Saskia Story

Richie is falling, he's certain to be killed as he hits the bottom of the quarry he's tumbled over the edge of. His life is saved by the intervention of a disembodied being he eventually comes to call a Guardian of Reality. But there's a snag. The voice gives him super powers, so he isn't hurt by the fall. Trouble is, it isn't super powers like Superman, it's super powers like Supergirl, which comes as a bit of a shock as you might imagine. Richie decides to put up with being a girl, having super powers does have the odd advantage. He calls himself Saskia and everything is fine – until he meets the 'real' Saskia. Saskia Hunt is a real thirteen year old girl, while Richie is only a pretend thirteen years old. The two Saskias quickly become firm friends. A friendship that survives Richie having to explain to Saskia about not actually being a girl. At this point Saskia is apparently so upset that the Voice that fiddled with Richie changes her as well, now there are two super girls. Despite the difference in age and even in gender, the two girls, Richie in his form as Saskia, remain best friends. Now the fun begins as Saskia Chandler has to learn how to be a girl. Almost the first thing that happens is a full formal evening event that sees her stuffed into a long frock and required to be a girl in front of a whole crowd of people.

Richie continues to come to terms with being Saskia – and the two Saskias continue to come to terms with being the SuperTwins. Their friendship with James and Lydia Robinson continues to grow, especially when James enlists their aid in a charity project. This friendship becomes somewhat strained when the Saskias have to reveal their secret to the Robinsons. But James forgives them somewhat when he gets a knighthood after their help with his affairs. Saskia celebrates a birthday, with an amazing birthday outing that far exceeds the expectations of all her friends – and herself. But this stands her in good stead when the other Saskia's school end of term production is at risk of failure. Both Saskias try to help wherever they can, several people being rather happier after their assistance. Their trip to Florida sees them protect many people – but at great personal cost to themselves.

A year has passed since the Shuttle launch in Florida, a year during which Saskia has decided that she prefers to be Saskia rather than Richie. As her friend and companion Saskia Hunt leaves school for the last time, Voice arranges for Saskia to exist as an actual person. For the last time (or so he thinks) Richie changes to be Saskia. Now the girls can live together as sisters together forever - and that word has a particular meaning for the pair of them. As the Supertwins, the girls continue to use their powers to help and protect others, including saving most of the world again by actually making a volcano erupt. Having left school (at least one of them has), the girls go to work for James Robinson. Their experiences are decidedly NOT those of your average school-leaver, and their involvement with the security forces comes in handy from time to time. James has cause to be grateful when a helicopter crash is averted by Saskia learning to fly it in a matter of seconds. What they come to call the Saskia Magic helps them help others to come to terms with themselves, including an American businessman who ignores his teenage daughter in favour of his work. Saskia Hunt enjoys being shot at, so foiling a terrorist hijack of a trainload of nuclear fuel sees her with a huge grin as the machinegun bullets bounce off her. Saskia can already drive a car (and other things), she learned the normal way while she was still Richie.

What do you do if you want your Charity Ball to go without a hitch? You get Saskia and Saskia to organise it for you. The Ball itself will go without a hitch (probably) but getting there is far from straightforward. Yet another person discovers that the Saskias and the SuperTwins are the same people, but her response to the revelation surprises the girls. Sir James gets himself into a spot of bother, but is easily extracted by the twins, who then have to work quite hard to preserve their secret. Saskia discovers she has a maternal instinct, despite not really being a girl, which gives her a lot to think about. Having super powers AND being able to move in time proves useful when the plant next door is devastated by a huge explosion, the girls end up doing the whole day twice! Moving in time is getting to be routine as the girls are shifted back to 1757 to fix a problem with the timeline. A visit to the Russian plant sees Saskia changing to be James in case he gets shot, which is fine until this actually happens - and Saskia doesn't have super powers while she's being James. The girls are getting used to moving in time, but encounter a problem when time itself goes screwy and they get shunted sideways into a reality that has no future and no real past.

The Saskias are always on standby to do things only a couple of super girls can accomplish, rescuing people and preventing disasters as the SuperTwins. But they still have their ordinary lives to live as two young girls - at least one of them is. Moving house and sorting out all Richie's stuff breaks the last link between Richie and Saskia. Now there is only Saskia - forever. Chicago is where the girls are sent to fix a problem with a stalled building project, which also sees them using their super powers for themselves for a change as they visit Niagara Falls. Their guide and mentor, they call simply Voice, sends them back to 1973 to fix something that would have had profound effects beyond the 50th Century. The same Voice is apparently happy to shunt them around in time when both the Saskias and the SuperTwins need to appear together, particularly at the funeral of a policewoman. Saskia is affected quite badly when she is unable to prevent Beth getting shot. Despite watching one of Saskia Hunt's school friends getting married, both Saskias realise they won't go down that road themselves, they now have evidence to suppose they are still there and together after another thirty thousand years.

The Saskias, Saskia Chandler and Saskia Hunt, lead double lives. Quite apart from being ordinary young girls holding down ordinary jobs, they are also the super-powerful SuperTwins, and the jobs they manage to hold down while being the twins are decidedly not ordinary. Impossible things for the Air Force and fixing problems with tangled timelines in the past are all in a days work for Kyra and Katya. This ability to travel in time, with a little help from Voice, their disembodied guide and mentor, comes in useful when they become involved with the security services and an assassination attempt. Throughout all this, they attempt to lead normal lives, although Saskia Chandler is decidedly not a normal girl. The girls eventually come to the conclusion that far from being Richie, as she began her life, she's always been Saskia, which appears a little odd, but makes perfect sense to them.

The Saskias, Saskia Chandler and Saskia Hunt, are off on holiday to America. But before they go they have a few things to attend to, both as the SuperTwins, Kyra and Katya, and as themselves. Saskia Chandler discovers she needs to use the knowledge and experience gained when she was still Richie and worked in IT to unravel a mystery involving robberies from ATM machines. Saskia Hunt seems to have come to terms with just exactly who Saskia Chandler actually is, now it's just up to Saskia Chandler to come to terms with that for herself. The Twins find themselves shunted backwards and forwards in time, sometimes only a little way, sometimes hundreds of years - and once into a timeline that has no beginning - and no end. Despite trips to the Moon and to Houston, this time with Rio to assist them, eventually they get to go on their holiday. But they find they still need to use their super powers as they get dragged back to Britain to prevent the whole of South East England becoming an uninhabitable wasteland. Perhaps the strangest thing of all happens in Chicago when they meet two men who were deadly enemies - in the nineteen twenties. But there's a problem - they have no means of returning to their own time!

Rio is a schoolgirl, a schoolgirl who can hear what other people are thinking. This can lead her into all sorts of situations, such as doing jobs for the Air Force and preventing stuff being blown up by bombs. It can also lead her into a whole lot of trouble, when, together with her best friend Jennie, she gets kidnapped and very nearly killed. Luckily she has friends in high places, at least when they fly. The SuperTwins are needed several times to extract her from the problems she gets into. She gets to find out all kinds of secrets, one of which is just about the biggest secret of them all, a secret which leads her into the strangest adventure of all.