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

Roses. I smelled roses. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in an unfamiliar room, one with walls that were made of some sort of tan colored stone. Sunlight poured through stained glass windows that covered most of one wall, illuminating everything within, including the short but very wide and sturdy looking bed that I found myself in.

I remained where I was for a moment, silently looking around this strange room and feeling dazed and confused as to where I was and how I’d ended up here. A flash burst across my mind of a monster, followed by a memory of searing pain as its claws tore my stomach open. I gasped with a surge of terror and scrambled out from beneath a pile of blankets, only to discover something even more shocking and confusing.

My body felt wrong…very wrong. When I looked down, I saw why. Two fleshy mounds pushed out of my chest, but they were merely the first thing I noticed. As my eyes swept down over the rest of my body, taking in the smooth skin and new curves, I realized that I was no longer even myself. Somehow, I was not only in this strange place, but in a new body. A female body.

I stood there for a moment, feeling confused and afraid. This was a dream…it had to be. I had another flash of that monster leaping at me…and of lying on the ground with my entrails spilled out. My heart jumped in my chest as I started to panic…as I tried to make sense of what was going on.

Before I could decide on what to do, the wooden door opened and a young woman came in. She was a beautiful brunette about my own age, though she was dressed in an outfit that was just as odd and out of place as the room. Her pants and shirt were loose and flowing, looking as though they were made of silk or some other light fabric. But in spite of the material, they were dyed a dull gray color that most girls I knew would never wear in public.

“Mike,” the girl exclaimed with a look of relief on her face, right before she rushed me and grabbed me in a hug.

“Who are you?” I demanded, pulling away and staring at the girl suspiciously. She looked familiar but I couldn’t place her.

Her eyes widened she took a step back, blushing. “It’s me,” she said with a nervous smile, gesturing down at herself. “Julie…”

“Julie?” I gasped in surprise.

This girl definitely didn’t look like Julie, but once she pointed out who she was, I could see the similarities. Though she didn’t look like the Julie I knew, she did look like Julie’s prettier sister. Her hair was longer and more lustrous while her acne and freckles were missing, along with her glasses. And then there was the fact that she was taller, thinner, and had an athletic yet feminine build that she’d never possessed before.

After taking a moment to absorb all the changes that Julie had gone though, I asked, “What happened to you?”

“The same thing that happened to you,” she answered, giving me an odd look that suddenly made me extremely self-conscious. After all, not only had my body become female, but I was also buck naked. With a gulp, I dove for the bed and tried to cover myself with a blanket, shaking as I did so.

“What happened to me?” I demanded. Julie’s presence, and the fact that she seemed calm, helped to ease my own fears a little.

“It’s okay,” Julie assured me, giving me an almost pleading look. She came closer and slowly gave me another hug, this time taking her time and obviously trying not to startle me. “Lindrell saved your life… If she didn’t change you…you would have died…” Julie pulled away from me again and I could see she was crying, though I wasn’t sure if it was because she was happy I was still alive or sad that I’d changed.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling dazed as I remembered what happened at school. Those monsters…daemons. Ms. Lindrell tearing them apart with a monstrous axe that could have come straight out of some barbarian movie… And of course, the daemon tearing me to pieces. All of it came crashing down on me, and to my horror, the things that I’d thought had only been a nightmare were revealed to be real instead.

“Oh God,” I gasped, not sure how to process all this.

Julie sat down beside me and put an arm over my shoulder, promising, “Everything is going to be fine… You’re alive and that’s the important thing…”

“Alive,” I whispered, remembering just how close I’d come to dying.

Instead of panicking like I’d been doing a couple minutes earlier, I now felt numb and in shock. I was still confused, still trying to process this and make sense of what was going on around me. In the space of an instant, reality had been torn away from me and I’d suddenly been thrust into one of my books. I’d always loved stories where a normal person discovered that there was more to the world than they’d always known, then had to deal with things that they’d never even imagined possible. However, suddenly being thrust into that role made things much less fun.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, staring at Julie, who seemed to have the answers. I remembered what I’d overheard her telling Ms. Lindrell in the classroom before everything went to hell, and I felt hurt and betrayed. However, Julie had always been my friend before so I thought she deserved a chance to explain herself.

Julie was silent for a moment, staring at me with an expression of guilt. “I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” she finally told me, looking down at the floor. “You never should have gotten involved…”

“Involved in what?” I asked her, forcing my voice to remain steady, though it wasn’t easy…especially when I realized that even my voice had changed. It sounded different to my ears…feminine. “Where are we and what the hell is going on?”

“You know how I told you that I was invited to a…special program?” Julie asked me carefully. When I nodded, she gave me a weak smile and said, “Well, here we are…” She gestured around the room.

“Please explain,” I told her grimly. “Real answers…not vague hints…”

“Sorry,” Julie apologized, blushing, which looked even cuter on her than before. “I just don’t know how to describe this, and admittedly, I don’t really know everything. I mean, I’m a new recruit so they haven’t really told me any real details…” She paused at that, then gave me another forced smile. “Sorry… I’ll try to tell you what I know…”

“Good,” I said, making a very conscious effort not to pull the blanket away from my body and look at it again. My whole body just felt...odd.

“I know this is going to sound like a fantasy novel or something, but…,” she started, then gave an apologetic shrug. “Anyway, there’s a group of women called the Val Kyr, who have magic powers and have been fighting daemons and monsters for thousands of years… Lindrell is one of them…and she asked me to join too. It turns out, she was at our school because of me…because they knew I had the potential to use the same kind of magic that they do…and they wanted to recruit me…”

I just stared at Julie, still feeling more than a little dazed at what was going on. I remembered how vague and evasive Julie had been with me on the bus ride home, and now I understood why. If she’d tried telling me that stuff before, I would have thought she was joking. Even now, I had a hard time believing it, and I’d seen the monsters with my own eyes.

“How could I say no?” Julie asked, almost pleaded with me for understanding. “I mean, they were going to make me strong…and powerful...and…” She paused at that before almost whispering, “Immortal.” At my look of surprise, she quietly explained, “Lindrell says that they don’t age and that some of them are over a thousand years old…”

“Impossible,” I started to protest, though I already knew my concept of ‘impossible’ had long since flown the coop.

“I could be like Buffy…or Wonder Woman,” Julie explained awkwardly. “This whole thing, it’s like a dream come true… I just wish you didn’t get caught up in it…”

For a moment, I just stared at her, remembering the conversation between her and Ms. Lindrell that I’d overheard. Suddenly, I realized that Julie hadn’t just been staying after school to talk to her about this…she’d stayed after school because she was planning to leave. Julie had promised me that we’d talk about this later, that she’d explain everything. But now, I realized that she hadn’t ever intended to fulfil that promise.

“You were going to leave,” I said bitterly. “You weren’t even going to say goodbye…”

Julie winced at that, though she didn’t deny it. “I…I didn’t know what to say to you,” she admitted quietly, not looking at me. “How could I tell you that I found out that magic was real…that I was going to get magic powers and become some kind of super hero…that I might live for centuries…and that you couldn’t have any of it?” She finally looked at me, though she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. “I know you love this stuff just as much as I do…and I thought it would be mean to tease you with something you could never have. I mean, Lindrell says that only women can be Val Kyr and have this magic…”

That little reminder made me glance down at myself and squirm uncomfortably. “And what’s this about?” I asked in confusion. “Why turn me into a girl?”

“Because,” Ms. Lindrell’s voice came from the doorway. “That was an unavoidable side effect of the power used to heal you.”

I stared at Ms. Lindrell, remembering just how intimidating she’d appeared while wielding that axe at school. She looked even more intimidating now that she not only had that axe strapped across her back, but was also wearing armor. The armor covered most of her body from the neck down, looking like something from the cover of a fantasy novel rather than something that had ever been used in the real world. It seemed to have a leather base, though there were parts that were coated with chain mail while much of chest and torso were covered with small scale plates. But in addition to the armor, she had a red sash tied around her waist.

Ms. Lindrell stepped into the room and looked me over, her expression surprisingly gentle considering the way she was dressed. “How are you feeling, Michelle?”

I immediately noticed the way she’d called me Michelle instead of Michael, and I was about to protest until I realized how silly that would be. At the moment, there was no doubt that I looked a lot more like a Michelle than Michael. And of course, I owed that entirely to her and her strange magic.

For several long seconds, I just stared at my armor clad teacher, suddenly realizing that I didn’t know whether to yell at her for turning me into a girl…or thank her for saving my life. At that moment, it was actually a pretty tough decision.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I said awkwardly.

Ms. Lindrell nodded at that, giving me an odd look at the same time. “I regret the circumstances that led to the situation. They were there for me…me and the person I was sent to recruit.” She looked to Julie, who was obviously uncomfortable. “I had thought to be away long before any daemons found us.”

“Mrs. Clarence,” I whispered, wincing as I remembered the way the daemon had killed her. However, that just reminded me that the other one had done the exact same thing to me a short time later.

“She was a bitter old woman who blamed her students for ruining her life,” Ms. Lindrell commented. “But she didn’t deserve that.”

I nodded at that, then cautiously asked, “Who are you?”

Ms. Lindrell stood there for a moment, staring at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. She finally said, “My name is Lindrell…sometimes called Lindrell Frostaxe. And as Julie has already told you, I am part of an ancient order known as the Val Kyr…”

When Julie had mentioned the Val Kyr before, I was too distracted to really notice the name. This time, I caught it. “Valkyrie?”

“Val Kyr,” she corrected me with a faint smile. “Though admittedly, the stories about the valkyrie and amazons were mostly inspired by the Val Kyr. Most legends do contain a grain of truth, but don’t ever mistake legend for reality.”

Julie put her arm around my shoulder, saying, “I know this is all really weird… I didn’t believe it when she first told me about the Val Kyr either…not until she showed me a few things.”

“Like healing?” I asked, once again fighting the urge to look down at myself.

Lindrell, who I couldn’t really think of as my teacher being dressed the way she was, frowned and nodded. “It was the only way to save your life.”

I winced at that, my thoughts flashing back to when I’d been laying on the ground with my guts spilled out. My heart jumped at the memory and I felt a phantom pain in my stomach, even though I’d already seen with my own eyes that there was no sign I’d ever been injured. My mind had been a bit dazed at the time, but I remember her telling me that I would be changed…and asking my permission.

I licked my lips, trying to keep my voice steady as quietly asked, “What now?”

“Now, Michelle,” Lindrell said, putting her hand on my shoulder and giving me a reassuring smile. “I’ll get you some clothes, then we’ll get you something to eat. Afterwards, we’ll talk. There is much we need to discuss.”