I froze and found myself unable to breathe.
“Princess! Hurry and cover yourself up!”
Despite the ghost’s insistence, I couldn’t move and when I looked at Tobias I saw his gaze was glued to my chest. When his eyes eventually met mine, he swallowed hard with disbelief loud on his face.
“You…you’ve got…boobs….”
His words broke the freezing spell upon me. Able to move once more, I hastily grabbed the open ends of my dress, and held them together, covering my chest in the process.
“What the Hell?” Wrapped in shock, Tobias remained kneeling on the ground with Valjean’s head cradled in his arms, looking even more confused than before. “Cass…you’re a girl?”
If someone had offered to dig a hole and bury me in it, I would have accepted the offer in a heartbeat.
“Princess, please pull back. I strongly urge you to pull back.”
I nodded shakily and began stepping away from Tobias, but stopped when I heard faint, anguished laughter coming from Valjean lying on the ground with Tobias’s arms supporting her head, her face twisted in a mixture of amazement, scorn, and disbelief.
“You’re a girl? Princess Blue is a girl.” She pointed at me weakly and struggled to talk. “Cassidy really is a Cassidy….” Her body was wracked by a cough, but when she recovered she raised a hand high. “Everybody look…at the amazing Silver Blue…is it a boy or is it a girl?”
Preoccupied with Tobias and Valjean, I didn’t notice a large number of students remained on the cafeteria balcony, undoubtedly spectating to see who would win, and probably recording the fight on their phones. But because she was lying on the ground, Valjean could see behind me, and she waved exhausted at the crowd of students, urging them to come closer.
“Look at Silver Blue…and take a guess…boy or girl…can you tell…?”
Tobias was too stunned to react so it was clear he wasn’t going to silence her any time soon.
If anyone was going to shut her up, it would have to be me so I began walking toward her until the proverbial penny dropped for the students behind me and their mutterings began to drone into the air.
“…that’s the girl who cosplayed as the Princess….”
“…so what if Princess Blue is a girl…?”
“…but didn’t that mail message say something about Silver Blue being a boy…?”
“…a cross-dresser…?”
“…no, a cross-player….”
Another voice reached my ears. “Princess, please. We need to leave. We really need to leave.”
I stopped walking and my body began to tremble as despair quickly began to eat away at me. Looking down at my breasts displayed prominently in the bra’s cups, I felt on the brim of tears so I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The pain helped steady me, and I took a shuddering breath, then asked the ghost in an accusing tone, “Weren’t you going to reverse what you did to me?”
Its reply was remorseful. “I…I did not get to start….”
I sighed and felt like my soul was bleeding out of with it. When I met Tobias’s eyes, a shiver wracked my already trembling body, and I sighed again before whispering, “It doesn’t matter now. None of it matters. It’s all over….” I shook my head as yet another violent shiver afflicted my body. “I ruined it all. I ruined everything.”
Kneeling on the ground, Tobias gave me an imploring look mixed with confusion. “Cass, why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you were a girl?”
Another gust of ocean breeze brushed the bare tops of my breasts, reminding me of my state of undress. However, the trembling had spread to my hands, and my fingers had trouble buttoning up the blouse portion of my dress.
“I’m not a girl,” I denied softly as I fumbled with the buttons. “I just have a problem with my body.”
“A problem…with your body?”
With three of the five buttons done up, I gave up on the rest, and then stared emptily down at Tobias. I chose not to give him answer, feeling it would take too long to explain and believing he didn’t deserve one. Instead, I took what I assumed was the only rational course of action open to me – I ran away.
With a running leap, I jumped onto the table Tobias and Valjean had been seated at, and then used it as a platform to leap over the guardrail bordering the cafeteria balcony. The drop to the ground was more than thirty feet, and I landed hard. To expend some of the energy I executed a forward roll as we’d been taught in physical education class, but there was too much momentum and my one roll became two, then three, before I slid on my back along the grass and came to a stop many meters away from the foot of the cafeteria.
Picking myself up, I gave the balcony a cursory look.
Tobias had hurried to the guardrail and looked down at me with a complicated expression that was both meaningful and meaningless, demonstrating the struggle playing out within him. Then one side was victorious over the other, and he began climbing over the railing in an attempt to chase after me, but it was cut short when students arrived and held him back before he could injure himself in the fall.
“Cass…!”
I felt like crying again so I turned away, and then ran across the grassy parkland to the north of the academy, heading for the northern shoreline and as far away from Tobias as I could be without leaving the boundaries of Telos Island. Behind me, in the growing distance, the first warning bell sounded, alerting students that lunch break was nearing its end.
I was standing on the ocean wall, staring despondently at the watery expanse stretching out to the eastern horizon when the second bell ring out into the air.
Chapter 10.
- I -
Afternoon classes were well in session as I walked along the top of the ocean wall, one that ran the perimeter of Telos Island almost uninterrupted, intersected at the southern end of the island by the ferry wharf. The drop from the wall to the paved path running alongside it was around four feet, whereas on the opposite side the drop from the wall to the ocean was closer to fifteen, though it wasn’t a descent into water but onto the steel reinforced permacrete tetrapods that armored the exterior of the wall against the ferocity of Mother Nature. For much of the year the ocean wall had it easy, but winter storms roused heavy seas with thirty-foot swells that made for spectacular viewing from my classroom window seat – despite the permaglass and steel monstrosity of the clubroom building standing in the way.
I stopped and looked up at a nearby light post undoubtedly fitted with a security camera. “Ghost, maybe I should wait here for the security bots to come and apprehend me on charges of truancy.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
“Seriously, quit calling me that. Regardless of how I look right now, this is not who or what I am.”
“Au contraire, Princess. I must say your current appearance suits you quite well.”
“I really want to hit you.”
Walking until I arrived directly in front of the light post, I waved at it before sitting down on the ocean wall where I believed I was in full view of the camera. “Come and get me,” I muttered defiantly and rather stupidly.
For a short while there was silence between the ghost and I, providing me with the opportunity to ponder my situation.
“I made a mess of things,” I acknowledged glumly. “I hit my best friend and I punched a girl. I’m a delinquent. This is Silver Blue’s fall from grace.”
“Oh the shame,” muttered the ghost.
“Shut up.” I hung my head in empty despair. “What the Hell was I thinking?”
“Clearly you were not. I did advise you against such a course of action.”
I hung my head lower.
The ghost sighed. “What will you do now?”
“I can’t go back,” I grumbled. “Not like this. But then even if you reverse the changes, I have no way of explaining myself to Tobias or anyone else who saw my charms—and there were a lot of people on the cafeteria that got a good look at me. Valjean is probably da
ncing naked around a fire. She probably believes I’m a girl masquerading as a boy. Tobias is probably questioning his sanity by now, maybe testing himself with a stopwatch.”
“A stopwatch? I profess I do not follow that line of reasoning.”
“I read somewhere that when you start losing your marbles you lose your sense of time. You can’t tell the difference between a minute and an hour.”
“I see. I will make a log entry for now and follow this up later.”
I frowned slightly at the nature of its response, then cleared it away with a shake of my head. “Either way, I’m certain he now thinks of me as a freak, which thanks to you is the truth. I’m a boy that looks like a girl”—I hefted my breasts—“complete with a pair of Bee-cup tits.”
“Princess, do wish for me to start the reversal process?”
I lowered my hands to my sides, feeling unsettled when I noticed that cupping my breasts began to feel slightly pleasurable. “Jeezes, they actually feel good,” I muttered bitterly. “Just how freakin’ real did you make them?”
“Quite accurately, except they won’t be able to produce milk.”
“Shit, I really am a freak.”
“…Princess, there is no need to be angry….”
“Ghost, you are a pain in the ass. Actually, you’re like the worst headache anyone could have short of an aneurism.”
“My sincere apologies, Princess.”
I growled and stood up angrily. “I swear I want to punch you.”
“I am so glad you are feeling better.”
Growling again in frustration, I started pacing along the top of the wall, then stopped when I realized the ghost was correct. Surprisingly, I was feeling a little better. Despite finding myself neck deep in a stinking situation – of my own doing – I was thinking more clearly, and the emotions swirling in a hot maelstrom within my chest began to steadily cool down.
After a long while, I took a very deep breath, then planted my hands on my hips as I considered my options.
“If I go back as I am now, I’ll need to explain myself.”
“True. However, I may be able to help with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could arrange for matters to be smoothed over with the Academy’s principal staff. With my diverse talents, and connections, I can have a medical report drawn up that would adequately explain your physical condition.”
“Are you saying you could pass me off for the freak you made me into?”
“I do wish you would not refer to yourself as a freak. Certainly, you are different, but you are not a freak.”
I had trouble believing what I was hearing. “Ghost, you’re an idiot.”
After a long moment of silence, the ghost said, “Do you want my help or not?”
“You intend to pass me off as a cross between a male and female teenager. Is that what you mean by help?”
“Then how do you propose to explain your magnificent mammaries, slender waistline, girlish legs, and feminine voice?”
I clenched my hands repeatedly, before relaxing them as I considered a possible alternative. “In that case, I should run away.”
“And then what?”
“You tell me!” I yelled.
A heavy sigh blew past my ears. “Princess, calm down. Let me ask you. What do you truly wish for?”
“To be normal.” I shook my head hastily. “No, to be the person I should be. To be like my father before he became obsessed with God and trans-space, and then left my sister and I behind.”
That was the heartfelt truth.
Until his obsession, one that swept up my mother as well, my father had been truly loving toward Erina and I. Fond memories of those times were recorded, and when I started living alone there were many occasions when I would seek solace from loneliness by playing back those recordings in my dormitory apartment, but as time wore on, I watched them less and less until I stopped altogether. While living together with Erina, I’d asked her how she felt about our parents, however my sister replied effusively until I learnt that it was best not to ask.
I looked down at the surface of the ocean wall beneath my feet.
“I miss my father—not the man he is now—but the man he used to be.” My chest grew tight so it took me a little more effort to add, “I don’t want to end up like him, but one day, I’d like to be a father my children can look up to and be proud of.”
The shapely mounds on my chest were clearly in the way of my goal.
After staring at them solemnly for a moment, I started to laugh as I realized my dream had suffered an enormous setback.
“Princess…your parents are doing important work. Rest assured of that.”
I spun around and screamed, “I don’t care about their work! I don’t care if it’s for the good of humankind!”
Walking back to the light pole that stood beside the wall, I kicked it hard, making it resound hollowly and rebound slightly.
I kicked it again, and again.
“I want them back! I want them here. I want us to be a family again! Don’t you frekking get it? I don’t want them at the edge of the frekking star system. I want my parents here!”
Every successive kick carried more pain with it, and it grew until I realized I could hardly stand on my right foot anymore, and thus was forced to sit down on the ocean wall once again. Kicking the light pole was as futile as wanting my parents to return home, but when I looked up I saw the pole was bent at a fifteen-degree angle at the point of impact that was dented inwards, much like a crushed aluminum soda can.
I stared at the light pole with anger, bitterness, resentment swirling within my chest like a hot tornado, burning my heart who struggled to remain seated.
“Even Erina left me. She just frekking left me. She graduated, started working for Telos Corporation, got on some big ship and frekking left me.” I snorted and wiped away tears. “You know she sends me a message a month. One frekking message a month. Not even voice mail or video mail. Just a freaking written message. You could add them together over a year and they wouldn’t amount to a letter. Shit, even a Dear John or Dear Jane letter is probably longer.”
“…Princess, about you sister….”
“Shut up. Just shut up. I don’t want to frekking hear it. My sister is a bitch who ran off to chase after scientific glory just like my parents. She hated living with me. She used to cry alone in her room, and do you know how that made me feel? DO YOU?” I punched the top of the wall beside me. “It made me feel like shit—because I knew that she was crying because she was stuck with me! I knew it and there was nothing I could do about it. So when she left I felt happy for her, because then she wouldn’t need to cry anymore. I felt happy for her because she could properly live her life, but it felt like my guts were being ripped out.”
The pain in my right foot had faded, but I briefly considered finishing off the pole with my left foot.
“I felt empty inside. I had nothing—not an frekking thing.”
I stood up and reached out to the light pole, leaning my weight against the bent half.
“My teachers noticed and sent me off to a counsellor. Do you think my sister showed up? Nope. Not once. I went to the shrink for months, and I cried and told that stupid old woman how I felt, and I didn’t feel any better for it. So after a while I started faking it. I realized it was pointless to try making them understand. I started faking it, and I became so proficient at it that I was certified as cured of my troubles. I was given a clean bill of health, and everyone patted themselves on the back for a job well done.”
I gave the bent light pole a good push, and heard the metal creak.
“I played the game they wanted me to, and I got good at it, so good I almost convinced myself that I was fine.”
With a hard shove, the pole creaked loudly, and began to bend then swing to the ground as it snapped like a metal twig, the domed lamp striking the ground a moment later.
“…oh dear, Princess….”
I
chuckled unstably. “They can bill me. Better still they can bill my bitch of a sister.”
I sat back down on the ocean wall, and then swung my feet playfully as I admired my handiwork.
“Princess, what if I could offer you a new beginning?”
I blinked and looked up at the distant trees of the parkland that occupied much of the island’s northern quarter. “What do you mean?”
“The body you possess now is somewhat ill suited for the task of making you more, shall we say, manly. However, what if you possessed another body, one better suited to the task?”
“How would I explain my sudden manliness after everyone has seen I have boobies?”
The ghost didn’t answer me right away, but when it did I found the answer somewhat disturbing.
“Princess, to start over would require you to make a sacrifice.”
I broke into a frown, and a shiver ran through me as I wondered if this was how Faust felt when the Devil made its offer to him. However, though my dissatisfaction was different from his, it was true that I believed my goal and thus my happiness were beyond my reach, a belief enforced by the two healthy mounds projecting forth from my chest.
Yet I couldn’t contain myself, the offer enticed my curiosity and so I quietly said, “I’m listening.”
“As I have said before, while it is true that I have seen your memories when monitoring the transfer stream, I am not aware of your complete circumstances. However, I do know that your benefactors intend for you to represent them in the Princess Royale as a Gun Princess, one who is like no other. However, in order for you to be effective, you require the proper motivation. I can offer you that motivation.”
I swallowed softly. “You’re scaring me….”
“Princess, I do apologize. However, that is not my intention.”
“Then what is your intention?”
“To see you happy.”
I felt my heart jump a little, and thinking I could hide the confusion on my face, I turned away to look over my left shoulder at the ocean behind me.
Gun Princess Royale: Awakening the Princess, Book One Page 27