Chapter 2

I woke up.

That, in itself, was cause for celebration. Before opening my eyes, I savored the sensation of breathing, of existing, of living free of pain, of feeling so alive that I could burst, full of energy and joie de vivre - marred only by the sensation of a hollow stomach gnawing on its own tissue. I was starving. I sensed so much more, an overwhelming input of sensations I could not sort out or understand, perception of which I quickly damped down with an effort of concentrated will. A teenager might have been overwhelmed, but I had the accumulated discipline of decades of magical practice.

There were a couple of incongruities - I was lying on a mattress, face down and naked, and experiencing the squishing of my new breasts, which felt way too large, against the bed. That, however, was something I'd considered and expected - if with some amount of dread, mixed with curiosity and excitement. Having my hands held behind my back by some contraption, that was the real surprise. A bit of exertion showed that whatever it was - presumably handcuffs meant for superstrong metahumans, AKA 'bricks' - would not give in without a struggle.

Opening my eyes, I only had to blink once to painlessly adjust to the harsh yellow light, and confirmed my suspicions. The grey walls of a cell greeted me, presumably a prison cell designed to hold mutants. I didn't need to stretch out my senses - I could feel the magic suffusing the walls, wards of significant power, and moreover - I could see them, and almost stretched to reach them, metaphysically speaking, before holding myself back. The room was barren of essence, the wards preventing me from gathering any, but somehow the magical power of the wards themselves, essence held in directed bondage, felt 'edible'. It was like I could eat magic, feed on it directly. The thought, combined with my new capacity for perceiving magic and energy, made me momentarily dizzy at the possibilities, before I reined in my imagination and turned my gaze to the large and formidable metallic looking door, then rose to my bare feet with a swiftness and lack of awkwardness that astonished me. With an unfamiliar body, new center of gravity and tits, not to mention having my hands bound behind my back, I hadn't expected to move smoothly and effortlessly. The audible growl of my stomach helped me pick my jaw off the floor, and I surveyed the room again, seeing nothing new. It measured about ten feet in each dimension, the cot was singularly uninspiring, there was a curtained off shower and toilet in one corner, and that was it. When I started to seriously contemplate chewing on the walls, I knew I was in trouble. The energy roiling inside me rose to answer that idle thought, a pure white light filling the room, drowning out that which issued from the exposed bulb. Restraining it, drawing the light inside with some instinct, I wondered for a moment if I truly was a duplicate of Coruscate - recalling that the light blasts she issued were a shimmering silvery blue in coloration. Looking up, I could sense the power flowing into the light bulb, suddenly certain that I could feed on current power and electricity as easily as I could devour magic. I traced the power back until it touched the wards, caressing it mentally and causing a slight, barely visible fluttering in the room lighting.

Not pausing for much thought, driven by hunger and a curious sense of invincibility, I took a step and kicked the door with one foot. Not with my full strength or backed by the energy I sensed coiling and roiling restlessly inside what felt like my heart, the core of my being, but nonetheless a hard tap. A sudden panic twisted my stomach further as I thought about the where and the who - who might be holding me. Miami is a Goodkind bastion, and brain cancer might be an easy and painless way to go compared to falling into the hands of Goodkind Research or the disappearance squads of the MCO. The problem was that I couldn't sense any sensors - no portholes, no magic eyes, nothing psychic could get through the wards, and gadgets or devises presumably required power, which I would have felt. Buried and forgotten was almost as frightening as the dissection labs. I cursed my stupidity at devoting so little planning for success. I'd been so focused on the goal, I'd barely thought one second ahead, let alone about the short, medium and long term. Just changing my will to give everything to a mutant advocacy group instead of my estranged daughters, and a vague notion of walking up to a superhero group and claiming to have run away from a family that wouldn't accept a mutant. Beyond that, I hadn't a notion of what to do.

I kept kicking the door lightly, generating an expressive boom with each strike, expecting someone to make themselves known eventually. I used to be pretty good at measuring time, but now I seemed to have a much better sense of it. I'd need to check against a good clock and perhaps calibrate it, but in the interim I'd have to guess that it took six minutes and seventeen seconds for a voice to issue from the door.

"Step back to the far wall and face it," a male voice sounded through the door. Some sort of harmonic resonance, using the metal? If so, perhaps they had a way of passively looking through it.

Deciding not to tempt fate, I strode to the far wall, pouting and turned around. "You just want to stare at my ass," I said to no one in particular, hearing the door revolve open. Jeeze, the thing must weigh a ton - or three.

"You can turn around," the same hard voice sounded much closer.

There were four of them, but I couldn't help but focus on Coruscate and let out a sigh of relief. The uniforms were police, not MCO, which was even better.

"Hi guys!" I uttered brightly in the bubbliest voice I could conjure. "I'm Charlie, and boy am I starving! I mean, verging on chewing on the walls starving. So food will absolutely have to come first. Must, must, must!" I was quite deliberately acting childishly, but I was in no way acting. The hunger was an almost physical spectre, chewing on my innards.

Coruscate was in her same ol' blue and silver armor, and looked to be about six feet tall - a full six inches taller than me without socks on. Maybe part of it was her armor, but we were clearly not physical duplicates. The man who spoke was at her side, a police officer. I wasn't conversant with rank badges, a bit of ignorance I had every intention of correcting. To either side were power armor jocks pointing nasty looking chain guns at me. At least they had enough brains not to employ energy guns.

"No! Not negotiable! I'm not a violent person, but I'm just dying of hunger," I reiterated when mouths opened to speak. "No talkee before eatee. And unless you want to have someone feed me, you need to get whatever it is holding my hands off. Oh, and some clothes? This is, like, cruel and unusual punishment."

Corry turned to the police officer and actually agreed with me. "She's right, if she's an energizer now, she's probably starving."

Wordlessly, the officer handed her a big old complicated looking key, and I turned around at her circling motion, not faking the eyes wide part when I saw the handcuffs they'd had on me. Holy Christ on a popsicle, I hadn't expected the Godzilla brand!

I didn't take a moment to rub my wrists - there was no need, nothing was sore. I did start hopping up and down, repeatedly chanting "Food!"