Announcementcontent warning: mention of past abuse; mention of non-supportive parents"Oh wow," I smiled as I walked into the kitchen. "Chels this looks great! I figured we'd just have some left-over pizza or something."

  Chelsea was waiting at the table for Gwen and I. She was dressed casual like the rest of us, in a pair of tiny blue cut-offs and a tight pink sleeveless top.

  The table was set for three, and in the middle of it was a big ptter full of scrambled eggs with bits of cheese melted in. Next to that was a rge pte with a half dozen slices of toast, all buttered sliced and ready to go. There was also jam on the table, a carton of cream, and bowl of sugar. And there was a full pot of fresh brewed coffee waiting for us too.

  Chels smiled, "I wanted coffee, and I don't like that with cold pizza. Plus I figured we could all use a proper breakfast."

  My best friend entered the kitchen a moment ter, and we both joined Chelsea at the table.

  "Dig in!" the cute blonde said as she poured the coffee for everyone. Then she added, "Sorry there's no bacon or sausage. I had to make do with what we had in the fridge, which wasn't much."

  I grabbed a couple slices of toast and a big scoop of the eggs as I shook my head, "This is great Chels, thanks!"

  "Yeah it smells delicious!" Gwen agreed. Then she repeated my earlier comment, "I wasn't expecting all this, I thought we'd just have left-over pizza."

  Chelsea smiled, "We can heat that up for lunch. And dinner too for that matter, there's a lot of it."

  My friend and I were both ok with that idea, but neither of us were ready to think about those meals. We were too busy enjoying the food the cute blonde prepared for us.

  As we ate Gwen asked, "So miss, have you had any luck with that ptop yet? Will we all be able to stay this way?"

  "I haven't found a solution yet," I admitted. "But what I've seen so far makes me confident that there is a solution. I mean, it's definitely possible? It's just a question of learning the tools, then figuring out the best way to use them."

  My friend nodded then had a sip of her coffee, while Chelsea looked thoughtful.

  After munching on a bite of toast Chels suggested, "There might be a retively easy solution to the matter of Gwen's parents. I mean if nothing else, I'll bet you could use the character editor to tweak things so they'll accept that their daughter's trans and that she's already transitioned."

  "Or maybe you could even do it so they think they always had a daughter?" she added. "That way they won't question how all Gwen's stuff all changed st night to match her new character stats."

  I grimaced, "Maybe? But doesn't that feel wrong to you? Or invasive? I mean, you're talking about either messing with their personality or editing their memories. Or both."

  Chels shrugged, "Well how else would you do it?"

  "I don't know yet," I sighed. "But there has to be a way."

  The small blonde frowned as she munched on another piece of toast. Then she stated in a quiet but firm voice, "My dad's not going to accept any of this Lisa. You know what he's like. He already hits me, and I know he's hit you too. Do you think he'll stop doing that just because we look like this? He's abusive to both of us, and that was in our original forms. Now he could seriously hurt us, or worse."

  I frowned as I stared down at my food. I knew she was right, but I really didn't want to let that ptop's power go to my head. I didn't want to do anything horrible with it, I didn't want to be evil. And messing with people, even if they deserved it, felt wrong.

  "There's not a lot of options for you and me Lisa," Chelsea added after a few seconds. "Either we go back to our old selves before he gets home, or you fix things so he won't come home at all. Or use it to make sure he can't hurt us any more."

  I sighed as I had another gulp of my coffee. Part of me wanted to argue, but I knew deep down she was right. I didn't like it though, and I still held out hope that I'd be able to find some other solution, something that didn't involve messing with people.

  So instead of responding I just stayed quiet and tried to focus on my breakfast.

  "My folks aren't physically abusive," Gwen finally spoke up. "Not any more than normal anyways. But there's a reason I wasn't going to come out until after I'd finished college. Both my mom and dad are queermisic. Whenever there's anything on the news about trans people or LGBT rights I have to listen to the two of them spout off about how people like me should just be put down or removed from society."

  Chels nodded, "My dad's the same. He's always going on about 'the gays' or 'the queers' and how we're ruining society and all that crap. He has no idea I'm bi, I've had to keep a couple retionships completely secret from him. Luckily I could cim I was just hanging out with teammates or whatever."

  That made me grimace again. I didn't know Chelsea was bi until I saw it in her character sheet, but I definitely understood why she had to hide it. And she wasn't exaggerating about her dad, I'd heard all the same bigoted crap come out of him. He'd even accused me of being gay a couple times, just because I was weak and skinny and never had a girlfriend.

  After another sigh I looked to my best friend and asked, "Does that mean you agree with Chelsea? If it was possible, would you want to edit your parents' memories or change their personality or something, so they weren't transmisic anymore? Or so they believed you'd been a girl all along?"

  Gwen frowned as she thought about it for a few seconds. Then she shrugged, "I really don't know yet miss. It's complicated. I mean, they're my parents and I love them? But sometimes I also hate them. Like I said, I've heard them talk about this sort of thing. I know what they think about trans people."

  "My parents believe it's ok to torture trans and gay children until they give up and deny who they really are," she added quietly. "I know that's not even legal in this country anymore, but it still scares me because I know my folks would find a way if it came up."

  She paused there for a moment, then shook her head. "Like I said miss, I just don't know. Right now I'm not sure, but there's times I know I'd say yes. Sometimes I think it'd be ok to edit their minds that way, because if they could they'd totally try to do that to me and every other trans person. They absolutely believe it's ok to do whatever it takes to 'cure' gay and trans people. At least the ptop would be painless and instant, compared to the torture and isotion they'd use on me if they found out I was trans."

  By the time she was done I felt even more uptight about the whole situation. Both Chels and Gwen had some pretty good arguments, while all I had was a feeling that it was wrong to mess with people like that. Even if those people wouldn't hesitate to do the same, that didn't make it right. And after another second or two I spoke up and said so.

  "It still feels wrong to me," I admitted quietly. "I'm not arguing with either of you, you're both right. People like that are dangerous and they wouldn't think twice about hurting us if they could. It still feels like a line in the sand though, and I don't want to cross it. I don't want to be as evil or nasty as those sorts of people."

  Chels frowned, "So does that mean you're uncomfortable with how me and Gwen changed too? What about yourself? Are you saying you think we should all just go back to normal and forget that the ptop can do all this stuff?"

  "No!" I shook my head. "That's different. You and Gwen both changed yourselves on purpose. And even though my transformation was an accident I kind of like it? Anyways the point is it's different because that's stuff we all did to ourselves. I don't have a problem with using the ptop to mess around or make changes when all the parties involved agree to it. If it's consensual then I'm totally on board. But messing with people without their knowledge or consent is wrong. Even if those people deserve it, even if they'd do that to us, it's still wrong. And I don't want to lower myself to their level."

  My best friend nodded slowly, "Ok miss. It makes sense when you put it like that."

  "That's great but it still doesn't solve our problem," Chelsea pointed out. "Gwen's parents, my dad, the people at school, we still need to figure out what to do about all of them."

  I sighed once more, "I know that Chels. And I'm still thinking about it, ok? We've got until tomorrow night to fix things for Gwyneth, and up until Monday morning to fix the school stuff for all of us. And your dad's not due back until next Friday. I'm sure we'll figure something out long before then."

  "I sure hope you're right Lisa," she replied quietly.

  Gwen nodded slowly, "Me too. I really don't want to go back to my old body again, not after getting to experience all this."

  "Honestly," she added with a sigh, "At this point I think I'd probably just leave home now rather than have to change back or deal with my folks. Even if it meant having to drop out of college and live on the streets, at least I'd have a body I didn't hate."

  Chels gave my friend a sad look, "There's better options than homelessness. There's hostels and youth support centres and stuff like that. I don't know how good they are or how easy it is to get into them, but there must be pces that look after queer kids who've been chased out of their homes."

  Gwyneth shook her head, "A lot of the homeless shelters are funded or supported by religious groups. And some of those churches are where half the bigotry's coming from in the first pce."

  I kept quiet while they were talking. The whole conversation had been depressing and frustrating, but I totally understood where Gwen was coming from. I'd lost count of the number of times I thought about running away after my mom died. I was too much of a coward to actually do it though.

  Except now that I was thinking about it again, I realized I was in a much better pce than ever before. My new bank account had a lot of money in it, enough that I could afford a few months' rent. Maybe even a whole year's worth. If I could find somewhere big enough, all three of us could just move out together. Then Gwen wouldn't have to worry about her folks, and Chels and I would be safe from her dad.

  Then the next thought hit me and my eyes widened, while an excited smile settled on my face.

  "Hey you two," I interrupted their ongoing conversation about homelessness. "We already know that ptop can edit belongings, right? More than that, I'm pretty sure it can create things. Like that big TV and the game consoles in my bedroom? Those came out of nowhere. What if it can do that, but on a bigger scale?"

  Gwen and Chels exchanged a confused look, then the cute blonde asked "Like what? What are you thinking, Lisa?"

  I smiled, "What if it can get us a pce of our own? Like our very own home? Somewhere the three of us can be safe and comfortable, so we don't have to worry about queermisic or abusive parents anymore?"

  "Holy crap," my best friend mumbled as she stared at me in surprise. "Miss that would be awesome!"

  "Do you really think it's possible?" Chelsea asked.

  I nodded, "Yeah. I do. I don't know how to do it yet, but I bet it won't take long to figure it out. Actually I'm going to get started on that right now."

  "Anyways thanks for breakfast," I added as I got to my feet. "It was delicious."

  Gwen agreed, "Thanks Chelsea it was great. I'll take care of all the dishes, then I need to get back to the undry."

  Chels made a face, "I suppose I should do some studying then. Less than two weeks until exams and all that."

  Hearing that both Gwyneth and I exchanged a grimace. We had exams coming up too, but messing with the ptop felt way more important right now than studying for finals. I had no idea what my best friend's excuse was though. It was probably a coin toss between dishes or undry or studying when it came to which was the most boring. Except she had that whole maid thing going on, so for all I knew maybe she actually liked doing chores now.

  Either way the three of us all got up from the table. Chels headed upstairs to her room while I went back downstairs to mine, and Gwen stayed in the kitchen to take care of the washing up.

  PurpleCatGirl