My power was that I could summon an energy...a very explosive energy. I could punch something and unleash an explosion of heat and concussive force, destroying just about anything I hit. Fortunately for me, my power also had a force field that would kick on for just a couple seconds whenever I used this energy, just long enough to protect me from the effects of my own explosions.

"Impressive," Nikki called out to me. "Do it again."

I grinned, more than happy to comply. I rushed over to another old car and slammed both my fists into the hood, grinning like an idiot as the blast wave obliterated most of the car. I then turned my attention on an old refrigerator, destroying that as well. It felt so good to finally cut loose and use my powers again. I'd nearly forgotten just how good this actually felt.

"You want to see something really impressive," I grinned back at her. "Watch this..." Then I paused and called back, "Get behind your car first...just in case."

With that I moved even further away from her until I decided I was at a safe distance. Then I took a deep breath and began to really cut loose with my power. One of the things I could do, but rarely ever did, was release this energy from my entire body at once, creating a massive explosion in all directions around me. It was very powerful and very destructive...but a bit difficult to find a use for when you're one of the good guys. And to my surprise, it didn't work. Nothing happened.

"What are you trying to do Erin?" Nikki asked, standing there with a curious look on her face.

"It's not working," I exclaimed in frustration, turning and punching the nearest piece of abandoned metal in frustration. It exploded just as always, though it didn't made me feel much better. Then I scowled, "My powers aren't as strong as before..." I knew I shouldn't be disappointed that they'd come back weaker and should have just been thankful that they were back at all. However I was disappointed.

I just stood there with my fists clenched in frustration, my hands glowing as I continued channeling my power while considering what to do next. After all, my powers might not be as strong as they once were, but I still had them. That was a hell of a lot more than I could say a couple weeks ago. I just needed to figure out what to do with them. Did I want to go back into the hero game or do something else? After years of fantasizing about getting back into the game it seemed strange that I'd hesitate now.

Suddenly I heard Nikki calling, "Hey Erin..."

I turned to face her just in time to see a small rock flying at me. It hit me in the chest and bounced off. I glared at Nikki, "What the hell was that for?"

"Did you feel it?" Nikki asked with an amused look.

"Of course," I started to respond, then paused for a moment. "Not really..."

"I hit you in the back of the head with one while you were standing there," Nikki grinned. "You certainly didn't seem to notice that one."

I just blinked in surprise at that. "Why in the world are you throwing rocks at me?"

"Well," she said slowly, "I sort of noticed that while you were standing there...you had a really faint glimmer around you. I could barely see it at all, but it looked a little like a soap bubble." Then she smirked and added, "I noticed the same glimmer around you right as you use your power..."

"The force field," I realized. "But that only stays on for a second or two..."

"It looked longer than that to me," Nikki mused. "If your powers have changed maybe that has too..."

I was a little skeptical about this, but decided to try it out. I charged up my powers and found that my force field came up as well and stayed as long as I had my powers ready to use. I was amazed at this while Nikki seemed more entertained, especially as she tossed rocks at me to prove that it was actually working.

"Let's see how strong this thing is," Nikki suggested, going to her car and opening the trunk. A moment later she pulled out something that made my eyes go wide in disbelief.

"That's an energy gun," I gasped in surprise, having seen villains using ray guns before, though I'd never expected Nikki to just pull one out of her car. "Where the hell did you get that?"

Nikki just smiled at that and responded, "I thought it a good idea to be armed in case Brick comes back..." She held up the gun and said, "The lower level isn't much more than a taser... It will sting a bit, but won't do any permanent damage."

I was more than a little reluctant to let Nikki shoot me with an energy gun just to test my force field, but after a couple minutes she was able to convince me. I stood there while she shot at me and let out a sigh of relief when I didn't feel it. She raised the power a little and shot me again, repeating the process until she'd hit me with max power and my force field was still able to protect me.

"Maybe I should get a higher powered weapon," Nikki mused to herself. Then she gave me a grin as she added, "This might not be enough to stop Brick if he comes back..."

"If he comes back," I grinned, holding my fist up and showing the orange glow, "I'll take care of him..."

"My jammer should be finished by tomorrow," Nikki told me. "So unless he somehow finds you again by then you should be able to block him from finding you at all."

I just snorted at that. Now that I had my powers back I wasn't afraid of Brick or just about anyone else. The fact that I now had a useable force field only made me feel more confident about that.

"It looks like the nature of your powers remained the same," Nikki mused thoughtfully. "It's just that some of your energy seems to have been redirected from your explosive power to your force field. You lose some raw destructive power, but gain in defense..."

I continued practicing with my powers, partly to refamiliarize myself with them and get used to my altered power levels, but also just because it was fun showing off. But while I was doing this, I discovered two more things about my powers. The first was that I could actually keep my force field active without calling up my more destructive energies at all. The second was a little more impressive and was discovered completely by accident.

I charged straight at a large rock, intending to hit it with my full power and turn it into to gravel, though unfortunately I tripped over something while running and went face first towards the ground. I saw the ground coming and wished I could stop myself from hitting it...and I suddenly did. I found my face just a foot away from the ground while I was somehow frozen in place.

"What the hell?" I gasped, suddenly losing whatever was holding me and falling the rest of the way. It didn't hurt nearly as much as a full blown fall would have. I jumped to my feet and looked down at myself then at Nikki who was staring at me. "Did you see that?"

"No, I didn't see a thing," Nikki responded with a sarcastic grin. "I went completely and totally blind in the last couple minutes..."

We tried duplicating what happened and found that as long as my force field was active I could actually stop myself in mid-air, even jump and keep from falling. But more than that, I could actually move myself around just by willing it. I hovered several feet above the ground as the realization came to me of what this really meant.

"I can fly..." I gasped.

"Just think happy thoughts," Nikki called up to me with a grin.

"I am," I laughed, "I'm thinking of you in bed last night."

I spent over an hour practicing my flying, moving around closer to the ground as I got familiar with being able to control my movements, then going higher as I became more comfortable. I was a bit nervous of the increased height at first, or at least of the idea from falling from it. However I refused to let Nikki think I was afraid and kept reminded myself that my force field would protect me and before long I was flying quite high with incredible ease.

Eventually I got tired of practicing and landed, feeling absolutely fantastic. Not only did I have my old powers back, but I had some new ones as well. The fact that I couldn't make as big of explosions no longer mattered.

"I'm guessing you can move your force field around," Nikki told me her theory, "and it sort of takes you along for the ride..." However I didn't care how it worked, only that it did. "I am a little surprised, though that you'd spend so much time practicing... I mean, I thought you'd get bored and go straight to fighting bad guys again."

"You can't win the game if you don't spend the hours on the practice field," I quoted my old coach with a chuckle. "That there is a good piece of football wisdom."

"I'm sure it is," Nikki rolled her eyes at me. Then after a minute she said, "I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for your situation or happy anymore..."

"Me either," I admitted, though I felt quite happy at the moment. The fact that I'd been turned into a chick and lost almost everything I had before didn't seem quite that important at the moment. Not with everything I'd gained.

"Then let's go celebrate and commiserate," Nikki grinned. "A nice dinner and a bottle of wine, then we go home and I can make you appreciate just how good a woman's body can really feel."

"That sounds good to me," I grinned back. Yeah, things were definitely starting to look up.

"You've got to be kidding me," I told Nikki, staring at her with a look of disbelief as she held up some frilly and lacy panties as well as a matching bra.

"Why not?" Nikki asked with a look of mock innocence. "I think they'd look great on you."

I blushed at that, knowing she was right. Those things probably would look pretty sexy on my new body, though the truth was I'd much prefer seeing them on her.

"I can't believe I'm even here," I muttered, looking around the lingerie store and blushing. I felt awkward here, as though some woman was going to point at me and start yelling that there was a pervert in the store. However what happened instead was even worse in a way. None of the women here gave me a second look and just accepted me as one of them. "The forbidden land..."

"Now aren't you glad I drug you in here?" Nikki asked with a grin. Then she chuckled. "I'll tell you what... I'll get this little negligee for me if you'll wear this little thing for me later on..."

I had to stare at the frilly lingerie for a moment and then at Nikki. After a few painful moments of consideration I finally agreed, "Deal."

"Too bad we can't really try them on here," Nikki mused. Then she gave me an evil look and chuckled, "But that might be too much of a distraction..."

"But it could be fun," I grinned back, imagining getting thrown out for having a bit of a lesbian makeout session in the middle of the store. "It might be worth it..."

Then while Nikki was paying for the purchase, I absently felt the pager I now wore on my side. Actually it wasn't a pager or even a cell phone, though it certainly looked like it could have been one of those things. It was the jammer Nikki had made to keep Brick's nanite scanner from being able to detect me. According to her, all I had to do was keep it close to me and it would interfere with any attempt to find me with that thing.

I was thinking of the jammer and wondering if I'd have to keep it with me for the rest of my life when Nikki suggendly exclaimed, "The next stop is shoes..." She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the store exit. "Time to show you what being a woman is really all about..."

"So being a woman is all about the shoes?" I asked her skeptically.

Nikki just laughed at that. "Come padawan, there is much about being a woman you still don't understand. But don't worry, I have made it my personal mission to instruct you..."

Our trip to the shoe store took much longer than I ever would have imagined...probably longer than every trip I'd spend buying shoes put together for the last ten years. Nikki wanted to try on countless different pairs, insisting I do the same. I tried on tennis shoes, boots, and even high heels. Eventually we left with several pairs of new shoes apiece, though I really doubted I needed the stiletto heels.

"First the clothes, then the lingerie, and now the shoes," I sighed when we were finally finished. "Please don't tell me you have more planned..."

"Not for today," Nikki teased me. "Though we'll get to the jewelry shopping another time."

"Oh joy," I rolled my eyes. As interesting as this shopping experience with Nikki had been, I was just thankful it was finally over for now.

Nikki and I decided that instead of going back to my apartment as usual we would stop by her condo. I was quite curious as she opened the door to let us in since this was the first time I'd ever been here and I wanted to get a look at where she lived. After all, she'd gotten a good look at my pig stye so it was only fair for me to see hers.

"Nice place," I said as I looked around. Her condo looked to be at least twice as large as my apartment if not three times. The thing that impressed me most was stepping into her living room and seeing the large flat screen TV that was sitting there. "Very nice..."

Of course after her TV the next thing I noticed was the long work bench set up against one wall. It was covered with soldering irons, test equipment, and all sorts of electronic devices which left me scratching my head with no idea what they were for. There were even several small devices that looked like they were in the middle of either being built or torn apart.

"It's a bit of a mess," Nikki appologized as she threw a towel over the mess on her work bench. "I wasn't expecting anyone over today. I sometimes bring my work home with me..."

"It's not any worse than my place," I muttered, thinking of the pizza boxes I still had to get rid of.

"I have something for you," Nikki abruptly told me. "Actually a couple of things. I'd been planning on bring them over later, but since you're here now..."

Before I could ask what it was she hurried out of the room, coming back less than a minute later with a large envelope and a cardboard box that was about a foot across on each side and four inches deep. She handed me the envelope first.

"What's this?" I asked as I poured the contents out. The envelope contained a birth certificate, social security card, passport, drivers license and even a high school diploma in the name of Erin Elizabeth Holmes.

"Congratulations," Nikki told me with a smile, "you are now officially your own twin sister."

"Wow," I responded with a swirl of mixed emotions. Having all this paperwork made my new identity somehow seem all the more real and permanent. I wasn't quite sure what to think of that yet. "It'll make things easier..." I smiled weakly, knowing that now I'd at least be able to get a job and pay the bills again.

Then Nikki handed me the box, saying, "I thought you might need this..."

I opened the box and saw that it contained clothes, though I gasped as I saw the color and material. I nervously pulled the contents out of the box and revealed a one piece outfit that was all red and gray except for a bit of told metal trim, mostly as shoulder pads and a belt. I immediately recognized this outfit because it looked like an updated version of my old Kid Kaboom costume, though obviously made for a woman. It looked like it was just my size.

"A costume," I whispered, my voice shaking slightly. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

"It's made of a fabric that I hear is popular among the super hero crowd," Nikki told me with a smug grin. "Light weight, durable, flexible, and about as useful as kevlar in stopping bullets." Then she grinned. "It even has built in athletic support."

All I could say to that was, "Wow..."

Nikki was obviously quite pleased with herself because she continued, "I even built a jammer in the belt buckle so Brick's scanner won't be able to detect you. I suppose it doesn't really make much different at this point though... Either way, once you don't need the jammer anymore I can replace it with a small cell phone for you."

"How...how did you do all this?" I asked her in amazement.

Nikki just smiled. "I'm a woman of many talents."

"You sure are," I told her, never having guessed just what she was capable back in high school. Hell, I never would have imagined it. "Now let's go try some of those other talents out," I suggested with a wink.

"Good idea," Nikki responded, leaning over to kiss my neck and then whispering, "But I want to see you in that costume first..."

"But I just got into these clothes a little bit ago," I protested halfheartedly

"That's funny," Nikki laughed, "you couldn't wait to get out of them a minute ago..."

I grinned back at her. "Good point."

"Besides," Nikki grinned, "what's the point of having a super hero girlfriend if I can't strip her out of her costume myself?"

"I couldn't agree more," I chuckled as I went to go try on my new costume. "I couldn't agree more..."

I stood in front of a full length mirror admiring how I looked in my new costume. It fit perfectly, though I already knew that from when I'd tried it on last night. However with the new touches I just added my costume was even more perfect.

I now wore a red mask as well that was just a bit larger than a standard domino mask. The reason for the mask was more than just to hide my identity in the obvious way. It was also positioned so the edge of it subtly made my cheekbones look different. Add that to the makeup I was also wearing and my features were subtly altered enough that I would be even harder to identify. After Nikki's ease of identifying all the old Crusaders I'd decided to add a few extra touches to help protect my identity.

Of course I knew that I could have gone even further with this by wearing a wig to change my hair color, but a wig could easily be lost in a fight. I also could have just worn a full face mask like I used to in the old days, but that was always a bit uncomfortable, getting hot and itchy when the weather got warm.

"This is perfect," I said aloud, making a few heroic poses to look over in the mirror.

I ran my hands down over my body, blushing just a little as I thought about how revealing this outfit was. Of course everything beneath my neck was covered, but it was so tight that it left little to the imagination. Fortunately I now had the body for a costume like this... a fact I was both self-conscious and oddly proud about at the same time.

"I don't know if I'll ever get completely used to this," I muttered as I cupped my tits. At the same time I knew that I probably wouldn't have much choice. People could get used to almost anything given enough time and according to Nikki I'd have more than enough of that. As it was, I was well aware of the fact that I'd already gotten used to my new body and gender a great deal...perhaps a little more than my male psyche was really comfortable with.

"Enough of that," I told myself sharply, grinning at my reflection. "I've got bad guys to go stop..."

I paused to look around, wishing that Nikki were here to wish me luck. Unfortunately she had to be at work, so I was on my own as I started off on my second super hero career. Perhaps that was for the best though, since I wouldn't have any distractions to keep me from going. And of course she wouldn't be here to see how nervous I actually was.

After hesitating for another ten minutes I finally decided to get on my way. However I quickly discovered a problem I hadn't even considered until that moment. How the hell did I get out of my apartment without any of my neighbors seeing me? I ended up having to slip out my bedroom window and then fly fast and low through an empty alley until I was clear. This was annoying and certain wasn't going to work as a permanent solution, but at the moment I was out and free.

I flew high up into the air and laughed in delight. My heart raced with excitement at actually being out in costume again. However I was also a bit wary knowing that the very fact that I was wearing a costume made me a target. When you were in costume like this you never knew when you'd be targeted by some villain ready to take you out first or even by some other hero who mistook you as a villain.

Once I got over my initial thrill I began to circle the city, looking for any trouble I could help with, though I was especially looking for any sign of Brick. After all the two of us had some unfinished business and I had a few questions I wanted to ask him.

I found no sign of Brick or his monsters though and after several hours I was getting frustrated and ready to call it quits for the day. I felt almost as though I'd been wasting my time, since there didn't seem to be anything going on that needed a super hero. I was grimacing in annoyance and trying to decide whether to keep looking for a little longer or to just go home for now, when I suddenly heard some gunshots in the distance. That immediately got my full attention. My heart raced at the sound and I immediately flew in the direction the gunfire was coming from.

It only took me a minute to find the source of the gunfire. I hovered in the air for several seconds and looked down on the scene, seeing a large hole had been blown in the front of the bank and a dozen armed gunmen, most of whom had on either ski masks or bandannas over their faces, were running in and out loading up the two cars and the van which were parked in front of the bank.

"A bank robbery," I exclaimed, not sure whether to be excited or nervous. "A bit cliche..."

However cliche or not I was already going into action. I dropped from the sky and landed on the hood of the lead get away car, punching the hood and directing my explosive energies downward. There was a loud explosion and a moment later the engine block was completely obliterated.

"I don't think you guys are going anywhere," I exclaimed to the gunmen who stared at me with their mouths open. It took several seconds before one of them got his wits together enough to start firing at me. His friends quickly followed his lead. Of course the bullets bounced off my force field which was an incredible relief to me. Even though I knew I'd be safe I still momentarily felt like shitting my pants. However I didn't let them see my nervousness and just grinned, "That tickles..."

"Get that bitch," one of the gunmen called out, firing on me with some sort of machine gun even after his friends had quit.

"Fuck that," another of them exclaimed, "I'm getting the boss..."

"Do you really think you guys have a chance against me?" I asked with a nasty grin. "Things will go a lot easier for you if you just surrender now..."

Then I turned and faced the van, holding my hand out and trying something new on impulse. Instead of punching something and causing an explosion I just willed the energy to explode and then sort of pushed it all away in a concentrated burst. Instead of just an explosion, it all came out as a concentrated blast that I was able to fire from a distance to destroy the front of the van.

"Holy shit," I muttered, surprising even myself with that maneuver. "I have energy blasts..."

I had no idea if this was some further evolution of my power giving me more control of the energy, some trick of my force field somehow concentrating the explosive energy, or if I'd always had the ability to do this, but just never thought of trying. All I knew was that I now has another completely new way to use my power and I liked it.

Suddenly a voice called out, "Who the hell is messing with my boys?"

I snapped around and saw a man stepping out of the bank through the large in the front of it. He was over six and a half feet tall with a powerful looking heavily muscled build. He had blonde hair and no mask on, though from the neck down he wore a dark blue costume with some light gray metal trim which included a piece of chest armor which was shaped like a stylized letter M.

"Megamax," I gasped in recognition and even a little fear.

Megamax was one of the villains we'd fought in the Crusaders, though only the one time. Still that one time had been more than enough since he was probably the most powerful villain we'd ever faced. Megamax was strong and tough...becoming stronger and tougher the more confident he felt. We'd thrown everything at him and he'd only laughed it all off, becoming more confident with each of our failed attempts. In the end, the only way to defeat him had been take his confidence away...to humiliate him in a public place.

"Way to go boss!" one of the gunmen yelled out while several others began cheering.

I looked around and felt my stomach knot up as I realized that all of these gunmen were cheering Megamax on. They were calling out things like, "You're awesome... You'll kick her ass...," and even, "You're the best there is..."

"Oh shit," I whispered in realization. These goons in Megamax's gang weren't just hired muscle...they were his cheerleaders. They were giving him a constant ego boost which meant they were also giving him a power boost.

"Surrender now Megamax," I said, trying to project a confidence I didn't feel. If he saw me afraid he'd only get more confident, but if I could make him doubt himself for even a few seconds... "Don't make me hurt you..."

Megamax just laughed at that, certainly not sounding as, though he'd bought my bluff. "You know who I am... Of course everyone knows who I am..."

"MEGAMAX! MEGAMAX!" all the goons were cheering. I just grimaced, suddenly feeling like I was back playing football at the opposing teams field when no one from my own school had bothered to come cheer us on.

"Your costume looks familiar," Megamax mused as he stared at me, his eyes lingering just a little too long on my tits and making me uncomfortable. "I know, you're dressed like one of those Crusaders... You're dressed like Kid Kaboom..."

"But I'm no kid," I snarled at him, "so you can just call me Kaboom."

And with that announcement I unleashed explosive blasts from both of my hands and hit him in the chest with everything I had. Unfortunately it had little effect but to make Megamax laugh in delight. I winced at that sound, knowing that it just meant any doubts he had about my being able to beat him had just vanished making it a self-fulfilling prophesy. However I wasn't about to just give up.

"You're just a loser," I spat out as I charged at Megamax. "You always were..." I hit him with an explosive punch that could easily blast a hole through the wall of a building, though it had no more effect than the blasts had.

"You shouldn't say that." Megamax glared at me angrily. "NO ONE calls me a loser." And with that he hit me sending me flying back across the street and through a wall.

I sat there for a moment in the rubble feeling dazed and silently thanking my new force field. Without it I'd be a smear on Megamax's fist about now. I grimaced and pulled myself out of the rubble, coming out of the building and bracing myself for round two. Obviously I had no chance against him physically, but that didn't mean I was going to quit. I'd just keep hitting him until I wore him down.

"I don't like hitting chicks," Megamax smirked, "but for you I'll make an exception..."

"Come on asshat," I spat out with grim determination. "You're going down."

Suddenly a car fell right out of the sky and landed right on top of Megamax. It was enough to knock him to his knees for a moment, though the shattering pieces made all his goons back off.

"What the hell?" I blinked in surprise, looking up and seeing a woman floating in the air above Megamax.

She seemed to be a young woman about my age and was wearing a one piece black, white and green spandex costume and also had green hair. As if that wasn't all distinctive enough, there was a green aura around her body.

"I'm Counterweight," the newcomer exclaimed with a grin. "I hope you don't mind my dropping in like this..."

"The more the merrier," I grinned back, not sure who she was, but grateful for the help. I'd need all the help I could against Megamax. "I'm Kaboom."

Then another woman's voice called out, "That's interesting..."

I snapped around to see another woman standing there off to the side, dressed in a blue costume with a blue cloak. She had a gold metal mask which covered the upper part of her face, leaving only her mouth exposed. And in her hands she held a gold metal staff. The woman herself was quite a familiar sight, though one I hadn't seen in quite some time, though the staff was a new addition.

"Catalyst," I said grimly, feeling the stirring of mixed emotions at the sight of my old friend and teammate.

"I know Kid Kaboom," Catalyst exclaimed, "and other than the costume you don't look much like him."

"I know you," Megamax smirked as he casually tossed the car away from him. "What is this...the new Crusaders?"

"No," I snarled, glaring at Kelly before charging at Megamax again, "The Crusaders are gone..." I hit him with my most powerful explosion, shattering the street around him and then hitting him again. I launched at him with a series of blows that I was sure would take even him down and just as I thought I had him...he started laughing.

"You guys deal with them," Megamax grinned, gesturing at Catalyst and Counterweight.

A group of thugs charged at Catalyst since she was the one on the ground and easy to get to. I grimaced, knowing I was going to have to jump in and save her ass...just like old times.

"You need a hand?" Counterweight asked from the air.

"No," Catalyst responded grimly. "I've got this."

Suddenly Catalyst was in motion, swinging her staff and knocking the gun out of one of the goons hands by breaking his wrist with it. Then she spun around and hit another of them in the gut before elbowing a third in the face. In just several seconds Catalyst had taken down three gunmen without being touched once herself. All I could do was stare in surprise. She'd never done anything like that before back during our days in the Crusaders.

Other goons started approaching Catalyst now, but being much more careful. When two of them were just going to shoot her from out of range, Counterweight intervened, touching both of them and causing them to drop to the ground where they seemed unable to lift themselves up.

"Here, let me have a try," Counterweight told me, grabbing Megamax by the shoulder and then suddenly flying high into the air with him. A moment later they both came back down, though she dropped him and drove him straight into the pavement. However Megamax got back to his feet looking more angry than anything else.

I noticed another goon taking aim at Catalyst and fired a blast near him, knocking him off balance and causing him to loose his gun. I charged up and punched him, not using my explosive power just my fist covered in a force field. It seemed quite effective as he went down pretty fast.

"I've got Megamax," Catalyst called out, going straight for the villain.

"Are you crazy?" I nearly screamed, absolutely certain she was about to commit suicide by villain.

"Don't worry about her," Counterweight grinned at me. "I once saw her take down Force single handed."

I just stared at Counterweight, now just as certain that she was crazy too. The only Force I knew of was the former member of the Protectorate who'd gone insane. There was absolutely no way in hell that Catalyst could take down someone like him...or like Megamax.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I demanded, about to charge in and save Catalyst from herself. "Giving him powers isn't going to stop him.."

Catalyst paused to give me a look of surprise which I could barely see through her mask before she grabbed hold of Megamax. Almost as soon as she touched him something seemed to happen to him. He seemed to sort of...deflate. Megamax started shrinking, though his clothes didn't and quickly became too large for him. He quickly lost both height and muscle mass until just seconds later he was nearly a foot shorter and looked like some normal pudgy guy who'd eaten a few too many donuts.

"I can not only give powers," Catalyst said smugly, smacking Megamax upside the head with her staff and knocking him out. "I can also take them away..."

Megamax's gang or at least those still present and conscious stared at their boss in disbelief, obviously no longer impressed by him now that they'd seen him without his powers. I just smiled at that. A moment later half of those remaining surrendered while the other half tried getting away.

It was at this moment the police suddenly arrived, nearly appearing out of thin air as they rushed in to grab the bank robbers. I guessed that they'd been standing back and keeping their distance until Megamax had been dealt with. That seemed to be the way most cops dealt with developed criminals.

"His powers will come back in about an hour," Catalyst told the police as they handcuffed Megamax. "Make sure he's locked up good before then."

Once Catalyst was done with the police she turned to me. "Kaboom... I want to to talk to you about your name."

"But I don't want to talk to you," I responded grimly, all the old resentments coming back.

Catalyst had left the rest of us in the Crusaders having made it quite clear that she had no intention of 'playing super hero' anymore. Yet here she was, dressed up in costume and 'playing' at being a super hero again. I looked at Counterweight who was obviously the latest person she'd found to give powers to. I couldn't help wondering just how many of them there had been since she'd disbanded the Crusaders.

Of course Catalyst...Kelly had disbanded the Crusaders when she announced her retirement and had forced the rest of us to quit as well. I'd resented that a little, though had at least been able to understand it. I could understand her wanting to quit and live a normal life... though it certainly seemed that she actually had no intention of doing that. My real resentment came from the fact that she'd not only quit the Crusaders...she'd also quit her friends. She'd turned her back on all of us and had left with barely more than a 'good bye'. The rest of us all went in separate directions after that and I blamed Kelly for that as well.

"So you're the new one she's been giving powers to," I told Counterweight. "Be careful... She'll dump you the moment she gets bored with you."

"She doesn't give me powers," Counterweight protested.

"Look, we're just trying to be your friends," Catalyst snapped in annoyance.

"Really Kelly?" I responded sarcastically. "I thought you made it pretty damn clear that you didn't want to be friends with me anymore. Hell, I haven't heard one word from you since you left..."

Catalyst froze and stared at me with her mouth dropping open, though whether it was from the fact I'd used her real name or from what I actually said I didn't know. "What...?" she gasped, then hesitantly asked, "Dar... I mean Kid Kaboom?"

"I'm not a kid anymore," I told her and started to turn away.

"But you can't be him," Catalyst protested. "He was a guy and didn't have powers..."

"Like a guy turning into a woman and gaining powers is completely unheard of," Counterweight said with a sarcastic tone and an amused grin. Then she muttered, "I'm starting to think it's a lot more common than I ever guessed..."

I tried to ignore Counterweight as I turned back to Catalyst and grimly told her, "Yeah, well things change." And with that I flew into the air and tried to get as far away from her as I could. In a way, seeing Kelly again had been even harder than fighting Megamax so I was ready to just go home and take a break. My first day back in action had been a lot rougher than I'd expected.

I was on the couch in Nikki's condo, sitting back and watching TV while she sat next to me assembling some small electronic gizmo just as she had been doing for the last hour. I watched her in silence nearly as often as I watched the TV, though I had no idea what it was she was actually building and she wasn't saying.

"Just something I've been wanting to try for awhile," Nikki told me after the third time I asked, giving me a smile before continuing with her work.

I just shook my head, trying to clear some of the thoughts out of it. I couldn't stop thinking about when I ran into Kelly yesterday and all the memories that brought back. Some were good and some were bad. Mostly what filled me were the emotions, the relief at seeing her again and the old resentment over how she'd left.

Nikki wouldn't say much about it, but I thought she had her own mixed emotions about Kelly's return. For one thing, Kelly was an important part of my past, so I think Nikki might have been just a little jealous about that. And of course she had her own past with Kelly and the knowledge that Nikki once had a crush on her left me feeling a little jealous as well.

"I was thinking," Nikki said, looking up from the device she was working on. "You've come out of retirement and now Catalyst is back with that new girl..." She paused for a moment before asking, "Does that mean you're rebuilding the Crusaders?"

"Not likely," I scowled, knowing that there were a lot of bad feelings in how the team had ended before. I wasn't the only one unhappy with the way Kelly had quit and run off. "Everyone kind of went in different directions..."

Nikki nodded at that, then frowned thoughtfully. "With Brick running around and whoever is behind him...." She paused to shake her head and let out a sigh. "You might need some backup is all."

I just grunted at that, though I couldn't help but thinking about the fight with Megamax. As much as I didn't want to admit it there was no way I could have beaten him by myself. I didn't have nearly enough power to beat him straight out. Of course it wasn't raw power that beat him, but Catalyst taking away his power.

"If only she'd been able to do that back when we were Crusaders," I mused to himself. Of course most of the time it wouldn't have made much difference since most of our enemies weren't developed, but were people who used technology and gadgets. But still, there were times when it would have been very nice to have something like that available.

After another ten minutes I got up with a sigh. "I guess I should be going," I told Nikki reluctantly. "I really need to start looking for a new job... I can't keep mooching off you like this."

"I understand," Nikki told me, getting up and giving me a long passionate kiss. "Just be careful. Brick is still out looking for you and we don't know what he and his boss are up to yet." Then as we broke apart she mused, "I wonder if I can find a way to track his armor down..."

I just laughed as I left, feeling in a pretty good mood in spite of everything that was going on. Unfortunately Nikki's talk about Brick reminded me that he was indeed still out there and looking for me, and even though I still had Nikki's jammer I couldn't help but feeling just a little nervous.

When I got back to my apartment a short time later I paused at the door, staring at it with a scowl. The door was cracked open several inches when I knew good and well I'd locked it behind me. I always locked the door behind me. I scowled even deeper at the realization that it didn't look like it had been forced.

"Damn," I grimaced, my heart racing as I imagined the worse. I envisioned Brick on the other side of the door, though I doubted that picking the lock was his style. Or even worse, my heart nearly jumped at the thought of my mom whom I hadn't seen in months being in there waiting for me.

I clenched my fists in anger and called up my force field, carefully making sure not to activate my more destructive energies. For one, it was more subtle if I didn't go in with my fists glowing orange and more importantly, everything I owned was in that apartment and I didn't want to accidentally blow it all to hell.

After taking a deep breath to brace myself I pushed the door open and went inside, ready to take down anyone who jumped me. However once I stepped inside I saw that my intruders were two young women standing in the middle of my living room. One of them was Kelly and the other was Counterweight, though both of them were currently dressed in civilian clothes, not that it did a lot to hide Counterweight's identity since she still had her green hair.

Kelly was holding my picture of the Crusaders which I must have left out. I just glared at her for a moment and announced, "I didn't realize you were into breaking and entering, Kelly."

Kelly looked a little surprised at my walking in on her, then just a little guilty. However she then gave me a suspicious look and said, "We came to find Derek... I'm not sure I believe you're really him..."

"Well I am him," I responded, then looked down at myself and shrugged. "Or at least I was..."

"Derek...if that's who you really are," Kelly said carefully, still looking suspicious.

"It's Erin now," I told her a little self-consciously, though I tried not to let her see. "It's a little more appropriate for now." I frowned, wondering how much I should tell her and decided that she at least deserved the truth. "I was accidentally infected with some sort of nanites that changed me..." I gestured down at myself and gave her a wry smile. "They also made my old powers come back."

"But I saw you doing a lot of things Kid Kaboom could never do," Kelly exclaimed with a triumphant grin as though she'd just caught me in some sort of lie.

I just rolled my eyes. "I never said they came back quite the same." I shrugged. "They're the same basic powers, but I can just do a few new tricks with them." Then I held up my fist and made it glow with my orange energy for a moment in demonstration.

"Look," Counterweight put her hand on Kelly's shoulder. "One of your old friends told you this was where Derek lived...and you find her here..." He gestured at me. "It looks to me like she's probably telling the truth."

Kelly hesitated, then cautiously said, "About what you said back at the bank...about not being friends anymore..."

"We were a team," I said with a scowl, then with more emphasis added, "We were friends." I stared at Kelly as I continued, "When you quit, you forced the rest of us to quit too. I can understand wanting to quit and go on with your life... I might not have been happy about having to give up being Kid Kaboom too, but at least I can understand it. But you didn't give us any warning at all. You just quit and ran off...treating us like some enemies you had to escape from rather than like friends." I shook my head, and looked at Counterweight. "And now here you come back, all in costume and with a new partner..." I glared at Kelly again and spat out, "So obviously it wasn't being a hero you wanted to leave behind, but us..."

"It wasn't like that," Kelly protested.

"Just for the record," Counterweight said, suddenly floating up in the air and then flipping around before sitting comfortably on my ceiling, "She's not giving me my powers. I have them full time."

"When I quit, I had no intention of ever putting on a costume again," Kelly exclaimed. "I didn't change my mind until Thorn got powers and needed my help."

"Thorn?" I looked up at Counterweight who was still sitting on my ceiling. "I thought you were Counterweight..."

"I am," she responded with a grin, flipping off my ceiling and landing back on the floor. "Thorn is my real name...or at least a nickname I've had for most of my life." Then in an aside she added, "It doesn't really fit my powers though or I'd use that as my code name too..."

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," Kelly told me. "I didn't mean to. I only wanted to get away and start over without all this..."

I stared at her for a few seconds before slowly nodding. "And I'm sorry if I made you think we only liked you because of your powers..."

"Great," Counterweight...Thorn since she was out of costume grinned. "Now we can do a group hug and sing kumbaya."

I gave Thorn a glare, then asked, "Who is this joker?"

"Thorn is..." Kelly paused with a bright blush, "my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" I asked in surprise.

Thorn just grinned, "I used to be a guy too until my powers kicked in and changed me."

"Damn this is getting weird," I muttered.

"Tell me about it," Thorn chuckled, "I thought I was the only one and now I find a couple others..."

I just stared at Thorn for a moment, suddenly realizing that this was someone who could actually understand what I've been going through. This was someone I had something important in common with. However it did leave a few questions since Kelly said she was her 'boyfriend'. I looked at Kelly, never having guessed she was into chicks. Of course I was dating Nikki and never would have guessed it about her as well.

Suddenly there was a loud booming sound from somewhere outside. I immediately rushed to my window and stuck my head out, looking to see if I could see the cause. I heard more explosions and this time I could tell they were coming from the direction of the park.

"Oh shit," I gasped in realization. "It's Brick..." The jammer Nikki built for me would keep his scanner from detecting my nanites, but there was nothing to say he couldn't just go back to the last place he saw me and start looking from there.

"The guy that's been causing all that trouble lately?" Kelly asked in surprise. "Why would he be here..."

"He's tied to whoever did this to me." I gestured down at myself then gave Kelly a nasty grin. "And I want some answers from him..."

Kelly and Thorn both immediately turned and ran out of my apartment, which was perfectly fine with me since I needed a little privacy. I quickly stripped out of my clothes and put on my costume, wishing at the same time that I had one of those powers that would let me suddenly have my costume appear on me. However I was able to change pretty quickly and less than two minutes later I was flying out my back window.

I quickly flew down the street where I found Brick tearing up cars near the park and casually tossing them aside...even though several had people in them. I also noticed that his armor was not only repaired from the damage I'd caused previously, but that he was now wearing a helmet that covered his entire head. It looked like the idea of using a baseball bat was no longer an option.

Of course Brick's repaired armor and new head protection weren't the things that really worried me. That was the pair of monsters standing near him, the same ones which had been with him during his robberies. Each was nearly eight feet tall and roughly human in shape, but entirely covered with black metalic chitenous armor which somehow reminded me of a beatle.

The two monsters stood back while Brick destroyed things, following behind him, but making no real move to cause destruction on their own. However when Brick pointed down the street and said something, both monsters immediately turned and fired beams of red energy from their hands which destroyed the cars he'd been pointing too. After this they lowered their arms and continued following him.

"Where is that bitch?" Brick yelled, holding up another scanner just like the one Nikki had stolen from him. "The boss said this damn thing is stronger than the last..."

I just smirked at that, thankful for the proof that Nikki's jammer really did protect me from being detected. I was right there, well within the range of even the previous version and he still couldn't pick up my nanites.

"Here I am," I called out to Brick right before I fired a blast of explosive energy right at his chest. Unfortunately his chest looked a bit scorched and blistered, but not nearly as damaged as I'd hoped.

Brick just stared at me for a moment, and though I could no longer see his face I could hear the surprise in his voice as he exclaimed, "It's you ain't it...wearing a costume now and everything." Then he laughed, "I've been looking all over for you... The boss wasn't happy with what you did to my armor so I'm gonna make you pay before I take you back..."

I flew straight at Brick, charging my fists to give him a full load of my power up close and personal. I doubted his armor would be able to handle that...especially since I'd already done some good damage to it the same way during our last meeting. However before I could hit Brick he got me first and sent me flying. My energies released in an explosion, but it wasn't directly against his armor so had little more damage than my blast had.

"Get her," Brick ordered the two monsters. "Don't hurt her too bad. The boss wants her alive..."

I snarled at that and winced as one of the monsters fired a beam of red energy which hit me in the chest and slammed me back, though thankfully my force field protected me. The two monsters continued advancing on me and I grimaced, knowing that this wasn't going to be easy.

"And you thought the boss wanted you before," Brick laughed as he came at me as well. "The boss lady said she don't know how the nanites gave you powers, but now she wants them even more. Said she was gonna rip em right out of you..."

I winced slightly when I heard that, having thought that their wanting to take me alive meant that even if I got captured it wouldn't be too bad. However from what Nikki said, having those nanites taken out of me would kill me. Even if it somehow didn't, I'd lose my greatly improved health and probably my enhanced strength as well. I had no idea if my powers would go dormant again or not, but certainly had no intention of finding out.

I knew I had to get some room to maneuver, so tried flying straight up and over them. However Brick came at me with a rocket powered jump and caught me in mid-air with a tackle that would have done any NFL player proud. He held onto me as we both slammed into the ground. My power went off on the impact creating a large explosion. A few seconds later and I was laying in a smoldering crater in the middle of the street while Brick who had been on top had been thrown back by the force.

Brick got to his feet and I saw his armor had taken a little more damage and now looked to have some cracks in it. However it wasn't nearly as much as I'd been hoping. I absently wondered if they'd made his armor even tougher when they fixed it after the last time.

"You're not getting away this time," Brick exclaimed. "There are three of us and only one of you... We got you outnumbered so you'd better surrender now..."

"But she's not alone," another voice called out. I snapped around to see Counterweight and Catalyst standing there, both in costume. Catalyst just grinned. "I'd say the odds are a little more even now..."

"Kill em," Brick ordered the monsters, barely even looking at Catalyst and Counterweight. His attention was all on me.

The monsters immediately turned and started to slowly advance on the others, though they both split and rushed in different directions. Counterweight flew to a car and landed on top of it. A moment later the car floated up into the air while she just stood on it, almost as though she were a passenger. She floated the car to above one of the monsters, then dropped it.

"Take that," Counterweight cried out with a grin. However the monster smashed the car away then began firing energy beams at her while she had to fly away to avoid being hit.

Catalyst charged at one of the monsters, getting behind it and slamming it in the back of its legs with her staff in an obvious attempt to knock it down. However this had no more effect than her next several attacks, where she tried tripping it and then hit it in the neck.

"Damn," Catalyst exclaimed in obvious frustration.

I'd seen the way she'd easily taken down the Megamax's thugs so it was obvious she'd been doing some serious training over the past couple years. There was no doubt in my mind that she really knew how to fight now. Add that to her new ability to take away developed powers and she could probably handle a lot of villains. However against this thing and Brick none of that was going to be of much use.

"This is too much like the old days," Catalyst grimaced as she had to shift gears and focus on staying out of the way.

I had to turn my attention to Brick who swung a fist at me, though I was able to dodge it and throw my own punch, augmented of course with the full power of my explosive energies. There was a satisfying explosion as he was knocked back with some obvious damage to the front of his armor.

Just then I noticed one of the monsters going straight at Catalyst while she dodged behind a car, only to have the car blasted. "I could use a little help here," she called out nervously.

Counterweight was busy lifting her monster high into the sky, though a moment later she dropped him right on top of the monster going after Catalyst. There was a massive crashing as the two monsters impacted, though several seconds later one of them began to get up and move again. However the drop seemed to have stopped one and injured the other.

"Look," Counterweight pointed to the monster who was getting up. One arm was completely missing, though several wires and pieces of metal stuck out. I looked at the one who was unmoving on the ground and saw it was badly smashed revealing the metal insides. "They're robots..."

Since Counterweight seemed to have the monsters...the robots under control, I turned my attention back to Brick. "Come on you fucking asshat," I yelled as I charged at him, "you're going down."

I threw a charged punch at the same time Brick tried punching me. Our fists collided in a powerful explosion. My own arm felt a little numb from the impact of his punch, though he was knocked back and his own arm had taken a lot of damage. It now hung limp at his side with small pieces of the armor now missing. The rest of his armor had taken some damage from the explosion as well, though not as much as his arm.

I wasn't about to just let up and let Brick recover, though so I slammed my fists together and created another explosion, this one more as a distraction and intended to throw him back and off balance rather than hurt him. However I followed that up by charging him and slamming my first right into his chest as hard as I could, unleashing a powerful explosion that he hadn't been ready for.

A moment later Brick was on the ground with his armor badly damaged. The whole chest piece looked even worse than when I'd smashed him during our last confrontation. Even his helmet had taken some damage and I doubted he'd be able to see anything out of it now, not with how charred the whole thing looked.

I looked over and saw that Counterweight and Catalyst had just finished off the second robot and were now turning to come help me, not that I needed any. Catalyst took one long look at me and shook her head, "Yeah, that's definitely Der...the old Kid Kaboom..."

I just gave her a cocky grin before bending down to take Brick's helmet off. He started trying to sit up, but Counterweight put a hand on his shoulder and he went back down.

"Your armor might be able to take the extra gravity," counterweight told him. "But I doubt you can."

"Now," I grinned down at Brick, holding my fist up so he could see it glowing, "I have some questions for you..."

"Fuck you." Brick glared at me defiantly. "I ain't telling you nuthing..."

"I think that's a double negative," Catalyst said with a grin. "That means you are going to tell us something..."

"Why are you after me?" I demanded, then corrected my question. "Why is your boss after me? Why does your boss want the nanites?"

Brick just stared at me for a moment before he started laughing. "How the fuck should I know?" He spat at me, but missed. "I'm just the hired muscle...not her best friend."

"And just who is your boss?" Catalyst asked.

"Like I'd tell you that," Brick snorted, struggling to move again, though Counterweight kept him pinned down. "The boss lady would kill me..."

Counterweight just grinned and asked, "So...Brick... You do seem to be as thick as one, but I was wondering if you can fly like one... Are you afraid of heights? I mean real heights...near orbit level?" She gave him an evil grin and added, "I can make it happen you know..."

"Hell," Catalyst grinned as well, "she could just make you float up into orbit and you'd be gone for good..."

Suddenly I noticed something odd. Part of Bricks armor was a collar that came up and was fastened tightly around his neck. There were tiny lights on the collar which were blinking faster and faster. Then they all came on at once and sparks shot out from the collar. Brick let out a loud gasp and spasmed for just a moment as though he was having a seizure before he suddenly collapsed motionless. His eyes were open and staring blankly.

"Oh shit," Catalyst exclaimed, carefully touching Brick's neck and shaking her head. "No pulse... He's dead..."

"Someone didn't want him talking to us," I scowled, shaking my head, then spitting out a stream of profanities. "Now we can't find out who's behind this."

"We learned that his boss is a woman," Catalyst pointed out then gestured to his armor. "Look at his armor and those robots... Don't they look a little familiar to you?"

I stared at Brick's armor, then looked over at the dismembered robots, realizing that they did indeed look familiar. Brick's armor like the robots was somewhat chitenous, which was something I had seen before. Suddenly Catalyst and I looked at each other and simultaneously exclaimed, "Ladybug..."

Ladybug had once been the Crusaders arch enemy... our most common foe not to mention the most dangerous. She was a master of technology and always surprised us with some new robot or weapon. However she'd been laying low for the last couple years, ever since the Crusaders retired. Unfortunately our disbanding had given her all the time and opportunity she needed to build up her resources. If she was back now it could only be bad news for us because after all this time, I could only imagine she was back because she had something big she'd been building up for.

Nikki was absolutely fascinated when I told her about what was going on and incredibly eager to get her hands on Brick's armor and some of the robots, so she cold take them apart and see how they worked. However she turned down my invitation to join our planning session since it would have been awkward dealing with Kelly.

So far I haven't told Kelly that I was dating Nikki, her old high school nemesis. Somehow, I don't think Kelly will take it well when she finds out that I'm dating the bully who'd made her life miserable back then. Because of that, I was actually kind of glad Nikki had turned down my invitation because things would have been pretty damn awkward for me too.

Catalyst, Counterweight and I all sat around my apartment trying to decide what we should do about the situation. Counterweight frowned, "If this is as bad as you both seem to think it is, why don't we bring in the Miracle Men."

"The Miracle Men?" I asked, wondering why she'd bring them up.

"We're both reserve members," Catalyst told me with a shrug.

I just stared at her in surprise, trying to hide the jealousy I suddenly felt. I used to dream about hitting the big leagues, both as a football player and a super hero. I used to dream of one day making it to the NFL or one of the big time super hero groups, though both dreams had been ended by reality. It just suddenly seemed incredibly unfair that Catalyst who had been completely useless in a fight was the one who actually made it to the big leagues. Of course she wasn't as helpless as she'd been back then, but the idea still bruised my ego.

"This is Crusader business," I said with a scowl, "not Miracle Men business."

"She's right," Catalyst told Counterweight, then paused to give me an odd look. "Or is that he?" She chuckled. "It took awhile to get it straight with Thorn...but what do you prefer?"

"She is fine," I responded with a shrug. "I'm getting used to it." Then I couldn't resist teasing, "Good thing my girlfriend doesn't have a problem with it..."

Catalyst stared at me for a moment. "You have a girlfriend? What does she think of this...?" She gestured at my body.

I just smiled. "Like I said, she has absolutely no problem with it..." Of course I didn't bother pointing out that she didn't become my girlfriend until after my change.

Catalyst looked as though she were about to ask more questions, but Counterweight asked, "So what do we do?"

"I'm not sure," Catalyst sighed. "We still don't know what actually is going on...or even why Ladybug is after these nanites anyway."

"Well, something big is coming," I scowled. "We've got to be ready." Then I paused for a moment before adding, "We need reinforcements."

Catalyst looked at me for a moment before responding, "We need the rest of the old team..."

"Not gonna happen," I told her with a shake of my head.

"Why not?" Catalyst asked in surprise. "Are they all mad at me too?"

"A bit," I admitted.

"Kyle?" she asked.

I smiled faintly at the idea of how useful it would be having Kyle back on the team. I always had a bit of a rivalry with him because we were so similar to each other and were always competing with just about everything. I missed him for a lot more than just his power. As Charger, he used to be able to soak up electricity from around him and use it to fly and fire blasts of electricity from his hands. That was exactly the kind of firepower we could use against Ladybug.

"Joined the Army," I told her after a few seconds of nostalgic thought. "Last I heard he was heading off to the middle east..."

"Rachael?" Catalyst asked next.

Rachael had been my ex-girlfriend, though we broke up well before the team disbanded. It had been weird working together after that and trying to remain friends, but we managed for the most part. I remembered that she was a gorgeous blonde not to mention the strongest cheerleader I knew. After all, as Guardian Girl she used to be able to bench press cars and have small caliber bullets bounce off her skin.

"I ran into her about three months ago," I frowned. Then as Catalyst was beginning to smile, I added, "She's married and pregnant."

Then Catalyst sighed, "And Jeff?"

I frowned slightly as I thought of Jeff since he was the one guy I'd always butted heads with. I always thought he was a skinny nerd and he always thought I was a dumb jock. I sometimes wondered how the two of us ever became friends or what it was about him that I actually liked.

As Dodger though, Jeff had a pretty useful power...though not a really offensive one. He was a short range teleporter, able to teleport no more than a mile at the very most and he couldn't even take anyone else with him. However it was great for scouting or getting behind enemies to hit them where they weren't protected.

Of course Dodger had one other power that went along with his teleporting. We'd always called it his danger sense. It was some sort subconscious sixth sense that warned him when he was in immediate danger and would trigger his powers. With his danger sense he could teleport someplace he couldn't see and had never been since it would automatically keep him from appearing inside of a wall or anything else. And whenever someone was about to hit him from behind or shoot him, he'd immediately teleport to a safe place even if he couldn't see it coming. That made him almost impossible to take out in a fight.

"He's still around here," I said after a few seconds. "I haven't seen him in forever, but I ran into his mom a few months ago and she said he was still here."

"Well, one is better than none," Catalyst sighed. "I just wish we could get the others."

"We still don't know if we can get him," I pointed out.

"I found where you live," Catalyst grinned at me, "I can find him too. Besides, his mom always liked me..." And with that she pulled out her cell phone to make a call.

It didn't take long for Kelly to get Jeff's address and not a whole lot longer for us to actually get to his apartment. We'd switched out of our costumes before going, though so as not to draw too much attention. I just hoped Jeff was home, though his mom told Kelly he worked the night shift and should be home at this time.

I looked around as we walked through the apartment building, annoyed that it was a lot nicer than the one where I lived. I scowled, feeling jealous of the old friend I hadn't seen in a long time and pushing it away. It was just an apartment after all.

We stood at his door, for all the world looking like three hot chicks. I just felt nervous and extremely self-conscious, not sure I wanted Jeff to see me like this. Of course if I'd had a choice I wouldn't have let Kelly see me like this either and that had turned out okay.

The door opened and a man stood there, though it took me several seconds to recognize him as Jeff. For one thing, he'd put on some weight since the last time I'd seen him. In the good way. He used to be really skinny, but he now looked athletic and even a bit buff, as though he went to the gym on a regular basis. He used to have long shaggy hair too, but that had been all cut off leaving him with little more than stubble. Even the glasses he used to wear were gone, though whether he'd switched to contacts or had surgery I had no idea.

Jeff looked at Thorn and me with looks of obvious interest and attraction, though his attention was then drawn to Kelly at whom he stared at for several seconds. "Kelly," he said, obviously surprised.

"Can we come in?" Kelly asked him with a pleasant smile.

Jeff looked back into his apartment before shaking his head. "No. My girlfriend is napping in the front room before she has to go to work... I don't want her to get the wrong idea."

I just nodded at that in understanding. At time I used to tease him about never being able to get a girl, though it looks like he changed almost as much as I had.

"So what's going on?" Jeff asked, not seeming hostile or resentful of Kelly the way I'd been. He seemed more curious than anything.

"Is there somewhere we can talk in private?" Kelly asked him.

Jeff hesitated a moment and glanced back into his apartment before nodding. "Yeah. We have a laundry room that should be pretty empty."

Jeff led us down the hall to the empty laundry room then asked, "Okay, I haven't seen you in forever and here you are... So what's this about and who are your friends?"

"This is Thorn," Kelly introduced him then gestured to me and gave a wry smile. "You sort of already know Erin."

Jeff gave me another once over before saying, "I don't think I do know you..."

"Listen asshat," I grimaced, opening my jacket so he could see the costume I was wearing underneath it. "I wasn't a chick the last time we saw each other." Then for good measure I held up one of my fists and made it glow orange for a moment.

Jeff's eyes went wide in surprise and he took a step back. He stared at me for a moment, looking completely confused. "Derek?"

The look on Jeff's face was so priceless that I couldn't resist messing with him a bit more. "Yeah...but you can call me Erin now." I paused for a moment before saying, "The reason we're here is we found out Kelly's power has a side effect... Everyone she ever used it on is turning into a chick..." I gestured to Thorn and added, "That's Kyle..."

If I thought the look on Jeff's face was great before the look of complete and utter horror made me burst out laughing. Kelly elbowed me and told him, "She's making it up...at least the part about my power...not about being Derek. Her changing like that had absolutely nothing to do with my power. And that," she gestured to Thorn, "is not Kyle."

Jeff let out a sigh of relief, though he still looked a little uneasy. Then he glared at me for several long seconds before exclaiming, "You always were a dick." Then as an afterthought he grinned evilly and added, "Too bad you don't have one anymore."

"Bite me," I snapped in response.

However Jeff jut laughed. "Is that an invitation?"

"Enough of that." Kelly rolled her eyes. "We came here for a reason."

"And I'm guessing it's not to talk about old times," Jeff frowned.

"It is nice seeing you again," she said apologetically. "Have you heard about that armored guy Brick who has been causing all sorts of trouble lately?" When Jeff nodded she continued, "I came home from college to visit my family and maybe see a few friends... I never expected to get caught up in this kind of thing, but I did."

"What?" Jeff scowled. "So you want my help taking down this Brick guy?"

"No," I grimaced. "We already took care of him. The problem is that it looks like Ladybug might be back and was probably behind him."

Jeff shook his head and muttered, "Damn..." Then he looked from me to Kelly and shook his head. "I can guess what you were going to ask and the answer is no. I've got a good job, a great girlfriend, and a nice life that I'm not going to mess up with more of that spandex stuff."

Jeff said no, but I could see the way he was looking at Kelly and the look of excitement that had crossed his face. There was no doubt in my mind that he was definitely interested, though he didn't want to admit it. Out of all of us, he'd always been the most hesitant about being a hero.

"How about we arm wrestle for it?" I asked with a grin. "You win we'll go away and leave you alone. But if I win...you come help us deal with this."

For a moment Jeff just stared at me in surprise, then he started to grin. I could see the wheels cranking in his mind and knew exactly what he was thinking. I'd always been bigger and stronger than him, and, though I'm a bit embarrassed by it now, I'd always rubbed it in his face a bit. However things had changed and Jeff was now taller and more muscular than me. He had to be thinking that this would be an easy win for him and a great chance to get back at me.

"You're on," Jeff agreed with a smug look, obviously thinking about how easy I'd be to beat.

We used a washing machine as a platform to rest our elbows on as we clutched hands and began our contest. I was a little surprised at how strong Jeff was compared to back in school and even let him push me back a bit. Then I grinned and began to really exert my strength, delighting in the look of surprise on his face as I began pushing his hand back the other way until I slammed it onto the washing machine and won.

"It looks like I won," I smirked.

"How did you do that?" Jeff demanded suspiciously.

I just grinned. "Just because my body got changed that doesn't mean I lost any of my strength. I'm just as strong as before." I decided not to rub it in any more by mentioning that I was actually a little stronger than before.

"Welcome back Dodger." I slapped Jeff on the back. "Now let's go kick some ass."

I grinned happily as I flew through the air deciding that flying was absolutely awesome. There was such a sense of freedom at not being held down by gravity, by knowing that I could go in absolutely any direction I wanted with ease including up and down. This had to be sort of what divers felt, though I had the added advantage of not having to worry about breathing. I was beginning to wonder how I'd ever been able to function as a hero before I could fly.

"Try and keep up," I called back to the others who were flying behind me. I guess technically they weren't actually flying.

Counterweight found a large metal plate that construction crews used to cover work they were doing on roads and was using her power to manipulate gravity around it in order to make it fly through the air, much like how she kept lifting large objects into the air and then dropping them on enemies. Counterweight, Dodger, and Catalyst were all riding on it like some sort of flying carpet and more than a few Aladdin jokes had already been made because of this.

Dodger was currently wearing his a new uniform since he'd outgrown his old one, and I had to admit, the new one definitely looked better. It was dark blue with a bit of gray and some white trim. He had a dark blue mask that covered most of his head, leaving only the lower part of his face exposed. He also now had a pair of white police batons strapped to his legs, deciding to do the same thing Catalyst had and improve his offensive capability a bit.

The thing that really amused me about Dodger's new costume was the fact that he only had to run into his apartment to grab it. In spite of his hesitation to get back into the business, he already had a new costume made up and waiting...just in case. But then again, that was always like Dodger. He'd always liked to be prepared...though I always used to tease him about being over prepared and not flexible enough.

I paused to let the others catch up a little and looked around to see if I could see any sign of Ladybug or whatever it was she had planned. Then I held up the scanner Brick had been using to track me and looked at it. Of course the scanner had been modified a little since Brick had been using it. Nikki and I had talked and decided that if Brick could use a scanner to track my nanites she could make one to track the energy signature that both his armor and the robots generated. The idea was that if there was any more technology of that type in the area we'd be able to find it. Unfortunately so far we haven't had much luck in spite of searching for two days.

"Nothing yet," I sighed with a shake of my head. Of course Nikki told me that it did have a really short range and I'd have to be nearly on top of an energy source before I picked it up...but it could also mean there was nothing around to detect. "Damn."

"Are you sure your friend knows what she's doing?" Dodger asked skeptically.

So far I'd only told them that my girlfriend made the scanner, not who she was. Somehow I doubted that hearing this was made by the prom queen would have improved his confidence in the device any, especially since Nikki had a reputation as a bit of a bimbo back then. Of course I knew it was an intentionally made reputation that had nothing to do with reality, but I wasn't sure they'd believe that.

"Yeah," I responded, trying to keep any doubts from my voice. The truth was, I wasn't sure just how good Nikki actually was with this stuff and only had her word that she knew what she was doing. Still she seemed pretty confident it would work.

Suddenly the device pinged, indicating that it picked something up. I stared at it for a moment, seeing that the energy signature it was picking up was really weak, but as I watched it seemed to get stronger.

"It's got something," I exclaimed, pointing in the direction it was sensing the energy. I didn't see anything and the device was supposed to have a short range, but it was definitely seeing something in that direction.

We quickly flew in the direction the scanner pointed to and had to go quite a bit further than I expected before we found the source of the signal. I saw one of the black monsters...one of the robots that had been with Brick. However this one looked brand new and without even a scratch on it. It took me a few seconds longer to realize that it wasn't alone.

"Holy shit," I exclaimed as I stared at the scene below me.

There were eight of the metal monsters standing in the the middle of a shipping yard, surrounded by semi trucks and trailers. Each of the robots stood next to the ruins of a large metal crate. Then I noticed that there were still four more of these crates, one of which suddenly burst open as another robot climbed out of it. Seconds later the next tore open and a tenth robot joined them. It didn't take long before the other two had released their robots as well, giving us a full dozen of the things.

It suddenly dawned on me that this was why we were able to scan them from such a long distance. It wasn't seeing just one energy signal, but twelve of them all at once. I gulped and looked at the others who all looked just as nervous as I felt.

"I think we're a little outnumbered," I muttered as I dropped to the ground. Counterweight nodded agreement and lowered her metal plate to the ground as well.

"They're starting to move," Dodger pointed out grimly. "They're heading in the direction of downtown..."

I grimaced as I realized what that meant. I'd gotten a glimpse of what kind of destruction these things could unleash and had a feeling that they could do a whole lot more if they really tried. I had absolutely no desire to see them do so in a populated area. We had to stop them before that happened.

"Let's get em!" I called out, charging right towards one of the robots.

"We need a better battle cry," Dodger exclaimed as he suddenly disappeared then reappeard on the back of one of the robots. He slammed his police batons into the robots neck, obviously trying to damage what looked like a weak spot.

I hit one of the robots with everything I had, remembering just how tough Brick's armor had been and wanting to make sure I got through. There was a powerful explosion and the robot went down with a gaping hole in its chest.

At this point, every one of the robots stopped their marching and turned their attention on us. Counterweight was starting to lift one of the robots off the ground, but an energy blast nearly hitting her caused her to drop it prematurely, causing only a small amount of the damage she could have as that robot started limping away, but continuing to fight.

"Not again," Catalyst grimaced angrily, looking around in frustration as there were no targets she could do anything against. "I HATE robots..."

"Me too," Dodger shook his head, suddenly disappearing as a blast short right through where he'd been. He reappeared a short distance away and quickly looked around to see where his power had teleported him while saving him.

I flew straight at a second robot, firing a blast of explosive energy, though it did very little from that distance. My blasts lost energy the further they were from me so if I wanted to take him out it looked like I'd have to do it up close and personal, hitting him with a point blank explosn like I did the first one.

After changing directions I went straight at one of the robots again, this time intending to ram it and hit it with everything I had. However it suddenly swung its arm and hit me, sending me flying back before I could make an impact of my own. I tried for another run, but several of the robots fired blasts at me, knocking me off course.

"Damn," I grimaced, realizing that all of the robots seemed to be focusing on me. Since I had destroyed one of them already they must have decided that I was the biggest threat.

Dodger was teleporting all over the field, easily avoiding their attacks as he acted as a decoy, trying to get their attention before jumping to safety again. It was helping take some of the heat off me and Counterweight who were the only ones capable of dishing out much damage.

Counterweight had managed to get another robot high into the air and drop it, doing enough damage to take it out of the game. However the robots were getting wise to her tricks and weren't letting her get close enough to do that again. Unlike me, she didn't have a force field to help out with that.

Over the next few minutes, Counterweight and I were able to take out four more of the robots, though it wasn't easy. They no longer outnumbered us quite as badly, but they were learning our tricks and making it much more difficult. I would fly at one robot and suddenly two more would blast me at the same time, knocking me off course to where yet another would hit me and send me flying back.

In spite of my force field I was starting to feel sore and bruised. And what was more, I had no idea how much longer I'd be able to keep my force field up at all. I wasn't even sure of how much of my explosive power I had left either. I was fully aware that the longer this fight went on the worse my chances got.

"Come on you asshat," I snarled at the nearest robot, "come and get me..."

The robot fired several energy blasts at me as it slowly advanced while I braced myself and prepared to give it everything I had. Then when it was close enough, I ran right at it, my fist fully charged and ready to go. Suddenly I was hit from the site by the blast of another robot which distracted me so I wasn't ready when the robot I was facing swung its fist at me then fired another blast at point blank range.

I was sent flying to where I smashed into the side of a parked semi trailer where I made a large dent in it before falling to the ground almost right on top of Catalyst. She cursed as I partly landed on her, though she quickly tried helping me back to my feet as well. However as this was going on a felt a familiar tingle followed by the sensation of my force field turning off.

"Oh shit," I exclaimed as I tried turning my force field back on to no effect. I tried charging my fists to no effect either. That had been the same feeling I had whenever Catalyst used to give me my powers back in the old days so I knew exactly what had happened. I turned to glare at her and snapped, "My powers are gone..."

"I'm sorry," she gasped in realization with a look of horror appearing on her face.

"Turn them back on," I ordered her, quickly glancing to the advancing robots and knowing we didn't have much time at all.

"I can't," Catalyst blurted out with a grimace. "My powers have to wear off..."

I turned back to the robots and muttered, "Oh shit again..." It would take an hour for her powers to wear off and I seriously doubted any of us would be left alive by then.

"Hey, over here," Dodger called out, suddenly teleporting onto the shoulders of the robot closest to use and beating it in the face with his batons in order to distract it from. The distraction worked, though I knew it wouldn't last for long.

Suddenly a woman's voice called out, "Isn't this a sight..."

I immediately looked at the source and saw a woman standing on top of a metal cargo crate. She was wearing a suit of tight black chitenous armor that was similar in style to the robots we were fighting. Her entire head was covered with the armor, though she had a pair of red eyes. The black of her armor was also broken by the red shoulder pieces, the red belt, and the red gloves. And, though I couldn't see it very clearly from my current angle, I knew that on her back she wore a large oval shaped back pack that was red and painted with large black spots. This woman was definitely a familiar sight, though one I hadn't seen in a long time.

"Ladybug," Catalyst, Dodger, and I all called out at once, immediately recognizing our old arch enemy.

"I knew it was her," Catalyst exclaimed from beside me.

"This has been fascinating to watch," Ladybug called out to us, "but it's time to end this..."

Then Ladybug turned towards me and fired blasts of red energy from her hands. I grimaced, about to jump to the side except her blasts missed me and instead hit the robot coming up behind me. There was an explosion as the blasts hit it in the chest and burned a large hole there. Before the robot even finished collapsing to the ground she'd turned and fired energy blasts at another one of the robots, destroying that one as well.

"What the hell?" I gasped in surprise.

At this point, the remaining robots turned their attention to her and began advancing and firing. Ladybug's backpack split in half and opened up like a pair of wings revealing the jet pack hidden inside. She launched up into the air, still firing her blasts and hitting each of the robots on the same spot, destroying them each in just a matter of moments.

"Did Ladybug just save us?" Dodger asked in confusion after he appeared beside me.

Ladybug landed on the ground again a short distance from us and the wings of her backpack closed back down again to cover and protect the jet pack. She slowly walked towards us while we braced ourselves to fight, not quite sure what she was up to.

"I knew you were behind this," Catalyst exclaimed, holding her staff out as though it might actually be a threat to someone in power armor.

"Then much of what you know is wrong," Ladybug responded, holding her hands out as though showing she was unarmed. It might have had more effect if she couldn't shoot energy blasts from her hands. "I assure you that I had nothing to do with unleashing those scarabs. If I had, I certainly wouldn't have destroyed them in order to save you...would I?"

"Why did you help us?" Counterweight asked, hovering in the air a short distance away, but looking ready to grab Ladybug and send her into orbit if needed. "From what they tell me, you're the bad guy."

Ladybug hesitated a moment before responding, "I have my reasons."

"Not good enough," Dodger said. "What are you up to?"

"It seems we have a common enemy," Ladybug answered after a few seconds. "A temporary alliance seems in order."

"I don't trust her," Dodger said while I nodded agreement.

"She did help us out," Counterweight pointed out. "I think we at least owe it to her to hear her out."

Suddenly Ladybug yelled, "LOOK OUT," and jumped at me only to get hit with a flash of red that hit her backpack.

Another robot was coming towards us, one that we'd somehow missed in the fight. Its hands were out and it was firing one blast after another, all of which were hitting Ladybug. She took two more blasts to her back pack which was completely destroyed. Then she stood up moved in front of me again to catch another blast that was meant for me, taking this one in her chest.

Dodger and Counterweight were already going at the robot with Dodger teleporting onto its shoulders to distract it long enough for Counterweight to get close. Counterweight lifted the robot a short distance into the air, then slammed it into the ground with massively increased gravity. A few seconds later she flew the whole thing up into the air where she was able to drop it from high enough to destroy it.

I looked over at Catalyst, clenching my fists in frustration over how helpless I felt at the moment. Without my powers I knew that I could only get in the way. This must be how Catalyst felt back in the old days.

Then I looked at Ladybug who was laying on the ground with her armor severely damaged. The ladybug shell back pack was nearly all gone and the front of her armor had a lot of cracks and was scorched. Even the face of her helmet was badly scorched.

I stared at Ladybug in shock and confusion as I thought about what she'd just done to get this way. She'd just saved my life. No, she'd just saved my life again. She'd also destroyed the robot who was coming right at me just a few minutes ago. This made absolutely no sense to me since Ladybug was literally the last person I ever would have expected to have taken a bullet for me.

"Are...are you okay?" I asked hesitantly reaching down to check on her. I had no idea what to think of this.

"I...I think so," Ladybug responded, sitting up with what looked like some difficulty. I helped her to her feet and she grunted, "My armor is ruined..."

"You saved my life," I told her with a grimace. "Why?"

"I..." she started, then answered, "I have my reasons..." Then she paused to curse, something I'd never heard from Ladybug before. "I can't see out of this damn thing..." She reached up for her helmet and felt where it was all scorched across the face.

"Why?" Catalyst asked her with a confused look her on her face. "Why are you really helping us?"

"I'm not helping you," Ladybug told her, turning to look at me. "I'm helping her."

"What?" I blinked.

"I really didn't want you to find out this way," Ladybug told me, reaching up and undoing her helmet. "I really didn't want you to find out at all." Then she removed her helmet and revealed a very familiar face.

"Nikki?" I gasped in shock while she gave me a wry smile then winced in pain.

"Super heroes aren't the only ones who can retire," she told me with a guilty look. "I never expected to wear this armor again..."

Dodger and Catalyst were both staring at Ladybug...Nikki with their mouths open in disbelief while Counterweight obviously had no idea what the big deal was about. We'd fought Ladybug countless times, but had never seen her real face...had never even suspected she might be a student in our own school much less the prom queen. I was even more stunned since she was my girlfriend and I'd had absolutely no idea.

"Nicole Castle?" Dodger gasped. "The prom queen? No fucking way..."

Catalyst didn't say anything, though she glared at Nikki. I could only imagine what she was thinking about this.

Nikki looked at each of the others, meeting their eyes with a look of defiance before she finally looked at me, her expression turning somewhat apologetic. "I think we need to talk."

The atmosphere as we all sat in Nikki's condo was quite tense, which was to be expected considering the circumstances. The only reason we'd even all come here was that Nikki refused to tell us what was going on unless we did, saying that she needed some clean clothes and other things before she'd be ready to talk.

Dodger kept staring at Nikki with a confused look on his face as though still trying to understand how the girl he had such a crush on in high school could possibly be our old arch enemy. I could understand his confusion because Nikki, Nicole, and Ladybug were all different personas.

Catalyst kept glaring at Nikki with a hostile silence, apparently deciding to combine her dislike for the old Nicole and for Ladybug. I could only imagine what it was like finding out that the two people you hated most were in fact one and the same. Of course she was also pissed at me for dating Nikki in the first place and especially for not telling her.

Counterweight sat upside down on the ceiling as though it were the floor, watching all the rest of us with a look of amusement and occasionally offering smart ass observations that no one appreciated at the moment.

I just sat there feeling completely stunned, not sure what to think or feel about Nikki being Ladybug. On the one hand, I cared a great deal about Nikki and couldn't imagine her doing anything to intentionally hurt me. On the other hand, I remembered all those times I'd fought Ladybug. And now Ladybug just saved my life twice, leaving me all the more confused. I no longer had any idea of who Nikki really was or even how much of our relationship was real.

I couldn't help but thinking about the clues I'd completely missed. There was that energy gun she'd brought to the Dump while we were testing my powers. There was the tattoo of a ladybug on her ankle that I hadn't thought anything about. Were there other clues...bigger ones that I'd completely overlooked?

Nikki stepped into the room wearing a black sweat suit and limping as she walked. When we'd stripped her out of her armor we found that she'd been bruised pretty good, but was otherwise unhurt. She had insisted on coming home, though to get some clean clothes since she apparently wore the suit in nothing more than her underwear.

"Here you go," Nikki said, setting a cup of coffee in front of me then passing cups to others before sitting down and having a sip of her own. No one else touched their coffee though and just watched her suspiciously. Nikki noticed this and said, "It's okay Kelly... I didn't poison it or spit in it or any of the other things you must be thinking..."

Catalyst gasped at the use of her real name and glared at me. "You told her..."

"Erin told me no such thing," Nikki smiled wickedly. "After I found out she used to be Kid Kaboom, it was easy figuring out the rest of you. After all, you used to hang out together all the time back in high school..." Then she smiled a little more pleasantly and added, "Don't worry... I have absolutely no intention of telling anyone else. I just wanted to be clear and up front about this so you can take off those silly masks." Kelly grimaced and reluctantly took off her mask, but Dodger hesitated. "You too Jeff..."

"Now tell us," Catalyst demanded. "What are you involved in?"

"Nothing really," Nikki shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee, then looking around at all of us. Her gaze settled on me the longest and she looked self-conscious. "I've been retired for some time now. In fact, I haven't even worn my armor in over a year."

"And what about me?" I asked quietly, trying to hide the feelings of betrayal I felt. "Was any of it real?"

Nikki winced, then looked me in the eyes and said, "All of it was real..." She shook her head, looking appologetic. "I had no idea you were Kid Kaboom until after that fight with Brick. When I found out, I completely freaked out. I was afraid that you would find out who I was and..." She paused and stared down into her coffee. "But I didn't want to just abandon you when you were going through all this... In spite of the past, I really do care about you..." She looked up and met my eyes again and I saw her eyes were tearing up.

"Bullshit," Dodger exclaimed. "You should go to jail..."

"For what?" Nikki glared at him defensively.

"Maybe for that building you blew up the first time we met," Catalyst suggested with a smug grin."

Nikki just laughed at that. "My father owned the building and it was slated for demolition in a few months anyway. In the long term, all I did was save him the cost of hiring a demolition company."

"And how about the gas station you blew up?" Dodger asked.

"If you remember right," Nikki pointed out with a smirk, "It was Charger who blew it up when he attacked me and missed..." Then she shrugged and pointed out, "Besides, most of the crimes I did commit were done as a minor..."

Catalyst grimaced and looked as though she were about to argue. However I asked, "Why...? Why Ladybug?"

Nikki stared at me for a moment before giving a faint nod and sighing. She leaned back a little and told me, "Ladybug was the nickname my father gave me when I was just a child...before my mother died and became distant." She closed her eyes for several seconds before adding, "I've always been fond of ladybugs...though whether that was because of my childhood nickname or if I was given the nickname because of it I no longer remember."

"I told you what it was like for me," Nikki told me, seeming to ignore the others. "I felt like I had to be perfect...that I had to be what everyone else wanted me to be. I had to look and behave a certain way regardless of how I really felt. I have a genius level IQ, but played the part of a near bimbo because my father doesn't think women should be smart. And Heaven help me if anyone ever found out I was a lesbian."

"What?" Dodger gasped in surprise.

"Sorry, but you were never my type," Nikki chuckled, then gave an appraising look at Catalyst. "She was though..." At Catalyst's look of surprise and Counterweight's snicker, Nikki shrugged, "That's the reason I was such a bitch to you..." Then she grinned, "Don't worry though, I got over you a long time ago." With that she looked at me again with an expression that made me blush.

Catalyst was left speechless as Nikki continued, "I felt trapped and was extremely frustrated with my life. I first became Ladybug partly to show off what I could actually do and partly to get my father's attention. That's why I blew up his unused building and got your attention instead." Nikki smiled at that. "I actually enjoyed fighting with you all... It gave me an outlet for all my built up frustrations as well as a way to show off my inventions."

"When the Crusaders disappeared," Nikki leaned back and frowned, "I found that I no longer had much reason to continue as Ladybug. I tried for awhile, but it wasn't the same." She shrugged. "Since I was going off to college I decided to finally confront my father. I came out of the closet and told him that I wasn't going to pretend to be someone I wasn't anymore." At this point she paused to sip her coffee again, looking a little upset. I knew that she was never happy talking about her relationship with her father. "He disowned me."

"I can't believe it," Dodger exclaimed in disgust. "Our arch enemy was nothing more than a prom queen with daddy issues..."

"And the artful Dodger was nothing more than a skinny nerd who used to get shoved in lockers," Nikki quickly responded. Then as an afterthought she added, "Not to mention a stalker. After all, you did once ask me out on a date four times in one day...after I made it clear I wasn't interested the first time. You do realize that constitutes sexual harrassement?"

"You didn't?" Catalyst glared at Dodger in disgust, though whether it was for harassing Nikki back then or for having asked her out in the first place I had no idea.

"Anyway," Nikki continued as, though she hadn't been interrupted, "there was absolutely no point in being Ladybug anymore so I hung up my armor and decided to go on with my life. I had no intention of ever being Ladybug again until this mess started."

"You really expect us to believe you had nothing to do with those robots?" Catalyst snorted skeptically. "After all, they have a certain resemblance to your armor."

"I never said I had nothing to do with them," Nikki said quietly, frowning as she stared down it the cup of coffee she held in her hands. After a moment she looked up and told us, "I designed them...but I didn't build them and I certainly didn't send them out."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Counterweight asked, flipping from the ceiling and landing back on the floor. I let out a sigh of relief at that since she'd been sort of annoying sitting up there.

"It means that I designed a robot that I called the scarab," Nikki responded after a few seconds. "I even built a prototype. However," she looked at me then Catalyst and Dodger, "the Crusaders disappeared before I ever got to test it out on them. When I retired, I left the prototype locked up in my work shop...without ever having field tested it."

"Bullshit," Dodger exclaimed.

"I had no idea they were the monsters accompanying Brick until Erin let me look at some of the pieces," Nikki frowned with a shake of her head. "Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. And for the record, I also designed most of Brick's armor as well...though I never built it. I'd designed an augmentation suit...a suit of armor to augment physical strength. However I thought it would have been too cumbersome so I abandoned the project. Whoever actually built the armor made some changes to the design because I didn't even recognize it when I saw Brick."

"So you designed these things, but never built them," I said, trying not to let my conflicted emotions come into my voice. "What the hell does that mean then?"

"It means," Nikki said with a grimace and a look of determination, "that someone got into my workshop and is using my work." Then she suddenly paused and muttered, "Shit..."

"You look like one of those cartoon light bulbs just appeared over your head," Counterweight said. "Or maybe like you have really bad constipation..."

"Shut up," Catalyst told Counterweight with a smile as she elbowed her in the ribs.

"I know who it is," Nikki said after a moment. "I know who is behind everything..." Then she gave me a steady look as she added, "Including Doctor McKormick's murder... And I know why."

"What?" we all asked at once they began bombarding her with questions.

Dodger broke through the talk by announcing, "Then the next step will probably be to check out the workshop."

We all turned to stare at Nikki at that. After all, after all the times we'd fought Ladybug we never had any idea where her real headquarters really was. All we were able to find were small outposts that she'd use with the intention of having us eventually find them.

"I'll help you with this," Nikki said with a grim expression, "but I'm not telling you everything I know just yet... If I did, you'd all just leave me behind. You don't trust me and with good reason."

"She's got a point." Counterweight nodded.

"You're injured and your armor is gone." Catalyst glared at Nikki. "You'd just get in our way. Now who is behind this and where do we find them?"

Nikki just raised an eyebrow and gave her a wry look. "Ironic that you should be the one talking about my getting in the way. Of course if you were really interested in making sure I was useful you'd offer to give me powers..." Then Nikki held out a hand, "Not that I want any or would expect you to ever do so. The truth is you just don't want me involved."

"You've got that right," Catalyst exclaimed.

"Well I've got news for you," Nikki glared at her, "I'm already involved far more than you. Brick tried killing me, they tried kidnapping someone I care for," she glanced over at me before turning her attention back to Catalyst, "and weapons I invented are being used. You won't believe it, but it was never my intention to hurt people..." Then she turned and walked out of the room, calling back, "And if you think I'm helpless without my armor...then you are sadly mistaken."

"Way to go," Dodger told Catalyst. "If we piss her off too much she may not help us."

"Like I'd ever expect Nicole Castle to help me," Catalyst grimaced, "much less Ladybug."

"But she already has been," I pointed out quietly. I looked at Catalyst and Dodger and reminded them, "She made a jammer to keep them from finding me. She made the scanner that let us find those scarabs before they caused too much damage. And of course, she saved my ass."

"And a cute ass it is too," Nikki said as she stepped back into the room, holding a red backpack. She set it down on the floor, then held out a can of spray paint and painted several black spots on it. "That's a little more appropriate I think..."

"I guess Ladybug is joining us after all," Counterweight commented.

Nikki nodded, then bent over and reached under her couch where she pulled out the same energy gun that she'd used to test my force field at the Dump. She look at it for a moment, then offered it to Catalyst.

"To increase your offensive abilities if neccessary," Nikki said out coldly, pointing to knob on the side. "On low power it's a stunner. On full power you should be able to pierce a scarabs armor as long as you hit them in the weak spots like the neck and joints."

"Don't I get one too?" Dodger asked, patting the batons that were currently holstered. "These don't do much good against those robots either."

"In spite of what you may think," Nikki told him with a wry look, "I don't keep a fully stocked armory in my home."

It didn't take much longer for the rest of us to get ready to go. Of course Nikki was still hurting from the hits she'd taken for me, but she'd made it perfectly clear that she was coming along regardless.

By this time my powers had returned, so I flew through the air beside the metal plate that Counterweight was using to transport everyone else. I kept looking at the plate, watching Nikki giving directions and noticing just how uncomfortable everyone looked. I was somewhat relieved not to have to ride on that metal flying carpet with them, though I also felt a little guilty for not being there with Nikki. I wasn't sure why I felt that way since I wasn't even sure what I felt about her anymore.

We flew in the direction of the shipping yard where we'd fought the scarab robots then veered away at the last minute. It was less than a mile away from the shipping yard that we passed over a cluster of two story office buildings then began to descend, landing near a small group of other buildings that were tucked away behind the offices. It looked like part of an old abandoned factory and several warehouses that had once been part of it.

"I know this place," I scowled as I looked around. I pointed to the office buildings and told Nikki, "That's where the old building was you blew up...back when we first fought you."

Nikki climbed off the metal plate and let out a sigh of relief, though whether it was relief at being on the ground again or being able to step away from the others I couldn't be certain. She looked at me and nodded.

"The building I destroyed had once been the old office section of the factory complex," she said, gesturing around us. "My father had half the old factory leveled to build those offices." Then she gestured to the small abandoned factory building. "This is where my old workshop is..."

"Right here?" Dodger exclaimed in surprise. "We were damn near on top of it..."

"I know," Nikki smirked. Then after a moment she added, "At least you won't have to worry about collateral damage to the buildings." She gestured to the factory and the warehouses which looked almost as, though they were ready to start falling down on their own.

"This place is a dump," Catalyst scowled, "but I don't think the owner would appreciate us leveling everything..."

"I don't really mind," Nikki smiled innocently. When we all stared at her, she explained, "Technically I own this property."

"Technically?" I asked.

Nikki shrugged. "My father split the property in half and then renovated half of it. He put the other half in my name for tax purposes." She hesitated a moment before admitting, "I shuffled some of the paperwork around out of spite and he ended up passing away before he was ever able to take it back."

"For being disowned," I mused, "your dad sure did leave you a lot."

"You probably killed him," Catalyst spat out.

Nikki suddenly snapped around and glared at her furiously. "Do not EVER say that!" She advanced towards Catalyst, looking as though she were going to hit her. "In spite of what I may have done in the past... I loved my father and would have never have hurt him."

Catalyst took a nervous step back and gulped, apparently realizing that she'd gone too far. "I...I'm sorry..."

Nikki grimaced and turned away, though I knew her well enough to know how much that accusation hurt. I think that she did feel somewhat guilty over his death, as, though her confronting him and no longer being his perfect daughter had somehow contributed to his heart attack.

"Are you okay?" I asked her gently.

Nikki nodded and wiped away the tears that were threatening to form. "I know you probably hate me now," she told me with a resigned expression. "When this is over...if you don't ever want to see me again I'll understand." Then Nikki turned and started walking towards the building with a grim expression, calling out, "Be careful. Anyone who has access to my workshop has access to more than just the scarabs."

Catalyst watched her for a moment then turned to me and quietly said, "I guess I never thought of Nicole Castle as a real person before..." I could imagine that she hadn't thought of Ladybug that way either. I know I hadn't.

"Think of her as Nikki," I told her, not taking my eyes off Nikki. "She's a completely different person than Nicole." Then I forced a smile and added, "And she really didn't like being Nicole," before I started towards the factory building as well.

We had barely moved any closer to the building when the big metal doors on the side began to slide open with a loud creaking sounds that indicated they needed some serious oiling. Before the doors had even finished opening all the way though some of the scarab robots began to march out and towards us. At first it only looked like a few, but as the door widened more we saw that there were even more. There were nearly two dozen of the scarab robots slowly coming towards us.

"Oh shit," Nikki exclaimed. "My workshop facilities would have to be pushed to the limit for a year to create this many scarabs..."

The scarabs didn't attack us, though and stopped about halfway between us and the door they'd come through. It looked almost as, though they were waiting for something which didn't make me feel good. A few seconds later I saw what they were waiting for...or who. A female figure flew out from the factory door and came to where the scarabs were and hovered above their heads, letting us all get a good look at her.

This newcomer wore chitenous armor that was very similar to Ladybug's, but it was painted pink with some gold trim. But where Ladybug's helmet had no real facial features other than the red eye lenses, this woman's helmet had a gold plated face mask that looked like a woman's face and she had gold metal cables which came out from it and swept down the back looking like hair.

One of the most noticeable differences between her armor and Ladybug's was on the back. Where Ladybug's pack looked like a ladybug shell, the woman in front of us had a pair of large butterfly wings. They were transparent and shimmered with a rainbow of colors. The wings as well as the armor they were attached to were ones I'd seen before.

"Butterfly," I exclaimed along with Catalyst and Dodger.

Butterfly was another one of our old enemies and one I should have suspected once I realized that Ladybug wasn't behind Brick and the robots. She had worked for Ladybug on several occasions, acting as a henchman...henchwoman or sidekick...whatever the appropriate term was. Butterfly even had similar abilities to Ladybug, though her flying was done through a different method so she couldn't fly as fast or as high, but she was a lot more stable and could absorb ambient energy through the wings to do some interesting tricks.

I quickly glanced to Nikki who stood there with a grim expression on her face, not looking the least bit surprised to see Butterfly here. When she said she knew who was behind this it looked like she hadn't been bluffing.

"I know two of you," Butterfly exclaimed in a feminine and very sexy tone, gesturing to Catalyst and Dodger. "And your costume looks familiar at least..." She pointed to me then seemed to stare at me, though it was hard to tell since her face was just a metal face plate. "But it's not just a costume is it... You really are Kid Kaboom..."

"It's just Kaboom," I exclaimed, clenching my fists and charging my powers.

"I never would have guessed Kid Kaboom would be the one infected by my nanites," Butterfly said. "Rather ironic really... But it does explain Brick's difficulty in acquiring you for me..." Then she looked at all of us and announced, "So you are the new Crusaders..."

I just stared at Butterfly for a moment, absorbing what she'd said about the nanites. So she really was behind Doctor McKormick's death and my sex change. She was the one who had all the answers. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was going to beat the answers out of her if I had to. One good thing about being a chick now as that I could feel free to actually hit girls if I had to.

However before I could demand to know more, Butterfly ordered, "Destroy them all...even Kaboom. I can take the nanites from her corpse."

All of the scarab robots began to move again, raising their arms to begin attacking. However Nikki suddenly yelled out, "I don't think so..." And with that she whipped her backpack off with a swift and smooth motion, then unzipped it. The moment her backpack was open, several dozen giant ladybugs began to fly out.

"What the hell?" I gasped in surprise.

It took me several seconds to realize that these giant ladybugs were actually robots, each one about 4 inches long. It took me a few more seconds to realize that these robot ladybugs were the same devices I'd seen Nikki working on in her condo, now all put together and painted. The swarm of robot ladybugs quickly separated and spread out, going to the scarabs and then sticking to them like magnets. Most of them seemed to go to the scarab's chests and only one or two of them seemed to stick on each robot.

"Hold back a moment," Nikki called out to us, reaching into a side pocket of her backpack and pullout out a gun that was a match for the one she'd given Catalyst.

"I thought you said you didn't have anymore of those," Dodger blurted out when he saw her energy gun.

Nikki just grinned. "No...I said I didn't have an armory in my home."

Suddenly all of the ladybug robots exploded at once, destroying most of the scarabs in the process. A few scarabs had survived with various levels of damage and fewer still had come through this completely intact. I didn't wait for an invitation before jumping at the nearest moving scarab and punching it in the chest with all my explosive power.

Catalyst was firing her blaster at the stomach of one of the robots, though it only seemed to be burning and blistering its black metal armor a little. She was grimacing in frustration and muttering a few curses that I could barely make out.

"Aim for the weaker spots," Nikki told her, firing a blast at the neck of one of the robots and causing its head to go lopsided and messing with its balance as it tripped over one of the destroyed scarabs and fell to the ground. "Or shoot the chest in the same spot long enough to penetrate the armor." And with that she demonstrated on another of the scarabs, firing her gun at the same spot on its chest until it suddenly froze and then collapsed to the ground motionless. "Their power units are in the chest and if you take them out you take out the whole scarab."

"Gotcha," Catalyst exclaimed, turning to another scarab to follow Nikki's example.

It took us barely more than a minute to finish wiping up the rest of the scarab robots. That just left Butterfly to deal with. She was already starting to fire energy blasts, hitting me with them since I was her primary target due to the nanites in my body, though I still had no idea why. However Nikki had another ace up her sleave to deal with Butterfly.

"Omega, alpha, november, three, seven, one," Nikki called out.

Suddenly Butterfly's attack's ceased and she dropped from the sky and hit the ground hard. She got back to her feet, but scrambled around in confusion, grabbing at her helmet for a moment yelling, "I can't see..."

"Did you really think I'd give you a suit of armor I couldn't deactivate?" Nikki asked with a smirk.

Butterfly scrambled to remove her helmet so she could see us, but when she did I gasped in shock at the sight. Instead of a woman's face like I was expecting, it was a dark haired young man looking back at us with an expression of rage. Even stranger than that was the fact that he looked familiar, though I couldn't place from where.

"Eddie?" Dodger blurted out in shock.

I stared at Dodger then back at Butterfly, suddenly realizing where I'd seen her...him before. This was Eddie Lewis, one of the guys I'd gone to school with. I remembered him now, a skinny nerdy kid who used to hang around with Jeff occasionally. For the most part though, the only thing I really remembered about him was that he just came off as wimpy and sort of girly at times.

"You've been very busy Eddie," Nikki told Butterfly with a glare. "And you never should have broken into my workshop."

"Who are you?" Butterfly demanded, the sexy female voice now gone along with his helmet. He held out his hand out to fire a blast of energy, though nothing came. Nikki really had turned off the Butterfly armor.

Nikki just held up her backpack and answered, "You don't recognize me without my armor, do you?"

"Ladybug," Butterfly gasped in realization. Then his eyes suddenly went wide in recognition. "Nicole Castle?"

"Correct on both counts," Nikki smirked.

Butterfly's eyes just opened wider. "Impossible... Nicole was a bimbo... Ladybug can't be the prom queen..."

"Why is it always the prom queen?" Nikki demanded angrily. "Why is that always the first thing that people think of? Is my being the prom queen the only thing about me worth remembering?"

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded, staring at Butterfly in confusion. "Butterfly is a guy?"

"Oh yes," Butterfly said, looking almost smug, "do tell these ignorant Crusaders what's really going on. Personally, I'm more curious about you... How did the PROM QUEEN get to be my old empoyer?" He made sure to emphasize the 'prom queen' part then added, "And how did you end up with THEM."

Nikki scowled for a moment before telling us, "Eddie Lewis is transgendered and believes he was born the wrong gender. I found out about him back in high school and recognized a kindred spirit...someone else who was frustrated with their live and with being who everyone else thought they should be. So I approached him as Ladybug and recruited him to work with me. I even gave him the Butterfly armor, designed to look like a woman so he could at least have a semblance of the female form he really wanted..." Then she stared at Eddie for a moment before saying, "However I thought you were dead. I heard the Black Sheep got you..."

"He hurt me pretty bad," Butterfly admitted with a strangely amused expression. "He just didn't kill me. By the time I healed up and came back though you were gone and everything was locked up. I thought someone finally killed you..."

"No," Nikki responded grimly. "I just decided to retire." Butterfly just snorted at that. "I knew someone had been paying Doctor McKormick under the table so I can assume you were his silent partner...helping fund his research so you could use it to get the body you always wanted. What I don't understand then is why you killed him."

"Because he wanted more money," Butterfly responded casually. "He wasn't going to give me the nanites unless I kept funding him long enough for him to cure himself first. So I killed him and took my nanites."

"Then why destroy all his notes?" I demanded. I was finally getting the answers I wanted as to how this happened to me and why, though it didn't really make me feel any better. I clenched my first and charged it up. "What about other people like you? Now they can't use the nanites." Of course what I was really thinking about was the fact that we couldn't use Doctor McKormick's research to change me back.

"What about them?" Butterfly asked, not seeming bothered at all by this. "I'm only interested in how they can help me...and I wasn't about to leave any chance that someone else could reverse them." Then he glared at me with an expression of rage and jealousy mixed. "Those nanites were never meant for you.... They're mine...and once I rip them out of you I'll be able to repurpose them for myself as they were originally intended for."

"You do realize," Counterweight pointed out with a smirk, "if you hadn't killed this doctor guy and destroyed all his notes, then you could just have gone back for more..."

Butterfly just shrugged and responded, "Hindsight." Then he turned and glared at Nikki and demanded, "How can you possibly be siding with them? You're the one who started this... You're the one who gave me this armor."

"I know," Nikki grimaced. "But you broke into my workshop and used my weaponry for this..." Then her eyes narrowed dangerously and she added, "And more importantly...you went after someone I care about."

"You're going away for a long time for this," Dodger said, his voice grim. I could easily imagine what he felt at discovering his old friend was our old enemy Butterfly. After all, I was going through the same thing myself. I glanced over at Nikki.

However Butterfly just started laughing. Then he actually grinned at Nikki. "Did you think I wouldn't find that back door you put into this armor? Or that I wouldn't figure a way around it?"

Butterfly quickly put his helmet back on and the wings on his back began to glow faintly. A moment later he began to lift off from the ground again.

"I thought you shut her...him down," Catalyst exclaimed.

"I did," Nikki gasped in surprise.

"I couldn't stop you from shutting the armor down," Butterfly exclaimed, the sexy female voice now back. "But I could set it to reboot afterwards and lock you out for good. All I had to do was keep you talking long enough for my armor to reboot..."

Suddenly Dodger teleported away just an instant before a brilliant flash of light burst forth from Butterfly's wings and continued to strobe for several seconds, leaving me and everyone else completely blind. I grabbed my eyes and screamed out, hoping she didn't blast us while we were helpless. Of course she'd used this trick in the old days and it drained her power too much to fire energy blasts for a short time, but I had no idea if that was still the case.

"Don't worry," Dodger's voice yelled, "I avoided her strobe... I'll get her...him."

My vision quickly began returning, faster than I remember from the last time this happened. I guessed my nanites were helping me with that, though I hardly had time to think about it. Instead I looked up to where Butterfly was flying away. Dodger had teleported up to him and was clinging to his back, hitting Butterfly's wings with his batons.

Dodger was able to damage the wings enough that Butterfly began falling, though he wasn't falling alone. And worse, Dodger was caught in a burst of light from the wings as he cracked them and now he looked as, though he was completely limp...perhaps even unconscious. I gasped at that, knowing that Dodger's powers wouldn't help him now. For one thing, his danger sense and instant teleporting didn't work when he was unconscious and for another, there was no way he could survive that kind of a fall. Even if he teleported to the ground right now the momentum would come with him and turn him into paste.

"Dodger," I called out frantically, flying towards him as fast as I could.

I quickly caught up to Dodger, but couldn't just grab him without risking another sudden stop so I had to grab hold of him and continue falling with him, using my power to veer our direction to the side while slowing down at the same time. Once I was sure I had his wild fall under control, I was able to bring him back to the ground with the others.

"Thanks," Dodger muttered, still looking a bit dazed. "I would have been fine though..."

"Yeah, sure," I snorted, but didn't argue the point with him further.

I looked over to where Butterfly had hit the ground hard enough to completely shatter both wings. However he'd been able to slow his fall enough that it hadn't killed him or even completely destroyed his armor as a fall from that height would have done to one of the scarabs. He was getting to his feet again, looking a bit wobbly as he rushed back to the factory building.

"Maybe you should have called him the Cockroach instead of the Butterfly," Counterweight commented. "He seems pretty hard to kill."

"Damn," Nikki grimaced, "I really wish I still had my armor..."

We were all very cautious as we rushed into the factory behind Butterfly and there was no need for Nikki to remind us to be careful again. After all, she'd told Dodger she didn't keep an armory in her home. Instead it was all stored right here and was in the hands of Butterfly.

I stepped inside the factory building and looked around in surprise, noticing that the inside looked a lot newer and in better shape than the outside. The half of the building we'd just entered into was largely open floor space that was used to store various familiar looking items. One large area seemed to have been where the scarabs had been standing around waiting since I could see foot prints broken into the concrete in a few places.

"It's like a museum from the old days," Catalyst exclaimed, looking at an aircraft that was shaped like a ladybug. This was a familiar looking vehicle that still had some dents and tears in it from the last time Ladybug had used it to get away from us during one of her schemes.

"It's a good thing Rachael isn't here," Dodger said, gesturing to three robot tarantulas sitting in the corner.

Each robot tarantula was about 4 feet tall and looked menacing. I winced slightly at the sight, remembering what a pain it had been to fight them...or at least others like them since they actually spat out a liquid epoxy that would stick us in place like super glue. We'd had to go through a large swam of the things at one time and they left a huge mess behind. I smiled faintly, though as I thought of what Dodger had said, knowing that Rachael would have had a difficult time indeed. After all, as Guardian Girl she might have been strong and tough, but she still had a fear of spiders...especially after we'd dealt with these ones.

"I always wondered why you didn't try those things on us again," I told Nikki as I gestured to the spiders. "We just barely stopped them all..."

"The point was never really to beat you," Nikki admitted with a selfconscious smile. "Although I admit I certainly tried. My primary goal was to show off what I could do and after I'd done that I just wanted to move to my next idea..."

I just nodded and looked around, recognizing a lot of things from our fights. There were several vehicles besides the ladybug air craft as well as more robots. There was even a rack against one wall that was lined with various rifles and energy blasters. However there was no sign of Butterfly.

After this section there were a lot of machines set up that actually made this look like a factory, though I doubt these machines were the same ones the factory had come with. I could see what looked like three scarab robots in various states of assembly, though none of them looked put together enough to be any kind of a threat.

Then we came to the section that I think really was Nikki's workshop since there were several tables and benches lined with equipment similar to what she had in her condo, though there was definitely a lot more of it. Most of it all seemed to be covered with various amounts of clutter and half finished projects.

"I haven't been here in awhile," Nikki mused as she looked around. "I kind of miss the old place..."

"Do you miss trying to kill us too?" Catalyst asked, though it seemed more teasing than hostile at the moment.

Nikki just grinned back. "Only when I'm having a particularly bad day."

Then I suddenly caught sight of Butterfly in the corner, climbing into a chair set in a large black device that looked sort of piled up. The chair pulled back into the device and a black shell lowered down completely encasing him inside.

"Oh no," Nikki exclaimed. "Don't tell me he fixed that damn thing..."

"Fixed what thing?" I demanded, not liking the note of fear in her voice.

Just then the large black thing that Butterfly had climbed into began to move and get up, revealing that it was actually another robot...looking very similar in design to the scarabs, but being much larger...and not to mention just downright scarier looking. It stood over twenty feet tall and was vaguely human in shape, but was hunched over. One of its arms was missing from the elbow down and was replaced with a nasty looking energy cannon. Its body was all black chitenous armor, though it had a pair of glowing red eyes and a red hourglass symbol painted on its chest at the spot Butterfly had climbed inside of it, making the whole thing resemble a giant black widow spider.

"My ultimate weapon," Nikki whispered. "But it used to be painted like a ladybug..." She actually sounded offended by that.

"Your ultimate weapon?" Dodger exclaimed. "I sure as hell don't recognize it... Is this something else you made after we retired?"

"No," Nikki shook her head. "I just never dared use it... It was too dangerous..." Then she looked at the rest of us and said, "I think now would be a good time to run."

It said something for the size of the room that this robot was able to stand to its full height and still have at at least another twenty feet between its head and the ceiling. However with everything else that filled the place there wasn't much room for it to maneuver.

The robot Butterfly was piloting turned and raised the arm with the energy cannon and fired it right at Dodger who of course teleported before it could hit him. Instead the blast went back and hit one of the half completed scarab robots...disintigrating it and half the assembly machine that it was being built by.

"Holy shit," Counterweight exclaimed. "Did you see that thing...?"

Butterfly's voice began laughing from the giant robot, sounding like the sexy female voice his armor generated rather than his real one. "Turn yourself over to me now Kaboom and I might let your friends live."

Butterfly then fired another powerful blast of energy, this time at Counterweight who was able to fly out of the path. The blast hit some sort of armor that was sitting against the wall and completely obliterated it...along with a small section of the wall behind it.

"She's not doing that," Catalyst exclaimed, firing her energy gun at Butterfly, though it did no good at all against the powerful robot.

Dodger appeared beside her with an energy rifle from the rack we'd seen earlier. "This is more like it," he exclaimed opening fire on the robotic giant as well, though doing nothing more than scorching the armor and blistering it slightly.

"The armor is too strong," Nikki scowled, not even bothering to fire.

"Damn," Counterweight exclaimed as she moved out of the way of another blast. "There's not enough room to maneuver in here..."

I grimaced and joined the fight, opening up with my explosive blasts, but not expecting them to do much. I'd needed to get up close and personal to take down the scarab robots and this thing was a lot bigger and tougher. I was really going to have to work at this one.

"Don't let it hit you," Nikki called out to me. "Your force field won't be able to take it..."

I flew straight at the giant robot and slammed both my firsts into it's chest, creating a nice explosion that scorched the metal and blistered it badly, but didn't do nearly as much damage as I'd hoped. Butterfly then turned and hit me with the arm, sending me flying halfway across the room until I slammed into some machinery. I was sitting there dazed for a moment and would have been an easy target to blast, but Butterfly didn't do that.

"That's right," I grimaced. "That asshat wants me alive...or at least whole enough to take the nanites from." I grinned faintly at that. It wasn't much, but it was an advantage.

Butterfly fired several more blasts of energy, destroying several more pieces of machinery in the process. Fortunately he hadn't hit any of us or we would have been dead with one hit. I wasn't sure if this was because he was just showing off his raw firepower or if he was just a shitty shot, nor did I really care. Either way, we had to stop him before someone got killed.

"Where's the weak spot?" I called to Nikki. "That thing has gotta have an achilles heel or something..."

"Yes," Nikki nodded her agreement. "Just not on the outside."

"Damn," I spat out then charged straight at Butterfly, calling out, "Hey ashat... I'm over here..." I knew he wouldn't risk killing me with that energy blaster and losing the nanites for good so that made me the perfect one to get his attention off the others.

I slammed into Butterfly with all the explosive power I could generate and muttering a few profanities when it didn't work. I flew back while the giant battle suit advanced towards me. Apparently Butterfly had changed tactics and just decided to grab hold of me. One look at the hand that hadn't been replaced with the cannon and I doubted I'd be able to break free from it.

Just then Butterfly tripped over one of the work benches and the robot fell onto its face, letting me suddenly see an opening that I wasn't about to ignore. I flew to the robot's back and punched it in the back of the neck with as much explosive power as I could. After two punches to the same spot I'd damaged the head and it sort of tilted at a bad angle, though it didn't come completely off. However it was at this point that Butterfly was able to get the thing back to its feet.

"That should slow it down, but it won't stop it," Nikki exclaimed. "But one way or another, this will be over soon..."

"What do you mean?" Catalyst demanded.

"He'll either get us soon," Nikki scowled then gestured to the building that now had several missing supports as well as holes in the walls due to Butterfly's attacks. "The building will fall in on us. Or..." She hesitated a moment before adding, "That damn thing will blow up and kill us all... We have to stop Eddie or get away before that happens..."

"What do you mean blow up?" Dodger demanded.

"The power system was never stable," Nikki explained. "I nearly killed myself while I was testing it out. I probably could have redesigned it and fixed the problem, but I realized the whole thing was just too dangerous, so just left it." She shook her head and muttered, "Too much chance of innocent people getting killed..."

"You hear that Butterfly," I called out. "You're in a walking bomb..."

"Climb out of there now before you kill yourself," Catalyst called out.

"And let you all just take me?" Butterfly laughed. "I don't think so. I just have to take care of you before the problem gets that far..." And with that he fired another blast of energy, destroying even more equipment and nearly hitting Dodger.

Nikki suddenly turned and ran away from the robot while Butterfly called after her in a mocking voice, "Ladybug Ladybug fly away home..."

"Nikki," I called out, partly feeling betrayed that she'd run off and abandon us like this yet also being thankful that she'd be safe. No matter what happened, she wouldn't get hurt.

Dodger suddenly teleported onto the robot's shoulders and opened fire with the energy rifle into the neck at point blank range, firing where I'd already damaged it. The robot suddenly shifted position to dislodge him and he teleported away only to teleport back a few seconds later and continue firing. Finally the head broke loose and just dangled there, held only by a thick cable that Dodger was able to sever with a few more blasts.

"Gotcha," Dodger exclaimed as he teleported away, appearing next to me and giving me a high five.

"Um guys," Counterweight said, "I think it's a bit soon to celebrate..."

I looked at the robot again and grimaced at the sight of it still moving around as though the loss of its head was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. When Nikki said it didn't have any weak spots on the outside she hadn't been kidding.

Butterfly fired another blast of energy at Dodger who suddenly disappeared leaving me to fly out of the way. There was now a gaping hole in the spot where I'd been standing. I knew I had to focus or I'd end up dead, so turned my full attention on the robot, firing several explosive blasts at it, not because I thought it would do much damage, but because it might distract Butterfly.

My idea worked because Counterweight was able to come up on the robot from the other side and grab hold. A moment later the whole robot began to float up, hitting the ceiling and then breaking through it. However the impact against the ceiling and Butterfly's struggling knocked Counterweight back, so that normal gravity reasserted itself on the robot and it came crashing back down to the ground with a massive thud that crushed the concrete beneath it.

The robot got back up, but was wobbly and even more awkward than before. My heart jumped with excitement as I realized that Counterweight's dropping it from that height had done more damage than all our previous attacks. Then the robot raised its cannon and fired another blast, this time its aim was badly off and something seemed wrong with the beam. Just then sparks began to come out of the robot's cannon as well as from all its joints. It stood there with a strange orange glow coming from its stomach.

"We finally broke the thing," I exclaimed triumphantly. "A few more hits should take it down..."

"I'm afraid that's not anything you did," Nikki exclaimed, running back to us by holding a large energy rifle similar to the one Dodger was still holding.

"You came back," I blurted out in surprise.

Nikki gave me a faint smile. "I never really left. I was just getting better armed." Then she gestured behind her and I saw the three robot tarantulas had followed her. Then her expression grew more grim as she added, "Eddie pushed it too far... The power system is overloading... We only have a couple minutes..."

"How do we stop it?" Dodger demanded. "You obviously did it before..."

"We can't." Nikki shook her head, then looked to the robot. "But Eddie can... Eddie..." she called out loudly to him. "You have to tear out the cards and cables under your seat..."

There was a long pause before Butterfly's voice called back. "You're lying... You can't stop me so you're trying to trick me..." However when a bunch of sparks began spitting out from where the head had been, he called out again, "I can't... I fixed it so you couldn't do that when I repaired this thing..." There was a hesitation before he added, "I thought it was a design flaw..."

"Then you have to get out of there," Nikki yelled to him.

"I can't," Butterfly yelled out, his artificially altered voice filled with panic. "The hatch won't open... It's stuck..."

"Damn," Nikki grimaced. "The safety locks are still in place and he removed the override..." Then she turned to the rest of us and said, "Get out of here now... RUN!"

"NO," Butterfly yelled, "if I can't leave, none of you are either..." The robot turned and fired another blast...or at least tried to since all that came out of the cannon was a small explosion and a burst of sparks that left half that arm in ruins. However that didn't seem to discourage Butterfly since he tried stumbling over and grabbing for us, though obviously the robot was much less responsive in its current condition.

Nikki held up a remote control and pushed a button and suddenly the three robot tarantulas jumped into action, charging at Butterfly's robot and spitting blasts of super sticky goo at it. The large robot found itself slowed down even more as this goo acted like some extreme super glue which held it to the floor. It could still move some and chunks of concrete were breaking loose before the glue did.

Catalyst, Dodger and Counterweight all rushed out of the building and I was about to until I noticed Nikki was trying to get to the robot. I hesitated, then turned and ran back for her. "You need to get out of here too," I told her.

"I need to get Eddie out of there." Nikki grimaced, holding up the blaster and muttering, "Maybe I can break the hatch open in time..." However from the look on her face I could see that even she didn't believe that.

Nikki ran towards the still struggling robot which was sparking more and the orange glow in its stomach actually looked as though it was melting the armor from the inside out. Suddenly Butterfly grabbed at her with the robot's good arm, not seeming to care that she was actually trying to help him. I quickly threw myself between them and punched the hand, causing it to burn and scorch as it was knocked away.

If there was one thing my power taught me it was how to recognize an explosion when it was about to happen. I took one look at the robot and knew the bang was about to happen. Without another word I grabbed Nikki and flew straight up with her, though the hole Butterfly and Counterweight had made in the roof.

"Come on," I snarled as I flew as fast as I could with Nikki, feeling the explosion occurring right behind us.

I glanced down and saw the wave of orange energy coming, nearly feeling the heat against the heels of my feet. I suddenly knew that even with my force field I probably wouldn't be able to survive being caught in that blast and there was absolutely no way in hell Nikki could. I pushed myself just a little faster, as fast as I could possibly go while carrying her until we were safe from the blast.

Once I was sure we were save, I let out a sigh of relief and began heading back towards the ground, clutching Nikki tightly while she was also holding onto me for dear life. We both let out a sigh of relief when we reached the ground and landed near where the others had gathered.

"Damn," I gasped as I turned to look at the factory building...or at least where it had stood. Now there was nothing more than a smoldering crater.

"My workshop," Nikki gasped, staring at the crater with a look of horror on her face, quietly adding, "Eddie..." Then she turned to look at me and exclaimed, "You saved my life..."

Nikki suddenly threw herself at me, grabbing me tight and giving me a long and passionate kiss. Of course kissed her back just as passionately, forgetting all about my friends who were standing back watching. After a minute though, Nikki pulled away with an embarrassed expression.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, "I forgot..."

"Do I look like I mind?" I asked her with a raised eyebrow, grabbing her for another kiss.

Catalyst muttered, "I really don't need to see this," while Counterweight and Dodger both simultaneously responded, "I don't mind."

Once we broke apart again, I told Nikki, "I don't know what to think of you being Ladybug..." She immediately gave me a hurt look, but I continued, "But you saved my life... You've done nothing but help me since you found out I used to be Kid Kaboom...before then even." I gestured down at myself and told her, "I don't know how I possibly would have managed this new body if it wasn't for you..."

"Erin..." Nikki started.

"I don't know about you being Ladybug," I cut her off, "but I like who you are now...and want to give it a shot."

Nikki stared at me for a moment as though not sure she believed me. "You mean it?"

"Yeah." I gave her a weak smile. "But we really need to talk..."

Just then Counterweight exclaimed, "Is that it? Is it over?"

I looked over and saw that she was still staring at the smoldering crater. I stared at it myself for several minutes, seeing no sign that anything at all had survived the blast other than a few shredded and melted pieces of metal. I thought about Butterfly caught in the middle of it and nodded faintly. There was absolutely no way he'd survived that blast, not being right at ground zero.

Then I closed my eyes and thought about everything that had been going on lately, about all the questions I'd had. I finally knew who killed Doctor McKormick and why. I knew that it was Eddie Lewis...Butterfly whom I'd saved from being hit by a car and who caused me to become infected with the nanites that had so drastically changed my body and life. And I knew he was the same one behind Brick and the monsters who'd been terrorizing the city. Then I opened my eyes and glanced over at Nikki, mentally adding that I also knew what had become of my old enemy Ladybug.

"Yeah," I said after a minute, letting out a sigh that was filled with exhaustion from all that had happened today. "It's finally over..."

I slowly walked down the hallway of my apartment building, hearing the click click with each step that came from the high heels I was wearing. I was still just a little self-conscious about the fact that I was wearing such feminine clothes as high heels and a short skirt, though I was getting used to them.

"Not like I have a lot of choice," I mused as I looked down at myself. These were the kind of clothes I had to wear for my job as a receptionist. It might not be a great job, but it was a hell of a lot better than being a janitor. Besides, it was only my day job.

"As opposed to my night job as Kaboom," I smirked, knowing that I liked that job a lot more.

Of course I might not admit it, but there were things about being a receptionist that I liked...beyond not having to scrub toilets and empty garbage cans. For one thing, everyone was much nicer to me and actually paid attention to me rather than pretended I wasn't there. I was well aware of the fact that this was just because the guys all hoped to get into my pants, but I still appreciated the kindness anyway.

It was hard to believe that I'd actually been a chick for over two months now and that I'd more or less gotten used to it. Of course I still felt self-conscious a lot of times and kept running into awkward situations such as when I accidentally walked into the guys restroom at the mall the other day.

Fortunately I had Nikki to help me continue adjusting to my new body and life. Things had been a little awkward with us at first, now that I knew of her past as Ladybug. However we'd managed to move past that and were even closer than ever before.

I smiled faintly as I thought about last night, blushing as I did so. Last night I'd actually played a little game of dress up with Nikki, wearing several different costumes and modeling them for her. As embarrassing as it had been, I'd dressed as a French maid, a cheerleader, and even a nurse. In fact I'd been dressed as a cat girl last night by the time we ended the game and began making out.

"Hard to believe." I shook my head as I thought of Nikki. My onetime archenemy was now my girlfriend and we were even talking about moving in together.

Of course the last two months had been filled with other things besides my getting a receptionist job or getting even more serious with Nikki. I've had to deal with a lot of problems caused by my transformation, the hardest one being explaining my transformation to my family. Things were still awkward whenever I went over for a visit, though they were getting a little better.

I have continued my career as Kaboom, but only as a solo hero rather than as a member of a team. Kelly and Thorn had gone back to college after their little vacation and without Kelly around Jeff was forced back into retirement as well. As a result I was back on my own again, so it was a good thing I hadn't run into someone like Megamax or anyone else too powerful for me to handle alone.

Of course things had changed a little since I now kept in contact with not only Kelly, but Thorn as well. Kelly and Nikki hadn't suddenly become friends or anything of the sort, though there was a certain respect now and they were polite to each other, though I wasn't sure just how much of that was for my sake.

In spite of the fact that Kelly and I were old friends, I talked with Thorn more often than I did with her. We had a lot in common and she had a lot of advice for me in adjusting to my new body and life. One of the things she'd been talking about lately was possibly starting a website where others like us could meet up online and share stories and advice. Personally I thought it was a waste of time since there couldn't possibly be more than a couple heroes who'd gone through sex changes.

When I reached the door of my apartment, I shook my head and went inside, pausing when I saw Nikki's jacket laying across my couch. I paused to look around, but didn't see her immediately.

"Nikki?" I called out.

"Back here," Nikki called from my bedroom. "But don't come in yet."

"Oh." I grinned, deciding that I liked the sound of that.

Nikki poked her head out the door and grinned. "You did such a nice show for me yesterday, I thought it was only fair to give you a fashion show too..."

"Sounds good to me." I licked my lips, sitting down on the couch and waiting.

A moment later the door opened and Nikki stepped out, wearing nothing but a skimpy red bikini with black spots and a pair of black stilletto heels. I smiled in amusement at the ladybug colors though for an entirely different reason as she posed for me.

"Very nice," I told her, not talking about the bikini.

Nikki just grinned. "I saw it in the store and couldn't resist."

"It's you," I laughed. "Definitely you..."

Nikki smirked at that, then came over and gave me a kiss. I was about to grab her and pull her down onto the couch with me, but she gently pulled away. "Not yet," she told me. "I have another new outfit I wanted to show you too..."

With that Nikki turned and sauntered back to my bedroom, taking her time and adding just a little extra sway to her ass for my benefit. If I'd still had a dick I would definitely be having a hard-on. As it was, my new parts were starting to respond.

Nikki took a bit longer to change than I would have expected and I was beginning to get impatient. Then she finally called out, "I wanted you to see this..."

Then Nikki stepped out of the room, not dressed in something skimpy or silky like I'd been hoping, but in something a lot harder. She was wearing her Ladybug armor, or at least a new version of it. It all looked a little more sleek and her helmet had changed. Her new helmet had an open space around her lower face so I could actually see her mouth and it had fake red hair coming from it as well, giving the impression that her helmet was actually just a black mask over her face rather than a full helmet

I stood up, not sure what to think of Nikki wearing the armor again. I trusted her and knew she wouldn't hurt me, though old memories were still there. "Ladybug," I said quietly.

"I thought I should rebuild my armor just in case," Nikki told me, reaching up and taking off her helmet. "I want to be able to help you if you ever need backup."

"I thought you were retired," I said carefully.

Nikki just grinned and began to pose in her armor. "From being a villain...yes." Then she winked at me. "But who knows...I just might be open to a new career."

I stared at Nikki for a moment, then grabbed her for a kiss. It was a bit awkward with her in the armor like that so I pulled back and said, "I could always use a new partner..."

After this Nikki stripped off her armor, revealing that she was wearing nothing but the bikini inside. This made her a whole lot easier to make out with, though even the bikini didn't stay on for very long either.

A few minutes later we were in the bedroom going at it with all the passion we could muster. Even as we began going at it I absently thought that this was the kind of lesbian sex scene that most red blooded men would give their left nut to get in the middle of, though I'd given up both of mine and then some to be a part of this.

When we were finished some time later, we curled up on the bed, both covered with body juices and exhausted from our long session. I smiled dreamily, savoring the afterglow and thinking of the multiple orgams, both of which were things about my new body that I absolutely loved.

Of course there were other things about my new body and life that I loved as well. I absolutely loved having my powers back and being able to be a hero again. I was living a dream that I'd long since been forced to give up on. And I also had a smart and sexy girlfriend who knew exactly what buttons to push to drive me into absolute ecstasy. Nikki had definitely taught me all the advantages of my new body and had helped me get comfortable with being a chick.

However I still thought of myself as a guy inside. In spite of how great everything was at the moment, I wasn't ready to give up on ever being a guy again. One day I might find a way to become a guy again, though I knew that if I did I might very well end up losing both my powers and Nikki. I'd hate to lose either of those things so didn't know what I'd do if I was ever given the choice. Because of that, I'd decided to just enjoy things as they were for now.

I couldn't help but sympathizing with Eddie Lewis...with Butterfly a bit. I could understand his situation a bit more and his frustration at being trapped in the wrong body. Unlike me, he didn't have the powers or someone like Nikki to help him find the good things about his body. If I didn't have Nikki, I couldn't help but wondering how things might have gone for me.

At the moment though I wasn't about to complain about the loss of my manhood. Sure, I kind of hoped that one day I'd get it back again, but that wasn't going to ruin my enjoyment of my current life and just how good it had become. After all, the glory days are here again.