"Oh hey, the sign is still here," Peter comments, gesturing out beyond the front windshield. "Welcome to Florida, everyone! Or what's left of it. From what I hear, it's no big loss."

"Peter, the evacuation of Florida displaced nearly twenty million people," I say. "After several million lost their lives from oceanic incursions. It was a national-scale tragedy."

"No, no, Ed was telling me about this," Peter doubles down. "Back when we actually had fifty states, Florida and Ohio were the worst ones."

"Florida had Disney World," Anastasia reminds him disapprovingly.

"Oh shit, you're right," Peter gasps disingenuously. So… in a completely normal Peter-esque manner. "We lost the happiest place on Earth. It really was a national tragedy."

"Can you imagine living in a world where things like theme parks still run?" Yellow sighs. "It must have been wild. All that engineering, all that maintenance, all that construction and commerce and danger just for… for giant toys!"

"They still have some aspects of theme parks," I point out. "That Ferris wheel in Atlanta was still running until Omnipresence as Worship sat on it."

"A Ferris wheel isn't really a theme park," Blue protests.

"Why don't we have theme parks?" Anastasia asks. "That's so lame! We have dumb old museums."

"There are several orders of magnitude between the manpower and resources needed to run a museum and something like Disney World," I say. "Or even a way smaller theme park. Aquariums and zoos are a bit more complicated, but they get government subsidies for potentially being the only way to save several animal species. Though their funding has been getting cut more and more over time."

"Wait, it's because of money?" Anastasia says. "That's so lame!"

"Money and employees, but yes," I say. "You need engineers working for a theme park, and the places engineers get to work is strictly controlled. They're valuable. A basic museum can be run by a few old people and their teenage children. It's an ideal leisure attraction, industrially speaking."

"Why do you know so much about theme park economics?" Christine asks.

"She's pulling half of it out of her ass," Emily comments from the driver's seat. "She doesn't know any of this stuff, she's just quick at coming up with conclusions that make sense and stating them confidently."

Wh—hey!

"…I'm probably right," I insist.

"Sure," she shrugs. "You probably are."

My tentacles writhe in a mix of irritation and embarrassment, though thankfully only Blossom catches the reaction. …Maria's body shifts a bit suspiciously, though.

"Maybe we can look it up," Peter says. "Anyone have reception out here? We're not that far from human territory."

"You shouldn't even have a phone!" Christine snaps at him. "What if the military catches up to us because they're tracking it?"

"So far, my power just tells me the answer to that question is 'stop the car and wait,'" Emily says.

"Hehe hoho," Blossom grins, bobbing excitedly up and down. "I am slaughtering countless in unfulfilled realities! Dominance for Blossom!"

"…But I've been focusing on avoiding confrontations entirely," Emily finishes. "For obvious reasons."

"You scared the shit out of me when you just drove right toward that cluster of police cars," Christine shudders.

"Eh, they were busy dealing with an accident," Emily shrugs. "Not my fault that their bosses assumed they could pay attention to everything at once."

"Still, the way your power gets us through checkpoints is kind of terrifying," Christine says.

"Not to me," Emily shrugs. "Honestly, driving is pretty relaxing. The number of possible questions to ask is so much lower. I don't need to worry about the millions of different options when walking around. It's just 'do I go faster, slower, or the same speed? Do I go left, right, or straight?' I can kinda settle into a groove."

"A groove that, for the rest of us, seems like you're running red lights and ignoring stop signs at complete fucking random," Christine sighs. "I should have let Peter take shotgun when you two swapped. I hate being up here with you at the wheel."

"Quick, Julietta!" Peter says brightly. "Distract us with something fucked up!"

"…Hey," I complain. "It's not my fault everything is fucked up. I guess I do have something I need to talk to everyone about, though."

"Oh damn it, now you've done it," Christine groans, causing Blossom to bust out into laughter.

"It's not bad!" I insist. "Well, hopefully."

"Don't worry, Julietta. We are filled with confidence," Peter 'assures' me, leaning forward with his chin resting on a fist and his elbow on one knee. Smarmy little shit.

"Sure. Thanks," I grumble. "It's just what I mentioned before with… changing everyone's bodies for oceanic travel. It'll just be a few more hours until we hit the east coast, right? The sky is kind of the limit on the forms everyone takes, but I want to make sure everyone ends up with a body that they'll be happy with, you know?"

"Mermaid!" Anastasia shouts immediately. "I want to be a mermaid."

"Okay, are you sure? There are considerations to be made when it comes to changing an entire limb structure, like—"

"Mer! Maid!" Anastasia interrupts me. Okay. Well. I guess that's that.

"I can do mermaid," I say. Gotta remember I'm still dealing with a nine-year-old here. "Let me know if you have, um… color preference for your scales, or anything?"

"I want a big poofy tail like those fancy goldfish!" Anastasia insists. "But I want to be blue. No, green! Blue-green!"

"Not vermilion?" Peter quips, causing Pink to fly down and bonk the top of his head. "Ow! Hey, just think of it like camouflage for when our toddler inevitably paints the sea red."

"…Right, so blue-green," I nod, ignoring Peter entirely as I adjust the design slowly forming in my mind. "What about everyone else? Something to consider is that we don't have much in the way of comfortable or effective swimming clothes, and the less you wear the easier it'll be to move around. We absolutely can adjust or modify whatever we have on hand so people don't have to be naked, but—"

"Hell yeah! Nudist colony time!" Peter cheers. "It's every man's dream!"

"…But I can and probably will be modifying bodies in whatever way will make that the least awkward for everyone, unless anyone has any major objections."

"I—"

"—Other than Peter," I quickly cut him off. "Because he cannot under any circumstances be trusted to take this seriously. Please don't forget we have a child here, Peter."

"Ugh, fine," he concedes.

"Why child matter?" Blossom asks. "She strong and smart."

"Cultural thing," I say out loud, while giving more details through the network. "Reproduction and, by extension, reproductive organs have been a major cultural driver worldwide for as long as our species has existed. We're biologically inclined to be at least somewhat focused on it for a significant period of time, and this inclination affects children and adults differently. This compounds with the fact that children are still developing and are largely powerless in both physical and social contexts, resulting in an environment where they are occasionally exploited and abused in ways horrific enough to scare the majority of culture away from the topic altogether in their presence. And that's just the barest possible basics of the issue."

"Amazement! Your people even make being horrible complicated," Blossom says. "No wonder Blasphemy liked you so much."

"Fuck you, I think?" I say out loud.

"I thought we not talk about that in front of the small," Blossom answers smugly.

"Would you two stop doing your freaky silent communication thing?" Christine groans.

"No," Blossom says simply.

"…It's a way faster medium for discussing complex topics," I find myself needing to agree. "It's pretty much the only reason Blossom speaks English as well as she does, for example. At this point, half the grammatical mistakes she makes are just on purpose."

"Your language dumb. I fix it," Blossom nods sagely.

"We still kind of need to talk about the Angel in the room," Christine whines.

"No, you all just need to quit being such cowards and talk to the Angel in the room," I correct. "Anyway, as I was saying, there are options. The easiest is just removing the, er, waste excretion areas of your body entirely, but if you don't want me changing much and you want to wear clothes, you can also just do what Blossom did and ride me all the way down there."

"Pfftaha!" Peter bursts out laughing as every fairy Maria starts to blush. "But Julietta, we're related!"

"Not by blood," Emily smirks.

"Not what I fucking meant, and you know it!" I snap at them as they chuckle at each other. "But I'm going to need to be big enough to transport Maria's main body anyway. If you just want deep-sea adaptations and minimal visible modifications, we can make that work. You'll just lose most of your ability to easily move around or navigate independently from me."

"Question," Christine chimes in. "If you remove our sensitive bits and bobs, how are we going to go to the bathroom?"

"Several possible options," I say. "I could hide them somewhere fairly easily where they wouldn't be recognizable, of which there are various methods, or I could just handle waste transference for you directly."

"Uh. What… does that mean…?" Christine asks.

"I'll teleport poop out of your body with my superpowers," I answer.

"Uh. Gross? Also, doesn't that mean our bodies would completely stop functioning if we're separated from you for too long?"

"I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to be separated from me for very long in the open ocean regardless," I answer simply.

"…Okay, I guess I can't argue with that," Christine hums. "I'll think about it, I guess."

"I'm happy to discuss the details with each of you in private when we reach our destination," I say. "It'll just be helpful if you already know more or less what you want when we get there. If anyone wants me to model potential changes for them, just ask."

"God," Emily chuckles humorlessly. "You're completely batshit insane, you know that?"

"…No, I don't know that," I frown. "And I don't particularly like the insinuation. I'm asking people to make reasonable considerations for the abnormal situation we're finding ourselves in."

"Regardless of how 'reasonable' it is, it's a pretty big ask," Emily scowls. "I mean, you're changing us to be deep-sea creatures. Even if you make us look more or less the same, that's going to be pretty comprehensive, isn't it? You may as well just come out with it and turn us all into Angels."

I sigh, discontent bubbling inside me.

"…That's an option, if anyone wants it," I say, simply.

"What!?" Yellow asks, pulling away from me a bit.

"Fucking hell," Emily groans.

"I'm not expecting anyone to want it," I scowl. "And I can't properly add anyone to the network myself, but it's absolutely an option. Why wouldn't it be? Did you forget we're retreating to alien territory in part because it's safer for us there? The aliens aren't the bad guys here."

"Oh yeah, for sure," Peter nods. "Genocide: famously an act that doesn't make you the bad guy."

"Don't be a fucking idiot," I snap at him. "The majority of aliens haven't participated in any genocide at all. They live in the goddamn ocean. And even most of the ones that have done genocide aren't doing it out of malice. They come from a universe where the idea of unpowered humans being sapient people intrinsically doesn't make sense, and powered humans all try to kill them."

"Uh… do you not see how 'the idea of unpowered humans being people doesn't make sense' might be sort of evil all by itself?" Christine asks.

"It's ignorance, not evil," I say. "Evil is if I tell them we're people and they keep killing us anyway, like the ones in St. Louis. But the Atlanta ones avoided killing anyone as soon as I told them what was going on. …You know, mostly."

Most of the car can't help but glance at Maria's body for that. For her part, Maria's various heads just let out a mournful chirrup.

"…It's a pretty fucking inexcusable chunk of ignorance," Christine says.

"Whether or not you want to excuse it is not important here," I tell her. "What matters is that ultimately, the aliens are people too. Some of them have made horrible mistakes they can't take back. Some of them genuinely want to cause harm and strife. But most of them have literally done nothing wrong to humanity, ever. Acting otherwise is just straight-up racism. Or… speciesism, or whatever you want to call it."

"Hello!" Blossom waves. "I'm do nothing wrong ever."

"Okay, that's not true, but occasional callous slaughter aside, Blossom is a wonderful person," I say.

"Oh, occasional callous slaughter aside, no big deal," Peter jokes, rolling his eyes.

"I should hope not," I say darkly. "We're soldiers, aren't we? Have you even kept track of how many Raptors you've killed? I don't agree with what Blossom did, but she made her call in a combat situation while trying to save your life. Whether the people getting killed are human or alien shouldn't make a difference."

He clicks his tongue with what might be genuine irritation. Hard to tell with the boy who cries wolf. Is he showing real emotion or just getting better at hiding it?

"I've never met a Raptor that hasn't tried to attack me first," he says.

"Well, you're all about to," I remind him. "I'm not asking anyone else to feel at home, but try to keep an open mind, at least? Please?"

That finally shuts up the snide comments, most of the car looking uncomfortable but at least thinking about it.

"…Julietta's not wrong," Blue speaks up first. "I mean, we did spend a month living with aliens. They're weird and creepy, and we can't talk to them like she can, but they did try to help, in their own way. We had kind of a charades thing going on near the end."

"What did you mean by 'you're not asking anyone else to feel at home,' though?" Pink asks. "Is that… are you saying you felt at home?"

Oh, um… shit. I didn't mean for that to slip out. Damn it, I really have gotten too used to chatting with my colony.

"All of you have home," Blossom interjects before I can respond. "You not know it yet. But you have it."

She leans forward, pushing past Maria's body a bit to get her head closer to Emily.

"…Except you," she says with a nasty grin. "Don't follow your pull. You doing pretty bad, but you better off without her."

"Oh great," Emily says, cringing away from Blossom. "Thanks, creepy monster."

"Blossom, please stop scaring my friends," I sigh.

"Adamant refusal! Am having very good time," she chuckles, pulling away and sitting normally again. I'm surprised Maria didn't make much fuss. "Humans so scared! Make funny faces. New brain goes hehe haha when see it."

"Good to know The Divinity of Wonder successfully transferred your schadenfreude to new hardware," I sigh. "Look, as much of a pain as she might be making of herself, Blossom helped me a lot. She's pushy, but… I kind of needed someone pushy to see how much I've been closing myself off from people. I'm trying to do better now, thanks to her. I owe her for that."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yes," Blossom nods. "I love Julietta. I never hurt her friends."

"Woah-ho!" Peter grins. "Better watch out, fairy squad. You've got competition!"

"I don't think that's what Blossom meant," I say quickly. "The cultural implications are a little different when it comes to—"

"It what I meant," Blossom interrupts me. "New body likes the hugging and the touching! Don't know why competition, though?"

"B-Blossom, I'm really not sure you know what you're saying."

"Then find out," Blossom says. "Dummy. Stupidhead."

W-who taught Blossom to say 'stupidhead?' She's right, though, I have been putting a wall between myself and the network more lately. I take a deep breath and open myself up again, taking in Blossom's thoughts and feelings. It's not a surprise that she loves me, of course, I've known that for a long time. But my whole colony loves me, especially the council, and it's never been the kind of love she's making it sound like it is now.

English as a language uses the word 'love' for quite a few things, after all. You can love your mother, but you can also love eating pizza. You can love your husband or wife, but you can also love your friends. These things are similar, but subtly different. The love a council has for its members is probably most similar to familial love. Like the way Anastasia and I feel about each other, but with less of a… hierarchy, I guess. I'm not responsible for protecting my council in the same way I'm responsible for protecting a child, after all. They can take care of themselves.

That affection, though, and that undying devotion to helping each other through thick and thin? That's the same. That's the love Blossom and I have for each other. She's gone so far out of her way for me, of course I'd do the same for her in a heartbeat. That's just how it is. Romantic love, though? The kind of heart-pattering obsession that makes you stupider just for being near someone? That's not really a concept aliens have an equivalent of in the first place. There's nothing in their culture comparable to instinctive physical attraction or sex.

"Partial confirmation: not in culture, no," Blossom says. "But I took this form to build a bridge over the gap you crossed. Our people may not have these concepts inherent to themselves, but we are no strangers to changing who and what we are, either. My mind and body are different now so that I may continue to understand you better than before. I can, and do, feel that which you describe. It is foreign and exciting. And who else would I desire to experience it with, if not you?"

"It's much more complicated than that," I insist, thinking about all the cultural baggage surrounding the concept of relationships, as well as the personal baggage that made it so hard for me to get together with Maria in the first place. And I barely even got a chance to experience that before she was taken away! I can't just start that kind of relationship with someone else out of the blue, especially not when most of Maria hasn't even been returned to sanity yet. It would be seriously messed up.

"That fine," Blossom says. "If you no want to, then we no do. But stop being wrong."

"…Yeah, I don't love you that way, Blossom," I tell her frankly. "Sorry."

"Okay, I seduce you later," she shrugs, leaning back in her seat.

"I… please don't," I groan.

"Please let me watch when you do," Peter grins.

"I'm serious, please don't," I insist.

"No worry. Blossom patient," she assures me.

I rub my face with my hands, suppressing yet another groan of exasperation. Anastasia reaches up and tugs on my arm, so I turn to look at her.

"If you cheat on Maria, I'll beat you up," she says seriously.

"No one is going to be cheating on anyone!" I insist.

"I should certainly hope not!" Blue puffs up, and Demon Maria takes the opportunity to reach over and pull me halfway out of my seat in a bone-breaking squeeze. I wince and allow it, reaching my arm through the gap between her torsos to pat one of her backs.

"Mine," she rumbles, both out loud and in the network, causing me to freeze up.

"Maria?" I ask, trying to look up into her eyes, but she has them closed as she nuzzles the top of my head. A different head of Maria turns to me and gives me an intense stare, though.

"MINE," she hisses, her words in the network formed as the sort of unshakable order a Queen gives to a Raptor.

"Affirmative," I respond, while aloud I go for the much more casual "Of course." This seems to satisfy her enough that she relaxes again, her eyes unfocusing and her bodies returning to idly scratching at the walls and ceiling.

"…She wasn't doing anything like that while we were with her," Pink notes, flittering nervously behind me.

"Quieter here," Blossom comments. "Network just us."

"Oh, that's a good point," I agree, extracting myself from the hug by just letting my flesh flow around her arms and reform on the other side. "She doesn't have any of the right instincts to interpret the network, so having to deal with the constant conversations of an entire colony was probably way too loud for her. She probably didn't have any room to just think."

"Wait, so staying with the aliens was making everything harder the whole time!?" Pink snaps. "What was the point of any of that, then!?"

"Not letting you get vivisected, mostly," I say. "Oh yeah! Did I ever mention the army vivisected me, by the way? Without anesthetic, too. They have a bunch of captured aliens in glass cages in some secret base somewhere, and a whole ass mad science team to do war crimes on them. The whole reason they promoted me to a Warrant Officer was to justify giving me the clearance to know about it."

"Jesus Christ, seriously?" Christine asks. "Without anesthetic? What the actual fuck?"

"Well, that one's not entirely comically evil," I admit. "They just don't have an anesthetic that works on aliens, and I'm pretty much immune to pain anyway. But yeah, still wasn't pleasant."

"Okay, okay, you've made your point," Pink groans. "Thanks for not letting us get vivisected."

"You're very welcome!" I say. "Thanks for putting up with everything in the meantime. We're almost there, though. We'll get you your body back."

"Mostly back," Pink corrects. "We won't ever be human again."

"You seem kind of comfy as a fairy, though," I point out. "Do you want to be human again?"

She doesn't answer, just looking away from me for a while and flying off to the far corner of the van. Hmm. Well, it's probably not something I should press her on. I have new bodies to design for everyone, anyway.

Miraculously, we survive the rest of the drive without anything coming to try and kill us. Emily drives us right onto the beach, giving me plenty of room to vomit out the partly digested storage container in my meatspace and hopefully protect the van for one more drive when we get back. I don't put it away yet, though. Once we clear everyone out of the van, I figure everyone will want to use it for privacy while we work out the details of the shapeshifting. Maria shuffles out of the van when we park, significantly more compliant and even somewhat more coordinated than when we forced her inside.

It feels… weird, that I'm going to be changing the bodies of everyone except her. It feels weird that I'm going to be changing other people's bodies in general. I know I can do it, and I can do it safely. Even in the worst-case scenario, as long as I keep their brain untouched, I can easily supply the basic requirements to keep it alive and intact until I fix the issue. But it's still a little terrifying having this much power over the people I care about. The consequences of failure are unthinkable.

So naturally, I start with Peter.

"Can you just give me fake clothes?" he asks. "Like the creepy skinsuit thing you do?"

"Sure," I confirm. "That'll still be unnecessary drag, but it won't soak up water and become insanely heavy the way normal clothes will. What do you want to be wearing?"

"Can you let me swap things around like you do?" he asks.

"Not really," I tell him frankly. "Most of that is raw shapeshifting, and the rest is octopus skin, which is hooked directly up to my nervous system. I'm not getting that close to your brain."

"Aww, why not?"

"Because it'll kill you."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So you can't do anything too complicated in general, then?" he asks. "No turning me into a big sea monster?"

"Nope, sorry," I confirm. "You'll have to find a Queen for that. …And make sure the Queen knows how to do it without Maria'ing you. Which is currently only one Queen, but I'm not sure if she'd be willing, given you're blessed by a god in conflict with ours."

"Eh, it's not as fun if you can't turn me back whenever," Peter says, leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head. "I wanna be a sea monster as like, a bit. Not as a commitment. So I guess just get freaky with me?"

Hmm. Freaky, huh? I can't really add limbs to people, that requires significant changes to the nervous system that, while likely possible to pull off without killing anyone, aren't something I want to experiment with. But changing the structure of preexisting limbs? That I can do. Making someone huge? That I can do. And if he wants to be a sea monster, well…

"Sure," I agree. "But we'll wait for the water to do your change. Send in whoever's next."

"Ooh, ominous! Thanks, sis."

…I guess that's better than Jules. It's not a nickname, per se. But who actually calls their sister that?

"Just Julietta, please," I insist. "Now shoo."

He waves me off, and Emily heads inside next, scooting over to sit next to me. Since I didn't get the opportunity earlier, I reach over and give her a big hug. Her whole body is tense, somehow even more than usual. I wish I could have been there for her more. She needs so much help, and I'm not sure how to give it yet.

"…I want something you won't need to undo afterwards," Emily says after taking a deep breath to steady herself.

"Oh?" I ask. "Why, exactly?"

"…Because that's the idea I had that my power likes best," she admits with a scowl. "There's logic to it, though. I assume whatever body you give me will be a lot harder to kill than my current one?"

"…There are several optimizations I know how to make, yeah," I admit. "Anastasia's body actually has a lot of straight upgrades, like her incredible resilience against bleeding out. But when you say you want it to be one I don't need to undo, are you looking for one that's fully amphibious and still passes as human?"

"Yeah," she nods. "I want to look like me. But if you can get me to punch through solid steel or whatever, I'll take it."

"Well, steel might be a little…" I start, trailing off as I think about that. In terms of raw power, alien hydraulic musculature can certainly output the force needed. But that would require a pretty comprehensive restructuring, and her 'bones' would be so much thicker that the difference would be obvious to anyone who so much as grabs her wrist. Not to mention that, for the purposes of a disguise, we'd probably want actual human skin for an epidermis so it feels the same to the touch. It's a fairly distinct texture. But human skin would probably tear under that kind of impact with steel and is generally kind of flimsy. I suppose I could layer her skin, and have a thin outward coating of human skin with more heavily armored and resilient structures directly beneath it. They'd be revealed when her skin tears, but if she's punching through steel, that kind of gives away the disguise either way, doesn't it?

"…I wasn't serious," Emily says, apparently realizing what I've been considering. "I don't need to actually punch through steel. It's more than enough if you can just get steel to not punch through me."

Oh, that's a lot easier. Resistance to small-arms fire isn't too hard. Although…

"The military's standard-issue weapons are a bit too high caliber to do that without changing how you look," I say. "But I can optimize how your body regenerates in such a way that you won't have to worry about having a few holes in you. Like, try not to get totally swiss cheesed, but… I mean, you've seen the sorts of things Anastasia shrugs off."

Emily shudders.

"Yeah," she agrees. "How's she holding up, by the way?"

"She was doing about as well as can be expected a month ago," I answer. "Now? I'm not sure if she's just putting on a brave face or not. But… she is brave, if nothing else. I'm glad I've finally gotten her out of the military-industrial complex, but she was a saddeningly good fit for it."

"That checks out," Emily sighs. "Well, I don't really have any other parameters for you. Don't change how I look, improve me in whatever other ways you can."

"You're not going to be able to swim very well," I warn her. "Swimming is all hydrodynamics, which is almost all external. And how do you want to deal with the clothes situation?"

"I don't have a problem just letting you carry me the whole way," Emily shrugs. "And I figure I'll just wear my underwear and nothing else. I'm pretty sure it'll still be opaque when wet, so it shouldn't be a big deal."

"Works for me, I guess," I nod. "Hmm… well, I can probably just get it taken care of now. This is going to feel extremely weird, just as a heads up. Not painful, but… probably not pleasant."

"Really?" she deadpans. "I was expecting the complete restructuring of my organs to be just like a spa day."

"I can flood your bloodstream with endorphins if you want," I offer.

"No," she grimaces. "Just get it over with."

So I do, reaching inside her with my domain and replacing almost her entire internal organ structure in one go. It's an easy fix for me to make; optimizations to a preexisting body is the thing I probably have the most experience using my power to do. I'm always tweaking, tinkering, and improving. Settling on a superior biology for Emily is easy as pie.

"Okay," I say. "Done."

"Eeuuugh," she writhes. "God, you were not kidding. Fuck! Is that it, though? We're done already?"

"We're done already," I confirm.

"…Well, you definitely work fast, at least," she says, staring at and flexing her hand. "Thanks. Hmm. Got anything I can test this on…?"

I grow a bone out of my wrist and snap it off, shifting the blood and gunk away before handing it over to her. She flinches, hesitantly accepting it.

"That's a human humerus," I tell her. "Arm bone, shoulder to elbow."

"Jesus," she swears again, staring at it. "Do I just…?"

"Do whatever you want with it," I say. "I have plenty."

She grabs it in both hands and tugs, snapping the bone abruptly enough to almost startle her into dropping it.

"Holy shit," she says. "That felt like a thick twig."

"Yep, you're stronger than a peak human now," I shrug. "Though keep in mind your new minimum caloric intake is probably five times what it was before."

"So you're saying I have super strength, and I can eat burgers without getting fat," Emily says. "Man, I was way too scared about this. My hands don't really feel any different from the outside."

"I do try to accomplish what is asked of me," I say. "Let me know if you're having any problems, and I can make adjustments. In the meantime, you should probably go crush random stuff on the beach to get a handle on your strength."

"Oh. Yeah, wouldn't want to accidentally just grab someone's skull and like… splorch, haha," she says, pantomiming doing exactly that with a slightly concerning expression on her face.

"…Please don't go mad with power," I say.

"I'm not! I'm not. Promise," she says. "It's just, all my odds went way up. That… hasn't happened in a while."

"Seriously, don't kill Peter," I say.

"…Just Peter?" she asks.

"Peter and Maria are the only two people I think you might try to kill, and Maria could pop you like a grape," I say. "Even with all your upgrades."

"Nnnnoted," Emily nods. "You are… weirdly calm about morbid hypotheticals like this."

"So I've been told," I deadpan.

"No no, it's… refreshing," she says. "Morbid hypotheticals are kind of my entire thing."

"Well, feel free to let me know if you want to talk about any," I offer honestly. "In the meantime, though, send in whoever's next."

"Yeah, sure thing," Emily nods. "Uh… thanks."

I nod back, and she hops out of the van, heading off to go powder seashells in her fists or something. Shortly afterwards, Anastasia and Christine enter the van together.

"Both of you?" I ask, tilting my head.

"Well, once you get rid of her legs, someone'll have to carry the tot to the water," Christine shrugs.

"I mean, I could have done that, but thanks," I nod.

"I'm not a tot!" Anastasia protests. "I'm ten years old!"

Wait, what?

"Ten?" I clarify. "Not nine?"

"Nope!" she says. "My birthday was a couple weeks ago."

Oh. Shit. Ugh, that sucks.

"I'm sorry for missing your birthday, Anastasia," I say.

"It's okay," she reassures me. "Maria is more important. And besides, you can make it up to me now!"

God, how can she be this mature? She's more considerate than most adults I know. Gahhh.

"You are just so sweet and so good," I praise her. "You deserve so much more than this."

"I deserve to be a mermaid!" she insists. "Mer! Maid! Mer! Maid! Mer! Maid!"

"Okay, okay!" I chuckle. "Mermaid. Got it. You will have to take your shorts and stuff off for me to do this. Do you want Christine or me to stand outside? I don't have to be looking at you, or anything."

"You can just turn around," she says, so we do, giving her some privacy to prepare herself. "Also, I'll take the thing that means I don't have to poo anymore."

"You got it," I nod. "I'll go as fast as I can, but this will be uncomfortable. Ready?"

"Ready!"

I don't even need to push past her domain, her power letting me in as easily as she accepts a hug. As promised, I make my changes fast, though there's a bit more to it than what I accomplished with Emily. Making a functional mermaid takes more than just slapping the lower half of a fish onto someone's waist and calling it good, especially given my constraints. The equivalent homologous biology for 'legs' on a fish is not, after all, the tail. It's the pelvic fins, which most mermaid designs omit entirely to focus exclusively on the tail. And like, that's perfectly fine when designing a fantasy creature, but humans don't naturally have tails, meaning I don't have access to the complex nervous structure that would normally go in a tail. If I don't want to add or remove too many parts of the nervous system in general, Anastasia's tail needs to be repurposing the biology from her legs.

It'll probably be a bit more intuitive for her to control it that way, anyway. No need to learn new, complicated limbs—just take the old instincts for moving legs and tie them to a fundamentally different but relatively simple-to-adjust-to body part. It's not a perfect solution, but it'll work within my constraints, and that's what matters.

From there, it's mostly about adjusting her body to be more effective in the water. Her hair is by far the biggest consideration there… but when I start to change it, I feel parts of her power push back at me and start to undo what I did. Which… is definitely something I was afraid of. Not sure why Reciprocation wants her hair to stay super long all the time, but that's going to be absolute hell in the water. We can't just leave it as-is. There needs to be a solution that won't start uncontrollably changing back.

Rather than remove or shorten her hair, I start experimenting with adjusting and combining it, using different methods to achieve similar aesthetics. Ultimately, her power and I seem to settle on replacing her hair with kelp-like 'streamers,' wide and thin bundles of keratin that will flow out behind her as she swims but not end up holding anywhere near as much water as normal hair would. I don't touch the way her body produces blood, or the composition of her blood itself, and so I don't encounter any problems there. Fortunately, she's already set for deep-sea travel in that department anyway; she was immune to things like decompression sickness before I even got started.

The rest is just detail work. Given that she seems likely to be going without clothes, I have her scales grow up the sides of her body and give her a bit of natural modesty on her chest. She may be a kid, but a lady does have to cover some things. A few strategic fins should help her stay stable in the water, and as requested, the end of her tail is flowing and beautiful, the style and color of which will nicely match with her hair. Is she going to be the most efficient swimmer in the ocean? No. Is she going to fulfil her dreams of being the prettiest mermaid in all of the Atlantic? Yes, absolutely.

"All done," I declare. "Let me know when you're ready for us to turn around."

I feel her poking a bit at herself here and there, letting out excited giggles as her tail slaps the floor.

"Eeeee! Ready, ready, ready!" she declares.

I turn to see the biggest grin ever on her face, her whole body wiggling excitedly as she flails around with her new tail.

"It's perfect!" she says. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Of course," I nod. "Let me know if you want or need any adjustments."

"Alright kiddo, let's get you to the water," Christine says, scooping her up in a princess carry. "Be right back, Julietta."

"Take your time," I nod, letting out a deep breath as I expand my domain out of the car, touching everyone nearby. I'm still surprised how far everything reaches. I can feel everyone, and poking around to make sure, I can confirm the changes I did for Emily are still working as intended. Christine collects her and a couple of the Maria fairies to watch Anastasia while she starts breathing water for the first time and then makes her way back to me. Everything is… going well. It's surreal.

"Hey," Christine says as she steps into the van.

"Hi," I greet her back.

"So, uh… you know," she says, awkwardly clearing her throat.

"I do," I confirm. "I'm glad you picked up on things and took your turn last. Since… you know, I imagine this will be… important to you?"

"A little," Christine says. "I'd kind of come to terms with my body staying the way it is forever. Not sure it really feels real yet."

"Well, it's about to feel real," I assure her. "The only question is what you want it to be."

"…Yeah," she says. "Thanks, Julietta. I kinda figured you'd be cool with it, but… thanks."

"Of course," I nod. "Frankly, I feel a little silly for not figuring it out, but I… kind of avoid thinking about that sort of stuff on purpose, if I'm being honest."

"Hmm. Sounds like repression," she says.

"Eh, everyone has baggage," I shrug. "I just try to keep mine organized."

"I'll let that slide," Christine smirks. "I've certainly got no right to be trying to give you advice on handling that kind of stuff."

"You've come a long way," I remind her. "You're pretty damn reliable now."

"I know, it sucks," she half-jokes. "Life was so much simpler when I knew I'd fail at anything I ever tried. Very straightforward."

"Yeah," I say. Being counted on can definitely be hard. But… it's worth it. "Well, ready to get started?"

"As I'll ever be," she nods, and then, she starts to explain what she wants. I listen, I make the changes, and I exit the van, heading out to the water to swim with Ana. Soon, we'll be heading to my colony together. It's a weird feeling. I've never invited friends over to hang out at my house before, but that's kind of what it feels like. Friends, or for some of them, family… soon to be meeting my other family.

I hope everyone gets along, and for some reason it's a hope I think I can count on coming true.

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