My mood to watch TV with Clang and Miss Toontastic soured on my way to the back of the pub, because I had caught sight of my reflection in a mirror behind the bar counter.

For a second I hadn't recognised myself, seeing instead an imposing, red-faced ghoul staring back at me.

I cupped my face with my fingers and felt the firmness of the rubber-like tendons and sinews.

Miss Toontastic stepped into view behind the ghoul. The human-raccoon hybrid in the prom-like dress reached for the ghoul's shoulder, and I felt the squeeze of her clawed fingers.

"Slip?" she said, softly.

Before I could respond there came a sudden crashing sound nearby, because Clang had just dived onto a leather couch and caused it to collapse at one end under his pseudo-metallic weight.

I turned to face Miss Toontastic and whispered, "I need to fix this."

I gestured to the repulsive sight which was my face as if she were in any doubt about what I was referring to.

"Why?" she said, "Didn't we agree not to use our real identities?"

"I just meant to keep them a secret. Not get rid of them altogether," I resonated.

She nodded, and it was then I noticed there was something else bothering her.

"Are you okay?" I whispered.

She looked over her shoulder to Clang, who was too busy sighing contentedly from his comfortable spot on the couch to pay us any attention. Miss Toontastic looked back at me, pressed her palms against my chest, and moved in close enough I could feel some of her warm breath against my face.

"I need to talk to you about something important," she whispered, "Later, okay?"

I nodded, somewhat dumbly, a little taken aback by the sudden intimacy of the moment to know what to say or do. She was even prettier up close than she was at a distance.

It was then the sound of Clang's metallic snoring filled the air.

"Well," said Miss Toontastic, "Maybe I'll get the TV ready for when you get back. Doesn't look like Clang's going to be watching with us."

"Yeah," I said, with a smile and, though I didn't want to, I moved away from her.

Does that mean she might be interested in me? I thought to myself.

Girls being interested in me wasn't really something I had much experience with. It seemed like Miss Toontastic was acting flirtatious, but maybe she was just being – vulnerable?

Maybe she thinks I'm one of those 'nice guys', I thought, my skin crawling at the idea, maybe she's starting to think of me like a brother or something.

Thinking along those terms felt safer than admitting to myself that, maybe, just maybe, a girl might actually be interested in me.

Seeing my ghoulish red face in the mirror above the sink in the men's toilets sobered my thoughts of any dumb fantasy where that might be the case.

Not even a face a mother could love, I thought.

I was tired, but between the several hours of sleep, and the pork scratchings giving me some fuel to burn, I knew I had some power within me to work with to tackle my grotesque appearance.

I kept my gaze fixed on the mirror and willed the power to give me back my true face.

Like many other times, there was a delay with the power responding.

Steam began to rise from my face, and I could feel the heat building there. It was uncomfortable, as if dozens of invisible hands were pressing all over my face.

The hissing steam fogged up the mirror.

It's working, I thought.

In my mind's eye I had a sense of the power working away to rebuild my face. It was using the only sources it could to have a useful reference point - my memories. I knew I could guide this process, because I was asking the power to give me a face which most resembled my own. Not older, or younger, but exactly as I remembered myself to be in recent weeks.

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But that was the major problem. I could sense the confusion in the power nodes trying to reconstruct my face.

Because my true face, my real self, before I had ever used the power, had never been something uncertain. There were some certainties to who I was. I was Caucasian. And I was always going to get older at the same rate as everybody else in the world. And from birth I had received the Y chromosome which made me male; which naturally entailed a life where testosterone, and not estrogen, was the predominant hormonal influence to my body and mind - to say nothing of the anatomical realities.

And I had blue eyes, because both my parents had blue eyes. And light brown hair, which was more from my mother's side of the family than the black which typically belonged to my Dad's side.

Trying to bring back my true face reminded me of what Azad had done to himself. He had used the power to improve his looks to make himself all-new, and all-improved. A part of me had been jealous about what he had accomplished. He had made himself handsome and he didn't have the kind of hang ups I would have about doing something like that to himself.

Being Burgess O'Bannon wasn't the best hand to be dealt with in the world, but it was also far from the worst. It had seemed incredibly foolish to me that Azad had toyed with his own features to the point he was willing to look only vaguely like his old self.

But he wants to look the part of a hero too, a voice in my head resonated.

It was Slip.

And Slip wasn't just talking inside my head, I could feel Slip's influence on the power busily changing my face.

"What are you doing to me?" I said, my voice sounding something like my own, and no longer having resonance to it.

Exactly what you want to do, Slip resonated inside my head, But won't because you're too afraid.

The hissing abruptly stopped, and so did the changes to my face. It hadn't been me that had caused the changes to stop, because I had a keen sense of having lost control over to Slip during the process. Before I could wrestle it back, the changes had seemingly finished.

Before looking in the mirror I could tell my face wasn't simply going to be me, the true Burgess, in the reflection. I brought my hand to the mirror and wiped the fog from the glass.

And there, staring back at me, was a much different face.

Remarkably handsome, and boyish. And, surprisingly, still resembling much of my original face.

But, like with Azad, it was the face of a young movie star version of myself.

"Why did you do this?" I said.

And I sounded like myself, only an octave deeper. My eyes were still blue, but a deeper, more eye-catching blue than before. And my hair, which before had been a fluffy mess, had become what one would expect from a teen heartthrob from a movie made during the 1990s.

Because you're fighting a losing battle, Burgess, Slip resonated in my mind.

"What do you mean?" I said.

You have tried to avoid the power changing you, and you have failed. To use the power is to be changed by it. I am here to protect you from yourself, Burgess. I'm your weakness, made manifest.

"I never asked for this," I said, "Any of it."

That's where you're wrong, Burgess, resonated Slip, Because every time you use the power you are asking for something you never had before. More power. And that power requires a shape to be made manifest.

"How did you take control?" I said, putting my hands to the sink rim to support myself, because seeing such a handsome face in the mirror was, in its own way, more of a shock than the ghoulish one it had just replaced.

When you brought yourself to the brink to save Joanne's life, Slip resonated, your body would have perished, if you hadn't channelled power from Clang and Miss Toontastic.

And then I understood things a little clearer. It wasn't just me that had changed – Slip had changed too. Some parts of Clang and Miss Toontastic, who they were, their points of view, had bled into Slip.

Clang had used the power to improve his looks, so maybe it wasn't such a coincidence that Slip had decided to do the same thing.

An interesting theory, Slip resonated.

"It's not who I am," I said.

But that's what we're finding out, Burgess, Slip resonated, When everything else about who you used to be has been altered by the power, what remains?

"What if nothing is left?" I said, quietly.

Then what do you have to worry about? Slip resonated.

The stagnant smells of urinal cakes and chemical disinfectants became a pungent reminder of how trapped I felt in the men's toilets. In my anger I punched the sink, breaking away a large chunk of porcelain onto the floor.

But it wasn't enough. I still felt trapped and full of rage at the futility of it all. I reached for the back of my head and yanked as hard as I could. The hair and skin at the back gave way, but there wasn't any bleeding, or pain, or damage of any kind. Instead the 'mask' that was my new, handsome face came away, as if it had merely been a rubber mask the whole time.

The handsome mask, as I thought of it then, was slack over my hands. No longer a part of me, it was just as lifeless and unimpressive as any rubber mask would be.

Don't forget, Burgess, Slip resonated inside my head, You've talked a big game about wanting to be a hero. And what do heroes do, Burgess? They inspire. They lead. Do you really think you could be a leader without a face? Or a leader that commands respect looking like your real self?

"Maybe I could," I snapped back.

Maybe, Slip resonated, But when lives are on the line, do you really want to be your own worst enemy? Or will you get out of your own way, and become something better? Something more than you ever thought you could be?

"So you're not giving me a choice?" I said.

If you insist on becoming the old Burgess again, I wouldn't be able to stop you even if I wanted to, Slip resonated. My purpose, as I see it, is to guide you along the path to become the hero you want to be in your heart of hearts.

I stared at the handsome mask in my hands and I understood Slip's logic, despite my own frustrations about how he had gone about influencing the power.

It was the sight of the ghoulish red face in the mirror which made up my mind. Reluctantly, I put the handsome mask back on; the sinews and tendons of my face took care of the rest. Within seconds the mask was fixed in place, and was, again, no longer a mask at all.

It was me.

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