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A young trans girl undergoes a transformation that gives her everything she'd ever wanted. Now...
CHAPTER ONE: REALIZE
I stood in the midst of a field, grass between my toes, soft sunlight dancing through the leaves of the trees, a faint giggle that sounded achingly familiar, like it should have come from my own throat. Like… it was me, somewhere, somehow. I peered into the trees, turning all the way around as I searched for the source of the voice, the joyous laughter echoing from further in the field, into the forests. I followed it, slowly at first, one foot in front of the other. The grass seemed to grow longer, attempting to slow me. As I followed that beautiful sound, it grew ever more distant, ever fainter. The trees closed before me, but I squeezed between two of them, the shadows cast by the sun overhead losing the joy that they'd once projected as the leaves drowned out their rays. The path ahead seemed to ask: 'Is this worth it? This pain, this heartache, for something that you might never have?'. My answer was a firm yes as I moved through the underbrush, ignoring the thorns even as the barest echo of that laughter began to fade away. There was only the path ahead, towards… towards…

"Max, wake up!" I almost lashed out at the voice that called me away from the chase, before I opened my eyes and saw the deep green of my only real friend's own staring back at me. I brushed his hand off of my shoulder, sitting up as he backed away from my cot. I noted that the other dozen cots were all empty. Must've slept in again.

"What's up, Pete?" Peter rubbed the back of his head, slightly-too-long brown locks bouncing as he grimaced.

"Sister Abby wants everyone down in the cafeteria like, now. Whatever Jonny's done this time has got the Sisters real riled up. Swear that Sister May was spitting blood by the time I was gone." I grimaced. Every single boy in our dorms had noticed that Jonny had been growing his hair out, wearing different clothes, that sort of thing. Most of us had dismissed it as just another change of style for him, but I guess the Sisters didn't like it all that much. The little nightstand that served as my dresser was on the other side of the room, lined up with all of the others. The only distinguishing feature on it were the letters 'M' and 'O', for Maxwell Oster. The Sisters didn't like us orphans doing much to change the room. I sighed, pushing myself up off of the cot and beginning to walk over the my nightstand

"Alright, alright. I'll throw something on, be right down." Peter shook his head, gesturing towards the door.

"Sister Abby said to head to the cafeteria 'right away'. Don't think you've got time to change, Max." I stopped halfway there, slumping as I groaned. Great, it was going to be one of 'those'. Peter gave me a commiserating look, patting me on the shoulder as he made for the door. I followed after him, firmly shutting the door behind me and beginning down the hall. It was as drab and spartan as the rest of the orphanage, the only decoration being the occasional cross hung on the wall or a portrait of one of the deceased 'Head Sisters'. I was willing to bet that they spent more money on the frames for the portraits than they did on our beds. Peter pounded his way down the stairs while I followed with a much softer step, something I'd learned to do after one too many times getting chewed out by Sister May for 'causing such a racket'.

Rounding the corner, Peter and I joined another group of boys in unenthusiastically making our way down to the cafeteria, the chatter and humor of those around me only making the stone in my stomach grow heavier as I approached the double doors. Just what had Jonny done to get the Sisters so up in arms? I ignored the occasional elbow or passing hand as Peter and I finally got through the doors and found seats on the floor, a massive semi-circle of prepubecent boys and girls staring at the three Sisters, Abby, May, and Charolette, waiting for them to tell us just what was going on. Sister Abby was the youngest of the three, with pitch black hair, a pair of cheap glasses covering eyes that seemed to eat up light, and a frown that seemed to age her by a decade. Charolette, in the middle, was the oldest of the three present, and by far the kindest. She was the one who'd help the kids with nightmares fall asleep, tuck in the littlest of the boys and girls after reading them bedtime stories. Her hair was grey, her face wrinkled, her hazel eyes kind, though they seemed… flat, now. On the right was Sister May, middle-aged and seemingly perpetually angry, always looking for a child misbehaving to punish, a minor incident to scream at one at for hours. Her brown eyes were narrowed, like always, the perpetual scowl on her face seeming even more severe than normal. Her soft brown hair was frazzled and sticking out from under her habit, something that the other two Sisters didn't even seem to notice. There was something missing, though. Jonny wasn't anywhere to be found. I kept looking around the room, trying to see if he was in the crowd of orphans around me, but no such luck.

"Pay attention, all of you!" Sister May's voice swept over the crowd of kids, quieting each and every one of us in a single moment. Her expression turned to one of… glee?

"Jonathan Carpenter has been sent to an asylum to be treated for his degeneracy." I could feel the confusion, and fear, of the other kids, but I didn't let my eyes leave that… smile on her face.

"You see, children, Jonathan had this… delusion, that he was, in fact, a girl. A sickness of the mind that made him want to change the body that god had designed for him." I stared at her, the dread in my stomach shifting to something that I couldn't quite recognize.

"We dearly hope that his degeneracy can be cured. That it hasn't spread to any of the rest of you." Her eyes seemed to meet mine as she scanned over the crowd, that angry, spiteful, glee boring into me for half a moment. I realized that I'd stopped breathing, and let out a half sigh, half sob, though I kept it as quiet as I could. Peter looked at me weirdly for a second, his attention returning to the front of the room as Sister May spoke up again.

"If any of you see the signs of this sickness in your fellow children of god, you are to let one of us Sisters know. Immediately." Charlotte stepped forward to speak, but I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. Jonny was gone, for that? May could scream at us all she wanted, leave bruises where nobody would see them, but Jonny was sent away for… for those feelings? I stared straight ahead, trying and failing to think of a way to justify it to myself, to see things from the perspective of the Sisters. Jonny had been a good person, helping the little kids, keeping the big kids from bullying them, trying their best to keep the peace in the boy's dorms, and now he was gone. I almost snapped at the hand on my shoulder, noticing it was Peter and letting out a slow breath instead. I noticed the other kids all getting up to leave, doing the same and walking with Peter as we left the cafeteria to go back to our dorms, get ready for the rest of the day and all of that.

"I can't believe he's gone, just… like that." Peter scoffed, shaking his head.

"Yeah, turns out he was a freak the whole time. Who coulda guessed, huh?" I did a double take at Peter, trying and failing to come up with a response. A freak? In the end, I just shrugged and didn't say anything else. Didn't want to cause a scene right there in the hallway. I was lost in my own thoughts as we went back up the stairs, down the hall and passing under the portraits. Their eyes seemed to bore into me, accusatory. 'You aren't a freak, are you?'. I ignored it, following Peter and a couple of the other boys into the dorm room. There were only about two dozen kids at the orphanage, less now that Jonny was gone, meaning that it was just me, Peter, and two other boys, who went to their own corner while I picked out my clothes for the day. A thought was gnawing at me, but I couldn't place it. Peter gave me a wave as he left the room, heading off to his school. He'd gotten lucky compared to the rest of us, getting to go to the nicer school in the area thanks to who his parents had been.

I grabbed my school clothes and a towel, throwing them over my shoulder as I opened the door and turned left, heading towards the bare-bones showers of the orphanage, trying to mentally prepare myself for the rest of the day.

-

The constant noise of the other kids on the bus was getting to me, more than it usually did, anyway, and I tried again to refocus on the book I'd gotten from the school library. Just a book about the Howling Commandos, mostly Captain America, but the words just seemed to slide off the page whenever I focused on them. Jonny was gone, probably forever, and nobody else seemed to care. They just called him a freak and moved on, pretended that everything he'd ever done, all of the good he'd given to other people, didn't matter because he was… he was… I don't know the word for it, and I'm not going to be calling him 'a freak' just because I can't call him the proper thing. I looked up from the pages and out the window, the countryside passing me by as I tried to get my thoughts in order. Cows, horses, sheep, all sorts roamed the fields, grazing and generally not doing much of anything as they went through their simple daily routine. Though, were they slower than usual? I frowned at my reflection in the window, turning to look at the rest of the kids on the bus. They were… I blinked, shaking my head. They were moving normally? I looked around the bus, seeing if anyone else noticed something weird, but all of the kids were just chatting, or poking each other, or the one loner in the very back hunching his shoulders and determinedly staring at the book in his hands. Weird. Really weird.

I flinched as the bus went over a pot-hole, the exited screaming of the other kids reaching fever pitch as they giggled and whispered and got angry at the ones who bumped into them. I had to stop myself from covering my ears as the bus driver, an older, balding man with a handlebar mustache named Leonard, glared at all of us through the rear-view mirror and screamed.

"Quiet down!" In a moment, the whole bus was blissfully silent, save for the hiss of the hydraulics as it came to a stop at an intersection in the country road. It didn't last, obviously, but the five seconds of silence was really nice for my poor, poor ears. The chattering was quieter now, but it stilled seemed way too loud. I kept my head pressed against the window, watching the world go by, trying to keep myself from acting out in a way that would get me unwanted attention. I tensed as the Orphanage came into view, far away from the actual city that I went to school at and in the middle of nowhere. Probably why the Sisters could get away with some of the worse stuff they did, come to think of it, but it wasn't like people really cared about orphans anyway. Sure, some of the younger, cuter, kids got adopted, but most of us would be there until we came of age, then we were kicked out.

I got up from my seat as the bus came to a stop, picking up the ratty bag that I'd gotten from one of the out-going orphans as he left and stuffing the book inside. I followed a couple of the boys and one girl off of the bus, moving in a crowd with the other orphans through the doors under the stern gaze of Sister Abby. Peter wouldn't get back for another hour, the fancy school he went to actually provided him with dinner before he came home, so I was going to be eating alone again.

Tucking my bag in the bottom drawer of my nightstand, I tried to push Jonny from my mind. What he must have been feeling. Betrayal, fear, dread. Hopelessness. My shoulders were tight as I left the room, making my way down the stairs and into the cafeteria, grabbing the little baggie with my name on it and finding a corner in the room that hadn't been taken yet. I ripped the bag open and took out the flavorless sandwich that had probably been made a week ago, tearing into it as I resolutely didn't think about Jonny, or my own future. I just had to last four more years, reach sixteen and leave the orphanage behind. Don't think about the in-between, keep my head down and don't catch the attention of the Sisters. Easy enough. I shoved the last of the sandwich into my mouth, chewing and swallowing as I got up and made my way out of the cafeteria, heading back down the hall and up the stairs to the dorm, gently closing the door behind me and changing out of my school clothes and into my pajamas, getting into bed without really being all that tired. I didn't really want to talk to Peter tonight, and being fast asleep would give me the perfect excuse to not have to deal with him. Even with being almost fully awake, though, sleep came fast, the last thing I heard before drifting away being a faint, joyous, laughter.
 
CHAPTER TWO: AWAKEN
I was in the clearing again, the laughter just out of reach, sunlight dancing through the leaves and grass gently drifting in the wind. I hesitated for a moment, the laughter once more drawing away from me. This time, I did not simply follow it, I ran after it, sprinting like my life depended on it. I cleared the tree line before the ancient woods could attempt to keep me out, stumbling and struggling through the underbrush, stinging pain and small cuts appearing on my legs as I ignored the thorns in my way. The laughter was getting further away as I ran and jumped, vaulting over fallen trees and running across a log to avoid having to slog through the stream that ran through the forest. It all seemed to be slowing down, the sunlight barely breaking through the leaves above seeming sluggish as it followed me. I broke through another bush, used a low-hanging branch to swing off of and clear a hedge wall, tucking and rolling as I hit the ground and looking up to see-

I woke up shaking, nearly in tears as I slowly sat up, staring at the opposite wall. I'd been so close. I looked around slowly, noting that the sun was just cresting over the horizon through the window, and that all the other boys were still asleep, including Peter. After a few minutes of staring at mostly nothing, I got up from my cot as quietly as I could, making my way over to my nightstand and pulling out my school-clothes and a towel, then my school-bag from the lower drawer, gently opening the door and turning the knob as I closed it behind me, making sure that it didn't 'click' in a way that might wake up some of the other kids. I moved down the halls, towards the showers and away from the Sister's own rooms, just a couple of doors down from the boys and girls dorms. I didn't want to catch their attention, especially not after Yesterday. I entered the showers and froze as I passed by one of the mirrors, catching my reflection in the corner of my eye. I turned slowly, keeping the glass in my line of vision, scared that it might vanish like the mirage I thought it was. My face was softer than when I'd gone to bed, a little more round, eyes a little brighter, irises having a little more red in them. I approached the mirror, almost transfixed as I touched my face, poking my own nose. It was rounder than before, more like a button than anything. Any of the changes on their own wouldn't have been all that noticeable, but together? I'd just have to hope that the other kids and adults would pay me the usual amount of attention.

I was half-giddy, half-terrified as I got out of the shower and started to get dressed, struggling to put on some of my clothes around my slightly changed proportions. There was something going on with my dreams, something that I was… happy about, but still scared of. I was changing, and didn't know what that meant for me. I left the showers with a pep in my step, leaving the orphanage early to get on the first, early morning, bus, avoiding contact with any of the other kids, especially Peter. He would notice the changes, out of anyone, and I wasn't sure how he'd react. So, I just wasn't going to engage him for now. The bus driver, not Leonard this time but a younger guy with a badly maintained goatee, gave me a weird look as I moved to one of the empty middle seats, ignoring the tired kids he'd already picked up from the isolated farms and little communities in the area and setting my pack beside me, staring out the window and at my reflection in equal measure. It was a lot different out there this early in the day, most of the animals that were in the fields being either fast asleep or just waking up, the early grazers staring at the bus as it drove by. The bus stopped by one such field, letting on a couple other kids, all of whom took the seats near the front of the bus, then the vehicle continued trundling along.

The bus didn't make any more stops on it's way to the small city that the Orphanage was technically within the limits of, Price Utah, leaving me to just admire the countryside and take in the little changes to my body. I was definitely a little bit shorter than before, though the weight seemed to have been moved to my waist and thighs, a little concerning, but whatever. Opening my mouth and checking my teeth in the reflection, my canines were definitely shorter than before, though they made up for it by coming to razor points, the rest of my teeth having followed suit, growing shorter but the tips much sharper. I closed my mouth again after a moment of staring, gaze turning to the buildings up ahead. Price wasn't what one could call a 'big city', but for the area it was in, it might as well be New York for how unfamiliar it was too me. Not that the Sisters would let any of us actually explore the city for any reason. Controlling was a good word for it, I decided. They were very controlling.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the bus coming to a stop outside of the school, the short, ugly building seemed to have crept up on me while I was focusing on other stuff. I grabbed my bag and threw it over my shoulder as I followed the other kids out, waiting so that I was the last one off of the bus. I entered through the double doors, ignored the shelves of trophies and awards that the school's alumni had earned for it, turning right and making for the school cafeteria, where the breakfast would, at least, have some flavor to it.

-

The other change, one that was a lot harder for me to notice than the obvious changes to my body, came into effect during my first class of the day. English. It was a subject that I normally had little difficulty in, but this time around… well, I was doing miserably, to put it lightly. The subject just wasn't clicking for me, the words seeming to swim off of the board and whenever I tried to write anything on a sheet of paper, it was a jumbled mess of misspelled words. Like whatever ability I'd had with writing had been sucked out of me, for some reason. A displeased look from Ms. Shiner was all the punishment that I had to deal with for my abject failure, but it set the tone for the rest of my school day. Math and Science were much the same, subject that I'd had little difficulty in before now being so challenging as to be ridiculous.

Then it was time for Gym, and I didn't exactly have high hopes for doing well. I wasn't exactly athletic by nature, the slight changes to my body made me think that I'd be even more uncoordinated than usual, and, like usual, I was picked last to go on the dodgeball teams. Then the first of the red rubber balls began to fly, and I found myself moving before I could even think, catching one out of the air and pelting the girl next to the one who'd thrown it, dodging through another to catch a third, slamming it home in the belly of one of the guys in the back with impeccable accuracy. The kids on the other team noticed that I was way better at the game than I had been last week, or at least, I think they did, leaving me to be the almost only target of their ire. I caught another one's ball, using it to deflect another two of them to the sides, where my teammates grabbed them and started throwing the balls back with vicious grins on their faces. They hadn't expected to do well at all with me and a few of the other scrawny kids on the team, after all.

It only took another minute and a half for the other team to be entirely eliminated, the Gym Teacher blowing the whistle and gathering everyone back up and pick out two kids to chose the teams again.

This time, I was picked out first by the smaller kid (Jason, I think?), leaving the bigger guy to pick out the largest kid in our grade, Tyler, who hit puberty way earlier than the rest of us. We split again, the other team immediately targeting me, Tyler throwing his rubber ball with as much force as possible. I caught someone else's, the dejected preteen shuffling off of the court as I deflected four separate balls almost at once. My smile must've been outright vicious as I threw the ball, swinging with my hips and nailing Tyler directly in the belly, causing him to almost double over as he wretched, the Gym Coach only sighing and waving the bigger boy off of the field. Wasn't normally grateful for Mr. Edmond's, ah, 'non-interventionist' approach to kids getting hurt, but a little part of me purred at the opportunity to cause some pain to the kids that had been mean to me for years.

Once Tyler was down, the rest of the other team got taken apart without much trouble at all, the second match only lasting maybe half a minute. Mr. Edmond blew the whistle, looking up from his book and lightly frowning.

"Alright kids, game's over! Get changed and get to lunch!" Tyler sent me a dirty look as we all made our way into the changing room, but I wasn't afraid of him.

-

I'd not done any better in my last two classes of the day than I had in the first three, all of the numbers and letters seeming to swim off of the board, and whenever I tried to write something, it was like a kinder gardener had stolen my pencil and tried to solve the problems. Words were misspelled, the font almost unreadable, but, to be honest, I didn't mind all that much. Now I was on the way home, the bus was as loud as usual. The other children chattering and giggling didn't annoy me anywhere near as much as they did yesterday. I just tuned them out, watching the countryside go by as the bus took me and the few other kids from the Orphanage back home. Still didn't want to deal with Peter tonight, so I'd be heading to bed immediately and hope that he doesn't decide to make an issue of it and wake me up tonight.

The bus came to a stop outside of the Orphanage, and I got up and followed the other kids out, entering the building once more under the watchful eyes of Sister Abby, her gaze sliding right over me as she watched the exterior for any more children, then shut the door behind her. I went right up the stairs and into the little dorm, tucking my things into the nightstand and changing into my pajamas, climbing into bed and resting my head on the pillow, closing my eyes tight and letting sleep take me.

-

I was in the clearing again. I didn't hesitate for a moment this time, immediately beginning to sprint towards the sound of the laughter, passing through the tree line and navigating the route as quickly as I could, leaping over the thorny shrubs and using the low hanging branches to accelerate my momentum, the laughter getting closer with every passing second. The leaves above me seemed to still as I threw myself over the hedge, rolling and continuing to run after the laughter, the figure that I was chasing just a few meters away. I could barely make out their profile, slightly shorter than me, pom-poms or something like that sticking out of their head, a little round tail on their back letting me know that they definitely weren't human. It didn't matter, no, all that mattered right now was the chase, finally catching up to her. I leapt, grabbing a branch and throwing myself from it and over another shrub, one she cleared effortlessly, coming up right behind her and finally reaching out, laying a single hand on her shoulder. As she turned around, I saw, I saw a face like mine, but happier, with a little pink nose and red eyes surrounded by black sclera, the fuzz covering her body only making her, me, cuter.

"Finally caught up, huh?"

I woke up
 
I'll be updating this weekly, once every monday or sunday.

The reference image for the character is
tumblr_oqs0o5XI9L1rw701fo2_1280.pnj
The source is tysontan on tumblr.
 
Well I'm watching this. Still I have no clue what is going on. Is Maxwell turning into a Bunnygirl? Fully Female or extremely Feminine Bunnyboy? One thing is for sure, Maxwell needs to GTFO because these sisters are trouble. I'm guessing exorcism, hanging or the Pyre. Also it's a shame that Maxwell's powers comes at the cost of intelligence.
 
Well I'm watching this. Still I have no clue what is going on. Is Maxwell turning into a Bunnygirl? Fully Female or extremely Feminine Bunnyboy? One thing is for sure, Maxwell needs to GTFO because these sisters are trouble. I'm guessing exorcism, hanging or the Pyre. Also it's a shame that Maxwell's powers comes at the cost of intelligence.
Max's brain is rewiring itself for new instincts, but they'll remain just as observant and intelligent, if having difficulty with numbers and reading. As for the other, the next chapter's title is FLEE, so, uh, yeah.
 
CHAPTER THREE: FLEE
I was half-mad with joy and terror as I got up from my bed, my footsteps making no noise at all as I left the room, my shirt almost hanging off of my body while my pajama pants were uncomfortably tight. I crept down the halls, peeking around corners and keeping an ear out for any sound, no matter how slight. When I was sure that nobody would see me, I almost sprinted down the halls, my footsteps still utterly silent as I entered the showers, closing the door behind me with a soft 'click'. I was shaking as I approached the mirror, stopping myself from reaching to touch the reflection. My face was the face in my dream. My body was her body, small but fast. Tiny claws had replaced my fingertips, sharp and quite possibly lethal. My ears stuck out of the top of my head, twitching and turning as they took in every little noise around me, the mass of fluff atop them making me very aware of the slightest change in the air currents around me. My eyes were her eyes, red irises with black sclera, greedily taking in every detail of my new body.

I froze as I heard it. Footsteps coming down the hall. Towards me. More than just one pair, five adults, one child. My heart began to hammer away at my chest, the footsteps seeming to slow as I desperately searched for a way out. No windows in the room, no place to hide that they couldn't easily find me, no… I looked up, mind whirling. The panels. All it took was two leaps, one onto the wall, another to grab onto the ceiling and move the panel out of the way, get into the crawl space and move it back into place just before the door opened. I froze, not moving a muscle as I listened.

"I saw… I saw whatever demon that took Max come down this way, Sister May." Peter's voice echoed on the linoleum. Demon?

"You did well to tell us of the monster, Peter, but it seems that whatever it is has escaped the Lord's justice this day. Officer, is there any way for you to set up a search for this… creature?" Sister May's voice lacked the sister undertone it usually had when talking down to one of us kids, but I could still make out the faint traces of malicious glee.

"The department don't got the resources to spare for that, ma'am, but I could see about reaching out to a few of my FOH buds, see what they can do about this whole mess." FOH? I frowned in my crawlspace, ignoring Peter for the moment and trying to puzzle out what was going on.

"That would be a great help. I've already begun reaching out to some in the Church that may be able to help us exorcise the monster from poor Maxwell once the demon's vessel has been captured." I fought the urge to shift, keeping my ear to the room below me and waiting for my chance to run.

"I'll let the Friends know, but the boy might be too far gone to be helped. We'll take the thing alive, if we can." A hiss of breath left my lips, barely audible. I froze, ears straining.

"Anyway, I'll be staying around for an hour or so, try and take it in if the thing happens to come back."

"That would be greatly appreciated, officer. The other children will be waking soon, so I must prepare breakfast and find a way to break the news."

The shower room door opened, five pairs of adult footsteps leaving, the sixth pair that belonged to Peter following shortly after. The police, and whoever those 'Friends' are would be hunting me, and I had absolutely no idea what to do. I remained frozen in place for five minutes, taking deep breaths and trying to calm my hammering heart as my mind scrambled to come up with a plan. In the dream, I was fast and strong, but I didn't know how well that would translate to reality. Didn't know if I'd be able to escape. I took in another breath, letting it go and steeling myself. I couldn't just live in the ceiling, hide away and hope that nobody ever found me. I'd have to run, see if I could find someone, anyone, to help me.

A claw dug into the plaster of the ceiling tile, slowly shifting it out of place. I looked around the shower room, double checking that nobody had entered while I wasn't paying attention, then dropped down, landing on my feet. I looked up at the out-of-place tile with a scowl, debating if I should try to slide it back into place, but decided that the time wasted doing so would only hurt my chances of escape. Instead, I pressed one of my new ears up against the door, listening for anything out in the hallway. Footsteps from downstairs, a couple of people moving inside of the dorms, none out in the hallway, that I could hear anyway. I moved my hand to the knob, slowly turning it and preparing myself to run like heck if there was anyone in the hall to see me.

Poking my head out the door, there wasn't anyone waiting out there for me, none of the officers, Sisters, or other Orphans. I wasn't at all relieved, not yet. I still had to escape from the building, then get out of the area and try to find help. I left the shower room slowly, creeping down the hall as quietly as I could, the pads on the bottom of my new feet muffling any of the sounds I might make. My confidence increased as I made it to the stairs, creeping down while keeping an ear out for the noise of anyone approaching. There was a window on the other side of the lobby, one that was pointed towards the woods, though they were a ways off from the Orphanage still. One more look around, nobody was there that I could see, and I almost sprinted to the window, yanking open the latch and pulling on the frame with all my might as I heard heavy footsteps rapidly approaching. I finally got it open as the footsteps rounded the corner.

"Freeze, freak!" I did not, yanking myself through the window and flinching as the 'BANG' of the police officer's firearm went off, the bullet missing me by inches. It seemed to be moving… slow, though. I picked myself up off of the gravel, the rocks that I'd kicked up in my fall almost suspended in midair. What? I shook my head, ignoring the headache that was building, and began to run through the open field, towards the woods. The bullet began to trail behind me as I ran, leaping over fences and sliding under cows, the bullet hitting one of the poor animals in the front leg as I pulled myself over the last fence, scrambling down the hill and into the underbrush. My pajama pants caught on some of the underbrush by my knee, tearing a hole in the fabric that I had to ignore as I fled further and further into the woods.

Things around me started to speed back up as I crossed over a stream, hopping from rock to rock as the waters below me began to flow again, the suddenness of the transition startling me enough that I nearly fell in. I balanced myself on the stone, gritting my teeth and fighting against my sudden exhaustion as I leapt to the next, then the next, jumping one more time and rolling to a stop at the riverbank, panting and staring at the sunlight filtering through the trees. I didn't know how far I'd actually ran through the woods, keeping track of the distance travelled hadn't exactly been a priority, but it must've been a fair distance, because I couldn't hear any distant vehicles, or the yelling of whoever was hunting me. With a groan, I picked myself up out of the mud, trying my best to wipe it off of my pajamas and beginning to walk. There were trails that wild animals would take, mostly deer tracks with some other, smaller, ones that I couldn't properly recognize. It didn't matter what it was, really. Probably a fox. I took deep breaths as I wandered down the path, the burning in my lungs making it hard for me to keep on moving, even if I knew I couldn't stop. Not now, not while they could be so close behind me.

My feet didn't sink into the ground, nor leave any tracks that I could see when I looked behind me, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't have dogs or something like that, something that didn't need tracks to find me.

-

"Just.. gotta keep on going." I muttered to myself, hand briefly resting on the bark of a tree, claws digging into the surface as I anchored myself, taking couple of deep breaths while I gazed up at the sky. I'd been walking for hours now, enough time that the sun was almost directly overhead, it's rays filtering through the leaves to illuminate the foliage around me. I hadn't really slowed my pace at all since the river, and that was starting to take it's toll on me, no matter how well built my body was for constant movement. I hadn't heard anything that would lead me to believe that the hunters had my trail, but I couldn't let wishful thinking blind me to the reality that I was a target right now. They thought that I was a demon, or something like that anyway, that had stolen my body, and that meant they'd be really fudging motivated to hunt me down, get 'Max' back.

I pushed myself off of the tree's trunk, forcing myself through more shrubs and bushes as I fought against my body's exhaustion. The fact that my pajamas were completely filthy and torn in so many places didn't bother me as much as it probably should have, might have something to do with the fuzz (fur?) that now covered me from head to toe. I pushed aside the branches of a smaller tree, ducking under the ones that I could without getting my ears caught and continuing onto another worn trail, no human footprints, but plenty of hoof-prints from deer and faint paw-prints that I couldn't figure out the source of. Wolves, maybe? I shuddered at the thought, putting one foot in front of the other and trying very hard not to think of what sharp-toothed monsters might be present in the woods.

It was as I began on my way down a slope in the woods, still following the deer tracks, that the hairs all over my body began to stand up. I didn't know why, but whatever was causing it couldn't be good, so I started moving faster, my poor, abused muscles complaining as I began to jog instead of merely walk, trying to keep myself from making too much noise. I moved as quickly as I could through the woods, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

I heard the barking of the dogs in front of me, and behind me, the exited yelling of my hunters just a bit further away. I grit my teeth as I forced myself to start running to my right, where I couldn't hear any of the dogs or people, crashing through the underbrush and using low hanging branches to launch myself further, like I'd done in the dream. The world stuttered for a moment, time slowing and resuming randomly as I ran for my life, the dogs so close now that I could hear their steps as they chased me, barking and snarling and howling like something out of a nightmare. I didn't turn around to see them, jumping onto a branch and scrambling as high as I could go in the tree.

The dogs waited in a circle around the base, snarling and snapping as their human masters came into view. Each and every one of them was dressed in leathers, a some with a tactical harness over the top of it, and all of them holding a firearm. Pointing them at me. One of them, a man with a buzz-cut and a trimmed red beard, the leader if I had to guess, looked me directly in the eye, grinning.

"This is gonna end one of two ways, freak! You get your ass down here, and you might get to live." He gestured towards his rifle with a malicious gleam in his eye. "Or you stay up there and we fill you with lead." I stared back at him, breaths coming quicker, panic seeping into my mind. Was this how I was going to die? I froze as goosebumps began to trail up and down my body, another voice coming from just above and behind me. It was that of an older man, with a faint trace of a german accent.

"I have an alternative suggestion." I slowly turned my head, trying to stop my body from shaking. The first thing I noticed about the man was his helmet, a shining scarlet with silver accents, dipping down to cover the nose and protect his head. The cape on his back fluttered in the wind, the rest of his armor seeming to be a strange blend of metal and leather, covering all of his body but his lower face and eyes. Despite the cool politeness of his tone, the man's mouth was twisted into a severe frown, eyes locked onto the men who'd been hunting me.

The weapons, guns and blades, were ripped out of their hands and their harnesses, the screeching of metal and muffled explosions of gunpowder going off made me wince, the noises echoing in my hearing. The floating man's eyes shot to me, his frown lightening somewhat as he returned his eyes to the men beneath us.

"You will run, flee as far from us as possible, and I will, perhaps, not hunt you down like the animals you are." It didn't take more than that for the hunters to grab onto their dog's collars and start running. The older man watched them for a moment, before turning to me, a relieved smile forming on his face.

"I am sorry that it took me so long to find you, child. My name his Erik, a mutant, like you." Mutant? He reached out a hand, smile still firmly in place. I took in his features, those that were visible beneath the helmet, anyway. His was a kind, grandfatherly, face, his eyes understanding and kind.

"There is a place, far from here, where mutants like you and I are safe. It belongs to a good friend of mine, and I have no doubt that he would take you into his care in a heartbeat." The decision wasn't that hard to make.
 
Well. At least Max got out of there. I suppose this is technically an improvement upon the previous situation, though not by much.
 
Thanks for the chapter!
The FOH are definitely acceptable targets for the "violence is the question and the answer is yes"-tag.
What year is it in universe?
 
Ooh, Max got Beyond Bullet Time speed. Although it seems like she need more help controlling her power. That or more food into her. Good thing Magneto's got another speedster(even if he's Quicksilver) to help. I want to pet the bun.
 
So, I'm liking the chapter.

I'm also getting the idea that someone else gave Max their powerset. So . . . patron? Is their a patron god of bunnies in Marvel?

Also yes, when it comes to the Friends of Humanity, Violence is always the answer. They only recruited the most nutzo into their ranks. The recruitment thing with the Church is kinda weird thou. I keep forgetting that in Marvel a lot of the villains and extra characters do a lot of networking and talking to one another. Some villains and crooks actually manage to retire and then they sell off their secret base or whatever to other villains when they move out of town.

Also, the whole orphan thing? Sounds like they kill people to raise up their children. If they turn out to be mutants then they can do initiations. So I guess that would be double points?
 

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