Chapter 11
Monday
February 11th, 2019
The light beeping of the phone on the bedside table was enough to stir Avalyn from her sleep. She reached over and blindly tapped at the screen in an attempt to snooze whatever had roused her from her sleep, not realising that whatever it was wasn’t the alarm. Avalyn never set an alarm on her phone as it is. Another beep from the phone about a minute later got a groan as a reaction from the short girl in the bed as she slowly sat up, her new back length hair covering the front of her face.
Brushing the hair out of her face with her right hand, Avalyn reached over and had a look at her phone. She generally was able to afford to sleep in on Mondays, as Avalyn didn’t really have anything on at all until late in the evening, and even then, it was a voluntary research seminar that didn’t prove particularly useful to her degree, so Avalyn never went anyway. The source of the beeps on her phone had been two messages, the sender of which got a sigh out of the girl.
Mother
I see you’ve spent 225 pounds on the card.
Message me back so we can talk about it.
Before she really knew what she was doing, Avalyn had launched her phone across the room, destined for quick death against the solid walls of her bedroom. Almost as quickly, the black slimy material that was Cora shot out of her shoulder, flying across the room as it stuck against the phone, pulling it backwards straight into Avalyn’s hand.
Ya already are in some debt to ‘mother’, don’t want to spend more of that debt replacin’ yer phone do ya?
Avalyn shrugged as she set down her phone, more gently to her side, choosing to ignore the messages at this point. “Underestimated my own strength, I only meant to poutily through the phone off to the side.”
I don’t think poutily is a word, and, secondly, ya can’t just ignore it forever.
“I can and I will, just you watch.” Avalyn swung her feet off the bed and hopped to her feet, walking over to her newly filled wardrobe, swinging it open, only to get lightly slapped on the top of the head by a new swishy black mini skirt, that she was pretty sure was a pair of comfortable tracksuit bottoms yesterday.
“Couldn’t you have generated me anything less skin revealing Cora?”
Pfft, what would be the fun in that? And look at yerself in the mirror, ye don’t want to hide that behind baggy fuckin’ clothes do ya?
Avalyn caught sight of the cute girl in the mirror off the the sight, and found it hard to disagree with Cora, even in the pyjamas she still looked good as hell.
“Yeah yeah, sure, I am good looking. But you know, sometimes, it’s a hoodie type day you know, maybe today is that day.”
Hoodies go well with skirts ya know. Swish swoosh.
“Where did you even learn about that meme, did they have reddit on whatever planet you came from?”
I share yer singular braincell ya moron. And I left ya like two pairs of pants. Yer welcome.
Avalyn rolled her eyes as she pulled one of the pair of pants that were almost hidden in the corner of the wardrobe. She gave it a shake to straighten it and held it in front of her to examine it. It was a pair of jeans that had evidently decided that knees didn’t need any material in front of them, and aside from that, it looked like it would certainly be a flattering look, especially in the back end. Avalyn slipped the pants on with little difficulty, finding out that the pants themselves were basically a perfect fit for her.
Ye also have yer own personal clothes tailor, yer welcome again.
Avalyn rolled her eyes at that as she examined the pants on her in the mirror in front of her, doing various poses as she did so.
“It’s a bit more snug than I would have imagined in the front you know.”
Well, what else did ye imagine it would be?
“I don’t really know, now that there’s nothing there to stick out I thought it would be a bit looser.”
Well, it’s snug in a better way now ain’t it?
“I’d call it better I guess, you can read my mind as to what I mean there by ‘better’. I’d call the snugness like a warm hug now, rather than a snake trying to suffocate you.”
Aw, are ya callin’ me a warm hug? Aw shucks yer such a darlin’ ye are.
“Shut up you, that’s all the flattery you’re getting from me today.”
Avalyn heard a hearty chuckle emerge from the symbiote, as she ran her hand through her hair, shaking her head in dramatic despair.
By the way, it’s a good thing yer dressin’ up real good today.
Avalyn raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
In about a few minutes, yer about to have a visitor.
“Wait what, how did you know that?” Avalyn paused for a few seconds before dramatically gasping. “Did you go through my phone agenda?!”
Ye don’t even have a phone agenda. And I know it because I can just sense it ya know.
“No I don’t know. What does that even mean?”
I have an extremely keen sense of smell.
To highlight the point, Avalyn felt a strange sensation as Cora made an impression of what Avalyn could describe as a deep inhale of breath in her brain, very unpleasant.
That’s aside the point, ye should look good for this visitor especially :3.
“What does that even mean again? And how do even make that face in my head and how do I know what it means?” Avalyn tossed off her pyjama top and reached out for a modest looking t-shirt at the back-end of the wardrobe.
>:3c
“Whatever…” Slipping the top on, Avalyn took a quick look at herself in a mirror and took a moment to readjust her hair, tying it back up in a high ponytail. Giving her reflection corny finger guns, the new girl gracefully tripped her way into the living room as she got ready to welcome her guest. The faint sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway signalled the arrival of said visitor. She was so distracted that she didn’t feel as the clothing she had on was slowly morphing into someone more flattering.
A few seconds, later, a quick rhythmic knocking of the door let to Avalyn unlocking the latch on her room door, and slowly swinging the door open.
“How can I-”
That was about all that she managed to get out, before a piercing scream borderline deafened her, and a hard impact against Avalyn’s head sent her crashing to the floor, out cold.
—-------------------------------
It had been a good few days since Steph had heard from Aaron since their little sincere talk, and granted, that had mostly been Steph’s own doing. She had wanted to give Aaron some space to work things out. She had given Aaron the advice that she thought was best in her own situation, and only intervening would be perhaps pushing him in a direction that he may not be wanting to go, or even truely need to go. If he needed her help, then Aaron would message Steph, that was for sure.
But, Steph, the compassionate woman, couldn’t help but think about checking on him. Even a trip to the mall yesterday couldn’t distract her from thinking a lot about her good friend. It especially didn’t help when she bumped into a girl who seemed almost frightened to see her. She almost seemed to recognise Steph, but she didn’t recognise that girl. Well, as far as she thought anyway.
To stop the cycle of worry that Steph had found herself in, she decided to check in on Aaron to see how he was doing. Random visitor calls weren’t a rarity for Steph at Aaron’s apartment, and worst comes to worst, Steph could verify that Aaron was in fact alive, and well, and had at least given some thought to what Steph said.
Before she really knew it, Steph found herself in front of the flat building that only a day or so ago, she had yeeted the villain into the ground from a fairly high height. The villain had vanished off of the face of the earth after that, they suspected that she had crept off somewhere and hid. Someone speculated that she was healing up, after all, it was quite a fall that she had sustained. The long and short of it though, was the villain was still at large.
Making her way up the one flight of dodgy looking stairs up to the second floor, Steph quickly found herself out in front of her friend’s flat door. As she reached out to knock on the door, she paused as she heard some shuffling and muffled talking coming from the other side of the door. The voice, as far as she could make up, sounded a bit more high pitched than she would expect from Aaron, and she narrowed her eyes. She thought back once again to talk she had the other day with Aaron. Sure, she was thinking that Aaron was going through some things about his identity, but surely her friend wouldn’t be practising big dog little dog yet.
She shook her head quickly to dispell those thoughts as she quickly knocked on the door. It only took a few seconds for the latch on the door to unlock and the door swung open. The next few seconds went by in a blur for Steph, but her sense of danger quickly clicked into gear upon seeing the short, unmistakable muscular build of the villain that she had been fighting all this time, along with the dark clothing, it instantly send her ‘Skylark’ instincts racing. With a scream that came out far more high pitched than she expected, she quickly delivered a hand chop to the top of the villain’s head, and sent the girl crumpling to the ground in a heap.
Steph stood in the doorframe as she took several deep breathes to clear up the rush of blood to the head that she had just gotten into as she took in the scene in front of her, and the villain who she had just defeated with a simple chop to the head.
On the ground in front of her was a girl, who didn’t look much older than she did, which Steph surmised from her facial features rather than her height, as she was short, really short, probably around 5 ft tall max. Her brown hair was honestly breath-taking, it seemed well taken care of and was currently tied in a cute looking ponytail, her face as well, she seemed so pretty and…
Steph quickly shook her head. There was no time to dwell on the hotness of the villain she had just defeated.
Continuing her analysis of her victim, she noticed that she was wearing an all black outfit, which was different from the rubbery villain outfit that she wore in fighting. A low cut black top that also showed a bit of stomach was covered slightly with a short sleeve leather jacket, finished with a pair of fingerless gloves. The look was really completed by a swishy short black skirt, paired with some thigh high boots. The look did little to really mask her muscular strength, and it was evident this body packed one hell of a punch.
She did have the build of the villain, she had the height and muscular build of it, and most importantly, this strange girl was in Aaron’s apartment, and there was no sign of her best friend.
Clearly, this villain had taken the battle personal, and had kidnapped her best friend away somewhere. This plot ran deeper than Steph could have ever imagined. This was far more serious than just a few petty crimes.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, Steph quickly dialed a number and put the call on speaker phone, shutting the door behind her.
“Maria, I need some help. I’ve got the villain in custody and in need of some transport……no I can’t just fly there.”
—-------------------------------------
The feeling of waking up to a fading concussion was already rapidly becoming one of Avalyn’s least favourite past times. How did she know this? The lightly throbbing feeling in her head along with the feeling of just being the absolute worse. Also, not to mention, that the top of her head felt like it was being weighed down for a ton of bricks. Certainly seems like she had suffered another concussion.
Avalyn slowly went to open her eyes, and gradually edged them further open upon seeing that the room that she was in wasn’t too brightly lit. This tended to happen when you light a room with a light bulb that seems like it should have already been banned from consumer use due to how wasteful it was in converting energy into something other than heat.
The rest of the room certainly didn’t get any extra love either, it was what Avalyn could describe as one of those solitary cells she saw in films once or twice. Big steel door, concrete walls forming a tight and compact rectangle, and a mattress that was probably their sorry excuse for a bed. The only thing that stood out was a metal sheet in the wall, that seemed to hold what would be the toilet area of the room. Shocking they chose to blow their budget on a slideable metal toilet.
Also she was also tied up in a chair with her arms at her back, so there’s that.
“Cora, where are we?” Avalyn asked upon feeling the buzz in her head, indicating the active presence of her symbiote.
You’ve been kidnapped mate. Yer girlfriend came by and knocked the lights out of ya and stuffed ya in the trunk of a car.
“I didn’t ask what happened, I’m repressing those thoughts right now. I asked where we were.”
Cora let out a quiet sigh. Are ya really being this pedantic right now? Aside from that, I don’t fuckin’ know where we are, ay. What do ya think I am, a maps application app?
“So you know that we’ve been kidnapped but not where we are? How did you even know that anyway, I was out cold”
I was watchin’ as it happened. Seemed like a traumatisin’ experience for ya.
“And you didn’t do anything to stop the kidnappers?”
Well, they looked dangerous, they did manage to knock ya out after all….also I thought I wanted to see what would happen next.
“You just let them kidnap me?! You are unbelievable.”
Look look, ya would have been outnumbered anyway. Steph, she called for backup immediately.
“Steph is involved in this?! Are you going to drop more reveals on this like some sort of terrible twist movie?”
….I literally already told ya, like the first thing I told ya.
“Why would she ever even kidnap me?!”
I don’t fuckin’ know, mate. We were in the trunk of a car, I couldn’t hear shit.
Avalyn rolled her eyes and tugged at her bindings, half expecting her superhuman strength to kick in at some point. But the bindings never even had any give to them, she made no progress in breaking them at all.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to use any of your powers to break out of that.”
After hearing the voice, Avalyn;s attention turned to the metal door in front of her as it slowly swung open, letting out a loud creak as it did so.
Walking in came an Asian middle aged woman, Avalyn would guess that she was around 35 years old, maybe older, she wasn’t an expert in guessing ages frankly. She wore a snug looking biker jacket over a simple black top and jeans, seems like she was dressed for going out for a nice drive. Certainly not the attire that Avalyn experted her kidnappers to be wearing in this scenario. Most telling though, she was holding this rather large mug in her right hand. She was also quite pissed, she looked quite miffed, in fact.
“Who are you?” Avalyn said, as she once again tried to tug her way out of the bindings, again with no luck.
“Nice try villain. You aren’t getting anything out of me. Just know that I’ll be watching you very carefully.” The women spoke with a calm tone, her expression unreadable apart from the, well, anger.
“Well, several things about that, I’m currently tied up.” Avalyn leant to the side to emphasize this. “Secondly, how even are you going to defend yourself if I get out of these things. I think I can take ya in a fight.”
The woman holds out the mug in front of her. Before Avalyn could in get a laugh and a snide comment in about defending herself with a mug, a flash emerged from it that temporarily blinded Avalyn. As she regained her sight, she noticed that the mug had turned into quite a…large golden hammer. That was certainly more threatening than a mug. Avalyn would say that she was rather surprised, but at this point, she would need to see someone with the stupidest possible powers to be shocked.
Avalyn sighed and relaxed in her chair a little. “Fine fine, I’ll play along with your game. Why on earth did you kidnap me from my own apartment?”
“This is not a kidnapping.” The lady moved her hammer back to her side, leaning on it’s elongated handle like some fancy walking stick. “We are holding you for crimes, you’ve been quite the pain in our side.”
“Hold on a second.” Avalyn would have raised her hand up for a time out, if she could. “You’ve been calling me a villain, I haven’t even done anything wrong!”
“You have, by the definition of literal laws, done somethings wrong.” The woman reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone. After a few clicks, she turns it around to show her the devastation at the campus bus stop, along with an ambulance parked nearby. “At least one incident of property damage, with at least one incident of bodily harm.”
“That wasn’t me!” Avalyn cleared her throat quickly after clearing her voice. “Even if it was me, it would have been in self defence, since that person would have had a knife to the torso of whoever did that.”
“So you’re telling me.” The woman swiped right on her phone to change the photo. “That this rather distinctive looking individual isn’t you?” The photo did indeed show what Avalyn believed to be her battle uniform as she had decided to call it. But, there was a clear discrepancy.
“Look I would like to say that I have a body that hot.” Avalyn flashes a quick smirk. “But I don’t have cat ears.”
The lady narrows her eyes at Avalyn, who seemed rather confused that this was causing some contention, after all, she was a human, with normal human ears.
“Clearly I don’t have cat ears, and if I could move my hands to the top of my head I would show you that I don’t have any.”
“You know, for your lies to work on me, they need to not be immediately disproved by clear evidence.”
“Now you’re just gaslighting me lady. That’s a very villainy type thing for you to do, that’s irony or something.”
The lady shakes her head with a sigh, as she takes a step closer to Avalyn and reaching out with one her hands. Strangely, to Avalyn, the lady decided to place her hand on top of her head, and seemed to be ruffling her hair. What was even more strange was that it was feeling rather pleasant.
“Personal space and all, lady, but that’s feeling quite nice. What are you even doing to my head, aromatherapy?”
“I am not doing any of the such, I am merely…” Avalyn suddenly feels a sharp tug on top of her head, causing her to wince and let out quite a feral noise. “Giving your ears a bit of attention.”
“Can you not tug a lady’s hair? Did they not teach you anything?!” Avalyn wrenched her head away from the lady’s hand, almost causing the chair she was sat in to tip over.
The lady took a step backwards and sighed, brubbing the bridge of her nose. “I am frankly tired of this charade. I know for a fact that you aren’t coming out of here without at least some acknowledgement of your wrongdoing. So, are you going to waste anymore of my time or are you going to claim responsibility for your actions?”
Avalyn opened her mouth to deny it all over again, but that was about the time for her little brain friend to speak up after a period of elongated silence.
Tell her the truth. I know it sounds weird, but trust me in this will ya?
Avalyn’s gaze turned to the floor as she considered her next few moves, following it with a deep exhale of breath.
“Yes, I may have done that. But I am being honest here, that guy did pull a knife on me. I didn’t want to hurt them, I just wanted to protect myself you know?”
“Well that explanation may suffice for the incidents of damage and bodily harm, just about…” The lady shook her head again. “But, it doesn’t explain kidnapping.”
“Wait wait, hold on.” Avalyn shook her head rapidly. “I did a lot of that stuff yes, but I didn’t kidnap nobody, no one! You’re just framing me now!”
“Are you not familiar with this man?” With another few swipes on her phone, the lady turned it around for Avalyn to see that the picture was of…her male self before she met Cora. Ohhhhh boy, this was a bit awkward, they thought she kidnapped ‘him’. She let out quite a dramatic gasp.
“My gosh! I thought I’ve killed that motherfucker!”
The lady readied her hammer, pulling it over her head, as an angry look came across her face. “Is that an admission of murder?!”
“No no no no no! I’m just saying metaphorically. I took a sledgehammer and that sledgehammer got rid of him in exchange for giving him boobs. Well, her boobs.” Almost to emphasize the point, she lightly vibrated her torso to give her breasts a minor jiggle.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m Holt! Formerly known as Aaron!” Avalyn gave the woman another cheeky smirk. “I’m Avalyn now, it’s nice to meet you lady I don’t know the name of.”
“What sort of crap are you trying to pull?” The lady squinted. “Do you think this is really going to fool me?”
“Would you believe that superpowers exist?” Avalyn gave the lady a small eyeroll. “Granted, I didn’t really have a choice over this initially, bu you know, being a buff girl ain’t bad, especially if you’re are one. Kinda funky, if you think about it.”
The lady was about to speak again, when the door behind her swung open slowly. Whoever it was was obscured from Avalyn’s vision by the lady, but who she was became all the more apparent when she spoke.
“Hang on a second, Maria.”
The unmistakable ginger locks of Avalyn’s best friend sent a shock through her system, as Steph made her way up to the restrained girl and knelt down in front of her, carrying an expression of concern.
“Are you telling her the truth?”
Avalyn let out a shaky deep breath. “Steph? Are you a part of this too?”
“If you are telling the truth, I will apologize later.” Steph closed her eyes quietly. “But please, answer my question.”
“I didn’t kidnap anyone at all, it is certainly me. I’m Avalyn Holt, in the flesh. The only actual unprovoked crime was force feminisation but technically that was Cora’s fault, not mine.”
Steph raised an eyebrow. “Who is Cora?”
On cue, Avalyn felt a strange sensation come across her shoulder, similar to pins and needles, before the alien symbiote head gooped out of the shoulder and formed as a 2nd, toothy head. The sudden head formation caused the woman to take a massive step back, clutching her hammer tightly, but Steph only briefly looked surprised. Clearly not her first rodeo.
“Ayup, what’s goin’ on ladies?” Cora said, with a big goofy, toothy smirk.
“Holy fucking shit, that’s an alien head, that’s…fuck…” The lady took a few moments to calm herself down with some deep breathes.
“Besides, I have my ID right here in my…” As Avalyn looked down, she finally clocked the fact that her trousers had been turned into a far too short skirt, and she took note of the rest of the exposed skin all over her body with a slight frown. “CORA!”
“No fuckin’ regrets.” Cora said with a giggle.
Steph nodded with a smile, and turned around to face the lady. “Let her go, Maria.”
The now christened Maria slowly nodded and walked over to Avalyn’s back. After a few seconds of wrangling with the bindings, Avalyn’s wrists were free. She celebrated by shaking them off like they were covered in water. She was doing it so vigorously that she almost accidentally slapped Steph across the face when the redhead reached over and hugged Avalyn tightly, just as Cora vanished back into Avalyn’s body.
“I messed up Avalyn, I’m so sorry. I panicked.” Steph sounded close to tears, and Avalyn reacted the only way she knew: she pat Steph gently on the head.
“Look, it’s fine, it’s all good now. I would kidnap me too if I came across me.”
Steph let out a quiet laugh and shook her head. “You’re silly, you know that right?”
“Anyway like, you may have been listening in but.” Avalyn looked rather embarrassed, feeling her hair flatten against her head. “I’m not a villain or anything.”
“I believe you. I know, Avalyn. But you do have some things to answer to?” Steph flicked Avalyn’s nose gently. “You have been very bad.”
“Bad to the bone.” Avalyn deadpanned.
“That’s aside the point.” Steph squeezed Avalyn again in a hug. “I’m glad, I’m so so glad, that you seem happier, full of life.”
“What was I before? A zombie?”
Steph scoffed and shook her head. “I meant it didn’t reach your eyes sometimes. Now, I can see something in there.”
“Maybe you see a concussion. After all, I’ve had a few of them in the past week or so.”
“I didn’t know that concussions give people cat ears though.” Avalyn saw that Steph was looking at the top of her head again, as the symbioted girl frowned.
“What is with you all and trying to convince me that I have cat ears? I don’t…”
Avalyn reached up to the top of her head to prove them wrong, only to immediately come in contact with some fluffy ‘skin’ that moved away at the touch. Avalyn moved her hand away slowly, before reaching up with both hands and grabbing a hold of the ears, and giving them a squeeze.
She then put the ears to the test as she let out a scream that certainly rang in her new appendages and lept up into the air, landing on the ceiling and staying there with a mixture of a symbiote and cat. She looked down at Steph, who met Avalyn’s gaze with a look of amusement.
“...Maybe the cat ears aren’t the only cat-like things that the concussions gave you, Avalyn.”