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Chase stood in front of his cousin’s duffle bag, his irises swirling with anxious oranges and reds. Mari would flip-out if she caught him in here. If Chase was Mari, he’d flip-out. But it was too late to back-out now, he’d already decided to do this. The child balled and unballed his fists, and then unzippered the luggage, flipping it open.

He’d gotten the idea from Saturday morning cartoons. Chase had been listlessly working his way through a bowl of cereal, only half-paying attention to the cartoon that was playing in front of him. The characters—a motley collection of aliens—were staging some sort of coup to figure out the gender of a nondescript purple friend.

“Oh—haha, don’t you know?” the purple alien had rebuffed the other characters, “I’m neither! With my species, we don’t choose our gender until our thirteenth birthday! Speaking of which, mine’s on Monday.”

The human-shifter looked up from the iridescent hoops that swam lazily in his bowl. While the characters chattered about the pronouncement in confusion, Chase was having a revelation of his own.

He, too, could choose.

Chase couldn’t sneak into any girls room to enact this experiment, however. He didn’t want to be some weirdo-creep. Mari was visiting the Mansion, for Thanksgiving, and… somehow, the fact that she was family made it seem a little less weird. If worse came to worse, he could chalk it up to “typical, younger-relative shenanigans” and try to put the whole thing behind him.

It was thus that Chase stood surveying the foreign terrain of neatly-folded juniors’ clothes. Tentatively, the twelve-year-old ran the palm of his hand over the fabric. He felt the dull prickle of genetic residue but, since Mari was like Mama, it didn’t do anything. Perfect. Chase carefully unfolded the first article of clothing, something black and floral-printed, and surveyed it. It was a skater skirt. Cute. He laid it on the bed.

Mari was gonna kill him. Despite this, Chase pulled out another item, presumably a shirt—yeah, some off-the-shoulder maroon thing with long sleeves. This, too, was deposited on the bed. This was crazy. Super crazy. Mari was going to kill him. He was dead, dead, dead.

If Chase was smart, he would have shut the bag and run off with the clothes, but he didn’t. He stayed in Mari’s temporary room, wriggling out of his shoes and skinny-jeans, shedding his shirt. Mari’s fitted shirt was hastily pulled over the Chase’s head, slender arms being pushed through the sleeves. He was a lanky kid, so the shirt actually—surprisingly—fit. The skirt was snatched-up next, which he stepped through as though were a pair of pants.

“Heh,” Chase remarked to himself, running to the mirror to see. It was drafty without pants-legs. He twirled a bit, his back to the door. He looked cute.

“This needs…” the human-shifter trailed to himself. He looked at the crown of his head, the disheveled boys’ cut that his hair was in. On-cue, his hair began to grow, wavy sheets of black unfurling past his shoulders to the small of his back. His face, already cute and small, now seemed more feminine in the jet-black frame of hair. Something still wasn’t right about the face, though. Girls had even cuter faces, right?

His blunt nose became slightly smaller and more upturned. That… actually helped considerably. Chase could feel a smile pulling at his lips, and the girl in the mirror smiled back. “He” didn’t have to be “he”. They could choose.

It was at about that moment that the mechanisms could be heard turning in the door, and someone crossed the threshold. A shock of fearful red ran through the human-shifter’s irises. They were so, so, so, so, so, so dead, and they were going to die, ashamed, in their cousin’s clothes. Looking very much like a deer in the headlights, a still-female Chase stood rooted in front of the mirror. Why couldn't the ground just swallow them up and bury them alive?

"U-uh... hi... Mari..." the child hazarded, cracking a smile that was one-part placating and one-part a mortified baring of teeth, "P-please don't freak out."

They didn't really "know" each other very well... so Chase fully expected an impending freak-out.

The human-shifter nodded. He did know about dinosaurs! Dinosaurs were cool! It didn't take a memory to know that.

"The megalodon is my favorite," the boy announced, beaming. Dinosaurs were cool, and sharks were cool, which meant that dinosaur-sharks were twice as cool. "Brooks" paused, his eyes widening at the glimpse of a glorious sight. A large red-and-yellow display advertised a sundry of Legos. The child's mouth formed an intrigued "o", and he jorgged over to the display, bouncing with excitement.

He glanced back at Celeste for permission, pleading with his eyes.

The doppelganger happily began to work away at his ice cream cone, his iridescent eyes closed contently as he followed Celeste away from the ice cream shoppe. It was fruity and tangy and all kinds of wonderful. Definitely a good choice, on the boy's part.

>> "Well, before we go, let's get you some toys, eh?"

"Brooks" looked inquiringly at Celeste, already wearing a little blue-green moustache from the ice cream he was eating. It was a kid's dream come true, to be offered toys for no reason whatsoever. At the back of his mind, the boy realized that he probably already had toys, but... more toys were always better.

"Okay!" the boy agreed. But, just to be sure it wasn't some sort of joke, "Are you sure? I mean, I probably have toys, right?"

He probably did. And Celeste probably knew that.

"When it's square, it's easier to measure," the boy explained, "So if you use it to make... mac 'n' cheese!... you can put the right amount in there."

It was an easy example, because the mac 'n' cheese was right inf ront of them, "It'd be harder to get the right amount if it was in a tub."

The boy fished into the drawer and pulled out a knife. He could make boxed mac 'n' cheese alright, so he didn't need to read the box to know how much he needed. Though the butter knife had a serrated edge, it was not sharp, so Chase had no qualms handing it to Kalos.

"For mac 'n' cheese, we only need half of a stick of butter," he advised his friend, "So you cut it right along this line-" Chase traced the line on the paper with the tip of his finger, "-Got it?"

The boy trotted back to the sink, shaking the collander lightly to shake water off of the noodles.

>> "How old are you, Chasefriend?"

"Twelve and five months," Chase reported, giving the collander another good shake. This was a lie, he wouldn't be twelve-and-five-months for another week. Yes, Chase was counting. He was ready to be a teenager.

"I'll be thirteen in January," the shifter-child said with a note of pride.

"How old are you, Kalos?"

The noodles were returned to the pot, and the pot to the stove, ready for milk, butter, and cheese powder.

Delta Seven mirrored the Kappa operative, sinking into a position that signified he was ready. She didn't give him any directions, just squared-off with him and swung. Seven dodged to his left, his eyes widening in alarm. As he dodged, her fist extended past his ear. He felt the breeze in that one.

It wouldn't serve him to back off too far, since his reach was shorter than hers. He'd have to stay just out of reach. He tried to deal a blow of his own, a shovel hook aimed at Agent T's liver.

"You didn't give me a directive," the boy observed. How would he know what kind of fighting style to use if Agent T didn't give him a directive? Unless his directive was to stand still and let her vent her frustrations...

The noodles were almost done... which was good. Chase stifled a yawn. Getting back to sleep would be nice. Kalos clambered down to the ground, asking what butter was.

"They don't have butter in Atlantis?" Chase murmured, mostly to himself, before replying more loudly, "It comes in little yellow rectangles, wrapped in paper... the rectangles might be in a box though..."

Kalos managed to get the milk back out... if Chase had been smarter, he would've just left it out, but his sleep-brain wasn't exactly firing at all pistons presently. Finally the clock hit eight minutes, and the boy turned the oven off. A colander was retrieved, and set in the sink. Then, the human shifter shuffled with the pot in-hand, to strain the water out of the noodles. He'd help Kalos find butter, if she couldn't.