Magical Chaos!: Crossing Over-5 by Lynceus Klariann's mischief continues to wreak havoc on Las Vegas, as two new heroines come onto the scene!

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Klariann

I was bored of the wishing game by the time we got to the department store to buy Jackie some new clothes. People make a lot of dumb wishes, but what bothers me the most is when they always make the same old ones. I really hoped someone would make a really neat wish soon!

Jackie looked really good in the clothes she'd bought. She seemed happier this way, and that made me glad. I found I wanted her to be happy; I think that's what a girlfriend is for. Someone that you can make happy.

I told her how pretty she looked, and she hugged me. That felt good. She held my hand as we left the store, when I heard a fun wish.

“I hate the customers. It's always about what they want, they don't care about anyone else!”

“I wish zombies would come and attack them, that'd be awesome.”

I giggled. “Wish..granted!”

The screaming started a few minutes later.

-

I'd overdone it when I made Jack into Jackie; she was too young to drive now, and even though she remembered how to drive, I'd also made her a short girl. She was still taller than me, but she couldn't reach the pedals with her feet anymore.

That was okay though, I didn't mind walking. I didn't seem to get tired anymore! Unfortunately, Jackie was starting to look a little wore out. So we sat on a bench, and she lay down, her head in my lap. I played with her hair while she napped, which made her smile.

There were a lot of police around, and I knew it was my fault. I'd been naughty, and people had gotten hurt. That made me feel sad, which I didn't like. Maybe if I granted some good wishes I'd feel better!

Whenever someone is about to make a wish, my hearing gets really good. I guess it makes sense for my powers to work that way; what good is granting wishes if you can't hear them? So when I heard a man up the street talking on his cell phone, I paid attention.

“I love her, I really do. I hate that I feel this way! It's my hang-up, it has nothing to do with her. God, she's beautiful, if only I could accept that.” He paused to listen to the person on the phone.

“Well that's just it, she's so much taller than I am. I feel like I'm not enough of a man for her. I just wish she was shorter!”

Well that sounded like a good wish! “Wish...granted!”

Linda

We'd gotten to Las Vegas the night before; by sitting in the back of the bus, Rhea's powers hadn't done any more damage than make the interior lights flicker. I know it bothered her that she couldn't control the power surges, let alone how she was doing it in the first place!

We'd originally chalked it up to EMP, but it was evident that something else was going on; she was actually affecting the electromotive force itself, which causes current to flow. When it sped up, that caused a power surge; when it slowed down, it caused things to stall.

The problem is, this happened whether she was actively using her powers or not, and even when she was, the effect seemed fairly random, which really put a damper on her attempts to master her abilities. My powers were easy; keep me away from sources of bright light, and I got stronger and tougher. All I really had to do was learn how to use my strength correctly, which required a lot less trial-and-error.

We spent the night in a motel, and woke up late in the morning. I'm pretty sluggish during the AM, a side effect of my own metamorphosis; I had adapted to be more nocturnal. Bright light was even starting to hurt my eyes, so I took to wearing sunglasses.

Somehow, Rhea had bought our new house without having to meet anyone face-to-face; we didn't have much furniture yet, but I really liked the place. It was cozy, but just fine for the two of us. Rhea had ordered most of what we needed online, so we'd have to endure deliveries for the next week or so.

As the sun started to go down, I felt more alert, and I decided that Rhea needed a break, she'd been working hard, and fretting over her powers wasn't helping at all.

I couldn't wait for the city to light up, I'd never been to Vegas, but from what I'd seen from watching CSI, the Strip was pretty at night. But as we walked along, I noticed the streets seemed emptier than they should be. People had frightened looks on their faces, and there were more police around.

“Something must be up.” Rhea frowned.

“Yeah, but what?”

“I don't know, but it might be something we can help with.” She seemed to perk up a little at the prospect of actually doing something heroic. I still had my doubts, but I vastly preferred the manic, energetic Rhea to the frustrated, brooding one, so I kept my mouth shut!

Up ahead of us, I saw a really tall, leggy young brunette walking. She was over 6' tall, and absolutely gorgeous. Too bad my metagene hadn't seen fit to make me tall like that! Then again, Rhea was pretty small, so maybe it was for the best.

Rhea grinned. “She's a real looker, huh?”

“Yeah, I'm jealous.”

Rhea leaned against me as we walked. “You shouldn't be.”

God, she was so adorable! I sometimes had problems remembering that, until recently, she'd been a man!

Then we heard a gasp, and the woman tripped and fell. But something...wasn't right. Running up to her, I was stunned to find a tiny girl, her dress hanging loose on her body. No, she wasn't a girl at all, but the woman...shrunk to half her original size!

“What...what's happening to me?!” She wailed, her eyes wide.

“Holy mass displacement!” Rhea gasped.

“Miss, how do you feel?”

The woman looked up at me, and I saw fear in her eyes. Suddenly the world was a large, unknown place, and to her, even I seemed like a giant! “I...feel so strange!” She looked down at herself; her dress had fallen to reveal her well-endowed chest, and she shrieked, covering herself. “Don't look at me!”

Rhea crouched down. “Miss, my name is Rhea, and this is Linda. We want to help you, can you trust us?”

The tiny woman looked near tears, but she nodded. I gently scooped her up in my arms, and Rhea gathered up her now too-large shoes and purse. “What's your name?”

“Ellen...oh God, what's happened to me? I'm so small!”

“I don't know, but we won't leave you until we find out.”

She smiled up at me. “Thank you.”

We came up to a parked police car. Standing outside of it, looking miserable, was a pretty young teen girl wearing an oversized policeman's uniform; it hung baggily on her frame. She looked to us and gasped. “Oh no, another one.”

“What's going on?” Rhea asked.

The girl sighed. “I have no idea. Weird stuff is happening all over town; most of the force doesn't believe it, they think it's mass hysteria.” She poked at her chest. “This doesn't feel like mass hysteria to me.”

My eyes widened. “You mean, you're a man?”

She frowned. “I used to be. I don't know how I'm going to go home after this...” She shook her head. “I'm sorry, you need help, what happened?”

“This is Ellen, she was just walking along, when she, well, shrank! You have no idea what's going on?”

“Not a clue, there was a huge disruption at the Mall earlier. I was helping direct traffic outside when I felt dizzy...the next thing I knew, I looked like this!”

Rhea and I shared a glance. This was unbelievable...and exactly the kind of situation that needed a hero!

“...Linda?” Ellen looked up at me.

“What's up?”

“You can leave me with her...I mean..him. I'll be safe with a police officer.”

“Hey, I meant my promise.” Rhea piped up.

“I know, but...you'll take care of me, won't you, Officer?”

The girl nodded. “As best as I can. I'm parked here because it's too much of a pain to drive with these short legs.”

I set Ellen inside the cruiser, on the front seat. “Don't worry Ellen, I'm sure this will all be over soon.”

She managed a tiny smile.

“I appreciate you helping her, Officer.” I turned to girl.

“Call me Terry. Ugh, everyone used to joke that it sounded like a girl's name. Now look at me!”

Impulsively, I gave her a hug. She stiffened, but then relaxed in my arms. “I just don't know what to do...I have a son, and a fiancee...God, my son is older than I am now!”

“Stay strong, Terry. We're going to figure this thing out.” Rhea was back to her confident self.

“No offense, Miss, but...what can you do?”

Rhea didn't reply, she simply rose up a foot into the air.

“Wow...you're superheroes? Like Green Lantern?”

I stepped back. “Sort of, yes.”

She seemed a bit wistful. “I wish I could do what you girls can. Times like this, I feel so helpless.”

“Don't. You're one of the real heroes, Terry. If there weren't people like you, we'd be useless.”

Apparently that was the right thing to say, because Terry just nodded and gave us a thumbs-up. “Get going then!”

“Yessir!”

And we did. With no real reason to hide our powers, Rhea sped on ahead, following some source of metal under the street, while I sprinted after her, getting stronger and faster with each step as the sun descended.

Rhea stopped short, but I couldn't see what had caught her attention. Well, at least, not until I saw a Buick punch out a Dodge.

Yeah, you heard that right. There were a pair of humanoid-shaped cars, looking a lot like the Transformers from the movies, fighting on the street while people ran in terror!

“What the hell?!”

Rhea turned to look at me, her eyes literally shining. “Isn't this the coolest thing ever?!”

I wasn't sure how she managed to make her eyes glow, but apparently it let her see better in the dark. It was also kind of scary for some reason. “Ah...yeah...cool. Shouldn't we stop them?”

“Oh yeah! Duh!” She flew between the two robots. “Hey, break it up!”

They seemed pretty unconcerned with her presence, but when they moved closer to her, they stopped short, repulsed by Rhea's magnetic field! “That's what I thought!”

Nonplussed, one of the robot cars reached for a street lamp and broke it off, no doubt intending on using it as a weapon!

And then the lights on the street came on! Wow, it was even prettier in real life! I hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten, thanks to my nightvision; I whipped off my shades and ran up to the animated machine.

“Hey, big guy!”

It looked down at me.

“Welcome to Vegas!” I punched it's leg, which caved in with the satisfying crunch of metal and plexiglass...well, it was a Buick, after all!

Without having to worry about two opponents, Rhea ducked under the Dodge, and used her field to repel it up into the air, where it waved it's limbs helplessly. She giggled at it, and I would have chuckled myself, but Buick-Bot was trying to punch me!

I held up both hands, effortlessly catching it's giant fist. My reflexes were sharper at night as well, I'd discovered, making this look a lot easier than it had any reason to be! I ripped off it's hand (which was mostly made of upholstery) and then leaped into the air, to deliver a mighty uppercut to it's head, knocking it clean off!

Night Girl-1, Buick-0.

“Hey Linda, catch!” Rhea rose up into the air, and shifted the direction of her field, causing Dodge-Man to fly towards me. I managed to grab it's frame in mid-air, and hurled it at the remains of Buick-Bot, reducing both machines to a pile of inanimate junk.

“Damn...we're good at this!”

“I'll say, that's pretty impressive!”

We both turned to see a pretty girl with ash blonde hair applauding us. She was hovering about a foot off the ground, which really made me jealous. Can every metahuman fly but me?

“Uh..hi?” Rhea waved cutely.

The girl grinned. “Hi yourself. I don't recognize you two, you must be new.”

From above, we heard another voice. “No offense, but I don't recognize you either, Miss.”

Looking up, I gasped. There, surrounded by an aura of green light, was the Green Lantern herself, Jade!

“Oh wow, Jade, I'm glad you're here. We haven't met face-to-face before, I'm Alyssa.”

Jade blinked. “Alyssa Conover? But I thought you lost your powers!”

She shrugged. “I got some new ones. It's a long story.”

“Well, just in time, this city is apparently under some kind of magical attack.” Jade turned to us. “And you are?”

Rhea beamed. “I'm Cosmic Girl, that's Night Girl.”

Jade raised an eyebrow. “I...see. Well, if you want to help, the others are already at a casino up the street, where most of the craziness is. Follow me!” She sped off.

Rhea frowned. “Uh...Night Girl can't fly.”

The blonde girl smiled. “Unless she's a lot heavier than she looks, I can give her a lift.”

“...how embarrasing.” I frowned.

The blonde, Alyssa, she'd said her name was, nodded. “I know how you feel. I can only glide along like this, my girlfriend can really fly. It makes me so jealous.”

“Girlfriend?”

Alyssa blushed, even as she put her arms around my waist, lifting me effortlessly. “Um..well...she used to be a guy..”

I laughed. “There sure is a lot of that going around!”

“You mean...you?”

“No, not me, but Rhea there. Uh, I mean, Cosmic Girl.”

Alyssa lifted us both off the ground as we followed Rhea and Jade. “It's ok. The names sound kind of silly to me too. But when in Rome...”

“Heh, so what's your name?”

“Promise not to laugh?”

“Come on, what's worse than Night Girl?”

“...Dream Girl.” She sounded completely embarrased.

“Well no offense hon, but you at least look like a dream girl!”

“Better not say that around Stef, I'd hate to see her jealous...but thank you.”

I grinned. Being flown around was actually kind of fun! “You're welcome, Dream Girl. So, Stef, huh? What's her codename?”

“Oh she's got a cool one. Purgatori.”

“Huh? That doesn't sound like a very heroic name to me.”

Dream Girl laughed. “Just wait until you see her, it'll make sense.”

Up ahead, I saw a hotel/casino with an Egyptian motif. There were police keeping bystanders away as several young women were fighting a...well..a sphinx!

The Sphinx in question had the upper body of a very attractive and athletic woman (naked, of course). From the waist down, she had the body of a powerful lioness, and a pair of eagle wings sprouted from her back. She was also pretty big; judging from her girl-half, I figured she'd easily top 7'; the whole package, if she were to lay down, would be around 20' long!

I felt my stomach tie itself into a knot. We had to fight that?!

Oh God, we're going to die!

Dream Girl squeezed me gently, and I realized that I'd said that out loud! “Be brave, Night Girl. You can do this.”

I sure hoped she was right!

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To be continued...