Kaia the Argent Wing

When morning came, my back was sore and I was still dead fucking tired. Still, the captain wanted everyone out on the sports fields to give a speech. So, down we went.

There were a lot of people there, and more began to flow in as the minutes ticked by. Over to the east, the sun was beginning a climb that would throw the temperature up towards the mid eighties.

When it seemed like everyone was gathered, over their heads we could see the Captain climb up onto the steps of the workshop. People began to quiet down when they saw him waiting patiently, until finally there was dead quiet as the man who would decide our future began to speak.

"Ladies and gents, I hope you're all feeling at least somewhat rested. I know everything was done by the seat of our pants yesterday, but now it's time to think about the future a little. As the ranking member of emergency services in a time of crisis, I'll be maintaining command of the situation here. That being said, I'll not be a dictator! If you have any needs or concerns, you're welcome to speak to myself or the interim staff my wife is putting together in the admin building."

He waited for a few moments as a few people began to shout questions at him. When they realised he wasn't going to answer, they shut up and he was able to continue. "As you all know, the situation is unprecedented. Here's what we know so far. At ten sixteen in the morning yesterday, an eight point two earthquake smashed seemingly the entire eastern United States. Following that, all electronics cut out and have since refused to function. Then, the local wildlife began to mutate and multiply out of control. This is not an isolated incident either. Everywhere we have news from, the story is the same as ours."

At this point, people began to shout more questions at him, and a few sounded way too much like demands rather than questions.

"Please, people, please!" He shouted. "That's the bad news! As you all know, not only did… monsters begin to appear, but those over the rough age of sixteen gained a choice. Some were given… ah, I'll just say it, magical powers. A few among our number also gained insight into the strange new laws of reality we're forced to live with. Pieces taken from the monsters can be used to cast spells or what have you, along with being very effective when turned into weapons."

"As such, here is the plan. We believe that the entire United States government cannot have collapsed. They're too prepared and too organised for that, and by God I am a patriot. We're going to do what we can to stabilise our situation and look for more survivors. Oh, and to preempt the requests, if you didn't already bring your pets, we won't have the manpower to retrieve them. I'm sorry. As for keeping you all safe, we'll be sending out parties to find the resources we need so that our workshop folks can put them to use making weapons. So, if you wish to help, or you have useful information, please let us know!"

Pausing to take a breath gave everyone the opportunity to start shouting again, but once more his powerful voice cut them off. "Once we have critical supplies like weapons, food, and tools, we'll begin to look at improving the living situation in the gym and the classrooms. I'm not sure we'll be able to fix the toilets, though, so you'll have to keep flushing manually. I know, it's disgusting, but it's all we have. This is an emergency situation, things will be hard for a while, but I'm sure we can make it through this. Thank you for listening!"

Speech done, he stepped down from his makeshift podium and was immediately mobbed by scared, anxious people. Shit, what a mess.

"Yo guys, let's go find one of the staff and let them know we want to go out as a group," Ollie said, taking a few steps towards the admin offices.

To a lesser or greater extent, the others agreed with her and began to follow. Camillo was the one who noticed I wasn't following. "Kai?"

"I'm a crafter," I said wryly. "I'll probably need to stay here and make y'all some weapons and stuff."

Alec winced and displayed one of the many reasons I had a crush on him by walking over to give me a one-armed hug. "Sorry to leave you on your own again. We'll come back, I promise."

I leaned into the embrace a little and nodded. "I know. Bring me back some cool loot, okay?"

"Definitely," he agreed, and stepped back to follow everyone.

"Good luck out there!" I waved, then slumped and closed my eyes. Alone again.

I felt like I was becoming untethered from everything I knew… even my own damn body. I already missed the way things used to be. I missed being less aware of how loose and itchy it felt to wear this body, like I hadn't noticed the tag scratching at my neck for the longest time but now it was impossible not to notice.

"Heya, bud!" The cheerful voice snapped me out of my depressive spiral, and I opened my eyes to see April standing before me. "Feeling okay?"

"Just really tired," I sighed.

She chuckled darkly. "Same… that sleep was rough."

Ugh. I needed to be doing something. Ah, wait… we had a plan.

"I need to get out and be useful," I said, stomping my foot in determination. "What's the first thing you need from outside?"

She lit up instantly with excitement. "You could go to my metalworking shop and grab my tools. I have a gas welder somewhere, a few bottles of spare gas… but most importantly, I have a forge I think we could get hot enough to— fuck, but it takes gas… Ah! If you get as many of my thermal bricks as possible we can probably just make one. Yeah, that'll work."

"Details, April," I giggled— huh? Giggled? Why did I just call a laugh a giggle? I was going mad.

"Okay down Central Avenue you want to take Shallcross Street and there's a shop called Boyd's Metalworks. That's the shop. There's a big platform trolley in there you can load up with the really nice yellow bricks stacked in the back of the shop," she explained. "You want to also grab all the oxygen and acetylene tanks you can see. There probably won't be too many. The torch itself is this set of metal pipes with a few valves and shit. It's hung on a trolley that will probably also have two tanks strapped into it."

"Okay, I can do that," I nodded. "I'm going to grab whatever other useful tools I see too, obviously."

"Perfect," she smiled, flashing me a thumbs up.

Looking around at everyone, I realised that during this post-speech confusion was the perfect time to disappear. "I'm actually going to dip now, April. I think I can hop the back fence by the toke trees."

With a confused frown, she asked, "Toke trees?"

"Oh, yeah… see how there's the embankment that's meant to be overflow seating for the football field? Well, those trees behind it are where all the stoners would go to get high. Hence, toke trees."

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "High schoolers, man. Y'all come up with the weirdest shit that makes perfect sense."

"Hey, I graduated!"

"Yeah, yeah, get lost kiddo. I'll go run interference with Charles," she said, shooing me away.

Thankfully, the sports fields weren't just a flat expanse of grass. There were fences marking the football field, and a cute row of bedraggled hedges beside a path that ran all the way to the back. I set off at a brisk but hopefully innocent pace down that path.

To my surprise, I actually made it into those trees, and after making sure there was nobody to see, I ducked into the trees and scrambled up the brick wall. Was it a coincidence that there were several roughly carved handholds in the wall? Who was I to speculate? Let's just say that this wasn't my first time hopping the wall to escape school.

Once I was un-safe outside the walls, I crouched low and dashed to the other side of the street. Since the school occupied the whole block, the wall ran beside the sidewalk the entire way and I'd dropped directly into the open. The lots on the other side of the road were occupied by a few specialty shops and a couple houses. I made directly for one of those and scooted around into the back yard. It was a fairly nice two storey family home, and it appeared to be empty right now.

Approaching the back door, I tested the lock and almost jumped out of my skin when it actually opened. Cautiously, I pushed inwards and began to search. I had very specific targets. Namely, clothing. If anyone saw me out as Silver, it'd be extremely suspicious if she was wearing an identical outfit to me.

It took me a little while to find the master bedroom, but once inside I turned and gently closed the door.

I stood with my palm against the white-painted wood and closed my eyes. It was time to transform… but I… it was… fuck, my heart was starting to hammer at my ribcage like it wanted freedom.

Deep breaths, Kai. It's not even scary! You actually miss it, you miss being powerful, gorgeous, and strong.

Ugh. I flipped my class inside out.

Silver light radiated out of me, lighting the room like it was the bottom of a clear swimming pool. My hips expanded, my thighs along with them, and my chest pushed against the fabric of my hoodie.

The sensation of becoming Silver again… emotions flooded me faster than I could process them and I slumped to the floor, tears rolling down my cheeks. Oh my god, just… my waist! It was so thin, so… feminine!

My vision was blurry as heck, but when I raised my hands, I just laughed and flexed my fingers. So soft, so elegant, so strong! Forming a fist, I punched the carpet and wobbled, then pushed myself back to my feet. I felt… full to bursting, like I'd eaten an extremely delicious pizza way too fast, and it was all I could do to stand there and bask in the endorphins my brain was feeding me.

God, it was good to be me, to be Silver… no, to be Kai—a…? My stomach flipped, and I froze.

Kaia?

The feminisation of my name emptied my mind of everything but those four letters. Y—yeah… that was my name, Kaia. Silver was like, my superhero moniker or whatever, but since I was a girl, right now at least, my name was Kaia.

Kaia.