turn my power on | Glowfic Constellation

Very little is more important than school, but this algebra test means nothing next to the sight of her body against a starry background.

She’s been aware for years that her body is wrong, skin and meat and juices and Incorrectness, but none of the makeup ads and style magazines had understood the reason why or what she wanted to do about it. The dream state almost gets it.

Would she like to recolor her hair? Sharpen her cheekbones? Grow wings? A unicorn horn? Claws, fangs, crystals, purple eyes, pointed ears, platinum teeth?

So many options, so much freedom, but the first thing to do is obvious. She has to get rid of her skin. Pores and hair and sweat glands melt away, replaced by blue metal scales as shiny as a just-washed car. And as the metal spreads, power accumulates.

She's pretty content with having made regionals; winning at state was farther than she'd worried she was going to get.

Eventually the scientists who sent her to the CDC publish their report on her; she reads it with interest.

Junior year ends (the club's robot does awesomely on the ropes course) and she actually finishes a summer with the county pinch squad.

In the fall, she applies to a selection of engineering colleges and ends up at Stanford, where she majors in biological engineering. The summer after her sophomore year, she's back at the CDC again, this time as a genuine intern doing genuine (magic-assisted) science. She likes the life she's ended up with, both the parts she saw coming and the parts she didn't.