Girl Power Omnibus (Gender Swap Superhero Fiction)

by P. T. Dilloway

  “You’re crazy. That’s why Sally doesn’t love you. She’d never love a madman.”

  “I’m the madman?” he says with a laugh. They dance around the roof, going at the same speed so neither has the advantage. “You’re the one in middle school still thinking she can be Sally’s husband and Jenny’s father.”

  “Maybe we’re both crazy then. Maybe they don’t deserve either one of us.”

  She knows he’ll make the first move. He’s a lot angrier than her. He’s already on the edge emotionally. It’s like a matador staring down a bull; she has to know when to make her move to evade his charge.

  He comes straight at her. Like the matador, she steps out of the way to avoid his charge. Unlike a bull, he won’t be able to regroup. Instead, his momentum carries him over the edge of the roof. But in one last spiteful act, he grabs the hem of her tattered sweater to take her with him.

  Everything seems to slow down. This is how it’s going to end, she thinks. As fast as she and Alan are, while falling through the air they’re helpless. They’ll end up as bloody splatters on the pavement below. She only wishes she could have gotten a chance to say goodbye to Sally and Jenny first.

  Then she sees a third person on the roof. Sally dashes across the roof in what looks to Allison like normal time, but she knows it’s not. Her mental clock indicates it takes Sally only a quarter-second to get across the roof and grab the front of Allison’s shirt.

  Allison and Alan dangle from the edge of the roof while Sally strains to pull them up. Alan tries to use Allison’s sweater as a rope to pull himself up. She knows if he does, he’ll toss her over the edge of the roof.

  There’s only one way to solve the problem. Allison accelerates her molecules to tear off the remains of the sweater. The sound of the seams tearing is soon followed by Alan’s bellow of rage. He tries to grab for her ankle, but Sally is too quick; she yanks Allison back over the edge of the roof.

  Allison presses herself against Sally like a child as she watches Alan Bass fall to his death. Like a mother, Sally turns Allison’s head away so she can’t see the final impact. She brushes hair from Allison’s face and smiles. “It’s all right now. He’s gone.”

  “I know.”

  Sally seems to notice her scorched clothes for the first time. “I don’t know what happened to me.”

  “I’ll explain it to you,” Allison says.

  ***

  In his hands, Neptune holds a spear reminiscent of the one Killer Whale uses. There isn’t much difference between them now in Elise’s mind. Elise looks around her for a weapon, but she doesn’t have anything except the useless seashell.

  Before Elise can say anything, Paul takes her shoulder. “Get in the water,” he says from the corner of his mouth.

  Elise hesitates. She thinks this pool is what will change her back, but what if it isn’t? What if instead of making her Pacifican she ends up some disgusting, twisted creature like the Sea Hag Roboto had made her into? More than that, she doesn’t want to leave Paul alone with Neptune. They might be lovers, but the way Neptune is acting, Elise isn’t sure that’s much of a deterrent.

  “Go!” Paul snarls. He takes a step forward, his hands up. “Come on, sweetie, stop this. You don’t want to hurt us.”

  “Get out of my way,” Neptune growls.

  “Ellis—” Paul can’t get the rest out as Neptune stabs him in the midsection with the spear. His lip curls as he twists the head of the spear around to make Paul scream.

  Neptune glares at Elise. “Give me the scepter or he’ll continue to suffer.”

  Elise stares at Paul in shock. She watches blood spill across the front of his shirt while his skin turns sickly pale. They haven’t been as close since she became a woman, but she remembers all the nights they spent together, sleeping in each other’s arms. Other than Erek, there was no man she had ever loved more. “Paul, no.”

  “Elise, go!” he screams at her.

  The pleading in his eyes finally galvanizes her. She turns and dives into the pool. It’s much deeper than it should be, impossibly deep. Elise finds herself being pushed to the bottom. Her human lungs burn as her supply of oxygen dwindles. She tries to hold her breath, but she can’t. Her every instinct forces her to open her mouth. Water floods in.

  She finally hits the bottom, her slack body landing in a heap. The light from above fades away, leaving her in darkness. A hand envelops hers. A soothing voice—her mother’s voice—says, “Upon your shoulders rest all of Pacifica’s hopes and dreams. You are the one chosen by Poseidon himself to lead our people into a new golden age. It is time for the queen to take her throne.”

  As these words fade, oxygen fills Elise’s lungs. It’s not from the air, though; she’s breathing underwater. She raises a hand to feel the gills on the sides of her neck. She’s Pacifican again!

  Elise opens her eyes enough to see the shape of her mother fading away. “Mother, please, don’t go,” she whispers like a child. But it’s too late. Elise sees three shapes in the water—Mother, Father, and Erek—fading away.

  Then they’re gone. The seashell is gone too. In its place is the golden trident, the scepter of Pacifica. As she reaches out to grab it, she notices how her body has changed besides the gills. Her limbs are stronger, more muscular now. Her breasts have swelled back to their previous size. Waves of dark red hair fan out around her body. She feels something heavy on her head. She reaches up to touch her mother’s crown woven into her hair. Instead of her human clothes, she wears a gown made of what appear to be fish scales; the scales sparkle with rainbow-colored light. This is what a queen should look like.

  Elise tightens one hand around the trident. Now that she’s Pacifican again, it’s easy enough for her to shoot through the water of the pool. She gathers speed, going faster and faster until she launches herself from the water like a dolphin.

  With a warrior’s scream she lunges at Lord Neptune. She’s relieved to see his eyes widen and that smug grin fade as she spears him through the chest with the trident. His body sags to the floor to lie at her feet.

  Elise whirls the trident around to slap the spear from his hand. On the backswing she knocks the crown off his head. “You are not fit to wear my father’s crown, usurper,” she says. With a final plunge, she finishes him off.

  “Elise?” Paul whispers.

  She turns to him and smiles. “It’s me.”

  “You’re…so…pretty.”

  Her cheeks turn warm at the compliment. She feels like herself again, plain old Elise Gold, wife and mother, not the queen of Pacifica. She tosses the trident away and kneels down beside Paul. “Oh, Paul, I’m sorry.” She runs a hand along his cheek. “You were so brave. I can’t thank you enough.”

  He nods to her. He tries to say something, but he’s too weak. There’s no time to get him to a hospital. He’s going to die here, like Manny and Mother. They had died so she could jump into the water—

  She stares at the pool. Will it work on Paul? It worked on her when she was fully human. She takes Paul in her arms. “I need you to trust me, Paul. All right?”

  He nods slightly to her. She takes that as her cue to throw him into the pool. As much as she wants to go down with him, she’s not sure what will happen if she does. She has a vision of them ending up as some terrible two-headed monster.

  So she waits by the edge of the pool. She counts the minutes: one, two, three. She’s at six before the calm of the pool is shattered. A man flops over the side. There are gills on the sides of his neck to indicate he’s Pacifican.

  Elise pulls the man from the edge of the pool. She rolls him over. His hair is past his shoulders and he’s sporting a thick brown beard that reminds her of Erek, but when he opens his eyes, she can tell it’s Paul. He gasps and wheezes, unable to breathe the air. “It’s all right,” she says. “Your body needs a minute to acclimate.”

  She takes his hand and gives it a squeeze to let him know she’s there. It was like this for Erek when he first went onto the surface
. It’s like this for all Pacificans their first time, the pain even more acute than a girl losing her virginity.

  Paul’s face turns to purple. Elise is tempted to throw him back into the pool, but she’s not sure what will happen then. “Come on, Paul. You can do it.”

  The gills on his neck lie flat to disappear. There’s a sharp intake of breath. She smiles at him. “You did it! I knew you could.” Though she knows things between them are over, she kisses his cheek.

  It takes a good ten minutes before he’s able to speak. He runs a hand through his new beard and asks, “What happened?”

  “You’re a merman now.”

  “What?”

  “You’re Pacifican. Like me.”

  “Oh my God.” His hand moves down to his midsection, where Lord Neptune stabbed him. There’s only bare skin and well-defined abdominal muscles now. At least the pool was kind enough to dress him in a loincloth.

  “You are going to drive all the gay mermen crazy,” Elise says.

  “They aren’t all like this?”

  “Only those who work out.”

  “Oh.” He looks up at her. “I can see this is going to be a big adjustment.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.” She helps him to his feet. She grabs the spear that nearly killed him so he can use it as a crutch to help him walk. She takes the trident with one hand and uses the other to drag Neptune away from the pool. It’s only right that he should share the bellies of the sharks along with the woman he murdered.

  ***

  Of all the vehicles in the bunker, the one Robin calls ‘the Rover’ is the only one she can get to work. The reason is that the Rover was designed as an apocalypse response vehicle. Besides twice the armor of an M1 Abrams tank, it has self-sustained life support systems and triple-redundant systems. That bozo impostor tore out two of the systems, but he hadn’t gotten to the third one.

  The only thing Robin hadn’t designed for the vehicle was a shock-absorption system worth a damn. She did at least put some barf bags inside, which come in handy for Melanie as they bounce along I-95 towards Washington. Despite the vomit staining her mouth, Melanie still grins. “This is like something out of The Walking Dead.”

  “They wish,” Robin says. The cars in front of her part like the Red Sea; no one’s stupid enough to try to take on a vehicle the size of a tractor-trailer that looks like an armored personnel carrier.

  Despite its size and weight, the Rover can do almost two hundred miles an hour thanks to its mammoth jet-assisted propulsion system. It’s not as fast as any of her jets, but it’s a lot quicker than walking, which was the alternative.

  “We got any company yet?” Robin asks.

  Melanie pulls down the periscope to look through it. “None so far.”

  “Good.” The last thing Robin wants is some dipshit state trooper to try to write her a speeding ticket. With any luck they’ll think she’s with the military; that or the machine-gun turret might keep them out of her hair.

  After another bout of puking, Melanie asks, “What happens when we get to the Pentagon? They aren’t going to let us crash inside.”

  “They won’t have a choice.” Not unless Storm wants to drop a couple of tactical nukes on his home territory, she adds to herself.

  “We’ll have to get out of this thing eventually. What’s to stop them from arresting us?”

  “You can get out if you want.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m saying. I’m wondering if you’ve really thought this through. I know he hurt you—”

  “Don’t start with the Dr. Phil shit,” Robin growls. “The son of a bitch murdered fifty innocent people to get to Starla. He deserves whatever he gets.”

  Melanie throws up again. This time Robin wonders if it was all because of motion sickness. “You’re usually a little more subtle than this.”

  “Sometimes you can’t bother with subtlety.”

  Ahead of them Robin can see the monuments of the capital. Except now among the famous landmarks are almost equally tall objects that are moving. More of those damned robots. Robin wonders what the point of this farce is; maybe Storm has his eye set on stomping out the government and instituting a military dictatorship with himself at the head.

  “You ever handle a missile launcher before?” Robin asks Melanie.

  “No.”

  “It’s pretty easy, like a video game. Line them up and then push the fire button.” Robin kicks the Rover’s throttle all the way to full. “And buckle up.”

  They roar into DC, where Robin has to weave amongst the police and military vehicles already on the scene. She doesn’t see any sign of the fake Super Squad yet. They must be waiting to make their grand entrance.

  “If you can, aim for the head,” Robin says.

  “I’ll try.”

  It’s probably not wise to give a girl with motion sickness control of the Rover’s weapons, but Melanie would be even more useless as the driver. Provided they survive this, they really need to find something stronger than Dramamine to give Melanie on these occasions. She’s too much of a liability right now, not that Robin could ever say that—unless she never wanted to see Melanie again.

  With the push of a button, the rocket launcher in the rear of the vehicle swings into position along the roof. Despite her motion sickness, Melanie’s hands seem steady enough as she tries to aim at the nearest robot. She stabs the button to send a pair of missiles arcing towards the robot. Robin isn’t sure of the result, but from Melanie’s whoop of joy it must have been something good.

  She whips the Rover around a corner to line them up on another of the robots. Now that they’ve taken one of the things down, the others take them seriously as a threat. The robot tries to step on them, but the Rover is too fast. Robin keys up the machine guns to fire a burst more as a distraction than anything.

  When the robot stops moving, Robin assumes Melanie got it. This is confirmed by another whoop from Melanie. The girl isn’t such a liability after all.

  The Rover only carries a dozen missiles on board and with at least ten of the robots, each requiring a pair of missiles, the math doesn’t favor Robin and Melanie. They twist and turn along the streets of DC, managing to take down five while a sixth is only damaged. There’s still no sign of the fake Super Squad; shouldn’t they be here by now to reap the credit?

  “Do you have anything else in here that will hurt them?” Melanie asks.

  “No.” The machine guns and flamethrowers were designed to fight humans, not giant metal monsters. “It’s time we go after the source.”

  She turns south for the Pentagon. The robot attack should work in their favor as any military assets will be focused on that, not the Rover. The downside is that the guards are all on alert now. Robin sees the roadblock up ahead. It’s only MPs in cars and a few Hummers, nothing that can do any damage. She hopes the grunts are smart enough to get out of the way.

  “Here we go,” she says. Shots hit the Rover, but they don’t make any sound inside. Robin taps a few buttons to bring out the “cow catcher,” a specially reinforced front bumper designed for this type of situation. The Rover plows through the blockade around the Pentagon, pushing aside the Hummers as if they were made of cardboard.

  The grand old Pentagon looms before them. “Shouldn’t we be slowing down?” Melanie asks.

  “Not a chance.”

  At this point Robin wishes she had a couple of those missiles left to soften up the wall. She checks to make sure her straps are done up tight enough and that her helmet is firmly on her head. This isn’t going to be pleasant.

  The Rover slams into the building with a thunderous clap. Robin’s thrown hard against the straps; she’ll probably have a couple of bruises in the morning. Debris rains down around the Rover. The vehicle begins to slow as its tires get caught up amongst the wreckage. Robin coaxes it forward a little at a time.

  Melanie puts a hand to her helmet, as if to make sure her head is still attached. “Wow! That was epic.”

>   “We’re not done yet.”

  From her displays, Robin can tell most of the armor on the front of the Rover is gone. She hopes there’s enough to get them where they need to go. The vehicle plows through an office and then out into some cubicles. Office drones run screaming in all directions; she’s sure a lot of Dilbert cartoons and crude fingerpaint drawings made by sons and daughters are being ground into scraps by the Rover’s tires. This brings a smile to her face.

  A map of the Pentagon superimposes itself over the windshield. Robin winds her way through the offices of America’s military until she gets to their ultimate destination: the office of Colonel Storm. She finally turns off the Rover’s engine and lowers the ramp along the side of the vehicle. “You up for this?” she asks Melanie, whose skin still has a green tinge.

  “Always.”

  They dash out of the Rover to take cover behind a wall. Robin takes the Taser from her belt and then kicks open the door to Storm’s office. At his desk she sees not Colonel Storm, but that impostor of her.

  Midnight Spectre grins at her. “Oh good, you brought a friend,” he growls a second before smoke fills the office.

  ***

  Starla resists the urge to close her eyes as she streaks through the air. From what she can tell she’s somewhere in the arctic, though it’s hard to get a sense for the geography when she’s going so fast. According to the map in the helmet she should almost be there.

  There wasn’t time to test coming to a stop with this jetpack. She presses the red button to slow the rocket engine down. She slows, but it still seems like she’s an out-of-control missile racing over the arctic. She presses the red button again.

  From the speedometer in the helmet, she’s still going over a hundred miles per hour as the Crystal Lair comes into view. The steep walls of the Lair loom before her; if she hits one of those she’ll be like a fly hitting the windshield of a fast-moving car. She again resists the urge to close her eyes as the Lair seems to swell around her.

  There seems no choice but to turn off the engine entirely. The jetpack sputters a couple of times and then the engine finally dies. Gravity takes hold of Starla, to shove her towards the ground. It’s not working fast enough. The ice walls get even closer. Starla flails at the air to try to change her course—