Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 5 Chapter 5 Seeing the Light By Amethyst

Rebecca’s dark blue, nearly violet eyes were wide in fear as she backed away from me. Her spaded tail and large bat-like wings were the same color as her eyes and the little horns poking out from her auburn hair were as black as her claws. She didn’t seem to notice her Succubus features or her newly feminine body but somehow she seemed to have enough presence of mind to realize that she wasn’t wearing clothes and she instinctively scrambled to cover herself as best she could with her arms and hands. “Who a-are you?! What are you? Why are you naked?! Why am I naked?!” The questions burst out of her mouth in a frantic torrent.

I raised my hands to show that I wasn’t going to hurt her. I thought that my wing felt fully healed and briefly considered changing back to a human if I could even figure out how, but if I did that and Rebecca freaked out while in Succubus mode then I could get really hurt. Instead, I opted for talking very calmly and slowly. “Rebecca, it’s me, Shannon. You need to calm down and let me explain the situation. First, I want you to look down at yourself.”

It took a moment for my actions and words to penetrate her mind. Her breathing and heart rate didn’t slow, I could still hear them from where I knelt several feet away, but she did look down. I tried not to think about how cool enhanced senses were as I focused on the task at hand, which was making sure I was ready in case Rebecca completely freaked out.

She just stared downward in stunned silence for what seemed like ages before her hands tentatively touched her breasts. She gasped and then her hand shot downward and I quickly turned away to give her what privacy I could at the moment. To make her a bit more comfortable I went to go look through the spare clothes that I had packed and searched for something that we could both wear.

As I did so I tried to calmly explain the situation. “Okay, Rebecca, technically I’m not naked, I’m wearing panties still. I’m not dressed because I just got through fighting a monster to protect you while you were out cold and all of my clothes were half-destroyed and covered with blood and guts. You’re naked because, when I brought you into the porta-bunker for safety, I realized that your clothes were meant for someone smaller and were cutting off your circulation in your new body. That’s why I was massaging your legs, to get the blood circulating again.”

That was when I heard her start to sniffle and I turned to see her staring at me with tears running down her cheeks. “You… How did you… I thought you said there was no magick here.” Her tone was tinged with uncertainty and a bit of suspicion.

“There isn’t, I didn’t lie to you or anything, Rebecca,” I told her carefully. “When you thought I was talking to myself… well, it’s a very long story but Xuriel, the person I was talking to, was the one responsible for me being a girl now and she kinda unlocked some abilities that were hidden from me until now. One of those abilities allowed me to turn you into a girl and give you similar abilities to help us survive here. That’s why you’ve got wings and stuff too, but we should be able to turn back to our human forms and you’ll still be female. Are you okay? I thought that you wanted this.”

“I do; this is my dream come true! I’m just… why?” she stammered, looking at the floor of the bunker.

“Because I’m not the bitch that you seem to think I am, none of my friends are either. It hurt me so goddamn much that I couldn’t help you or the others in the support group, but I’ve seen what happens when the wrong people learn about the existence of real magick. It can’t become common knowledge. We need to survive here though, and we both need every edge that we can get for that until I can find out how magick works here and we can join the others.”

I had tried not to let any of my bitterness show but I was a little more direct with her than I had wanted to be as I focused on finding something backless and lightweight in the small collection of tops that I had stored in my bunker. “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked hesitantly from behind me.

“I’m looking for clothes for us to wear,” I answered with a sigh. “I’m a model and I’m used to spending time with the Faery so I’m comfortable seeing other people naked or in various stages of undress, and being seen that way myself. I’m pretty sure that you’re not though. I need to find something backless or something that we can alter to allow for our wings though.”

“I… look… I guess that Michelle was right about you. I was going on and on about what a bitch you were and how you couldn’t be trusted to see past your own ego but I guess that I was the one who was really acting like that. It’s just, I’ve gotten so used to…”

I sighed and cut her off as I threw her a pair of panties, some sandals, and a backless white sundress with blue floral patterns from the warm weather clothes box. “You don’t need to explain, Rebecca. I’ve been there. You get so used to being treated like shit by all of the popular kids that you think they’re all alike. You can’t defend yourself from the beatings or the humiliations so you try to avoid them altogether; you withdraw, try to think of yourself as independent rather than alone, and wrap yourself in a cloak of apathy while wishing for some way to pay them back for what they’ve done to grind you down.”

Rebecca gaped at me, barely managing to catch the clothing. “You… you really do know.”

“Yeah, but I also know that those assholes aren’t worth it,” I told her candidly while extracting an emerald halter top and cutoff denim shorts for myself. “Revenge doesn’t help anyone and they want attention, so don’t give them what they want. I’m confident now and I’ll stand up to anyone who messes with me but what’s the use in hating and wanting to make others suffer? It just turns you into the same type of person as those you hate. I’ll point out their stupidity and hope they learn a lesson but anything after that is up to them. I’m too busy living my own life to hold grudges for people being stupid.

My fellow pseudo-Succubus winced, her eyes downcast and her large wings drooping in a way that was sort of cute. “I… thank you… y’know, for doing whatever it was that you did to change me. I’m sorry, I was a bitch to you and there’s no real good excuse for that, Michelle and my Mom both tried to tell me but…Mom...”

As Rebecca broke down and cried I took a pair of comforters from atop the camping mattress and wrapped one around each of us as best I could with our wings in the way. Then I held her as she let out all of the raw fresh grief from the loss of the only family that she had. “We’re going to get out of this place, Rebecca. We’ll find a way and then we’re going to kill the Demon King and all of his generals, including the one who killed your mother. I know that I said that revenge doesn’t help anyone but she has a lot to answer for and your mom deserves to be avenged.”

For the next several hours I let her cry it all out, she needed to get it out of her system. As she did I told her about everything that had happened since my birthday, including the things that I had found out from Xuriel’s perspective. There was a lot for both of us to process as I let the words fill the silence of the bunker. I told her about the Celestials, the Demons, the war between them, the Faery, and then I finally told her Xuriel’s story and how it applied to us.

Rebecca’s tears had run dry some time ago. And then she finally spoke she was staring at her hands, or more specifically her claws. “What are we? I mean, I’m grateful for this curse, or blessing, or whatever you want to call it but are we even human anymore?”

“We’re not Demons,” I told her sternly. “Xuriel was clear about that and I agree since I don’t feel a demonic aura from you. We just have the ability to become convincing replicas of Succubae and copy their abilities. It’s not the power you have, it’s how you choose to use it and that applies to all creatures, not just humans. Maybe good and evil aren’t inherent, I’ve met at least one Celestial who was a total dick. He purposely screwed my fiancée over for something he thought was for the greater good. Maybe some Demons just want to live in peace too. But as for me and you, this doesn’t change who we are inside, we’re under a curse but we’re both still human, or well, a Witch in my case.”

I could almost see the weight being lifted from her shoulders. “Do you think that I can use magick too? I want to help take that Demon bitch down.”

I shook my head. “No, the Witch thing seems to be genetic for our family and separate from the curse, passed down from Xuriel’s mutated Celestial ability. I mean, you could probably learn to use magick, but to have the juice to use it you’d have to gather tantric energy from men like a real Succubus does, through sex.”

Rebecca looked about as thrilled as I was with that option, which was not at all. “Uh… yeah…that’s not gonna happen any time soon, even if I did like the idea.”

“We do have other abilities to use though, and we’re going to need to learn fast so let’s eat something, get dressed, and then get to work,” I told her as I got up to grab us each a water bottle, energy bar, and some dried fruit.

It was sometime later that we started practicing what was probably our most important ability, returning to our human forms. We needed to be able to do that to get dressed since wings make putting on tops super awkward, even backless ones. We managed to get the trick to it though, if we just relaxed enough and concentrated on our marks then we could feel a sort of mental switch that we could flip.

My mark was of course a stupid tramp stamp but Rebecca seemed happy with the pale blue and black butterfly mark that I had placed on her right shoulder. She seemed even happier with the reflection in the mirror I loaned her, even going so far as to hug me in her excitement. That got awkward fast though since we were both trying to figure out where we stood with one another and set any boundaries that we might need.

Soon we were both properly dressed once again, though since we needed to get used to our new abilities we opted for the clothes that I had found earlier. We had to go braless though since I didn’t have any what would allow for our wings. At least the sundress that Rebecca was wearing had a bit of built-in support. I managed to get around that issue somewhat with the navy blue one-piece backless bathing suit that I had put in with the summer clothes. Wearing it instead of panties under my clothes wasn’t super comfortable but at least kept me from jiggling around too much.

As soon as we were both dressed I gave Rebecca a rundown on the abilities that we would have in our Succubae forms. Most of those abilities were inherent ones that we wouldn’t need to think of to use, like the increased physical attributes, claws, and regeneration. The pheromones and mental whammy were another inherent thing and seemingly interconnected, and it kind of sucked that we couldn’t control those because I figured that it might make things awkward when we found the others. Things like casting curses, shapeshifting, and flying were going to take practice though, not that either of us was too keen on using the curse ability.

I was lucky to have Xuriel’s memories to work from, even if they were still a bit jumbled. I was able to ‘remember’ how she used those abilities and I would be able to use those memories to figure things out and help teach Rebecca. One thing that those memories told me was that Xuriel had learned how to do only partial shifts from her human form taking on only the wings, eyes, or claws. That would be useful but we had a long way to go before we would be ready for that.

As cool as shapeshifting might be, I decided to start us off by getting us accustomed to controlling our new appendages. Succubus tails are long, flexible, and dexterous enough to be used as an extra limb but they’re also strong and the spaded tips are razor sharp and able to be used as a weapon if needed. We needed to get used to our wings too since they could be used to shield us from attacks or to fly, and flying would let us travel faster since, unlike Celestials, Succubae relied on the powerful muscles in their wings rather than magick energy to keep them aloft. Celestials could glide well but to get any real lift they needed to use magick energy to reinforce and empower their wings.

With that in mind, we had to go outside. I wasn’t planning on having us trying to travel any further today but we needed space to get used to what our new bodies could do. As soon as we stepped outside I could feel the nearly oppressive heat and the bright light had a reddish orange tint that hurt my eyes at first. “Oh my God! The smell! And there’s like blood and guts everywhere,” Rebecca complained, looking like she was about to lose her recently devoured lunch. It seemed that she managed to hold it in though, not that I was looking at her by that point.

Now that I was able to see without squinting it wasn’t the gore of the tuskreaper’s remains that had my attention. Although the sun seemed high in the sky the portions of the vast expanse above us that weren’t covered in clouds were a lavender color rather than the blue that I was accustomed to. It wasn’t even that alien sky that had my attention though, it was the sun. It seemed larger in the sky than I was used to and shone crimson with over a dozen strange black threads like faint shadows seemingly wrapped around it like a net.

Rebecca caught the direction of my gaze and I could hear her mutter in wonder and confusion, “What… the… fuck?”

She took the words right out of my mouth as I ran some quick calculations in my mind. “That’s impossible.”

“Duh, this whole situation is impossible,” Rebecca grumbled.

“No, I mean sure magick and other planes of existence may seem that way at first but they’re part of the way the universe works, but this… I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“What do you mean?” my companion asked. “We’re on an alien world so shouldn’t we expect it to be different?”

“Different Planes are essentially different universes or alternate realities,” I tried to explain. “When we travel between them we have to be specific or we could end up anywhere; inside a star, out in deep space with no breathable air, inside a solid object, or on the other side of the universe. That’s why we need to use specific sigils when forming a gate. If we know specific coordinates that are safe to appear at we use those, if not then we use a bunch of safety sigils that will take us somewhere random but on ground level in an open space, which was what we used to end up here. The most important sigils though are the one for the specific Plane we’re aiming for and the one for our general area of space, or rather Earth.”

“Wait so this is some sort of alternate Earth?”

“Yeah, but I just ran some calculations and with time passing roughly sixty times faster on this Plane that would mean that the sun here would be nearly three hundred billion years old and while magick may work differently on different Planes, usually physics and the other basic laws of the universe are the same,” I told her as patiently as I could manage.

Rebecca sighed and rolled her eyes at me as she mumbled, “We’re not all nerds here you know.”

I groaned and tried to figure out how to best explain my thinking before speaking again. “Almost all of the Planes that we’ve visited are similar in that Earth has the same type of sun. A sun of that mass wouldn’t still be around though, it would have gone on to a red giant, and after this long, it would have become a white dwarf or maybe a black dwarf. In either case, Earth wouldn’t still be habitable. If the sun somehow started as a red dwarf in this reality, instead of a G-type main-sequence star, it could still be around but Earth would be tidally locked, which means a nightside and a dayside like the moon.”

I could see the realization hit her as she looked at me and then up at the strange red sun. “Okay, so what the fuck is up with that then?”

“I have no clue, it shouldn’t be possible if the laws of physics are the same here, and last I checked we still had gravity and stuff. It looks weird too, do you see those faint shadowy lines?” When she nodded I looked up to try to make sense of them again myself. “I’m grateful that this planet can still sustain life, if not we’d be in deep shit, but something weird is going on here. We need to find the others, Jalael’s remains, and a way off this rock soon. I have a bad feeling about this place.”