Test changing the past

You figured it would be best to start by testing something that wasn't physically obvious; , you had the feeling that someone becoming more directly aware of your power altered how they saw it, and you didn't want Amber in on it just yet. You'd also been curious about what happened when you messed around with someone's history - Nakamura, for instance, had now "always" had the body you'd given her, but obviously you still knew that wasn't how she'd started out, so how far did it go? May as well combine those things.

"Okay, Serena, fair warning, this next part might get a little weird for you."

She just giggled, and ran a hand up her body. "Like the rest of the day hasn't been?"

You shrugged. "Fair enough. Alright then; first, blonde is your natural hair color, right?"

She nodded, smiling, and you went on. "Okay then...Amber, would you rather Serena's hair had always been naturally fire red, or naturally raven black?"

Amber frowned, looking a little confused. "Um, I guess red would be more interesting."

You waited a beat, but nothing in the room changed obviously. Serena smiled at Amber. "You're right, actually, my hair is really red under here," she said, gesturing vaguely towards her head. "It was blonde when I was a kid, but it turned red over the summer before high school. It got so red so fast, actually, that I started dying it just after school started, just so people would stop commenting."

Huh. That was very different of what she'd just said a second ago. O...kay... "Here's a weird question; a second ago, when I asked about your hair, Serena, why did you say blonde was your natural color?"

Serena shrugged. "Yeah, sorry. I just didn't feel like explaining, I guess?" A shadow of confusion passed over her face briefly. "But...huh. Just a reflex, maybe." She gave you an apologetic look. "I know I'm supposed to be honest about this stuff, I don't know what came over me."

You nodded understandingly to her. "Don't stress about it, I know you're doing your best. Still, I'd like to see your real color later, sounds cool."

She relaxed again, smiling. "It really is, honestly. It just made me a little self-conscious, but that's not a problem right now, so yeah, let's go for it!"

You waved her off. "In a minute, maybe." You made some notes on that bit. Apparently, both girl's memories of the conversation had changed, and at least some of Serena's past, too. You would bet that any of her family or whoever else had seen her back then would have different memories, too, but whatever was in charge of making this power of yours work had switched things subtly enough that only a little bit was different to most people's perception.

If you were going to be really scientific about this, you supposed you would need to do a bunch more tests like that one, but that sounded way too boring. The big voice from this morning that gave you the power could obviously have made things much worse for you, if it had wanted to, so no need to go overboard with the testing. You could probably still screw it up if you weren't at least a little careful, which was why you were doing this at all, but you weren't going to take hours and hours just for testing when you could be playing around with superpowers!

You idly popped your knuckles, thinking. "Okay, let's try something else. Amber, you said you and Serena didn't know each other too well before today, right?"

Amber nodded. "Yeah. We'd talked a little at floor parties, but that's about it."

"Got it. Okay, just a sec...right. Would you rather that since the beginning of the semester, you and Serena had been casual fuckbuddies, or that you had started a serious polyamorous relationship together?"

She frowned a little, thinking it over. "Huh. I'm not really looking for a relationship right now, so I guess fuckbuddies?"

Over on the bed, Serena laughed. "Well, yeah. We've only spent, like, every other night with each other. I was with John and you weren't looking for anything serious, so sex has been it." She grinned flirtatiously. "So far, anyway."

Amber gave the first open smile you'd seen from her today Serena's way, bouncing up and moving over to sit on the bed near her and running a hand through the other girl's blonde hair fondly. Her whole demeanor changed as she went, seeming way more relaxed than she'd been. It was obvious she wasn't sitting with a couple of strangers anymore, she was hanging out with a close friend all of a sudden. That was pretty cool (and not just a little hot) but also weird.

You watched this with interest for a moment, but you were too curious and had to poke at it a little more. "So, ladies. I hate to interrupt, but back to business - What was I asking you two about last?"

They paused in their flirting and looked back over at you, appearing thoughtful. Amber answered, and her tone was way friendlier than it had been before. "What do you mean? You were asking how well Serena and I knew each other."

You nodded, slowly. "And you said..." You gestured for her to go on.

"That we'd been hanging out and hooking up all the time since we got drunk at one of the first floor parties," she said, looking at you a little concerned. "We, like, just talked about this, did you forget already?"

Serena grinned, playfully patting Amber's thigh. "Don't worry about him, Am. It's just gonna be a weird conversation, don't stress."

You nodded. "It sure is," you said, grinning. "And it's only gonna get weirder."

You'd tried out something small and unobtrusive, and something that swapped their memories of the last few months around, and so far neither of them seemed to have noticed. Time to go a little more obvious, and get Amber a hot new look while you were at it. "Serena, would you rather Amber had never gotten rid of her nipple piercings and they'd inspired her to get a ton more piercings and tats, or that she'd taken the piercings out in the first place because she'd started lactating and her breasts grew up to G cups since then?"