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Madeline McCaffrey was not happy about her current situation. She was a girl whose deck had been stacked against her and her dear, sweet, idiot brother, and she prided herself on how well she and Mason had overcome their various challenges. Sure, it had helped that her family had money--so they never had to worry about housing, or food, or any of the other basic necessities--but the day-to-day living of it all? That had all been Madeline's doing. She had kept herself and Mason alive, functional, and achieving. Over-achieving, even! They'd graduated early, for pity's sake!

And yet.

And yet here she was, pulled from a carefully-planned, perfectly-controlled life and into an unpredictable, chaotic mess that, according to her brother and his magically-inclined friends, wanted to kill them all the time.

Yes, she'd asked for it. Technically. But she'd asked for it secretly, and she'd very quickly realized that no, she did not want to be special the way her brother was, because the way her brother was special was deadly, apparently. It pulled him from classes, it pulled him from his bed, it pulled him from twin time. Honestly. Was nothing sacred?

Worst of all, it made him so annoying. She was the one who was supposed to be the mature, responsible, reasonable one, and he was supposed to be the goof-off dumdum she dragged along until he eventually realized that she was right about everything forever and should've done everything she said the whole time. Except now, he was all 'we need to protect the city' and 'we're embroiled in a never-ending battle of good vs evil' and 'not now, Mads, I'm on my way to rebuild my literal castle'. Honestly. What nerve.

If it were up to Madeline, she wouldn't have powered back up - not again, not after the very first time she'd done it, entirely accidentally, when that thing was bearing down on her and Keisha - who had also powered up, as if becoming magical herself wasn't enough. But Mason--he kept going on and on and on about having power and having responsibility like some kind of fortune-cookie-turned-superhero.

So eventually - after a lot of talking, and a lot of arguing - they struck a deal. Sort of. Madeline would go out on 'patrols' (what a silly word), and Mason would stop blowing off his classes and homework. She'd refused to step foot into the magical pool until he'd come to all of his classes for a week, and she'd confirmed he'd gotten at least caught up on his schoolwork, if not a week or two ahead the way Madeline had trained them to be all the way through high school. It was enough, and he'd pouted at her so intensely that even she, the queen of guilt trips, was forced to hold up her end of the bargain.

So Madeline had begun to wander around the city, un-powered, because sure, she'd said she'd go out, but she hadn't said in what form. 'Powering up' felt - ridiculous, and also she didn't really know how to do it on command. 'Yet', Mason insisted when she'd pointed this out. She'd rolled her eyes. She had no intention of ever getting better at this.

"Hellooooo, scary spooky bad guys," Madeline called out, crossing her arms as she walked. "Please feel free to not come out wherever you are," she said with a huff. "You can stay home and stay away from me and my family, forever, thank you!"

Madeline had no idea who - or what - she was talking to, but at least this way, if nothing came out, she could tell Mason she'd 'tried to find something'. Sort of. Kind of. And if something did show its ugly face, well...maybe Madeline could figure out the whole 'powering up' thing. If only to be able to run fast and far away from whatever it was she woke up.

But most likely, Madeline reassured herself, as she felt a tremor of anxiety shiver through her, was that there was nobody, and nothing, out there except some drunk college kids, sad Halloween leftovers, and maybe - if she was really (un)lucky, a raccoon. Gasp.

Oh, crud.

Madeline actually heard it before the girl spoke, just on the very edge of her auditory abilities - a weird little skitterskitter sound that, if she had heard it in her own home, would have sent her either screaming for her brother to killitkillitkillit!!!! or, in all honesty, out of the house entirely. It would have to be burned down, if there was something with that many legs living inside it. They could get a new house.

But she was not at home. She was wandering the streets at night, alone, like an idiot, because her brother said she 'had to get her feet wet' and 'see what made it all worth it'. How had he become such a starry-eyed enthusiast about this?

Well. She knew the answer to that question. Mason was a starry-eyed enthusiast about everything. Why should literal magic be any different?

At least she wasn't alone out here with whatever horrifying bug-monster was currently making the nearby Honda Acura shake and vibrate. God, was it crawling inside the car? Madeline shuddered, and did what the woman asked, ducking behind her obediently.

For just a moment, Madeline considered staying there, letting this woman handle it. She was clearly extremely powerful, and moved like she owned the place. It would be so, so easy to just - be Madeline. A 'civilian', as Mason horrifyingly referred to people that weren't magical like he was. It would be so easy to do as Joy had given her permission to do: to pack Edam into a box and never touch it again if she didn't want to. She could just be Madeline.

But Madeline McCaffrey had never done anything just because it was easy. In fact, for pretty much her entire life, she had intentionally chosen the harder path, on the knowledge that whatever waited at the end would be that much better for having put the effort in. For having tried.

She had also never been especially good at letting other people take care of her. That was her job, always had been, and she was unused to being in the position of needing anyone, especially not needing their help. If she just remained in her 'civilian' (aka, real) form, wouldn't that be what she was doing? Letting this green-haired stranger help her, when she was (probably) perfectly careful of taking care of it herself?

"Dang it," Madeline huffed to herself, letting out a sigh as she rolled her eyes. She skipped a few steps further back and around the corner, doing as Mason had instructed - just reaching for the strange ability, inside, like it was something to grab onto in her heart. For a moment, she floundered, and then she heard the car shake again and it came with surprising quickness.

When she opened her eyes, she was Edam.

Or, at least, she looked like Edam. She still felt like Madeline.

She stepped back out from around the corner, looking dubiously between the woman and the car, which was now beginning to make some really horrifying clunk and scrape noises. Somehow, Madeline doubted that 'bug monster' was covered under this poor person's auto insurance claims (but really it should be, if you lived in Destiny City).

"Can I...help?" Madeline asked doubtfully, holding up her lame little slingshot in offer. "Or do you..." she gestured with her other hand, "got this?"