"Feeling nervous?" Dr. Jason asked.

"Feeling resigned," I replied. I wasn't scared about the upcoming process, just bracing for something deeply unpleasant. There was no denying that it would be a long, boring, and painful process. After all, the whole thing was expected to take days, and that wasn't including all the prep we'd been doing beforehand.

There was a major difference between making someone's chest bigger, stretching aging faces taut again, or even lengthening a leg and performing a wholesale reworking of someone's entire appearance. Using esoterics didn't turn it into a magical, one-step, poof into a new look. Like many operations, it was really a whole suite of different operations one following another.

There were a few reasons for doing it all at once like that. Mainly, it was because I wanted to get through it all in one miserable stretch, and my Anathema constitution made that a perfectly reasonable proposition.

The other was just timing in general—it would be weird to go gallivanting around while still half baked. The Bouquet also couldn't complete fabricating me a new, alternate identity until it was finished. The fact that they had the resources and connections to do that in the first place was fantastic, but ultimately, they still needed to take pictures and things like that.

"Well, I'm sure you've experienced worse," the doctor attempted to reassure me. "You're certainly a feisty little thing."

Sitting up off the cot, I gave him a withering glare. "Don't mistake the benefit of competence for a full excusal for your crass behavior, you massive fucking pervert. If I find anything completely gratuitous at the end of this, I will not hesitate to rip your head off."

"See, now that's the kind of attitude I like to see," the surgeon replied, seemingly oblivious to his habit of digging a deeper hole. It could be hard to tell whether it was calculated or just shamelessly careless.

We were going to start with the leg extensions.

If there was one thing I was going to change about my entire appearance, given the opportunity, it was going to be my ridiculous height, or more precisely, lack thereof. There was only so much we could easily add, even with the additional freedom all of our combined circumstances allowed.

By the end of this, I would still be in the five foot range—but I would be five feet and four inches, not five feet and negative two. Most of that was going into the legs. A bit easier to dick around with than the spine, and a bit of extra length didn't throw off the proportions too much.

As I understood it, extending a leg was a real thing that normal surgeons did to regular people—the difference being that it was typically less than one inch, let alone six, and was intended to correct unequal length legs that caused walking issues, not artificially boosting height.

But with no institutional oversight and the ability to regenerate a whole damn limb faster than the average American could find a band-aid from one of the cabinets under the sink, that was going to be far from our biggest issue throughout the process.

Finally, the preparations were all in place. "Now remember," Dr. Jason said, "try not to bend the bedframe too much, but it's perfectly okay to scream."

What an encouraging thing to say to a patient, I mused, mostly to distract myself. His concern about the bed was less callous than it might seem. They'd specifically requisition a heavy duty table-cot-thing similar to the hospital bed I woke up in after fighting a kraken and ending the fight unconscious. Even then, it was still possible for me to screw things up if I lost control of my strength and started ripping it apart. Reaching Tier 4 and gaining a massive amount of additional control over metal only exacerbated the potential problem.

At that point, he went to work.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," I responded through a mouthful of raw steak. "Completely miserable, aside from the part where he ordered me to consume several hundred pounds of raw meat."

Anchor, as she was known to most outsiders, had come to visit me. I wasn't sure what our relationship was supposed to be, whether personal or professional. Those lines might even be a bit blurred in a setting like this.

Her non-Guardian name was Cassandra, and while she wasn't exactly old, she was older than me by more than enough to feel like a higher level of 'adult.' Also, she exuded normal-person, corporate world vibes even when not playing into her power's chosen archetype. I supposed her power manifested the way it did for a reason.

"It's helpful for my regeneration," I added while shoveling down more meat, "so sometimes we even do it during the middle of a procedure, during the real nasty parts. Like did you know that my veiny bits can stay stretched between a severed limb and the rest of me if you're careful enough?"

Cassandra's nose wrinkled in disgust. "No, and I'm not sure I wanted to picture that."

Fair enough. It was pretty unpleasant. That was something I learned during the first, but not longest or even most painful, procedures. The tragic lack of painkillers was attributable to the reliance on my Anathema regeneration—it was either run me through with more of those freaky suppression spikes or accept the fact that my extreme regeneration considered those drugs to be toxins and readily removed them.

"Oh, but also, that's not the only reason," I added while snatching yet another slab of raw cow meat off the nearby tray. "Since I'm trying to add a large amount of weight, doing this throughout the whole process is supposed to help a lot. I don't know if I can even gain weight normally anymore, and like, I've eaten several hundred pounds of this stuff over the last few days, so…"

I wasn't sure about the details, but it made a decent amount of sense to me. Overall, I was still going to be short, pretty, and 'cute.' To go the extra mile on respeccing into a different build, though, I had deliberately decided to lean on the opposite side of the short white girl spectrum and go for thick and curvy in place of thin and doll-like.

I wasn't going to be, like, completely massive, but I was also going to be nowhere near skinny. I was going for the line where some guys would immediately dismiss me as fat but a pretty solid proportion of others would find me enticing. With ridiculously inhuman strength and the kind of regeneration I had, I was completely unconcerned by either health or physical limitations.

It did continue to make me wonder about weight gain, loss, and Anathema hunger. Like how does that even work? I seem not to gain weight 'naturally,' but this is also supposed to 'stick.' Does that mean I just exist in equilibrium no matter what? Like, if I was starving for long periods of time—supposing I went feral again but was somehow held captive for a significant period of time—would I end up visibly starved?

So many weird questions.

All done. It's really all done.

In all, the whole thing took just about three days, and the last was devoted to the more minor, superficial things like hair, cleaning up my skin, tweaking the subtleties of fat distribution, and the like. Now, I was prowling around in a private room with a mirror and some new sets of clothes.

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This is so fucking weird.

It wasn't just one thing that was throwing me off. Looking at my own, full body reflection, the height was perhaps the least dramatic difference, being barely noticeable when my attention was so taken up by other things.

And yet, the difference a mere six inches had on my own perspective and sense of space and movement was shockingly profound. Just walking around and looking at familiar items and furniture was subtly disconcerting.

On the opposite side were the largely visual disconnections, like seeing a completely different face staring back at me, mimicking my expressions. Human faces were all remarkably similar when you stepped back enough, and the difference between regular old Alex and this new girl really wasn't much at all. My nose was rounder, face smaller, chin actually a bit more pointed—but despite the objective similarity, the effect was quite different.

I guess I still look cute enough. That's good.

I think the hair was doing a lot of work with regards to the face, actually, which was kind of ironic because that was something you could just change easily enough without going through three entire days of illegal medical practice.

It was straight, long, and dark, now, bordering on black. It was a pretty substantial change from my formerly blonde, shoulder length, slightly wavy hair. I was pretty sure that hair reaching my mid back would be way more annoying in a fight.

But remember—this form isn't supposed to be for fighting.

Finally, the biggest—hehe—change was to my whole figure. This one was super weird on all levels, from just looking at my reflection, to looking at myself outside of the reflection, to moving around doing things. It would definitely take me the longest to get used to things like my thighs always touching or having a bit of stomach in my own lap.

Dressing in tight jeans and a loose, dark sweater, I studied my profile as well as the way I walked, bent, and sat. Yeah. Overall, I was pleased. It was exactly what I wanted. The heavy friend who still has a pretty face and is just big enough for the guys who go for 'thick' girls. It certainly helped that Dr. Jason was a massive pervert who was already into me, since the exact distribution of weight was downright calculated to be both plausible and maximally appealing.

Now for the real test. I breathed in, steadying myself. I was going to be mad as fuck if this ended up completely resetting everything. Let's see if I can return to this after shifting back and forth.

Veronica Saunders. But you can call me Vonnie.

Using a different name was weird. I needed it to be something that felt fitting, and while I'd considered Amy for some time, I decided it was too close to my existing name, by virtue of having the same number of syllables and starting with the same letter.

'Veronica' was a bit of a mouthful, but I wasn't unfamiliar with nicknames. 'Veronica' was both distinctive and classy, albeit in a sultry way, and the shortened version 'Vonnie' was both easier on the lips and leaned back into the casual, comforting cuteness I'd been going for.

Obviously, shifting worked. It worked flawlessly, with all the different transitions happening as seamlessly as they always did ever since I reached Tier 4 not very long ago. As far as I was concerned, using the exact same body and face in two different 'slots' was a total waste. Where was the fun in that?

The only downside was one that had been growing increasingly familiar to me as of late—the difficulties with my wardrobe. There were almost zero reasonable clothing items that fit me in both body types—and it wasn't just a case of a 'poor' fit. I either didn't fit at all, or it was like I was wearing a clown suit.

Fortunately, the one upside was that I didn't really need clothes in my original-now-Valkyrie form, as I could just use metal. Also, I still had my lesbian pimp suits, which were tailored exactly to the old me. I had no intention of ever wearing those as Vonnie, so at least those weren't going to go to waste.

With a complete new identity as a naturalized United States citizen who had supposedly existed for over two decades already, I was pretty much set for the return to uni. I wasn't going to stop getting a degree for my freshly minted 'civilian' persona just because I was also working as a double agent for two different sides in a dozen-way conflict between incredibly powerful organizations.

The downside was that I couldn't just jump back in at the same point in Alex's materials science program. The reach of the Bouquet could only go so far.

I did get some transfer credit from high school and freshman year at a community college, so it wasn't like starting from the very beginning. Not willing to change things up too much and waste all my prior experience, I enrolled as a sophomore in the college of electrical engineering.

School was starting back up again, for real this time, and Cassandra had taken it upon herself to act as my guardian—the legal kind, not the Anathem-fighting kind—and that included dropping me off so I didn't have to deal with either public transportation or campus parking.

"You brought plenty of extra elixirs, right?" Her hands drummed on the wheel, and I couldn't help but find amusement in the degree to which she seemed to be acting exactly like an anxious mom. "If they run out, just call me. I'll come immediately."

"It's fine," I repeated for the fourth time in a single car ride. "I have half a dozen. We already tested them, remember? Each one is good for a whole two hours."

The 'elixirs' were designed to fully mask the esoteric signature of a Guardian—or in my case, Anathema. Unfortunately, they couldn't be used at the same time as any esoteric abilities, which was why they weren't more widely used.

That said, trying to use one of those abilities would just 'break' the mask—it wouldn't do anything to actually suppress them. That was good, because it certainly seemed better to ruin a disguise if needed than to risk being powerless until the effect wore off.

Alongside the masking elixirs, I also brought along one of the three hunger-satiating vials Dad gave me a while back. I still hadn't gotten a chance to use one of those—or rather, I'd never gotten into a situation where it felt necessary. Given how expensive they were supposed to be, as well as the implications of having to use one—well, I considered that a good thing.

So yeah, I was pretty much set, even having a new, professional-looking laptop and a few writing supplies in a shitty backpack. The one remaining hiccup was that I was technically jumping into an existing trimester, prior disruptions notwithstanding, and it was even the awkward middle one.

That meant my first stop wasn't my first class, but rather one of the administration buildings. I was supposed to meet up with a 'junior mentor' in my new major or whatever the fuck. Let's just get this over with. God, I hope they didn't pick anyone too… cheery.

As far as I was concerned, the best outcome would be that we'd do an awkward greeting and then never see each other again. Like who even volunteers for that shit? I never understood it.

The campus was looking a lot better, with barely any signs of the incursion that I technically didn't cause. Also, all the leaves on the trees were completely gone, leaving just a bunch of bare, wintery looking trees and shit on an old fashioned campus clouded over by misty skies. A chill wind swept between the stone buildings and trimmed walkways.

I love weather like this.

Finally, I reached the admin building where I was supposed to meet up with my alleged 'mentor.' It was really just a side wing to a larger engineering hall.

I was immediately struck by just how warm and cozy it was inside. It seemed like the buildings were always colder in the summer and warmer in the winter, with the result that you could never just dress consistently in one way or the other. That being said, I did enjoy the coziness.

It only took me a second to spot a faculty member as well as my new peer mentor. They were the only two people in the lobby, after all, and I immediately bit back a rising tide of apprehension.

The older lady—I recognized her from my initial admin meeting like a day ago—turned to me with a smile. The other girl was about my age, with similarly straight, dark hair but a dramatically skinnier frame. God damn it. You just had to choose the same department, didn't you?

"Hi," I said as I shook Katherine's hand, praying that the elixir masking my spirit and my nature was doing its job, "I'm Veronica—but you can just call me Vonnie."

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