Paige was surprised that her mother left her alone to finish her bath. Perhaps it was because, as Jon, he always assumed that a girl that was younger than him was simply weaker and unable to take care of herself. Surprisingly she felt more alive in this new body. She felt more aware of what her actual physical limits could be, some of which she wasn't sure she believed. And she felt stronger.
There was a quality to the strength that she couldn't identify. It wasn't a physical ability to lift weight, rather it was an emotional force, like a strong magnetic field. A few brain cells fired back up, appreciating that even as a girl she had the potential to be a geek.
This brought a new train of thought as she finished toweling herself down. Unconsciously she avoided the new anatomy between her legs and gingerly dried off her budding breasts.
She still had a choice. She could decide to be a geek if she wanted, following in the footsteps of some of the female geeks she had admired as Jon, like Felicia Day and NixiePixel. She could decide to be the stereotypical cheerleader like her new older sister.
She had an advantage in both of these choices. She knew far more about video games and gamer culture, not to mention math, science and a lot of movie trivia, gleaned over 17 years, than probably any other 12 year old female. Hell, she knew song lyrics from 70's songs that the "real" Paige probably had never even heard. Or she could ask her older sister for help in learning the moves for cheer-leading. How hard could it be, really? Shake your ass for the jocks, make the girls jealous and do what amounts to a little dance. She never thought less of the cheerleaders in general for having such an easy job (though she did harbor some irritation toward specific individuals for their actions toward her and her friends), but she was a bit jealous that as a guy she never had the same "easy" way to be popular.
Paige mentally cataloged a few other paths she could take while she pulled on the PJ set that her mother had left for her. She could be a gear head, wearing cute little outfits while leaning against hot cars and knowing as much as any of the guys about how to build, tune and fix them. She had never been particularly interested in cars as Jon beyond liking Mustangs and Bugatti Veyrons, and knowing some rudimentary mechanics from racing games, but with the 5 year re-wind she could easily dive into the books and eventually get her hands on them.
That didn't seem very appealing though. However it did open her mind to the fact that she had a 5 year re-wind. Having experience as a 17 year old, she would be much better able to focus on learning and what kinds of high-school bullshit she could brush off.
She had picked up a friend's guitar (I wonder how Sarah's wish affected Jacob?) with an intention to learn to play it, but gave it back after a week. Five years of practice would put her with some of the better guitar players at 17 years old. That was a possibility.
She could become a great chef. As Jon, she managed to make passable pancakes a few times, and french toast, decent omelettes and even waffles from scratch, though the mess she had made in the process put her off of continuing. Too much clean-up work she had thought that morning. But now, if it meant she could do whatever she wanted then she could learn to deal with the clean-up work.
She looked at herself in the mirror, examining her new face closely. She opened her mouth and looked at her teeth, turned sideways and tried to look into her ear (pulling the blonde hair out of the way and scratching herself again in the process) and raised and lowered her eyebrows. She pushed the fact that she was genetically related to Sarah out of her mind for a moment and thought she looked remarkably cute. As Jon, she would easily champion this reflected girl without a moment's thought if she were to get into physical danger, much the same way she would have for Zoe.
The fact that she was genetically related to Sarah broke back through the poor mental wall though. Paige looked like her older sister and there was no way to hide from that. In fact, being Sarah's little sister meant that her parents might make some of those choices harder, if not impossible.
And then there was the stone. Sarah could quite literally make her do anything, and she might not ever even know it. No, there were really only two choices here.
Paige could play along with Sarah, pick the path of the cheerleader and maybe not have such a bad life, assuming she could learn to like boys somehow. That dreadful thought was buried under a tidal wave of denial.
Or she could resist and have the bitch turn her into the true Paige McMillan, completely erasing Jon Merlin forever and leaving someone new in her place.
Paige looked at herself in the mirror one last time before stepping out of the bathroom and into her nightmare, an even more frightening thought in her mind... Sarah could make her ACT like the true Paige McMillan, leaving her a puppet and a prisoner.
