by N X Hunter
"Now, with every fiber of your being, Kitsuna, say the words, and be transformed."
Blood was roaring in her ears, and the energy inside her just kept on growing - the more she pushed out into her wand the more rushed in through her breaths, and seeped in through her very pores. The air felt like it was spiraling around her now in a whirlwind, but it was fine, it was good, it was all there for her to take and use.
"Platinum magenta power - change me!"
Chapter 7
When the fizzing of energy in her mind stopped, Kitsuna knew it was complete. She also knew she'd failed to finish with a flourish as Rayna had done, by virtue of the fact she was on her ass on the ground, with her legs splayed out underneath her. Strangely though, it didn't hurt at all, and with barely any exertion at all she was able to acrobatically flip up to being on her feet in a far more dignified pose, for the moment forgetting her wand on the floor.
Her feet. She could feel the most comfortable shoes that had ever graced the world under her. She could tell they had a heel, but they felt more supportive and safe than any running shoes she had ever owned, and she felt like she could leap, dance, sprint, or kick a soccer ball a mile through the air. Tentatively, she opened one eye and looked down. She needed to see what these miracles of magical footwear looked like.
Hmmm, not actually as impressive as I thought. They're just like pink ankle boots with a bit of silver on them. Nowhere near as exciting as Rayna's weird wrestling shoes. Wait, when she said I won't be that powerful at first, does that mean my physical transformation won't be as dramatic, too?
She ran her hands up her body, feeling that she was wearing some kind of stretchy, easy to move in dress, but again, it didn't feel like it was going to look particularly special.
Oh, shit, my hair! If Rayna's glam red bouncy waves are only something you get at full power then...
She felt her head, and discovered she had some kind of chin length bob, which, she found out by pulling a strand if front of her face and crossing her eyes to look at it, seemed to be a kind of silvery pink.
But as she was looking at her disappointing fingerless pink gloves and her somehow-now-manicured-but-only-with-plain-French-tips nails, she finally remembered where she actually was and began to feel self-conscious about the fact she'd been standing there vainly preening while her ghost mentor, her team mate, the guy she was crushing hard on, and the sexy professor looked on.
"Oh, I… sorry, I'm a bit disorientated. Was just looking at the gloves, you know how it -- wait, what's wrong?"
Rayna's eyes were huge with surprise, her eyebrows raised so high they threatened to touch her headband. James had a strangely impressed look on his face, which Kitsuna found troubling considering how clearly not impressive her transformation had looked, and Soren looked somehow excited.
"I guess you don't know what it means, but, well, it's kind of a big deal that you got a precious metal instead of a gemstone," Rayna said.
"Yes, it is most common for mahou shoujo to be represented by gemstones, though sometimes it can be other natural materials - wood from a certain tree, bone, there's even a girl in Thailand at the moment who has water instead of a stone, and there are all kinds of tales of people who have had obscure gases from the periodic table of elements and suchlike. Metals, especially precious metals, are not as rare as those one-off type anomalies, but they are special. Mahou shoujo with these types tend to be the ones who end up becoming legends. Though, they are also often the ones who walk the hardest paths," James said.
Somehow, Kitsuna didn't even need to ask the next question. She already knew.
"Illaria, what was... or, is... yours?"
"Gold violet," came the reply.
"Well, let's not dwell on the hardest paths part, eh, James? This is clearly a good thing. See, Kitsuna, I told you this would all work out well for you and not to be afraid, and I was right - you'll easily be one of the most powerful mahou shoujo, a fucking hero, in no time," Soren said kindly.
"Ha! I wouldn't go that far," Rayna said, "there must be a huge amount of potential in there, but as for how we get it out and put it to work, I won't be holding my breath for fast results. I mean, look!"
She gestured at Kitsuna.
Is she being bitchy or is it that pathetic? I felt so much power, though! How much am I supposed to feel if that wasn't enough?
"Well, yes, there will need to be a steep curve to achieve her potential," James said, rubbing his neck and not making eye contact with Kitsuna.
Oh god it really is bad, isn't it? Although, Soren doesn't seem perturbed at least. Hopefully I've achieved pathetic-but-in-a-cute-way?
"She needs more confidence! That's what it is. She's too blah," Rayna said.
"I don't think she's going to get more confident if you say stuff like that, sis, you're really not helping."
"Confidence is just part of it, look, why don't you twins take Ivy home. Illaria won't be able to stay in her body much longer, anyway, and I would like to talk to Kitsuna alone," James said.
I really must actually be 'blah', I'm standing here in some crazy magical pink carnival outfit and they're talking about me as if I'm not in the room.
"Yeah, sounds like a plan, we're going to see Courtney at the club tonight and I think I'll get dressed up and give the losers there an additional girl they could never get to look at. And Soren probably wants to look his best too,"
"For the last time I am not into strip clubs!"
"Did I say it was for the strippers? No, I meant you'd want to look good for--"
"I can feel the pull of the Void, everyone, I'm going to say goodbye now. I'll get back in the cage so you won't have to catch a cat before you leave, but I can't lock the door, because, you know, no opposable thumbs," IV's voice broke up the twins.
Suitably distracted by the cat, Rayna ran over and locked the door of the cat carrier, and picked it up, ready to leave.
"Aren't you going to transform back?" Kitsuna asked, worried now that without IV or Rayna to show her how to change back to her usual self, something weird might happen.
"Nah, since there's no students around yet and we're just going direct by Volocopter anyway, I'm going to enjoy myself and stay like this a bit longer. Oh, that's right, you don't know how to change back yet! Well, actually, this early on you can't probably do it at will - it'll just happen. And then you'll feel a bit sorta hungover for a while. It's better if you stay here with James until you've transformed back, anyway."
Kitsuna felt completely deflated. She wasn't sure why she even cared. She only had one plan, and that was to find out how to escape having to be a mahou shoujo at all, so she really shouldn't have to feel bad that her transformation had been lame, or be concerned by all this talk of platinum and hardest paths. That might be someone else's fate, but not hers. Still though, when she'd seen Rayna transform, and look so cool and empowered, she'd wanted that too - even if it was just here, once. She'd wanted to see Soren and James looking at her admiringly, and Rayna maybe even throwing a little scrap of respect her way. She'd wanted Rayna to accept her, for some reason too. She liked her, despite her weird, cocky manner, she realized.
Well, whatever. Let's see what the professor has to say. Maybe he'll tell me what I need to know to get out of here and I can put this whole sorry performance behind me.
Chapter 8
"Hey, let's just sit down and have a talk, OK. I thought it might be better without those two around. Rayna at least can be a bit of a handful, although, don't let that put you off - she'll be a loyal team mate when she gets used to you."
James pulled over two wheelie office chairs from over by the tables at the side of the windowless 'insulated' room. Kitsuna still had no idea what was special about this room or what it was insulated against to make it such a good place for making virgin mahou shoujo girls transform for the first time, but of all the things she wanted to ask about, that was pretty low on her list for now.
She sat down on one of the chairs listlessly.<
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"Why was my transformation so weak, James? Please, be honest, is it really just confidence? Did Rayna just get powerful because she says cheerful little affirmations to herself in the mirror every day or some shit?"
Actually, she could imagine Rayna doing that, having seen her beating up thin air first thing in the morning, but she was sure there had to be some more practical answer to a mahou shoujo's power level than some 'believe in yourself' platitudes.
"Rayna isn't completely right, but she isn't wrong, either," he said, sitting down on one of the two chairs and scooting it close to her, facing her, leaning in in a confidant manner.
"So, what is the answer?"
"Why do you think Rayna and Soren are so close?"
"OK, so you're one of those people who answers a question with a question. Good to know," she said with a wry smile, "Well, actually he told me the answer to this already. You people brainwash the brothers of girls in the mahou shoujo bloodlines so that they'll be extra protective and fond of their sisters. I bet that always ends well and there are absolutely no cases of creepy sister-complex-having guys that you have created."
"When you say you, you don't mean me specifically, I hope? I was only eight when Rayna and Soren were born, so it wasn't down to me that any conditioning happened to him. But, well, we call it conditioning, you might call it brainwashing, I guess it does amount to the same basic idea. You'll be pleased to know that we do have measures in place during the hypnosis that ensure that the brothers only ever love their sisters in the appropriate, familial way, by the way... Though, they are also conditioned to be more attracted to other mahou shoujo than to general girls, as an aside."
Well, that does explain why things feel kinda promising with Soren. Although it'd be nice to think he just flirted with me because he thinks I'm cute, than because of some kind of psychological programming.
"Why do you do that?"
"This should be obvious if you think about it."
She thought about it.
"Ah, yeah, because if mahou shoujo get together with guys already indoctrinated into this little secret world, then you don't have to worry as much about vetting the partners those women want to be with - you know, since you give the mahou shoujo the freedom to start a family one day so she can have her own brainwashed monster slaying kids."
James looked a little hurt.
"I know how angry you probably feel with the whole organization, but please, I'm not your enemy. Don't you realize? Most of the men you'll meet here at Calibre Academy, they're people who have loved mahou shoujo women. Brothers, fathers, husbands, gay fucking best friends, the whole gamut. Me included."
"You were a mahou shoujo's gay best friend?"
"No. Brother. And, husband. Though not to the same girl, obviously. And, now I'm just a brother - I'm divorced."
"So, the effects of the conditioning really worked on you, huh? So where is your sister now?"
"She's retired, she has two sons of her own. My ex wife, she's still an active mahou shoujo, but not here. The Calibre Academy has mahou shoujo and their support from all over the country, but, well, I didn't always live here. I was assigned here when it became clear that my ex and I could no longer work together, and now I work with Rayna's team. It's actually quite a prestigious posting. You're the mahou shoujo team for the college's home region, you see. Any other mahou shoujo you see on campus have their duties elsewhere and just come here for training with new technology, or various other stuff we need them in one place for. But you, Rayna and Courtney are our home team, if you see what I mean, given you are all from within around 100km of the Calibre Academy. If you guys mess up and there are catastrophic events here, it puts the whole Academy and much of the mahou shoujo network for this country at risk, so, right or wrong, we tend to give a little more attention to that team. But anyway, you'll learn about all of this once Calibre Academy starts serving students again in a couple of weeks. For now, let's get back to Rayna's confidence."
Kitsuna nodded. It was weird though. Twice today things had implied that she was in some way special among mahou shoujo - she had the metal element, and she was assigned to the team the Calibre Academy had, apparently, the biggest investment in. But then, she was older than usual, for a rookie, and clearly her powers were weak. It felt like the system was putting a crazy amount of expectation on her, more than on a normal beginner, and it really wasn't fair.
Just more reasons to find a way out.
"So, Rayna's brother loves her a lot, and that is connected with her power?"
"Exactly. She perceives it as confidence, but what actually gives her her power is the fact she is loved, and she knows that that love and support is guaranteed. Soren will never leave her or let her down, and he's there supporting her team, so she feels like she can do anything. It feels to her like it's a confidence thing, but her confidence is just another benefit of love."
"So... well, good for her for being born a twin, I guess. What about all the other mahou shoujo who weren't given guaranteed love and support from birth? Surely I'm not the only one with no siblings, and, well, I assume you know I don't have any other family I actually know either."
"You're not, but familial love isn't the only kind of love that works to give a mahou shoujo power. You know, I assume, that there are all different kinds of love - familial, platonic, erotic, all of that sort of stuff? Well, any of them work, and mahou shoujo either inherently have, or are given by us, as many advantages as possible to make sure they find it easy to get some form of love. The easiest for the younger girls is friendship. Kids can form strong friendship bonds quite quickly, and so we make sure that the schools that mahou shoujo candidates end up in are ones with a strong focus on the social side of things. You had good friends in school, right?"
"Yes. Yes, I did. One especially. But, well, I was expecting that things would change with him once I went to college in the city anyway. He's gone to an art school. I figured we'd still talk but it wouldn't be the same as when we did everything together. That's what happens when you go to college, right? You just broaden your circle and meet new people. But right now I don't feel like I can even message him. He'll know something is up with me, but I can't tell him anything, can I? So, yeah, I feel isolated from my best friend..."
She hadn't realized it until she'd said it. She hadn't even checked her messages since the blackout, and there was no point pretending that this wasn't why. Lee would have definitely been asking her for an update on her new apartment and roommate, and she hadn't wanted to even see the questions, let alone worry about how to answer them. She looked sadly at James, and he seemed to take the hint to move on from the topic of friendship, and how she was missing that as well as a family right now.
"So, the types of love, then. Mahou shoujo can be powered by any kind of love, but very few of them are guaranteed to last. This is another area where Rayna is lucky, and why she is so powerful. Her bond with Soren can't be broken - even if they fight, they'll still love each other, and she knows it. So she may think she doesn't need anyone else. She'll make friends, she'll have lovers, but she'll never feel like she needs to go out of her way to find other people to be part of her life. Of course, that is a somewhat optimistic view, because as I'm sure you know more than anyone, even someone who loves you in a way that can never be broken may not be able to be with you forever."
"My mom..."
"Yes. Now, to explain how mahou shoujo might deal with the fact that their usual sources of love may... not be permanent... let's talk about Courtney. I know you haven't met her yet, but you know about her new job, right? Rayna won't stop making jokes about it."
"Yeah... She's a stripper, in an actual strip club. That seems like such a weird job to choose. Everyone knows that if you just want to make money out of guys looking at you you can do VR stripping work from home, so why would she choose to be in one of those old fashioned places where only the really depressing, skeevy guys go?"
"It's pretty easy to understand when y
ou think of it in the context of how the magic works."
"So, the guys who go and see her dance - the fact that they are lonely and want to be in the same place as a real woman, not just enjoy looking at one through VR or whatever, they are giving her some kind of love? Even that, even just guys perving at her can count?"
"It's not the ideal, but, well, by doing work like that in person, some of her customers to some extent direct their love towards her. Even if it's just the erotic kind - lust, really, and little more - the fact that they go out of their way to be there, to be in her presence and to pay her their money in person, to choose the times when she is working rather than selecting a girl they like the look of from the menu on a porn VR system, well, it's something. Admiration, at least, that kind of admiration, is the easiest source of power for adult mahou shoujo to get. For adults, meaningful friendships are harder to form than for kids, because there isn't that instant bond and trust of both being children, both being in school facing similar experiences, and because adults are just more complicated and demand more from their friends. But of course, for adults, there is sexual attraction, and this is another card mahou shoujo are given to play."
"More than any other women?"
"More than some. As I said, the fact that mahou shoujo get their power from different types of love is something we understand and do all we can to help them out with, but it is also something that nature itself, which creates mahou shoujo to protect itself, helps with. I know you have only met a few people with the mahou shoujo bloodline, but have you noticed--"
"Everyone is attractive!"
She had noticed it. She'd thought maybe she was just lucky so far to have run into a couple of hot guys, and Rayna was pretty cute but, well, she'd only seen her with her make-up and dyed hair, it was fairly normal that a girl her age with an interest in her personal style would look good, right? But Courtney was clearly hot too if she made money (and apparently, something far more important) out of her looks and her body and...