Tim's mind raced... Supergirl? He was supposed to be Supergirl? How was that even possible? Supergirl was a
fictional character. So was Superman. So were all these people. Yet there he was, in Supergirl's uniform,
looking up at the towering figure of Superman, and surrounded by the rest of the Justice League. It was
insane. Then again, was it any stranger than the fact that he had been turned by magic--magic!--into two other
people over the last couple of hours?
Yes. Yes, it really was.
He had more immediate concerns, though. Tim looked up nervously at Superman... how could he have known that
Tim wasn't really Supergirl, when the other members of the Justice League didn't seem to notice? Was it
something to do with his powers, perhaps? Was he able to use his X-ray vision to see through the spell that
made Tim look like Kara to everyone else? No, Superman was notoriously vulnerable to magic, so if anything, he
should have had a harder time seeing through the spell that had turned Tim into Supergirl. Had he sensed
something odd in Tim's behavior, then, that made it clear that Tim was't Kara?
Tim was about to respond when he realized that Superman hadn't spoken to him in English... he'd spoken in a
strange language that he'd never heard before, but that he'd somehow been able to understand effortlessly. It
must have been Kryptonian, he realized... and just as he had been able to speak and understand Japanese as
Mika, so was he able to speak and understand Kryptonian as Kara.
"Of course I'm Kara, Cl... Kal," Tim said, speaking fluently and effortlessly in Kryptonian. "I swear. I..."
He cleared his throat. His voice sounded strange... small, thin, high-pitched, even. Almost like...
Wait. The spell. The spell Paul had cast. Tim remembered now. It wasn't just supposed to make him switch
bodies with someone, like the spell that had switched him with Mika. It was supposed to make him switch
BODIES. Turning his eyes slowly downward, Tim looked in amazement at his body... his very curvy, very FEMALE
body. He didn't just have Supergirl's identity... he had her body!
Tim was shocked. He needed some time to take this in, to wrap his mind around being in a girl's body, much
less the body of a Kryptonian girl. But he had a more pressing concern for the moment. He had a very confused,
astoundingly powerful Superman standing over him... and while Tim was perhaps as powerful as Superman in this
body, he had no desire to anger the Man of freaking Steel.
"Kal, it's me," Tim said, looking back up at a skeptical Superman. Luckily, Tim, as an avid comic book fan,
had an encyclopedic knowledge of Superman's world to draw on. "It's Kara, your cousin. I swear. Ask me
anything. Ask me about Lois. Ask me about Ma and Pa. Ask me about Lana. Ask me about Conner. Ask me about..."
"I believe you," Superman said. He sighed. "I'm sorry, Kara, I just..."
"You were worried about me," Tim said. "It's very sweet. But you don't need to... I'm a big b.. girl." He gave
Superman a hug. Tim was not normally a hugger; he found affection pretty awkward. But he had an act to pull
off, and he knew he needed to pull it off well. He had enough to deal with, what with being in another body
and a whole other reality. The last thing he needed right now was a suspicious Justice League.
"Look," Tim said, "that fight took a lot out of me. I need to clear my head. Do you think the League can take
care of Granny over there?"
"Of course," Superman said.
"Thanks, Kal," Tim said. "You're the best." And then, on an impulse, he stood up on his tiptoes and kissed
Superman on the cheek. He immediately felt the need to scrub his lips--Tim wasn't gay in the slightest, and
the thought of kissing a man, even on the cheek, felt a little creepy--but it was a perfect final touch for
his act.
Turning, Tim started walking away. He had no idea where he was going; he just wanted to get some distance from
the superheroes so he could take stock. After he'd taken a few steps, though, he heard a voice say, "Why isn't
she flying?" It was a whisper, and he could hear it as clearly as if it had been whispered in his own ear, but
Tim could tell it was some distance away. Was this super-hearing? It must have been.
And if Tim had super-hearing, and if he'd survived a plummet to earth, and if he'd punched a six-foot hole in
the ground, he probably had the rest of Kara's powers as well. He wondered how on earth he could fly... but
suddenly he realized he knew. He instinctively knew, just as he'd known how to speak Kryptonian, and Japanese
before that. And so he willed himself off the ground... and found himself lifting up into the sky, slowly at
first, then faster and faster, until he was high over the Metropolis skyline. He felt breathless... this was
incredible!
As he slowed to a stop, Tim felt a breeze blow across his legs, and suddenly he remembered he was in a girl's
body. Looking down at his body--and trying to fight the sense of vertigo and fear he felt at seeing the ground
a mile below his feet--he took in the sight that greeted him. He was dressed in what he recognized as the
costume of the modern Supergirl: a skin-tight, long-sleeved shirt that ended just a couple of inches below his
breasts and several above his belly button, and a tiny blue skirt that stopped well above his knees. A red
cape flapped in the breeze around him, and a pair of red boots completed the look. The outfit was not modest,
not at all, and it displayed his new body very, very well.
And what a body it was! Tim's breasts pressed tight against the fabric of his shirt, and they looked enormous
to him... as a woman in a comic book, what else could he expect? Of course, it could have just been a trick of
angles... after all, Tim had never seen breasts from this angle before, and he'd rarely seen them from this
close. On the other hand, Power Girl was supposed to be a grown-up version of Supergirl, and she was infamous
for having the biggest boobs in the comic book biz, so maybe Tim's breasts really were as large as they
seemed. Beneath his breasts, Tim saw the soft, smooth skin and luscious curves of a very beautiful girl,
curves he would have lusted furiously after if he'd still been in his own body. His waist was narrow, his hips
were shapely without being heavy, and his legs were long and smooth. Kara had a slender figure; she was
perhaps the most powerful female on earth, but she had the figure of an actress or a pop star, not of a
bodybuilder or an athlete. Indeed, looking at his slender arms, at his delicate hands (whose fingernails were
tipped with pink polish, he noted), Tim's body almost looked fragile. Maybe not as fragile as Tim's own reedy
body, but close. It was amazing to think how much power he held in such a skinny, girly frame.
To think that he, Tim, who had been such a weakling his entire life, now possessed such power. And to think
that he, Tim, who was barely able to approach a girl, was in the body of such a beauty. It was astonishing.
Tim felt the urge to strip off his shirt and skirt and explore his body further, but that was probably a bad
idea while he was still in range of Superman's telescopic vision. And besides, he felt terribly exposed to the
world, even here, well outside the clear gaze of anyone in the city... and his tiny outfit didn't help that.
Tim brushed his long, windblown blonde hair out of his eyes and turned his face upward, toward the sun. He
stared directly at the sun, in all its brilliant, blazing glory... he never could have done this as a human,
but apparently one of the advantages of being a Kryptonian was that he could look directly at the sun without
any harm. The sun looked amazing, looking at it like this... and it felt even more incredible. Tim had always
been the stereotypical pasty-faced geek, shunning the sun for the comforts of the indoors; the sun tended to
feel harsh and bright when he stepped outside. But now, the sunlight felt... amazing. Invigorating.
Empowering. Almost intoxicating. Of course it did... Kara's body was essentially solar-powered. It felt like
the sunlight was washing away all the shock and confusion he'd felt a few minutes before, when he'd landed in
Kara's body. It was burning away all the weakness, all the awkwardness, all the shyness, all the fear he had
ever felt, leaving in its place pure, absolute, unbridled power. Tim had never felt anything like this, and he
never wanted it to go away.
Of course, if he wanted to return to his own body, he would have to give up this feeling, and all of Kara's
powers, and all the opportunities that came with them. It meant giving up the opportunity to meet and befriend
all his favorite heroes, too, and a life of real, cosmic meaning, a life he could spend helping people and
saving the world. He'd dreamed all his life of being a superhero, and now his dream had come true, even if it
wasn't eactly as he'd imagined it. He wasn't sure he wanted to give this all up and return to his mediocre
life.
Tim wasn't keen on giving up his old life completely, of course, lame as it had been... and he certainly
didn't want to spend the rest of his life as a girl. Tim wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to return to
his own body, but he was sure he had options. He could wait for Paul to find a reversal spell, of course, or
he could try to track down Zatanna or one of the other numerous spellcasters in the DCU and ask them for help.
But did he really want to switch back? Maybe being a girl and abandoning his old life were small prices to pay
for being one of the most powerful beings in the world.