Yeah, that was fair. Growing backwards was definitely weird. She kind of wished she could have seen it from the outside. Like if maybe it had happened to someone else. Like the person who had done this to her, maybe?

The old man agreed, it was freaky. Cool. So she was a freak.

Her mind went to the scene from Legend of Zelda: Majora’s mask. ‘It seems you’ve suffered a horrible fate.’

Yep.

The girls name was Serena. They met when she was like, 18? Hm.

Cute blonde.

Hm.

Probably nothing.

What wasn’t nothing was the little bit of needle. The doctor stepped forward to take it from her.

“Careful,” she agreed. And handed it to him, carefully. Not that doctors weren’t experienced with needles and knew to be careful or anything. But— she had the a bad feeling about it.

“Could that... have been part of the problem? What caused this... some sort of drug?” Amelia pondered.

Who would do that? Who would make something like this.

“Why’s the needle broken. You’d think it’d stab through something as flimsy as a hoodie. Kevlar body armor, it ain’t.”

Serena watched as the Doc helped Ami carefully remove the needle and pondered the situation. Amelia was not the first person she'd come across that had been de-aged. She supposed she now knew what had happened to Evelyn though, more or less. She did wonder why the woman had tried the needle when she had gas, if her goal was to affect as many people as possible, surely the gas was much easier to disperse than the injections?

Serena shook her head. "It was a gas that did this to you, I'm not sure if it was a kind of drug or something different. But I'm going to find out."

Recalling something Amelia said about making a straight jacket bullet proof Serena supposed it made sense that she could turn something needle proof also. "I think you maybe did something with your power to stop it getting through? It wasn't like you were holding out an arm for her to just inject you either, hard to give an injection when you're being fought."

“Gas, Huh?” Amelia pondered that.

Was there a difference, depending on method of dispersal? Needles seemed less practical, more... well. Permanent. Because they’d leave a mark. And it wasn’t inhaled like a gas. It actually got in you. But—

Well, Serena would find out. Hm.

And she said something about Amelia and her power and stopping the needle— hm some. More.

“What even is my power?” She said. “I mean, I only just discovered it last night from my perspective. And I just sort of force pushed mirror out of the path of a cop car while we were fighting zombies.”

“Cop thought Mirror was a zombie.” She explained. “Because she was wearing the costume.”

“I could help you investigate if you want...” She said. Shrugged one shoulder. “Apparently, I am good at fighting too?”

How did one explain Amelia's power? It was sort of like telekinesis but not. Serena had definitely seen it used enough times to have a pretty solid idea of how it worked, but she definitely wasn't sure how Amelia actually used her power. Serena's was mostly visualisation, she generally used her limbs to roughly articulate what she wanted her power to do, although she was fairly sure after seeing her dopple ganger use the same power that it was a psychological thing more than a requirement.

"You manipulate clothes, it's similar to very specific telekinesis. You mentioned something about a bullet proof jacket, earlier I mean."

It was amazing how some people just leapt before thinking things through, it was one of those things that really helped form Serena's mental image of what a hero was. Amelia was one of the people that had shaped that, as well as Serena's older brother, and most of the X-men she'd met. But still, she had opinions on allowing people under the age of 18 to take part in such actions and she was fairly confident that Amelia was currently a teenager.

"I appreciate the offer, really. But It would be woefully irresponsible of me to allow you to do that." Not to mention it would be awkward.

Clothing manipulation. My, but that sounded useless.

How did one even get bulletproof vests from clothing manipulation? How could it even be similar to telekinesis? Yeah. Whatever god had designed this power was kind of stupid. It sounded legitimately lame. Also, the amount of panty-mancer jokes was astronomical.

Serena didn’t think it’d be responsible to enlist her help. Regardless of her powers cool factor or not. Woefully irresponsible, even.

“Probably smart.” Amelia agreed. “Doubt being a panty-mancer is even remotely useful. So all I got going for myself is shotgun skills and untested detective know how. I can see why you’d feel irresponsible tapping that.”

Why would she even have access to a shotgun? She’d left that behind at the scene of the zombies... where had she gotten it, even?

Had the doctor guy just choked on a drink of water? Hopefully, he’d get that sputtering thing under control.

Serena actually laughed at that one. It was funny, she'd never actually thought about that. On the surface or just based on a simple description Amelia's power sounded really lame, or at the very least not very useful in many situations. Of course she knew better but she'd known Amelia for years, and seen her do some pretty impressive things. She'd met other mutants with similar situations, Leon for instance.

"It's more useful than you think, I'm sure once you get a handle on it you'll surprise yourself." She soothed. "Plenty of powers tend to be not quite what you think they are, and they develop over time too for some people." Her certainly had, her blood hadn't always healed people and she certainly hadn't turned into a blood elemental when she first got her powers.

Doc Prof choked on his drink of water. Serena flashed him an amused smile. "It's not nesscarily your power, It's more your age, and also this is probably going to be a confusing experience for you." She paused, thinking carefully over her next few words before she released them.

"I don't think your job is a problem from what you were saying before. But if you really don't feel like speaking to your family yet, stay here at the mansion as long as you need to get your bearings, it's not a problem." She chewed her lip again, pretty much an unconscious habit at this point.

"Mirror is around, but bare in mind they're older, life moves on and all."

Oh yes, once she got ahold of her situation.

Please, god, let it only be temporary.

She’d already logic’d out the conclusion. If she stayed young, she’d have to redo everything she ever did, lose all the progress she’d already made in her life, and make new friends. And maybe, a new relationship.

She’d have to pretend to be absent, so her job wouldn’t fire her. And figure things out.

Yeah, getting ahold of her powers and seeing them develop over time was the least of her concerns. Couldn’t she just get them accelerated to where she already had control over everything?

Serena said this would be confusing for her? NS. More like consuming. And she didn’t think her job would be an issue?

Why was it every thing Serena did to soothe her was having the opposite effect? It wasn’t anything personal. It was just that she didn’t have the same weights of importance on myriad topics on Amelia’s mind. Clearly, she had her own concerns.

She said she could stay at the mansion, and yeah. She supposed she could. She didn’t want to bum around at her brothers apartment, or go home to her parents. She nodded at that.

“Sounds smart...”

And Mirror was around. But they were older and “life moves on and all that.” Which was tactful talk for “you and her aren’t together any more.”

“Cool.” Amelia said. “So who am I dating now, then?”

Doc Prof coughed into his hand tactfully. Amelia kept on going.

“I mean, life moves on and all that. That’s code for ‘you and them no longer are in a relationship, right? So who am I dating? I’d like to call them... so they don’t think I just stopped keeping in touch with them out of spite or something. Or that I died.”

Seriously, who did that?

Amelia wasn’t exactly a master spy at the best of times, emotions were readable on her face. And even if this was a different girl to the one Serena knew, she’d known Ami for so many years, shared her bed. Shared her heart. She wasn’t making things any better, and it was causing little cracks to appear internally.

Unlike her Ex, Serena was very good at keeping emotions pushed down most of the time. She’d avoided dealing with Ami disappearing for two years after all. God, she’d avoided dealing with Jake's death for practically years also. She could deal with this later.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to patronise. Really.” She needed to be responsible. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d just die if anything else bad like this befell Ami. It was also that she was supposed to be setting a public example now.

Serena tilted her head a little. Tactful, huh? “As far as I’m aware, you’re single.” She could leave it there. That should be enough right?

And then Amelia continued, the Doc suddenly looked very uncomfortable. Apparently he’d picked up on some of Serena’s issues in her brief recent conversations with him. Sly old fox. “Yes, it is code for that. You could be dating somebody else that I don’t know about, I suppose. You’ve not been involved in my life at all recently, until today when this happened to you.” She kept all of the bitterness out of her voice, remaining very neutral.

There was this segmented corner of her mind, that was internally screaming. She kept it that way, apart from her conversation. Oh. She was going to kill some vampires in the danger room later.

She didn’t mean to patronize. Well, Amelia hadn’t thought she was being patronizing had she?

She shrugged a shoulder and held up a hand.

Whatever. It was what it was.

Just like her being single was what it was.

Single huh? With a useless power. What a loser.

She went on and on... and people started looking uncomfortable. The doctor, for one. And... although Serena didn’t really sound bitter...her words were interesting, to say the least.

Was she reading into something that wasn’t there? Probably. Maybe she was just annoyed with her for asking a million questions and bugging her. Maybe Amelia hadn’t been the best of friends, and bam. Showed up and got herself nerfed. Because you gotta put the kiddie gloves on the all-powerful Pantymancer. Otherwise, she’ll start throwing gloves and flinging pants and then all hell will break loose.

God, but this whole THING was making her paranoid and angry and a little standoffish.

“Sorry I was such a sh^tty friend and then this happened,” she muttered. “Really must suck. Me bringing a big bad to the mansion and getting myself turned into a kid. I—“

She stopped. Her tone hit her. It was not a very apologetic tone. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Amelia ran a hand through her hair.

“Look. That tone was garbage. But I really am sorry. I screwed all the pooches here. Totally.” All of them. Every one. If they indexed a list of pooches...

This was so awkward, it was actually unbelievable. How did you speak to somebody you had known for years, when really they had no clue who you were? Serena sucked at this.

Internally twisted in agony Serena was about to interrupt before Amelia stopped herself and apologised, self deprecating even more than she already had been. It was just shocking how different this Amelia was to the adult one. Even before the whole mind melding thing, Amelia had always exuded this confidence that Serena found highly attractive.

"It's quite alright, I understand this is hard for you. This whole thing." Truth be told it was probably just a shock for Amelia, she'd slowly get her head around it.

"Ami. You don't need to feel that way, you're not useless. This happened to you in the process of saving people. Before we fell out of contact, you were a very hard working cop. You were a good person." She really did believe that. A fucking idiot, but a good person.

"Look, spend a little time getting your bearings, I'll go and make sure there is a room for you while you get yourself together. It'll be okay." She wished she believed her own words. It might be okay for Amelia, but it wasn't for Serena.

She understood, it was hard.

“Yeah.” Amelia said. It was.

Serena said she wasn’t useless, that she’d had this happen to her in the process of doing something heroic, that she’d been a hard-working cop. That she had been a good person.

Had been.

Had.

“Thank you.” Amelia said. “That’d be great. I really appreciate all your help, ‘Rena.”

That was all there really was to say. Besides. She had tons of stuff to do to fix her life. And being down on herself wasn’t accomplishing a thing.

Serena nodded. "There are plenty of people here to help you if you struggle, and nobody is going to pressure you to do anything. You can just take the time you need to sort out your life." It was so weird talking to Amelia like she was just one of those lost kids that had ended up at the mansion. Serena kind of supposed that she was now.

Serena sighed and tried to give Ami her best smile. It was up there. "Anytime, Ami." She smiled at the Doc too, a silent thank you for his understanding over her anger.

"I'm going to go and speak with admin quickly, someone will pop back over here shortly with a room for you, they'll take care of you." She hesitated for a moment before adding. "If you need me for anything, speak to them, they will know how to get a hold of me." She smiled one more time before turning on her heel and strolling over to the offices and doing exactly what she said she would.

It wasn't a normal request by any means, but the mansion staff were used to dealing with a variety of weird situations, and Serena definitely had some measure of respect from some of the staff so it didn't take her long to sort things out.

She then moved straight over to the danger room, taking ragged breaths as she went, barely containing herself as she checked whether or not it was in use.

When she discovered it was not, the blonde keyed herself in and started a program where she could just physically and emotionally let it all out. Thank god for the room, nobody saw her scream.