Why is nothing ever simple?

Sara found three police cars around Eric's apartment, and four officers were looking at the hole she had created just over an hour before with no more than her breath. Mark's landlord was trying to explain the situation to the officers, and one of them dutifully took down notes as the others tried to ascertain the cause of the damage.

The lights on their cars were flashing, and police lights always made Sara anxious. Added to the fact that she was carrying the body of her dying boyfriend, and her mood was as dark as it had ever been.  She landed by the police cars and strode towards the hole in the wall.  There was not a second to lose.

"Hold it right there, Missy," one of the cops said.  "I'm afraid I can't allow you to go inside."

"But it's my boyfriend's apartment," Sara protested. "He's right here." Cops always intimidated her.  It hadn't even dawned on her to blow right past them. The cops had a swagger about them that bespoke authority, and the way they leered at Sara made her forget her invulnerability and become increasingly self-conscious.

Perhaps the cops were too stunned by Sara's appearance, but it was only then that they noticed that she was carrying the bloody, mangled and naked body of her boyfriend. "Jesus, lady!" one cried. "Put the body down, and step away. I'll get an ambulance here right away." 

Sara didn't budge, but rather took a step forward. The more attitude the cops gave her, the less she felt like respecting their authority. With every second that passed, she saw them as obstacles.  "It's too late for an ambulance. He's dying.  I need to get him inside right this minute."

The cops stood firm. One put his hand on the butt of his gun. "I can't let you do that," he said. "This apartment is unsafe and a potential crime scene.  We just can't let..." he seemed to be at a loss as to how to describe the impossibly beautiful woman holding a dying man standing in front of him. "I just can't let you in there."

"Shit. I don't have time for this," Sara spat.  Her eyes flashed red.  She glanced towards the cars.  The cops swore they saw pulses of energy shoot from her eyes, striking their cars and blowing them to atoms.  "Now get the hell out of my way. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you don't move."

Momentarily stunned, the policemen parted.  Sara moved forward and laid Mark down on his bed.  Then she sat at his computer and entered the twenty digit password she had concocted earlier.  The program took a few seconds to load, and in that short amount of time, the policemen recovered their wits.

"Lady, come out of there right now with your hands up or we'll open fire.  I don't know how you trashed our cars..."

"Shut up," Sara commanded. "Just give me a goddamn minute." She was no longer intimidated, and she was starting to feel once again like the goddess she was.  No-one was ever going to give her orders ever again.

The policemen waited for all of a second, and when Sara turned towards the keyboard again, they began to shoot.  Bullets pinged harmlessly off of Sara. She felt the impacts as if the police were throwing marshmallows at her.  the more they shot, the stronger she felt, and she kept her back to them while she smiled to herself.  Then she heard a ricochet strike Mark. A moan escaped his lips, and Sara worried that she might be hearing her boyfriend's dying breath.  She turned to look at him, and in so doing, a bullet whizzed by her and struck to computer.

"No!" she cried, and time seemed to stand still for her.  She realized that she was working at super-speed, but the impact of the bullet was going to destroy Mark's computer. There was no getting around that inevitability, but she had one last chance to do what she had come here to do.  Still working at hyper-speed, she typed furiously.

"Select...copy...paste...save!" she said in words too rapid to even register with the policemen.  As soon as she hit enter, she could see the surge start to scramble the data being displayed on the monitor.  In slow motion, she could see debris and sparks fly from the machine, and she knew that it would never work again. If her plan failed, she would have killed Mark.

Still the bullets came.  Sara ignored them and she knelt over Mark.  Tears streamed down her face.  He had warned her something terrible would happen, and she had refused to take him seriously. He was right, her powers had turned her into some kind of monster.  And now, along with the loss of her boyfriend, she had lost the chance to return to a normal life...

Then she saw Mark start to change.  The bullet hole in his side closed up, and his crushed midsection regained its healthy form.  Sara cried out in delight.  It had worked.  Mark would live, and he would enjoy all of the powers she had. 

But Mark was not done changing. There, before her eyes, Mark became a being of power and perfection, but not the one Sara had imagined him becoming.  When Sara had cut and paste her abilities onto Mark, she had not simply given him superpowers.  She had copied her entire template onto him.  Mark was now a super-woman, Sara's identical twin in all respects.

"Oh, no!" Sara cried.  She did not know whether to laugh in relief or cry in horror at what she had done.