“Okay,” I began, taking a moment to just sorta chew over everything I’d been told. “So, first off, magical girls are like, destroying the planet or whatever, right?”

“Pretty much,” Chrys confirmed.

I nodded. Not ‘cause I automatically believed her or anything, but because it was the polite fucking thing to do. Honestly, I didn’t know what to make of little Olivia’s new friend. I mean, she sounded kinda hot, so that was a plus, but also openly claimed to be glitched? Which, y’know, I mean… sure, there was something to be said for broken but hot girls, but this was a crystal, right? Couldn’t exactly fuck a disembodied voice or a hunk of rock. Which meant I couldn’t be easily led astray by her, either - and I sure as hell wasn’t going to trust anything she had to say.

I also wasn’t gonna rush to call Olivia evil just because she was bonded to the dumb thing, though. Even if she was made of world destroying ooze. I mean, she wasn’t destroying anything for the moment, at least, and from what I could tell her personality was pretty much the same as always.

So yeah. My takeaway so far? Keep an eye on everything, and make sure nothing goes wonky. Also? Support my best friend. My weirdly hot best friend who I kinda low-key wanted to make out with, no matter what I said to the contrary.

At the same time, though, the idea of actually dating her was… kinda gross? Like, we knew waaaaaaaaaaay too much about one another. All our gross habits, all our worst secrets, the most embarrassing things we’d ever done… And maybe that wasn’t exactly a bad thing in a romantic relationship, but… well, if that spark was there I’d have pursued it by now. As it was, just the idea of being seen that way by her kinda made my skin crawl.

At the same time, though, she was hot. Hot enough that I wanted to take a bite out of her. Hot enough that I wanted to touch and fondle her. It was… confusing? Yeah, let’s go with confusing. Very confusing.

Olivia probably didn’t need me hitting on her right then, either way, though. No. What she needed was someone she could trust. Someone she could turn to, when she didn’t know up from down. Someone who could give her good advice, without any potential ulterior motives ruining things. Someone like me. 

“So, the first thing you’re gonna want to do is put some nudes online.”

“So, the first thing you’re gonna want to do is put some nudes online.”

I choked. Not on anything in particular - except my own words, maybe? I just got so simultaneously irritated and surprised that the sheer number of things I wanted to say caused me to spit out near gibberish and then start up a choking fit. Eventually, though, I managed to get out a, “Say what!?”

“You heard me,” Clarissa replied, with a smug look on her face like she knew something I didn’t. “You need to put nudes online. Make an instantgams account. Sign up for OnlyPics. Do… I don’t know what else. Ask Chrys - she’s probably got a list of good sites for that sorta thing, right?”

“And I can even upload them for you!” the traitorous crystal agreed. 

I obviously never should have given the damn thing permission to talk to Clarissa. How did I think that could ever be anything but the worst idea possible?

“I’m not putting up pictures of myself naked!”

“We are trying to remain hidden,” Chrys pointed out, taking my side for once.

“Not pictures of your true self,” Clarissa said. “Just, like… make a bunch of different accounts, with different looks, y’know? Make up some hot girls to turn into!”

“And why would I do that?” I asked, not sure whether to be more irritated or confused now. What Clarissa was suggesting… I could probably pull off? But why the hell would I want to?

“You get power from lust, don’t you?” Clarissa asked, rolling her eyes as if her point should be obvious. “So increase the number of people lusting after you! That’s how this whole magic crap works, isn’t it? The more people who wanna fuck you, the more powerful you become?”

“That’s…” I mean, she wasn’t wrong, but… Well, there had to be some reason Chrys hadn’t suggested we cheat the system that way, right?

“Olivia doesn’t have that sort of range on her absorption capabilities,” Chrys chimed in, as predicted. “She’ll need way more power and way more people masturbating to her image before the cost-to-gain ratio of a wide net would be practical.”

“Meaning?” Clarissa asked, arching an eyebrow.

“She needs to focus on targets closer to home! Why post online when you can go to a club?”

“Well, yeah, sure,” Clarissa agreed, before I could open my mouth. “But what about locals who find her pictures hot? Sure, there won’t be a ton of them, but it’s free passive income!”

“Are we sure I have to do either?” I asked, not liking the direction this conversation was going in. “Can’t I just lounge around the house as I always do? Maybe go out once in a while when the streets are busy, and gather a bunch of looks?”

“You’re the one who wants to look like a guy again, dude,” Clarissa pointed out. “That’s gonna take a lot of magic, according to what Chrys said, isn’t it?”

“Assuming Chrys isn’t just messing with me,” I grumbled back. “It would be just like you two to keep me in this form as long as you could…”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Clarissa demanded. “You like it, don’t you?”

“Well, sure, it’s comfy,” I admitted. Way comfier than my own body, even. Probably just because I’d been able to build it to my specifications, though. Not to mention the lack of pressure when it didn’t feel like you were really portraying yourself to any passerby. No matter how I dressed myself, or how I looked, it obviously wasn’t really me so it didn’t feel like it mattered. 

I mean, how could I be a girl? Just because I thought it might be cool if I’d been born that way? Because I wanted to know what it would be like? I’d probably have that same curiosity in reverse if I’d been born a girl! It was just normal. Not a sign of egginess - whatever that meant. Clarissa would never say, and considering her normal crudeness I was a little reluctant to look it up. Knowing the truth would probably just embarrass me.

“I think she’s dissociating a bit,” Clarissa said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “She does that, sometimes, when I say awesome things that make her brush against the truth.”

“I’m not dissociating!” I complained, wishing I was sitting a bit closer to Clarissa. Then I could have chopped her over the head for her stupidity. Not that I was sure it would do much, with me apparently being all rubbery according to Chrys… “I’m just thinking. A lot’s happened to me in the last little bit, you know?”

“Any of that thinking directed towards why you’d ever want to present all masculine again?” Clarissa asked, arching an eyebrow. “‘Cause I’m still not seeing any downsides to you looking like a hot girl.”

“How about day to day life?” I countered, putting my hands on my hips. Hips that I maybe couldn’t help but notice were delightfully big on my current body. Not that I really cared what I looked like, or anything, so long as it was comfortable… Then again, this body was more comfortable than my real form, and yet I still wanted to go back to that. For a reason, though! “I can’t exactly go to classes, let alone home for the holidays, looking like this, can I?”

“Well, maybe not right away,” Clarissa conceded. Which admittedly caught me off guard. I’d been expecting her to raise a big fuss and list a ton of reasons why my girl form was superior. Most of which would boil down to how hot it was to look at me. I was weirdly… almost disappointed that she didn’t have a reason.

Of course, that disappointment gave way real quick when she kept talking.

“That’s why you gotta tell everyone you’re trans. Then you can keep more and more of your body in hot-girl-mode, right? And it’s not like anyone’s gonna be checking what’s in your fucking pants any time soon, with a virgin like you, so you might as well just keep the vag while you’re boy-moding. That’ll probably take up less magic power, right Chrys?”

“Yup!” Chrys agreed, instantly. “I could-”

“So what?” I butted in, desperate to head off this conversation. “You want me to micro-manage a transition over years, just so that I can pretend I’m a girl?”

“There’s nothing pretend about being trans, Olivia,” Clarissa replied, her voice suddenly cold as ice. It froze me in place. Before I could actually even try to apologize, though, her voice shifted back to its normal, casual tone. “Not that I think you meant it that way, or anything, but still. A gal’s gotta speak up if she doesn’t want cute trans girls to think she’s on the wrong side of the fight, y’know?”

“Y-yeah, well… I’m not trans, so…” I trailed off, a little thrown by Clarissa’s sudden seriousness. After a moment, though, I shook my head and decided to plow onward. “I’m not trans, so wouldn’t me pretending to be a girl be bad? Like, guys pretending to be girls are literally what the bigots claim trans people are, so…”

“I’m pretty sure you’re trans, one way or the other,” Chrys chimed in. “Considering you’re claiming to be a guy in a female body, and all.”

“That’s…” I opened my mouth, then closed it. That was… No. No way, right? I was cis. A cis guy. A cis guy couldn’t just become a girl. That was the whole reason I knew I wasn’t one. But if I was a guy in a girl’s body, then… I wasn’t… I mean, I had to be cis, because if I was trans, if I could be trans, then why wouldn’t… No. That didn’t make sense. This was only temporary… and I could take a guy’s form - my form - at will, so it wasn’t like I really counted as trans, right? I was still cis, right? A cis guy… temporarily at home in a girl’s body…

“Uh… I think I broke her,” I was vaguely aware of Chrys muttering.

“Yeah,” Clarissa agreed. “You did that thing I do. Y’know, the whole saying awesome shit thing? Just say something distracting and she’ll boot back online.”

“Right… Well, like I was going to say before she started babbling, the transition wouldn’t have to take years.I could rig up a deception-field - same basic principle as the cognitive blockers, but on a smaller field. It basically makes lies believable by preventing people from figuring out what’s wrong with what you said. So, like, an endocrinologist would know that you’re transitioning way too fast for the hormones they’re prescribing to explain, but they wouldn’t be able to put that knowledge to good use. They’d just note that you’re transitioning fast, and leave it at that.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, shaking my head to clear it. “When the hell did seeing a doctor come into this? I keep telling you all I’m not trans! And it’s not like I need testosterone to look like a guy, again, so-”

“I get it,” Clarissa interrupted. “You just need magic power, right? Which totally brings us back around to my original point! What do you wanna do first - naked pictures? Or go clubbing?”

“That’s… I mean, I have plenty of magical power,” I pointed out. “I just filled up to the brim from my last fight, so…”

“Enough to cover all your classes in male form?” Clarissa challenged. “Not to mention Holidays with your family? How long do you think that shit’s going to last if you don’t top up every chance you can get?”

“You’re hardly filled to the brim, either,” Chrys added. “You could definitely take some more!”

“That’s…” 

I wasn’t getting out of this, was I?

~~~

Author's Notes

I wrote this chapter during what was originally supposed to be a day off - but I wrote it in half an hour, so it's fine, right?

I originally intended to have Olivia go directly back to school and get in trouble there, but then this bit from Clarissa's PoV came into my head (and I realized, upon double checking, that the series started on a Friday night besides), so... Yeah.

Next up, clubbing... is what I'd like to say, but there's actually a couple preparatory chapters, first.

Thanks for reading!