I stared out the window of the bus, firmly clutching the duffel bag that sat on the seat beside me. This bag contained everything I owned, which admittedly, wasn’t much.

A few hours ago, the sight of a cop at the door of my apartment had been enough to make me realize that I couldn’t stay there. Jerry Tanner was dead. Murdered. And if anyone found a girl staying in his apartment, especially one that none of his friends or family had ever heard of, there would be a lot of awkward questions, which I really couldn’t answer.

“Somehow, I doubt that anyone would believe the truth,” I muttered to myself.

After the cop left, I’d snuck back into my apartment and filled my duffel bag with everything that I wanted to take with me. Actually, there had been no way I could take everything I wanted, so I’d only taken what I needed, which wasn’t very much. It was depressing to realize that I’d left behind almost everything I owned, including all the trophies and medals, and even my gaming rig computer.

At the moment, people on the bus were giving me looks, as though they thought that I was homeless. That was understandable since I was wearing dirty clothes, and my hair needed to be washed and brushed. I looked like a homeless person. In fact, considering that I’d just left my apartment for good, and had no place to go, I actually was homeless. However, in spite of that, I wasn’t penniless. I still had all the money that I’d saved up for my tuition, and I was definitely going to need it.

I looked around the bus at the other passengers, feeling nervous about the fact that one of them could be a champion, and I might not even know it. What if someone came after me, the same way Nadine and Robe guy went after Heather? What if THEY came after me? I shuddered at the memory of what Nadine had done, then took another look around…just to be safe.

“I hate riding the bus,” I muttered under my breath. That had more to do with the other passengers than with the bus itself. Riding on the bus wasn’t usually my thing, but it wasn’t like I had any better choices.

When I reached my stop, I was relieved to finally get off the bus. One guy had been watching me a little too much, though I suspected that it was simply because he was a pervert and not because he was serving some god. Well, maybe the god of perverts, if there was such a thing.

It was strange for me to feel so nervous around other people, because I’d never been worried like this before. I was used to being bigger and stronger than most people around me, and confident in my ability to take care of myself. Because of what Nadine done, that was all gone. Even if I somehow got my old body back, things just wouldn’t go back to normal. Nadine had broken something deep inside me, something that couldn’t be easily fixed.

“Psycho bitch,” I spat out bitterly.

A minute later, I walked into a small café near the bus stop, bought myself a coffee and sandwich, then made myself comfortable at a small table in the corner. I took one sip of my coffee, then opened my duffel bag and pulled my laptop. Normally, I only used it for school work, but this was a lot easier to take with me than my desktop rig would have been. This might not be that good for gaming, but at least I could still access the internet.

“Thank God for free wifi,” I said. “Or should that be thank goddess?”

In spite of my deal with Maelyne, I had no intention of worshipping her. That hadn’t been part of our agreement. Besides, I’d never been very religious before, and saw no reason to change that just because I’d met an actual goddess, or at least, someone who claimed to be one.

While I sat there in that café, a mysterious redhead who was typing away at a computer, I almost felt like I was some kind of spy or hacker. But the truth was, all I was doing was checking the local news sites to see if there were any stories about my death. So far, I hadn’t found a single story about a crazy fight or three bodies being discovered. The closest I came was a small article about an ‘abandoned car’ having been set on fire and burned, with the driver being missing.

“Did they even bother to look in that lot?” I asked myself in disgust. I figured that the smell of burnt people would have been enough to make them investigate.

I leaned back and finished my coffee and sandwich, which should have been only a small snack to me, but now filled me up as though it was a full meal. It seemed that my smaller body also came with a smaller stomach, so I’d have to keep that in mind.

Once I was finished eating, I turned my attention to the other reason I’d come to the café. I logged into my email account and began typing a message. This was actually something that I probably should have done first, but I’d put it off as long as I could.

‘Hey, nerd boy. Something really weird happened to me last night after I left your place. I mean, Twilight Zone weird…like that show you made me watch. The kind of freaky weird that you’d never believe if I just told you, so I’m coming over today to tell you about it, and to prove I’m not nuts. This won’t be easy to believe, so I’m gonna copy this from my other email and game accounts. I figure, a hacker might get into one of these accounts, but not all of them. That should help to prove this is really me. Honestly, you’re the only one I know, who MIGHT believe me, and I don’t know who else to go to.’

I finished typing, then went back and fixed a couple errors before hitting send. As soon as I did that, I did what I said I would in the message, and sent the same message from several other accounts. If this didn’t get Matt to at least listen, I didn’t know what would.

About ten minutes later, I got up and left the café. I figured that I’d waited long enough, and knowing Matt like I did, if he hadn’t seen his email yet, it wouldn’t be long before he did. Still, I was a bit worried about everything that could go wrong with this, and about what I’d do if Matt didn’t believe me. But in spite of that, I’d never been a quitter before, and that hadn’t changed now just because I’d traded my balls for boobs.

Matt didn’t live very far away from the bus stop and café, so it only took me another ten minutes to reach his house. There was a small part of me that just wanted to wait out front, giving Matt more time to read the email and think about it. However, you can’t score any points if you don’t at least try, so I went straight to the door and rang the doorbell.

When the door opened a few seconds later, Teri stood there. She took one look at me, then loudly called out, “Hey, Matt… Your girlfriend is here…” I nearly choked at that.

“I don’t have a girlfriend right now,” Matt responded from somewhere behind her.

Teri gave me a skeptical look before responding, “Well, she looks kind of homeless, so I figured she was here for you…”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty funny, Teapot. But I am here to see Matt…”

“What…?” Teri gasped, obviously confused about my use of the nickname.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked as he came to the door and gave me a look of curiosity and confusion. “Who are…?”

“It’s me,” I blurted out, feeling nervous and more than a little self-conscious. I wasn’t used to feeling like this, and I really didn’t like it. Forcing a weak smile, I added, “I emailed you about twenty minutes ago.”

From the look on Matt’s face, he’d read the emails and knew what I was talking about. It was also obvious that he still had no idea of what was going on. He looked confused, but also suspicious. I grimaced at that, knowing that this wasn’t going to be easy.

“It’s me,” I repeated, calmly walking right past Teri and Matt, and going into their house as though I’d been invited in. “Jerry…” I gestured down at myself and gave a pained smiled. “Obviously, some really weird crap happened last night…”

Teri stared at me for a moment, before exclaiming, “She’s crazy…”

“Look,” I started, trying to figure out how I could explain this and not come off like the crazy person they obviously thought I was. “Last night, I stopped and got gas, and ran into Nadine…”

“Nadine?” Matt asked, with his eyes narrowing with even greater suspicion. “Wait… Nadine put you up to this, didn’t she? This is some kind of prank…”

I let out a sigh of exasperation, silently cursing Nadine and the fact that I’d ever met her. Back when we’d first started dating, I’d had no idea of just how messed up she was. She’d been pretty, outgoing, and definitely passionate. However, she had a darker side, one which I hadn’t seen at first. Nadine liked to hurt people. She seemed to get off on causing pain, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. From what I could tell, it gave her an adrenaline rush, or maybe, just a sense of power.

Nadine had been nice to me, at first. In fact, she’d been great. However, she hadn’t been quite so pleasant to the people around me. She pushed buttons, made emotional digs, and even caused a few minor accidents, just because she could. Then, she began doing this to me, slowly enough so that I didn’t catch it right away. It was Matt who pulled me aside and pointed out that I was in the beginnings of an abusive relationship, and that it was only going to get worse. He was the one who opened my eyes to what Nadine really was.

“Oh, that bitch is responsible for this all right,” I spat out bitterly. “But this sure as hell isn’t a prank. I know I don’t look like it anymore, but I really am Jerry…”

“I don’t know who you really are,” Matt responded, backing away from me, “or what your game is…”

“I can prove it,” I exclaimed, almost desperate at this point. “Back in our freshman year, Deke Morrow slipped you a laxative brownie…and you crapped your pants, right there at school. You hid in the audio-visual room for an hour while I went to get you some new pants.”

“Really?” Teri asked, giving Matt a speculative look. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head, about how she could use this to tease her older brother.

“And then,” I quickly continued, “in our junior year, I asked you to help me cheat on my math test, so I wouldn’t fail the class and get kicked off the team. You refused, but helped me study for it instead, so I ended up getting a B…”

Matt was starting to soften under the memory of these shared experiences, but he wasn’t there yet. I knew him well enough to know that he was trying to figure out how I could know about either events. He probably just figured that Nadine told me, which would only make him more likely to believe his first assumption, that I was part of some prank that Nadine was playing. I had to come up with something that Nadine wouldn’t know, or something that would convince him to actually listen to me. Then, I had it.

“Status,” I announced, activating the status screen. It appeared in front of me, exactly like it had a few hours ago. I figured, the sight of some holographic computer screen, floating in the air in front of me, would be enough to shock Matt into actually believing that something supernatural was really going on. “There,” I said, smugly pointing to the screen.

“What?” Matt asked, looking confused.

“What are you pointing at?” Teri asked, looking just as confused as her brother.

I blinked at that, since this wasn’t what I’d expected. “This,” I snapped, pointing to the screen again. “Can’t you see it?”

Then, I realized from their expressions that they couldn’t. It seemed like I was the only one able to see the screen, which could be a good thing since I could check it out in public without drawing a lot of attention or shocking the people around me. However, at the moment, it was causing my big ‘show and tell’ bit to backfire, making me look even crazier than I already had.

Teri gave me a worried look and ran out of the room, coming back just seconds later with one of her dad’s golf clubs in hand. “Get out of our house,” Teri demanded, threatening me with the club. “I don’t know who you are, but go…”

When I didn’t move fast enough, Teri came at me with the golf club. I didn’t think she’d try to seriously hurt me, but I didn’t want to take the risk and stepped back. I remembered the way that Heather had protected herself from some of the attacks back in the lot, and wished that I knew how to do that. And suddenly, I realized that I did. A wall made of light appeared in front of me, just in time to block the golf club.

For a moment, the three of us all stood there, staring at the glowing wall in stunned silence. I couldn’t believe that actually worked. The wall faded away and vanished, and only then did Matt turn his attention back to me.

“What… What was that?” he asked, looking worried.

“Magic…I think,” I answered honestly. “Maybe now you’ll listen to me. Like I said, I’m Jerry…”

“You can’t be,” he protested, no longer sounding quite so certain. Now that he’d gotten a look at one piece of weirdness, that made him a little more likely to accept that there was more out there. “How…?”

“Nadine…murdered me,” I said in a grim tone, shuddering as I remembered it.

Matt just stared at me, obviously still skeptical and suspicious, but also now curious as well. “Then, why are you here now…looking like…?” He gestured at my body.

With a snort, I responded, “Would you believe divine interference?” And with that, I told him and Teri everything that had happened.

--------------------

I leaned back in my usual chair while Matt and Teri both stared at me. Over the last hour, Matt had called my cell phone multiple times, without getting an answer once, and the two of them took turns asking me questions that only I would know. Now, they’d accepted that, in spite of what I looked like, I really was Jerry.

“This is really strange,” Matt said.

“How do you think I feel?” I responded with a snort.

“You’re really a girl now,” Teri said, looking but curious and disappointed at the same time. “Maybe we should call you Jeri now… You know, with only one ‘R’ and an ‘I’.”

“Like Jeri Ryan,” Matt added with a faint smile. “Seven of Nine was hot…”

Teri elbowed her brother, then said, “I’ve never met Nadine, but you’ve both mentioned her a couple times, and she sounds pretty bad…”

“Nadine…with superpowers,” Matt said with a grimace. “Not a good combination.”

“You have no idea,” I told him with a grimace. “None…”

“But what about your abilities?” Matt asked eagerly. He was staring at me with a gleam of excitement in his eyes. “You said that this goddess gave you some kind of powers too too…like that force field…”

I nodded at that. “Yeah, but I don’t know anything about that stuff yet.” Then I shrugged, adding, “I do have a status screen…”

With that, I activated my status screen again. I’d noticed that it tended to vanish and disappear whenever I was distracted and stopped paying attention to it. Now, it was open and in front of me again, just like that morning.

“Can I see it?” Teri asked.

“I have it open and in front of me right now,” I said, gesturing to the screen on front of me. There were several tabs on the side, which I realized, I still hadn’t looked at yet.

Matt shook his head. “I can’t see anything…” He came over to me and stared at where the screen was before shaking his head again. “What does it say?”

“The first page is basic character information,” I answered, looking it over. “You know, name, age, and the equivalent of my health and status bars.”

“Awesome,” Matt said, excited about the whole thing. I almost wished I could share that feeling.

“The next tab is my stat screen,” I explained as I looked it over again. Nothing had changed since this morning. “Strength. Stamina. Endurance…”

Most of those traits and what they actually represented, varied a little between different game systems, but were generally about the same. For the most part, this looked like it could have been taken from nearly any game, though I did notice a couple things that were a little unusual. A lot of games had ‘wisdom’ as one of the traits, but that wasn’t included in this list. Instead, I had awareness. Charisma was a slightly odd one too, because that was more common in pen and paper roleplaying than in video games.”

Out of curiosity, I touched ‘awareness’, and a small popup appeared.

ENVIRONMENTAL, PERSONAL, AND SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. HIGHER LEVELS IN THIS TRAIT INCREASE THE LIKELYHOOD OF TRACKING A TARGET, SUCCESSFULLY IDENTIFYING TRAPS AND AMBUSHES, AND SEEING THROUGH CERTAIN MAGICS.

“Cool,” I said, getting curious looks from Matt and Teri, who couldn’t see what I was doing. With a faint smile, I explained, “Just taking a closer look at these stats.”

Out of curiosity, l touched each of the traits listed and read the popup explanations. Strength was obvious. Stamina was how much I could exert myself before getting tired. Endurance was how well I could handle physical stress and injury, or basically, how tough I was. Agility was grace, balance, and how easily I could move my body. Reflexes was the speed at which I could react, so I guessed that this, along with agility, would determine how well I could dodge attacks. And then there was dexterity, which seemed to focus on hand-eye coordination and accuracy.

“How good are your stats?” Matt asked curiously.

“Honestly,” I admitted with a shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the baseline is for these, but my highest one is charisma, with agility and intelligence both being two points lower. I seem to have a pretty big mana pool too, so it looks like I’m probably a caster.”

Matt gave me a look of amusement. “High charisma and intelligence? You? That is new…”

“Bite me, nerd boy,” I responded, flipping him off.

Teri laughed at that. “Yeah, real charismatic.” Then, she asked, “So, what’s a caster?”

“A magic user of some kind,” Matt answered. “Usually, low physical power and light armor, but a lot of magic.” He considered this for a moment before asking, “Since you’re some kind of champion for this goddess, does that mean you’re a cleric? Or maybe even a paladin…”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I hadn’t seen any class or archetype listed on my stat sheet so far. Then again, I hadn’t looked through all the tabs either. “But if I’m a cleric, then every other champion in this stupid game would be too…”

“Good point,” Matt said.

I clicked on the next tab and was rewarded with a new window that I hadn’t seen before, yet like the others, familiar to the games I played.

EQUIPMENT:

ARMOR:
LIGHT ARMOR-
-ARMOR RATING 60
-20% PROTECTION FROM ALL MAGICAL DAMAGE
-PREVENTS THE WEARER FROM BEING PHOTOGRAPHED OR RECORDED BY NON-MAGICAL MEANS

WEAPONS:
STAFF-
-REDUCES MANA COST OF MAGICAL ABILITIES BY 10%
-INCREASES EFFECTIVENESS OF SHIELD ABILITIES BY 20%

It was an equipment page, listing all of Heather’s…my gear and equipment. Instead of separate listings for each piece of armor, like most games did, this had the armor all placed under a single entry, with a picture beside it. The picture was of the odd white and red dress that I’d seen Heather wearing in the lot, and it had the stats listed. It had a similar entry for a weapon, the golden metallic staff that I’d seen Heather using.

“My armor and gear,” I said aloud, for Matt’s benefit. “It looks like I am a clothie caster.” I said with a bit of disgust, because I’d always like playing warrior types, the kind with big weapons and heavy armor.

I reached out and touched the picture of the armor, trying to see if I could zoom in or get some more information. Suddenly, the air around me shimmered and sparked, and a moment later, I was wearing the armor. I jumped to my feet in surprise, then stared down at myself in shock and horror. I was wearing a dress. A DRESS.

From my new perspective, I was able to make out a lot more about this outfit than I had last night. I seemed to be wearing some kind of spandex, or at least a skin-tight, crimson body stocking, that covered my entire body from the neck down. On top of that, there were white gloves, white wrist bracers, and a pair of white, thigh length boots. And on top of that, there was the white and red dress, which seemed to have some subtle armor and padding built into it as well. A few pieces of gold metal were embedded into the wrist bands and dress, probably just for decoration.

Matt stared at me for several seconds before blurting out, “You’re a magical girl…”

“I am NOT,” I exclaimed.

“You are too,” Teri added with a laugh. “Totally a magic girl…”

“Well,” Matt admitted with a faint smirk, “you do look a bit more serious and badass than most magical girls in anime, but you did do a sparkling transformation sequence, so… Magical girl.”

“Bite me,” I responded, flipping him off.

“And where is that charisma again?” Matt asked.

I glared at Matt, then suddenly realized, that he was taller than me. Not by a lot, just two inches. Still, Matt, my short best friend, was now taller than me. That realization hit me like a hard-core tackle, knocking the mental wind right out of me. Damn, I was short. I was probably only about five foot five now.

“If I can make this suddenly show up like this,” I muttered to myself, trying to think about how to change back to my other clothes. After a couple seconds, I figured it out, and was back in the dirty clothes that made me look homeless. I wasn’t sure which outfit was worse.

“So, what else can you do?” Teri practically demanded. I could see the eager curiosity written all over her face.

“Don’t know,” I answered, clocking on the next tab of my screen. “Let’s see…”

This tab contained exactly what I was looking for, because it was a list skills and abilities.

SKILLS:

STAFF FIGHTING- RANK 3
-YOU KNOW HOW TO FIGHT USING A STAFF. HIGHER LEVELS OF STRENGTH AND DEXTERITY INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIS SKILL.

FLIRTING- RANK 5
-YOU KNOW THE ART OF FLIRTING WITH OTHERS, ENCOURAGING POSITIVE REACTIONS, AND LOYALTY. THIS WORKS BEST WITH THOSE OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER. HIGHER LEVELS OF CHARISMA INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIS SKILL.

The ‘skills’ section was pretty short, with only the two entries. Somehow, I doubted that these were the only skills that Heather had possessed, so these must be the only ones that related to the game. Or maybe, these were the ones that she’d acquired from the game, though most pretty girls seemed to know how to flirt.

ABILITIES:

SHIELD WALL- RANK 5
-CREATE A MAGICAL BARRIER TO PROTECT YOU FROM DAMAGE.

MAELYNE’S SHIELD- RANK 1
-CREATE A MAGICAL BARRIER TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND THOSE CLOSE TO YOU FROM DAMAGE.

LESSER HEALING- RANK 3
-HEAL MINOR DAMAGE.

COMPANION 1-
-PERMANENTLY BIND A COMPANION TO YOUR SERVICE. THIS COMPANION GAINS +5 STRENGTH, +5 STAMINA, AND +5 ENDURANCE.

COMPANION 2-
-PERMANENTLY BIND A COMPANION TO YOUR SERVICE. THIS COMPANION GAINS +4 AGILITY, +4 REFLEXES, +4 DEXTERITY, AND STEALTH.

PROTECT COMPANION- RANK 2
-CREATE A MAGICAL SHIELD TO PROTECT A COMPANION.

As I read through these abilities, it felt like a lump of lead was settling into my stomach. Now, this was a real kick in the balls. Maelyne said that I’d inherit her previous champion’s abilities, and it certainly looks like I had, but why did she have to give me THESE ones?

“Crap,” I exclaimed bitterly.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.

Not only was I a squishie caster, and a support one at that, I was also a minion master. A lot of RPGs had some kind of class or archetype that specialized in controlling pets or minions, and sending them off to fight in their place. That kind of thing might be fine for other people, but not for me.

I was a pretty straight-forward guy, and I liked jumping into the action, up close and personal. I was a tank, and I had a lot of experience being one. I ran in, got everyone’s attention, and protected my team by taking all the aggro and damage on myself. But this was…a support class, minion master, which was the exact opposite. This was the build for someone who’d stand back where it was safe, while sending expendable minions out to fight and die for them.

This had to be some kind of sick and twisted joke, maybe even one from Nadine. It was one thing to be turned into a living video game character, and be expected to risk my life fighting for some goddess I’d never even heard of before yesterday. But now, I was expected to do it with a class that was the exact opposite of my own inclination and experiences.

“I am so freaking dead,” I moaned. “Again.”