Such A Woman 5

Gabrielle sighed in relief, now able to stand on her own two feet again. It had taken time and a lot of falls, but she eventually regained control over her modified body. It wouldn't do to have the Angel of World's Ending stumbling and tripping over her own feet, arms waving around wildly.

She still had a little bit of unsteadiness, but that wouldn't matter after another nineteen hours.

In the meantime, Gabrielle had to gently let down her pets on their plans for a girl's night out, explaining that -first of all- the transformation was a condition of her wish to let Caleb be a girl for a day so the idiot could finally have her shot at the Wonder Chef. And secondly, if she went out in public like this, flawed people would fall all over themselves to show up after her and Gabrielle really didn't need to distract Caleb from things with a massacre.

No matter how much fun it'd be....

So Cat, Neveah and Ladawna groaned collectively and decided to go out on their own, leaving the blonde behind to roam the Archives in search of her sister.

"Archives, where is Caleb?" she called out.

/Searching... searching... searching..../

"Bugger." Gabrielle sighed, "That's right. The Archives can't track a human unless their mana signature is programmed into its library." She frowned, then shrugged. "All right then. Patch me into the network security closed camera system. I'll find him myself... ah, her."

Streams of data flooded Gabrielle's mind and she ran her facial recognition algorithms over the rapidly moving files even as she strode off to get to the lower levels where there seemed to be an abnormally large crowd of Heroes. The program hit on a match and Gabrielle lifted an eyebrow. Caleb was in the midst of that crowd of Heroes, looking faintly panicked with a nervous smile on her face.

"I did not allow myself to be turned into this just to have a bunch of useless fleshlings balls it all up!" Gabrielle snarled under her breath, blades sliding and snapping out into place as she moved even more swiftly towards that crowd.

At least Martel allowed her to keep her android body; no point in making her human as well when she needed to stand guard over Caleb's purity.


Escaping from the crowd got much easier once Caleia registered that being a woman entitled her to run into the women's restrooms and stay there as long as she liked. She could still hear the bulk of them on the other side of the door, along with the Magpie alternating between demanding they clear out and yelling at Wren to 'get his ass over there if he knows what's good for him'. She sighed in exasperation and turned away from the door, making her way to the sinks to wash her face and freshen up.

What was the reason for the transformation? Was this just another of Martel's pranks? Every time a trick was pulled on her as her normal android self to make her look like a girl, Heroes would start taking strange interest in her.

It was kind of unsettling.

Caleia sighed again, reaching out for a fluffy towel to wipe her face off with, and freezing in place upon catching sight of herself in the mirror after drying. She blinked over the white fluff of the towel and slowly lowered it to get a good look at herself, leaning forward in awe.

Was this what she looked like? Really? This was what all those Heroes were seeing when she went storming down the halls in her fury? Caleia blinked again, realizing that she hadn't really gone looking for a mirror to see herself since the change took place.

She lifted a hand to her face, marveling at her reflection doing the same. Her reflection. This was really her hand, this was really her face.

She was pretty.

No, she was beautiful.

"I am so not getting used to this." Caleia muttered, rubbing her forehead in exasperation.

A louder ruckus started up by the door, with Heroes yelling in a panic and footsteps stomping like mad, all with Gabrielle's voice shouting in a fury over them. "Get the hell out of here, ya over-sexed bloody bastards! You have other love interests; I'll castrate the lot of ya iffin ye dare to be gettin' inny closer to the Guardian Angel!"

"Oh, wonderful, she's hit the Scots-level." Caleia grumbled, half-annoyed by the chaos that was sure to be outside and half-relieved that her temporary sister cleared out the crowd. But she went to the door anyway and carefully opened it to peek outside.

And saw Gabrielle hovering in the air on metal-and-mana-wings, her engraved orihalcum blades extended from her arms as she fixed a death glare on the paths leading to the ladies' room.

"You're still an android?!" Caleia cried out in shock and betrayal, throwing open the door and running out to look up at the blonde. "Why would Martel turn me into a human woman, but leave you an android woman?!"

"Martel's tetched in the 'ead, is wot she is." Gabrielle huffed, landing and retracting one blade to rub at her neck, her voice distorting slightly as she tried switching back to her usual tone and accent. "Be asking Hawking to explain ponies to a pygmy, askin' me that."

"At least you're out of the bathroom." Mike pointed out, dragging Wren over by the arm as the chef continued to keep his gaze averted and cheeks flushed red. "Now instead of hiding in the Archives all freaking day, why don't you and Wren go and scout out that restaurant you were talking about? It'd get you away from all these Heroes with their sudden interest in you."

Caleia glared at the both of them, feeling like there was something else going on but unable to think ahead enough to figure it out. Stupid human brain. She shook her head, reached out, and grabbed Wren by the wrist, stomping off and grumbling under her breath about how she just wanted a normal day with her best friend and didn't need all this insanity.

"Remember what I told ya, Wren!" Mike called out, waving enthusiastically at them, even as the chef turned his head to glare flatly at him. The World-Wanderer kept his smile up until they were gone and then turned a serious expression on the Angel of World's Ending. "We're following them to be sure they actually date, right?" he asked.

"I have boobs and a butt for the opportunity to have them get over themselves and date." Gabrielle snarled, "Like hell am I letting anyone else screw it up! We're following those two until they start making out like we both know they've been wanting to!"

"You're scarier as a girl, just FYI." Mike muttered, checking his Drive for pathways, "Looks like they're ditching the flight for that restaurant. Caleia's ticked off enough she's heading for the kitchens to cook."

"That's not a date!" Gabrielle declared, hands on her hips in indignation, "Archives! Seal all access to the kitchens and put barriers in place to force Caleb and the Wonder Chef out of the building! Then lock them out and don't let them back in until after ten!"

/Processing.... Operation complete. Tracking Adam for expulsion. Caleb not found./

"There is a woman with the Wonder Chef. Scan her signature and record as 'Caleia', alternate identity of Caleb. Get her and the chef out of the Archives!" the blonde snapped and nodded at the confirmation before turning to the young man beside her, "Make yourself useful and keep them going to dating spots." She lifted one arm and let a blade slide out. "I'll intercept any bumbling bugger who thinks they've got a shot at Caleb." she added with a vicious smile.


It didn't take the Archives long to gently corral and then eject the two of them from the building, and none of Caleia's usual methods for getting back in would work. She kicked at the door, swearing under her breath as her skirt hiked up higher and Wren quickly glanced away, fidgeting in place.

Still didn't keep him from subconsciously sneaking little peeks back at her legs.

"Open this door right now!!" the redhead yelled, stomping her heel against the reinforced metal. Still no response. She sighed harshly and turned to Wren, who quickly jerked his gaze up to her face. Caleia blinked -what had he been looking at?- before asking, "Think you can teleport us back inside?"

"I left the fork in my room. Didn't think I'd need to carry it today." Wren replied briefly, glancing away again, "Perhaps we'll look at the restaurant another time. What do you want to do for now? Try and get yourself changed back?"

"Ugh. Being human reminds me that I actually get punished for ignoring meals." Caleia sighed, putting a hand to her belly. Wren twitched, looking down at her hand before looking away, blushing. "Seriously, whose brilliant idea was it to have 'hunger pains'? If you really don't want to eat for a longer duration of time, you shouldn't be inflicted with a status effect over it!"

"It's worse when you're pregnant." the chef remarked off-handedly, then felt his face burn when Caleia just stared at him. "Ginger! When Ginger was pregnant, she was constantly complaining about how her stomach hurt because the babies would kick around and she'd have to eat more to feed them or certain foods made her sick." he hurriedly explained.

"I know. I helped take care of her during her pregnancies, remember?" Caleia pointed out with a small frown, one hand on her hip, "Holy Servant and all that. Why did me wondering about hunger pains suddenly make you jump to pregnancy pains?"

"Nothing! Let's go eat then!" Wren answered in too high and bright of a voice, clapping his hands together as he walked off, "Preferably a restaurant that isn't regularly visited by my great-great-by so many generations-great grandson!"

"Gordon Ramsay is not going to know you're his ancestor. Ancestry.com doesn't go back far enough without access to my archived records." But Caleia didn't press any further than that and was growing too hungry to care so she simply fell into step beside Wren and walked down the street with him. It was natural to do that, she'd fallen into step beside him for years.

This was the first time Wren tried putting distance between them. She gave him a concerned look, absently noting she'd shrunk just a little -mass taken from her height to be distributed to her new body shape, perhaps?- to be able to look him in the eyes rather than down at him. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Wren opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, then shut it and looked away, still blushing. "It's nothing. Just a stupid thought I had." he muttered, "I could use a stiff drink, but I'd rather have lunch and tea. There's supposed to be a little sandwich shop a few blocks down this way, so let's stop in there."

The redhead gave him a lingering look of concern before sighing and shrugging it off. "Let's go then." she agreed, oblivious to the two figures stalking after them and squabbling over hiding spots as they followed.