Ravens of Eternity

269 Fugitive of Justice

A couple of hours later, after Lucifer and Eva finished up their last-minute preparations, they got back into the Accursed Bootlegger, started her up, and lifted off out of the outpost. They rose up lazily into the planet’s upper atmosphere, then sped off towards the other end of the planet.

Both were pushed into their seats by the incredible g-forces from the ship’s amazing acceleration. It delighted them both to no end, and the reasons were simple.

Most ships’ acceleration was absolutely capped – it was necessary in order to prevent too much gravitational pressure on their occupants. Simply, every maneuver a ship made was a shift in g-forces. The faster it made these maneuvers, the more g-forces were pushed on everyone inside.

And if those g-forces ever exceeded a certain threshold, those people would be instantly killed. So, strict limitations were put in place to prevent those deaths as much as possible.

The Bootlegger seemed to spit in the face of that. Its acceleration exceeded most other ships in the galaxy, as was its top cruising speed. It likely proved to be deadly to its previous pilots on more than one occasion.

Lucifer was in the pilot’s seat, while Eva sat in the copilot. She would have much preferred to be the pilot, but it was bought with Lucifer’s money, so she couldn’t exactly take away that right.

Then again... was it bought with Raven money?

“I really hate leaving loose ends alive,” said Lucifer. “Frustrates me so much.”

“You’re the one who told me not to kill ’em,” Eva replied.

.....

“I know! That’s what’s frustrating! We had no choice but to leave them alive! If only I knew what gang they were with.”

“You can’t do research on everyone. Like I said, it’s impossible. Shit just happens, and we gotta deal with it with what we’ve got at the time.”

Lucifer scoffed. But knew what she said was true, deep down. Ze simply didn’t want to believe that dumb luck existed. Or worse, smart luck. That somehow, people like Eva got by on mere premonitions and theories.

It all sounded like naivete to hir.

“They’re probably selling info on us as we speak,” Lucifer said after a while. “We’ll need to move fast.”

“Thankfully, we got us a ship that’ll do just that,” Eva replied. “Anyway, where to next?”

“Other side of the planet. Got an infobroker I need to talk to, then send a secure comm through a pigeon. Then, we head to the colonies and hide.”

“And the Ravens will be there?”

“Eventually. If all goes well. For all of us.”

Eva grimaced as she thought about their fates. How one dumb thing she did somehow upended all their lives. She reflected on Lucifer’s words, and realized that what ze had been saying also had truth to it.

There was a necessity in finding out whatever you could about the people around you. Because you never knew.

It dawned on her suddenly that she barely knew Pelli. She didn’t even know what he did for a living. It wasn’t just that she never thought to ask, but he simply never talked about it.

She glanced over at Lucifer and realized ze was a person who wore hirself on hir sleeves at all times. Unapologetically. And yet ze too was a bit of a mystery.

“We’re gonna need to start disguising ourselves,” Lucifer said out of the blue.

“Wait, what?” Eva said. “You mean like cutting our hair and coloring it sort of thing? Or wearing glasses?”

Sarcasm dripped from her voice. She imagined all those movies where the heroes changed their hair color or wore baseball caps or reading glasses to hide from society. As if they suddenly changed how they looked and became unrecognizable.

Ridiculous.

“What, not a fan of being a redhead?” asked Lucifer.

“And be a walking cliche? Spare me,” Eva retorted. “And besides, red isn’t my color. Works for you, but not for me.”

“Yes, yes, you love black. Sooo edgy. You’re practically a gothic princess.”

“Says the person decked out in pristine white.”

“With red tips, thank you very much.”

The two chuckled lightly. A little playful ribbing never hurt anyone. So far, anyway.

“But to answer your question... no,” Lucifer said. “Changing hair is for amateurs. There’s so much more that the Peacekeepers pay attention to than that. Our entire genetic makeup, for example.”

“I’m not about to get my genes altered permanently,” said Eva. “I’m very happy with who I am, thank you very much.”

“That’s not at all what I mean... Look, watch me.”

Eva turned her head and looked over at Lucifer, and watched as she was asked.

Lucifer briefly closed hir eyes and breathed out deeply. Then, hir body began to shift and change. Over the course of a few seconds, it became more masculine. Lucifer’s jawline became more square, and hir shoulders became more broad. Then ze shifted into a more feminine form with more slender lines and wider hips.

But Lucifer didn’t just do slight changes to hir body. Ze eventually made the changes more and more prominent as ze shifted and morphed between them. For a few seconds, ze was voluptuous, and in the next few ze was obscenely muscular.

Hir hair also changed. Not just in length, but color as well.

It almost seemed to Eva that Lucifer was picking their character in a videogame. As though ze was customizing their avatar.

And all through the changes, Eva felt energies of Ascendant Form flow out of Lucifer. She knew she could use its potential to change her physiology, but never to that extent. It blew her mind as to how much control Lucifer had over hir body.

It dawned on her just how taxing it possibly was, but Lucifer just kept on going.

Ze only stopped after a few minutes. Though hir breaths were a little labored, they were relatively even regardless.

“How’d you do that with Ascendant Form?” Eva asked.

“Is that what you call it?” Lucifer responded.

Eva immediately felt a little foolish for having such an ostentatious name for the ability she developed. But she quickly defended her naming of it – it made her feel powerful. So she felt it deserved a powerful name.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” she said. “What do you call it?”

Lucifer laughed playfully.

“Nothing wrong,” ze said. “But it’s a bit flashy, don’t you think? I call it True Harmony. Fully understanding my own body, and its true potential brings me a great amount of peace. Never had a body I could agree with back on Earth. Now I have one that’s just perfect.”

Eva nodded in agreement. Her old self felt like a wreck in comparison.

“Sometimes,” continued Lucifer, “it even shifts on its own accord. It’s become kinda... subconscious. I’ll be more feminine one moment, then more masculine in another. It really confuses the hell out of a lot of people.”

“Is that why different people keep calling you he or she at times?” Eva asked.

“Also their own prejudices, I’m sure. But for the most part, yeah. Didn’t you notice the changes? People tell me it’s pretty obvious.”

Eva tried to look back at a few specific times, but didn’t see any differences. Maybe she simply didn’t look enough to notice? She shrugged at Lucifer, who was surprised at that.

Then ze realized that ze was talking about hirself a bit too much. More than ze had with most others, for a very long time.

The moment shocked hir into temporary silence.

“Anyway, since you can obviously tap into the same ability,” Lucifer said eventually, “then you need to practice how to do it too. It’ll just help us not get recognized while we’re out and about.”

“I doubt it’ll stop the Peacekeepers from tracking us down,” Eva replied.

“No, but it goes a long way.”

“Alright then. I guess I’ll go to the back and practice.”

“I’ll holler if I need anything.”

Eva then got up. But before she headed out, she put a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder.

“Thanks for showing me that,” she said.

Then she went to the back and left Lucifer to pilot on hir own. She walked down the stripped-out passageway and stepped into the incredibly voluminous cargo bay. Save for a single crate of their supplies in a corner, the entire thing was utterly empty.

She walked over to the very middle and sat on her knees, samurai-style. Then she closed her eyes and meditated as she entered Ascendant Form.

Eva sank deep into herself, and sent a pulse of energy through her veins, to every corner of her body. As though to wake everything up from slumber.

At first she went through her standard exercises to warm everything up, then she attempted to shift into a male version of herself. Lucifer had done it so easily, so she reasoned that she would, too.

But found it incredibly difficult. She literally strained against herself as she tried to adjust her physiology.

Eva had since grown incredibly confident in herself, in her body, in her identity. The strength of it resisted her to the fullest. The more she pushed against it, the more it pushed back. Brute force wasn’t working. She was simply too attached to the way she had grown.

She let the energies go, and allowed Ascendant Form to ebb to a minimum. She had only used a small portion of her stamina thus far, and only panted lightly as she recovered it. She realized just how much practice she needed to put in before she could even come close to Lucifer’s mastery of it.

–

Eva: How long to the next outpost?

Lucifer: About two hours.

Eva: Alright

Eva: I’ll need it

Lucifer: Having problems?

Eva: My body refuses to change to a male

Eva: It really dislikes it

Lucifer: Well, you have been attacked by a few.

Lucifer: So I don’t blame you.

Lucifer: I wouldn’t stress changing gender at all.

.....

Lucifer: I do it because it’s natural to me.

Lucifer: Do what’s natural for you.

–

Lucifer’s words were incredibly helpful to Eva. She realized that ze had changed genders so easily because that’s who ze was from the beginning – a person who was already both.

Eva had always firmly been feminine, and there wasn’t any changing that.

More than that, she understood that the traumas she had undergone with Chase and Drenn and Nightmare contributed to her body’s total resistance. It unequivocally wanted to avoid the change.

She realized that was fine – she didn’t need to become something she wasn’t in order to hide or fight. Even if it could be useful in some cases.

Instead, she decided to simply shift her appearance. She felt this was something she could do with greater ease.

She dove back into Ascendant Form and once again attempted to adjust her physiology. She made herself slightly taller, a little stockier, and more full-figured. Just as importantly, she played with the tone of her skin, and tanned it.

Eva held her form for a few minutes, but the strain of keeping it stable was harsh on her. After a while, it wavered, then dropped altogether. She panted heavily as sweat dripped down her forehead.

Her upper body heaved slightly with each breath she took.

Although it took a great deal of energy to do, she successfully performed her first shift. Once she recovered enough energy, she put on a determined grin, and shifted again.

And over the course of the trip, practiced herself to exhaustion.