Jade stood on the lab's broad eastern balcony in her robe and pajamas shortly after getting up, a warm mug of coffee in her hands. She had been standing there a while, since before the sun was up over the mountain, just relaxing and thinking. For the past twenty minutes or so, a large flock of birds had been wheeling this way and that over the trees while she watched. It looked fun, and she wanted to join them. The crisp, pre-dawn air pricked at Jade's skin through her clothes, and she shivered, but lately that feeling was pure pleasure. She was outside, she could go where she pleased, and her future finally looked bright again.

The birds finally flew off out of sight, but the feeling of watching their flight lingered in her mind as she shivered again. She would go running, right now. She finished her coffee and headed back to her room, passing Dorian in the hallway (who was reading while lying on the floor with his feet up against the wall). Jade closed the door, pulled open her dresser, and extracted shorts and a t-shirt, socks and shoes. She wondered if she needed a jacket? No, feel the bite. Dressed, she jogged out of her room, down the hallway, and out the front door. Jade was immediately swept up in the exhilaration of being so free. She was free! Oh how wonderful to be able to run again, after months of confinement.

She swung a fist at the air and sped up. Then she sped up again. This was a bit different than she remembered. She had known she was faster, and she just felt lighter, and her legs felt stronger, but she hadn't actually tried them out yet. Now was the time. She put all of her energy into it, and ran as fast as she could with her new legs for the first time.

It was thrilling, like driving a small car, low to the ground, recklessly fast, with the windows down, through a forest. The wind roared in her ears, and occasional leaves and branches flicked at her arms and legs. She felt a tinge of glorious fear. What would happen if she hit a tree? Oh yeah, nothing! Her life had been a living hell for months, but there were some advantages. This was definitely one of them.

She sped through the forest for uncounted minutes of pure joy, then she stopped to retie a shoelace, breathing hard. Where to now? She realized that the river must be somewhere off to her right, and the ridge, which would make for pleasant scenery. She set off again, veering in that direction, and eventually spotted the water through the trees.

As she got close enough to see the opposite bank, an idea occurred to her: "I can jump that." She certainly would not have been able to clear it as a human, but right now, at this speed, definitely. She just needed to get enough height. She sped up as she approached the riverbank, her anticipation building as she picked a landing spot, judged the distance, and dialed the plan into her body. Finally she reached the large rocks at the bank, and right before she would have gone over the steep dropoff into the water, she bent her legs, and sprang off the rocky ledge with all the strength she could muster. It felt like jumping from a springboard - or with these legs, more like a rocket taking off.

Fuck. Too high, and too far! She had cleared the water all right, and the trees. She was in the midst of the trees on the opposite bank, ten feet off the ground, having overshot her landing spot by... no time to think, only panic. She hit the first tree and broke right through, bending and breaking branches as she was spun around in the air. She tumbled through the branches of the next one on her side, her mind now flooded with terror as she tried to halt her spinning and get a grip on something. She hit the third tree head-on. The impact broke her nose and then she fell down through the branches. Her hind-brain was now certain of death. She slammed into the ground on her back, and got the wind knocked out of her.

Jade's first thought, as soon as she could think about anything besides gasping for air, was, "That was so stupid. You could have died." Then she lay there for a little while, just thinking about that.

Almost certainly not, actually. She sat up cautiously, wincing from pain in her abdomen. She touched her nose, which felt normal. She checked the rest of herself. Her shirt was ripped in a few places and bloody, but the wounds had already healed. She watched while the last of a bruise over her ribs faded and vanished, then tested her abdomen again with her hand. No pain.

On the one hand, this wasn't surprising. The mob in the prison had not been able to cut her head off with machetes. Jade had no idea why they had failed. They had even stabbed her eyes-- Jade shook her head and shut down that line of thought. She wasn't ready to think about that yet. It was still too raw. But the point was that they had really been trying, and she had survived and healed without so much as a scar. From that perspective, tossing herself through a few trees hardly even seemed dangerous.

At least, it wasn't very dangerous to herself.

Jade stood up to confirm she could, and the motion was smooth, effortless, and with that same suggestion of contained power she had felt before. As before, she could tell her body was different, and it excited her. She felt so conflicted. After maybe two minutes, she was fine - excellent even - but if those trees had been people...

She loved being invincible, but the lingering doubt that Pel had quelled earlier was back with a vengeance. About once a month, Jade was an invincible murderer. She had to be stopped. She had to be contained. Or everyone she ever got close to would die, and Jade would wake up feeling physically wonderful, with everyone's blood on her hands. She started back to the lab. She had to talk to Mary today.

Even so, the run back was glorious, and she was excited again as she jogged through the front doors. Dorian was there in the lobby, and she smiled at him. His eyebrows went up as he took in the blood and tattered athleticwear.

"Hi Jade... Did you um... have a nice run?" he asked with a face that asked the rest of his question for him.

"Yep! Uh... Tell you later. Where's Mary right now?" Jade replied.

"Probably in her lab. You been there yet? Need directions?"


Twenty minutes later, after a shower and a change of clothes, Jade followed Dorian's directions, and made her way down a series of hallways and a spiral staircase, to Mary's lab. She knocked, and Mary called for her to enter, so she opened the large, wooden, double doors.

From the look of the hallway she had been expecting industrial carpet and fluorescent lighting, (though of course she hadn't seen a single electric light in the whole building). When she opened the door, she instead found herself in... a cave? Half a cave. The other half was a large workshop. The near side of the room, into which Jade had just opened the door, was bright and filled with workbenches and scaffolding covered in a chaotic array of tools and machinery, but the far side faded into a glittering, natural cave that ended in a large, dark pool which filled most of the farthest end. All around, the granite floor had been leveled and smoothed in most places, especially on the workshop side, but there were occasional stalagmites rising up here and there, and the very farthest part of the room gave way entirely to wildness. The cave and pool were lit dimly by blue glowing streaks across the ceiling. The workshop was lit by several chandeliers of glowing white crystals and curved mirrors, hanging down from pulleys just above Jade's head height.

Jade forgot herself and stared, her eyes on the dark, sparkling pool, and then moving to the many half-assembled machines. She hadn't even noticed Mary yet, but the atmosphere of the lab had blown her own errand completely out of her head for the moment.

"You like it?" Mary asked, after a minute, from where she was leaning against one of the far workbenches, smiling at the look on Jade's face.

Jade smiled at her own reaction, and said, "Yeah! It's great," and then, gesturing towards the back of the cave and the placid pool, she said, "It's beautiful."

"All of our labs are built to spec. We'll get yours in progress soon. Mine is a little unusual for being directly connected to my living quarters. Most of the others prefer to have some distance, but I find it-" Mary said.

"Oooh... You sleep in the pool?" asked Jade.

"I sleep in the lake. That's an outlet to the lake."

Jade mouth made an "oh..." expression, and she felt a moment of passing disorientation. The cave had made her feel like she was deep underground, but she hadn't descended very far to get where she was now. That disorientation was then immediately replaced with further disorientation at the thought of Mary sleeping underwater. Of course she did, but Jade hadn't really thought about the implications... Absently, she said aloud, "It looks cold."

"That's how I like it. You want to come in?"

"Uh..."

"To the room. Not the lake."

"Oh, right." Jade walked in, from where she had been standing in the door. Mary waved at a wooden chair nearby, and Jade sat down in it.

"You doing OK? Settling in?" Mary asked.

Jade replied, "Yeah. I mean, you know. Everything's so new..." Mary nodded. Jade continued, "And everyone's so understanding and friendly, and... happy to see me? Makes me want to be more helpful."

"You will be. It's barely your second week, of course."

"I know. It's been nice to know that I'll have something to do, actually... that I'll be able to get back to work. Nice that I'm not just a freeloader."

"That resonates. I need to keep busy, myself," Mary said. "Is that what's on your mind?"

"No... Well, yes, but not why I came to bother you before noon." Jade paused, suddenly nervous again, then, starting to wring her hands, she forced out, "My transformation. We've only got three weeks... I just went for a run and jumped straight through two trees by accident. With that kind of power and no control... I can't stand the thought of hurting anybody. Now that I've met you, I just can't stop thinking about it, and Pel said you had a plan. I would feel so much better knowing... Can I know what it is?"

"Of course dear. Lab meeting is usually after lunch, but let's call everyone together now."

"I didn't mean to bother everyone..."

"It's fine. They're expecting it today, coincidentally. It's just a bit early. Tina, would you call everyone together in the lounge?"

Jade blinked, and for the umpteenth time in the past seven days, Jade was surprised again to remember Tina's omnipresence. Tina had been with Jade during her run... She knew what Jade was capable of.

"Yup!" said Tina, without materializing.

Jade chuckled out loud. Mary said, "You do get used to that eventually. Shall we head up?"

They left Mary's lab, turning the other way down the hall that had led Jade there. There was a broad ramp at this end of the hall, which curved around and up, in a spiral. They followed it to the floor above, the sound of Mary's wheels on the floor echoing a bit through the halls.

Jade almost asked if she could help Mary, but something told her it wouldn't be appreciated, and there weren't any handles on the back of Mary's chair anyway. Plus, Mary didn't even look winded, despite the constant action of her arms to propel the chair. Jade wondered, but didn't ask, if Mermaid arms were as strong as their tails. Not likely. But, now that she thought about it, Jade realized Mary probably didn't need any natural advantage... of any kind, for any endeavor. She would do what it took to accomplish what was necessary. Jade thought to herself, "That's why she's their leader... Our leader. Mine." A warm thought, and comforting against the rising tide of anxiety for the near future. Mary was on Jade's side, or more to the point, Jade was now on Mary's side, so Mary would make it work.

They arrived at the lounge, where Tina and Dorian were already sitting in overstuffed armchairs, and Pel was perched cross-legged on the high back of Dorian's chair. Dorian waved excitedly at Jade, and Pel mimicked his face and arm movement, with some exaggeration. Jade smiled and returned the waves. She sat down in one of the empty chairs, and Mary parked next to her, with her hand on the back of Jade's chair.

Pel said, "Iggy's finishing some rigging in the greenhouses. He'll be along shortly."

Allen came lumbering through the large doorframe. Most of the hallways and doors in the lab were more than twice the usual size to accomodate him, so he didn't need to duck under the lintel. He nodded at the group and sat down on the floor behind the circle of chairs.

Xander followed behind, said, "Good morning," and took up a standing position next to Allen. His face was stern as always, and his gaze was far away, but just before disappearing into space, he caught Jade's eye and winked.

A little later, Iggy strode in, like some nightmare/cartoon hybrid in his blue and gray heat-dissipation suit. He walked over, sat down in his own chair that looked like the others but with metallic scales instead of leather, and with a practiced motion he pulled a tube from the side and plugged it into a port at waist-level on the pack on his back. Then he gave the group a flick of his gloved fingers in greeting.

Mary said, "That's everyone then."

Jade looked quizzical and asked, "Mr. Norton?"

"Behind you dear," said Mary.

Pel interjected, "Always behind you," with comically wide eyes.

Jade gave a nervous chuckle, turned, and said, "Sorry..."

Mr. Norton, standing stiffly in his tailcoat and gloves, just wiggled his eyebrows at her.


"Right then," said Mary. "To business. First, welcome Jade! And I do hope you feel really, really welcome, despite all the strangeness of the situation."

Jade nodded a strong affirmative.

Mary continued. "This is your first one of these, and it'll be an unusual one, so FYI we normally discuss research directions and progress, as well as household items, in lab meeting after lunch on Saturdays. Discovering and deciphering the prophesy that led to your rescue was the culmination of our last big search, so we're at a bit of a seam. That doesn't happen with every one, by the way. Only two of you arrived by prophesy. I don't suppose Dorian has already told you?"

Jade said, "Yeah, he did," and Dorian nodded and said, "We're like twins!"

"Prophesy twins!" shouted Pel, in a singsong voice, with her eyes scrunched up as she flashed a peace sign with one hand.

"Great," said Mary. "Anyway, we've got two especially pressing items to discuss, both to do with our newest member. First, she'll be joining the search for Atlantis, and contributing her unique skills, working with Dorian on ocean current modeling to begin with."

"As the prophesy foretold," Xander said quietly, as if to himself.

Mary gestured at Xander and said, "That's what I wanted to discuss first... Jade, we didn't want to presume, or rush you or anything, but... the prophesy that told us right where you'd be, and just what we'd need to do, does also rather matter-of-factly state that you'd join us as family, contribute your skills with - you'll be surprised how much text is devoted to describing computers - and play some crucial role in the Great Quest. So if we've been acting oddly towards you, I hope you'll forgive that. You see, we first discovered and translated this prophesy nine months ago, so we've been waiting all this time for... basically a new sister. Maybe that helps to put our behavior in context. It will make more sense when you read it. For us, it's been a bit like waiting for a new baby to be born or something."

Jade was speechless. She hadn't asked to see the prophesy yet because she was still getting over her imprisonment and torture, and acclimating to her new life, but now she very much wanted to see it. She knew they had been expecting her, but this was something more. The look on her face said enough.

Mary smiled kindly, and said, "I know. It's a lot to process so quickly. I just want you to hear from us that despite what any prophesy says, your choices are your own, and we'll respect them, and you'll always have a home here, no matter what."

Jade just nodded, her tongue still stuck, and looked around at them all; at her new family. They had already done so much for her, and forgiven so much, that she was already desperate to be one of them. But if that weren't enough, there was some prophesy that flatly declared them family. She forced her tongue unstuck. "I... accept?" she managed. This was awkward and embarrassing, but it was also simultaneously obvious that it didn't matter how awkward she was now. "I want this. I want to belong with you, and I want to help out. Uh... Thanks." Then she laughed, and they laughed with her. The room was loud for a brief moment.

"Right then," Mary said, and wiped her wet eyes. Then she cleared her throat, collected herself, and continued, "I wanted to say all that first because I thought it might make the second item easier to discuss."

There was silence in the room for a moment, and Jade remembered her anxiety. She swallowed.

Then Mary said, "Item number two: Approximately once a month, Jade will transform into a hypothetically uncontrollable, homocidal monster."

"Worse than most women do!" Pel laughed.

"Pel. Read the room," Iggy said.

"...Sorry," Pel said.

Ignoring them, Mary continued, "We have three weeks until her first transformation here, and since we knew our new sister would be a werewolf, we've done some thinking already. Not much is known about werewolves, so this first time will be the most dangerous for everyone. We'll need to balance information gathering against immediate danger. Dorian, did you want to explain your plan, as it stands?"

Dorian nodded and stood up, and waved his hands as he explained, looking like a tiny university professor. "Right. So there are two goals, both important, but somewhat in tension: We want to survive this first time when we're the most ignorant about your wolf form, so ceteris paribus we should pile on the defenses. But we also need to become less ignorant quickly so that future full moons can be reliably safe. Here's what we came up with." Dorian took a deep breath, and began counting off points with his right hand, as he explained.

"The first line of defense is evacuation - everyone too physically fragile to have a hope of withstanding a direct confrontation with wolfy-Jade will get far away. If we only needed to optimize for surviving this first encounter, that might be everyone, or we might have isolated you somewhere empty, but we also need to observe, and other considerations suggest we leave a couple people."

"That brings me to our second line of defense, Tina. Tina will stay behind. She's hard to move anyway, (no offense), but the main reason is that she may be able to reach you in your wolf form. Another good reason for her to stay with you is that she's capable of observing from your perspective." Then Dorian pointed at Allen.

"Allen has volunteered to stay to protect Tina, and to act as the third line of defense."

Jade looked over at him, who was looking back at her. Allen nodded his huge head, which was two feet across, and above Jade's normal standing height even with Allen sitting cross-legged on the floor. His body was knotted with muscles, his hands were as big as serving plates, and his skin looked rough and thick. Even so, Jade worried it wouldn't be enough. She needed to be soberly realistic for everyone's sake, so she said so out loud. Jade said, "I'm pretty sure I'm much bigger in wolf form, and I know I can bite through steel. I also discovered earlier today that I can jump more than a hundred feet with enough force left at the end to break through trees..."

Dorian made a silent, "Ooooh... That's what happened" face.

Alan silently signed with his hands and Tina said, "He says, 'That's important information, though I'm more agile than I seem. Troll motion is like the crocodile. I will try to avoid being bitten, and angle to throw you rather than fight. I heal less quickly than you do, I think, but still faster than most. More importantly, I will not leave if Tina stays.'" and then, after a pause, Tina smiled bashfully and said, "Thank you dear. I can't move very quickly overland, but I do want to stay if there's any chance of helping free Jade from the worst of her curse."

Dorian nodded once, and said, "And we don't really intend for it to come to a fight anyway. The fourth line of defense - or perhaps the third, so that Allen is really the fourth... is our containment capsule. Back to Mary for that, since it's her invention."

Mary picked up the thread, "This isn't the first time we've brought something very dangerous back to the laboratory, and we had a sort of prison built to let us hold supernaturally strong creatures for study. It's under the surface of the lake at the top of the waterfall, where the current is strongest. The lake is, of course, not really a lake, but a dammed river, and if you were to break free of that, you would likely be swept over the waterfall, which buys us some time to escape. The capsule itself is shaped in such a way and polished so that you shouldn't be able to get any purchase from teeth or claws, and the passageway in from the main lab building makes use of the water pressure and current to ensure it fails closed, very tightly... In short, it should contain you, whatever your strength."

Dorian then continued, with his two index fingers up in front of his face, "Two other things: We're going to put one of Tina's cows in the capsule with you, on the hypothesis that hunger plays an important role, and you need to eat something while wolfy. Tina eats whole cows... Anyway, I also believe we should not attempt to sedate you, both because muddling your mind would interfere with Tina's connection, and because... Well, this is a larger topic for later, but there seems to be a general principle at work in this world that too-overt interference with innate magical qualities tends to provoke other magical defenses. It seems almost intended that fire should be used to fight fire, to have any hope of success. We shall of course revisit that point for the next full moon, if it seems necessary."

There was silence in the room for a few seconds.

Then Jade said, "I guess... I'd better see that capsule." She was grimly determined to keep her body count at zero this time.

Mary replied, "Since we've got nothing else on the agenda, let's continue this conversation from there."


They all got up, and followed Mary through the hallways and downward sloping ramps to what Jade could now picture as the subterranean, true north-east corner of the lab. The final broad hallway ended in a huge circular hatch with a hand crank in the middle.

Mary said, "This is the outer lock, which prevents the lab from flooding in the event that the capsule is breached. Beyond it is an antechamber to the capsule, which doubles as a sort of loading dock, since you couldn't expect to lead a manticore through the lab hallways...

While she spoke, Mr. Norton had stepped forward and turned the crank vigorously counterclockwise, to the sound of a ratchet and the clanking of chains from within. Then he pulled the hatch fully open, bowed, and gestured for them to proceed. Jade followed Mary through the hatch. The room beyond was large, cold, and dark, but Mary blew on a crystal in a sconce on the wall, and that gave them some light at least. The entire metal floor was covered in a diamond plate pattern. Four large chains hung from the ceiling at the corners of the room, and looking up, Jade could make out some kind of machinery above for raising and lowering the platform on which she was now standing. The far wall of the room was solid steel and sloped towards her like the walls of an attic.

The sloped wall of steel had an oval hole cut in it like a door. Beyond that hole was a short tunnel, and the suggestion of another room, though it was too dark to make out yet.

Xander and Allen came around and took crystal torches from receptacles near the entrance and handed them out. Xander then ducked through the oval, which was narrower than the previous entranceway, and Mary followed behind, saying, "Here we are. It's dangerous to linger in the entrance, so hurry through. Jade blew on the crystal of her torch and held it up as she followed.

Allen and Iggy remained in the antechamber, but everyone else came in behind Jade.

In the light, Jade could see that the tunnel was painted with yellow and black warning stripes, and was in fact only about three feet long. The impression of a tunnel came from the reflection off of the walls of the room into which they were now entering.

This was the containment capsule, and it was a cold, frightening marvel of engineering. They all stood in a large room made of seamless, polished metal, the shape of an egg with a flattened bottom, so that the floor was nearly flat until the edges of the room, where it gradually curved up to become the walls. The only gap in the surface was the entrance through which they had come.

Mary spoke quietly, but her voice echoed. "We're under water here. The passageway we just came through is the hatch, three feet of layered stainless steel plate, piping for ventilation or sedation, luminous crystal, and a synthetic diamond observation window, hanging above the entrance. When the latches are retracted from outside, the water pressure of the lake forces it down into a slot two feet below the bottom lip of the entrance, and seals it against the capsule itself. After that, it takes two people to operate the winches to lever the door away and back up, which is why Allen remained behind with Iggy, just in case. The hatch is the only complicated component. The capsule itself is a single piece of stainless steel, eight inches thick all around, and shaped so as to distribute outward force, with some concession made to the shape of the floor. The interior is polished and greased to discourage climbing or scratching. This iteration has successfully contained several strong creatures, some of them with magical abilities, though I wouldn't want to overstate the case. It has never yet held anything we didn't understand well, and of course it has known weaknesses. I personally suspect that it would not contain an angry Iggy, since the steel was melted into its current shape. In any case, it was designed to withstand extremes of outward force."

Jade stood in awe. If this didn't contain her, she certainly didn't know what would, and though she had some physics, she didn't think she was really qualified to comment on the design. Still, it was ultimately her responsibility. She walked up to the nearest wall, and put her hand against it. It was bitterly cold, and slippery. Her hand came away with a sheen of oil on it, which she wiped off on her pant leg. She said, "Would you mind if I...?"

Mary replied, "Not at all. I want you to be comfortable with this."

Jade extended her claws, and swiped at the wall, expecting a nails-on-a-chalkboard screech. The impact made a clicking noise, but she hadn't made any scratch. She tried harder, but it seemed her claws weren't finding any purchase. Satisfied, she thought for a moment about the shape, and then asked the others to move out of the middle. She took off her shoes and socks, thinking about what she intended to do. This would hurt a lot, but she was freshly convinced of her invincibility, so she steeled herself for the impact, as well as the embarrassment. With the others silently watching from near the entrance, Jade made an experimental jump from the center of the capsule, and made it about half way to the top. She fell back down and landed on all fours. She tried again, this time nearly brushing the ceiling with her fingers, and landed again without falling over. Feeling calibrated now, she paused for a whole minute, visualizing her plan, and dialing it into her body. Then suddenly she crouched, and sprang towards the ceiling with much more force, twisting in the air to present her feet to the point where the curved walls met, at the tip of the egg shape. She concentrated hard on hitting it just right so she wouldn't slip. She slammed into the ceiling with her feet, legs bent, and immediately sprang back at the floor as hard as she could, her mind fully on denting that floor with her elbows locked over her head. Even so, she couldn't help but think this was the stupidest thing she had ever done. She slammed into the floor with a sickening crack that echoed off the walls.

Then the room echoed with everyone's cries of, "Jade!" and "Oh no!" and "What the fuck!" and "Oh baby..." as they rushed towards her. Iggy shouted from the other room, "What happened?!" and Allen actually put his head in. They clearly hadn't been expecting this, and were reacting instinctively. Jade herself listened to it all as if from far away, in a little pool of misery and blood, just focusing on enduring the pain as her new body did its thing.

After a minute, she held up her right hand in a "wait" gesture, just to stop Pel's screaming. After another couple minutes of near-silence, broken only by Pel's sobs and the awful sound of bones shifting, Jade sat up and looked at them. They were in disarray, staring back at her with worry and shock, mostly kneeling around her in a semicircle, with her blood on their clothes. Pel was a mess, her makeup running, on all fours on the floor. When Jade sat up, Pel flew straight into Jade's chest and sobbed into her shirt.

Jade was moved. She had thought she was being stupidly logical, but hadn't really considered this part. Now that she thought about it, only Tina would have truly known what Jade was capable of. Jade put her hand on Pel's back, and squeezed a bit. Eventually Pel pushed away and then punched Jade. She did it again. "Don't do that again." she said, in a small voice.

Jade said, "I won't. I'm sorry. But I had to be sure. I've killed a lot of people, Pel."

Pel hugged Jade again and then hovered away and let Jade stand up. As before, she was completely healed now, with only torn sleeves and a pool of blood to suggest anything unusual had happened. Jade looked at the floor, then bent down and put her hand on it. She felt around where she had hit. No dent.

She was satisfied.