This choice: Use a mask on Stephanie and switch over to her • Go Back... Kendra Saunders lives in a fairly non-distinct house in a fairly non-distinct neighborhood between 40th and 30th Streets and close city hall. That's not to say it's a shabby house, just that it's a fairly cookie cutter house amongst a forest of cookie cutter houses. For someone with Kendra's demeanor it somehow seems off, as if you'd expect something to match her confident attitude. But for someone with Kendra's inclinations it may well be perfect, hiding in plain sight as it were.
It's with trepidation, then, that you ring the doorbell. Yes it'll be Chelsea under that mask of Kendra but, well, Kendra's very presence should always put you on guard. Because what if Chelsea was able to get more of Kendra in the time since lunch? So much so that she lost herself in Kendra's identity much as you initially did in Samantha's? It would be the ultimate coup you think; that Kendra usurps control from Chelsea by completely taking over her mind.
But whatever fears you have about that wash away as soon as the door opens.
"You made it!" Kendra greets you with an uncharacteristic chipperness. She grabs you by the hands and practically drags you in, closing the door behind you.
"So, is it just us?" you ask her as you look around.
"Her parents are still at work if that's what you mean," she replies. "No brothers or sisters or anything like that either so it'll just be us."
You follow her up the stars and down a hall to a room on the left at the far end. The walls are painted a stark white and the room is decorated with lots of darker colors -- purple seems to be a recurring one -- and the types of things you'd expect in a girl's room. But there's one important, if temporary, addition to the decor: Chelsea Cooper sitting patiently on Kendra's bed.
"It's great!" Kendra exclaims with girlish glee as she stands across from the fake Chelsea. "The mask totally works and she has to listen to everything I say! Isn't that right?"
"Whatever you say," replies the Chelseabot with deadpan disinterest.
"It's even better than that too if you can believe it," Kendra continues, "because I'm starting to get more of her stuff. Like I'm starting to know more things and, like, I can feel her personality or whatever there too."
"That's great," you tell her. "So does that mean you'll have everything?"
"Probably in a bit. I don't get why it's taking me so long though." she whines. "You said you didn't have any problems."
All you can do is shrug. "Maybe it's different for everyone?" you say though of course you're not really sure about that answer.
"Well it's not like it's going to matter much anyway," she says, "because you're going to be Kendra real soon, right?"
"Actually, no."
That causes Kendra's previously bright face to darken. "What do you mean no? I thought we agreed that you'd take over for her," she says.
"We agreed to do it if I couldn't find you an angle using the basketball team," you shoot back undaunted. "But I've got something and I figured that I'd run it by you first."
"Yeah?" she asks in a tone that's as challenging to you as you've ever heard.
"Stephanie Wyatt," is all you say.
* * * * *
You spend the next little bit explaining everything to her: that Stephanie Wyatt is the basketball team's unofficial captain, you reiterate the increasingly bitter rivalry that Stephanie and Anita Nuevo have with Hannah Westrick, the Eastman transfer. More tantalizing for Chelsea, you hope, is telling her that Stephanie is also good friends with Eva and Jessica Garner and that she can be used to leverage them.
"So you're going to just, what, switch over to this Stephanie girl?" asks Kendra.
"That's the plan," you tell her. "From there I figure that I can keep an eye on the situation going on with Hannah in case that's a fire that'll need to be put out while also leaning on the Garners, see if I can lure them away from Yumi and Cindy into backing you."
"Would they listen to you?"
"I dunno," you admit, "maybe. That'd involve you, well Chelsea, having to placate them a bit; stroke their egos you know? But they've been friends with Stephanie way, way longer than they've been friends with the other girls so her word would care a hell of a lot more weight with them."
"That's good then but..." Kendra stops and, after thinking, seems to have hit upon an idea herself. "But it's not perfect; it's not guaranteed. But I know what is," she looks at you, her face is positively devious, "the masks."
"The masks?"
"Sure," she says as she takes a seat next to Chelsea. She begins stroking her doppelganger's arm. "I want you to tell me how great I am," Kendra says to her.
"You're great," she replies with thinly veiled disgust.
"With more enthusiasm!" Kendra chirps. "Say, 'you're so great Kendra'!"
"You're so great, Kendra! Amazing even!" This time it's said in a manner you'd expect to hear when Chelsea herself is excited.
"See? If I can even make myself do that then I could make Eva and Jessica do whatever I wanted!" You can hear the excitement building in her voice. "Oh, wait! Actually if this is working so well then I don't have to worry about Kendra."
"That's a good thing," you respond, figuring that you should say something even if it seems she's more in her own world.
"Isn't it?" she replies as she hops to her feet. "Because think about it: that means that I can safely leave her under control and be where I need to be."
"Back as yourself?"
"No, silly; at least not yet." She's practically shaking with excitement now. "If I'm going to deal with all of these troublemakers then I'm going to have to do it right. I'm going to have to do it personally."
Personally?" you ask before it almost immediately dawns on you. "Wait, you mean switching into one of the Garners?"
"Well duh," she says rolling her eyes. "I can't just leave this all to some... some Evabot or Jessicabot can I? This is going to require... hmm, let's say Chelsea's special touch to make sure that it's done right."
You want to groan at that. She certainly seems to have a high opinion of herself although you guess that you can't really blame her seeing that she's gotten as far as she has before ever being introduced to magic books and transformative masks. Her next line of thought, though, makes even more sense.
"Besides, this Stephanie girl doesn't know me or Kendra," she states, "so if you're going to be her then that means it's way easier to stick together, don't you think?"
It's sound logic that you can't really argue with so you agree to make up a mask before heading home, then you'll try and get Stephanie tomorrow. But Chelsea, maybe because of excitement, seems to be impatient now and insists on you making two masks since she wants to move into one of the twins as soon as possible. You were about to argue that it'd be near impossible but you realize you've got two hours to get Stephanie alone tomorrow and from there it should be easy to get one of the Garners.
So instead of one mask, you reiterate as you're leaving that you'll have two masks and she'll be in her new home by this time tomorrow.
* * * * *
Or you would start on making the masks if you hadn't arrived at the abandoned elementary school to realize one very important thing: you'd forgotten to get the keys to the basement from your own robot double. You've still got some material left with you, mainly the stuff to golemize the masks, but not enough to make a full set of what you need.
So you call him and tell him to get his ass over to the school (in a tone that is very unlike Samantha) right now. "Right now" however turns out to be twenty minutes with your doofus doppelganger insisting it was because he got caught up in something with your mom.
Blowing him off you simply get the keys from him and send him on his way.
You've still got plenty of material right now so you get to work on the now second nature, though still tedious, task of creating and polishing the masks, of creating the brain band and carving the runes onto it. You decide that it'll save a little bit of time if you glue the bands to the mask first, that way it can copy both the mind and body at once, so you get to work on doing that.
Around an hour and a half later you've got two masks with two brain bands glued into them, ready to be used tomorrow on Stephanie Wyatt and... whichever Garner you can get. But what then? Chelsea will work to consolidate her hold on the squad in whatever way that's going to entail and you'll... be there?
That disappoints you a bit.
Chelsea can be bossy and demanding but she's put a lot of faith in you, shown you a lot of trust and you want to keep returning it. You want to show her that you're useful, that you're reliable, that you're indispensable. Helping her get the squad completely under control might show that you're the first two but not the third. That would mean going above and beyond in helping her.
Stephanie's not really involved in much beyond... but that's it! This drama between Stephanie and Anita and Hannah could always get worse, not just for those involved but Chelsea; it's a fire that'll need to be put out. But if you could get Anita you'd have effectively neutralized a group that might move on Chelsea once they're done with Hannah.
And Hannah? She's shaken things up in a short time. She's a fast rising star at the school and that could cause problems if she wins out over Stephanie and Anita. She'd have momentum, she'd have confidence; her power would definitely be waxing. You doubt you could get the girl herself but it might be a good idea to see if you can grab one of her friends, that way you could keep an eye on her and, if need be, sabotage her.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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