“Come on, it’s your sixteenth birthday for crying out loud, you really don’t want to throw a party?” Lottie, my best friend, asked incredulously.

“Not really? I’d only invite the two of you, and we hang out all the time already, not to mention with my Dad out on the weekends a lot of the time, there really isn’t a good time to do it.” I explained.

“Okay, but you gotta do something to celebrate, right?”

“My parents will probably get something I like for dinner, but besides that, it’s not really that big of a deal.” I shrugged.

“Ughhhh, that’s so boring! There’s gotta be something you could do that you couldn’t before now!” she insisted.

“I think that’s more of an eighteen sort of thing,” Raine, my other friend, added, as she finally decided to humor the conversation.

“I don’t think there’s too many games that are rated sixteen plus, maybe there’s movies though… Not that my parents ever cared about that sort of thing. I’m not planning on committing child labor or getting a licence to drive a scooter, so…” I trailed off.

Maybe getting a means to drive anywhere would feel better if there wasn’t a robust public transit system here… or if I ever went anywhere. As it stood, it just seemed like a waste of money.

“Sometimes I forget how much of a stick in the mud you can be, despite what your parents are like…” she mumbled.

“Hey, my parents are with me on this one. If you have almost no family to speak of, you kinda end up being practical about this sort of thing. Like, they literally just give me money for my birthday instead of gifts these days, we all agree it’s the most optimal solution and it works out, even if my spending tends to be too tame for their standards,” I explained.

Lottie, being Lottie, seemed to miss the time to change the topic, and I could swear she was readying another comeback before she stiffened up.

“Uh oh, sorry, I need to, umm… go. Toilet. Go to the toilet, yes. Be right back, I promise!” She stammered out before running… somewhere.

The thing about Lottie was, she was a terrible liar. Like, absolutely the worst, you could instantly tell, even if you didn’t know her at all. However, this lie was impressive, as it was by far the worst lie I’ve ever heard her say.

“You’re not gonna call that out?” Raine asked.

“I mean, she clearly had some important reason, and besides, if she doesn’t want to tell us, it’s okay, it can just be private,” I said.

I let the silence lie… or at least, I intended to, but then I noticed something.

“Hey, is it just me, or…?” I asked Raine, motioning in the general direction.

“Nnnnope, that girl is definitely glowing purple,” she said.

The girl in question was Stacey from our classes. I didn’t usually interact with people outside of my circle (or, more accurately, triangle) of friends, so I didn’t know much about her, other than we sat close to each other and tended to leave the class at the same time, and that she had a boyfriend, a boy she was talking to right now. Rather loudly, in fact.

“Yes, I was honest I said all those things to you, I know, but the truth is, you’re an exception! I don’t like men, and I can no longer pretend I do, I need to be free to be myself to the fullest, be gay to the fullest, consequences be damned!” she announced, not just to her (ex)boyfriend, but to pretty much everyone in this corridor.

Of course, that drew a lot of attention, which didn’t seem to bother her at all, but the boy who she was taking out her queer angst not to couldn’t help but look around and visibly shrink.

“I-I’m sorry, I really am, I never wanted to do something like this to you, I never would have agreed to date you if I knew! Please don’t hate me!” the boy tried to… well, ‘defend himself’ was the best way to put it.

I would still judge him a little for not having more self-preservation as to not get cornered by a girl who was clearly overflowing with some sort of power, but I couldn’t help but feel for the guy… It was strange, usually I had trouble empathizing with other men (except for my Dad), probably a result of me not ever really having any male friends, but there was something else going on that I couldn’t quite put my finger on… Like some sort of kinship, but the kind that comes with a familiarity the two of us didn’t have (hell, we were in the same class and I couldn’t even remember his name)...

Stacey was about to say something, a male teacher I was unfamiliar with, attracted by the commotion, made his way to her and put his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to turn.

“Excuse me, young lady! You are not to disturb the peace of your fellow students by talking loudly, especially not about these kinds of topics!” he said, just as if not more loudly than she did. Or maybe it was just his deep voice carrying well…

The purple glow was becoming more intense, and honestly, if this was the beginning of some sort of explosive superpower awakening, I would vote to give this guy a Darwin Award, even if I generally found the concept rather tasteless and cruel.

“And what is that supposed to mean? You clearly didn’t have a problem when the two of us were very visibly together, why does it matter if we stop in a way that’s visible too?” Stacey wasn’t taking that sitting down.

“You know what I mean, young lady! You are not to promote this kind of tendency in front of other students! Now come with me to the principal’s office, I wish not to have to repeat myself here!”

Did she just… bait him into admitting he was a homophobe? In front of a bunch of witnesses? I knew she was probably done with guys as a whole at this point, but I couldn’t help but want to become her friend…

“And I wish your wife would leave you for a woman, but we can’t have everything, now can we?” she retorted flawlessly.

The man that probably wasn’t going to stay as a teacher for long was rendered speechless, as was everyone else. It was five seconds of complete silence, until it was interrupted by sounds of fast running and a little bit of clinking.

“Stop right there!” yelled a familiar voice.

Looking at the source, I found a girl dressed in some sort of white fabric with elements of armor made seemingly out of gold (or maybe brass?), including a sword made out of the same metal that she was holding out in one hand. If I had to put down the design, it was probably Valkyrie-inspired, though I had to admit it was mostly because of the winged helmet. Looking closer, her sword emanated some sort of golden glow which made me feel strange.

Moreover, looking at her face, which was framed by characteristic long hair with bangs that was so ginger it was practically orange, I found her to be very obviously Lottie.

“It’s a magical girl!” someone in the crowd said.

I didn’t know if I agreed with that statement rationally, but it felt right.

Stacey’s purple glow intensified around her hand, and she threw the gathered ball of energy at armored Lottie, which seemed to dissipate as it was blocked with the glowing sword, almost as if the two kinds of energy were opposites fated to annihilate each other.

Something in the back of my head suggested the word ‘counterparts’ instead.

“Everybody, get away from her!” Lottie shouted.

People complied, even the teacher to my surprise, and I could no longer hold it in as nobody else seemed to make the connection.

“So, umm… Lottie is a magical girl now? Why are people not reacting to that?” I quietly asked Raine.

Raine, despite having denied that she was a witch, had openly admitted in the past that she was a magic user, so while I didn’t know if magical girl magic and magic magic were even remotely in the same category, she was probably the closest thing to an authority on the topic that I knew.

“She is, but… How can you tell? Her identity is being protected by some sort of magic, and your current magical potential is way too low to be able to break through it,” she whispered back.

Both Stacey and Lottie seemed to be taken aback by the fact an actual fight was happening between them, but Lottie seemed to regain her composure and started to slowly take steps towards Stacey. That seemed to shake Stacey out of her shock, and she started readying another ball to throw, before staggering backwards and grabbing her head as if in pain.

“W-why… am I doing this…?” Stacey asked in a weak voice.

It was looking as if another pause in the action was in order, before a pillar of brilliant golden light appeared next to Lottie for a moment, out of which came out a taller, adult magical girl (magical woman?) who then approached Stacey quickly and without fear.

“It seems the corruption was incomplete, not enough dark energy. Let me take care of this, I promise it won’t hurt,” she said to Stacey.

Her hands went on both sides of Stacey’s head, not actually touching her, and started emitting a strong golden glow. Just as promised, the purple energy seemed to dissipate as a result, and Lottie hurried to Stacey’s side to help her sit down on the floor instead of collapsing onto it, and from the way she moved, it was clear that she had more strength than an ordinary human would have access to.

The senior magical girl turned towards Mr. Homophobe, now accompanied by another teacher.

“What happened just now was not her fault. She was infected with dangerous, corruptive magic, and had no control over her actions as a result. If you have any reason, you will not punish her for anything she’s done when under its influence,” she explained.

“Wait, you can just come in here and expect us to just believe you without asking any questions!” It seemed this teacher had a passion for yelling at women.

“Yes I can. That is all I have to say, goodbye.”

Before anyone could respond to it with anything, she disappeared just like she appeared, in a brilliant glow.

“I, uhh… I’m gonna go too, bye!” Lottie announced awkwardly, and turned around, starting to run at a clearly supernatural speed.

There was a lot of confusion after that, but I didn’t really care that much about that, so I decided to tune it out.

“So, since both of us are aware of this development, I guess I’m gonna include you in the decision making – what are we going to do about this?” Raine asked.

“Well, I think if you figure out someone’s secret, it’s polite to wait until they’re ready to tell you and just pretend you don’t know, unless you have some reason not to, and we don’t really know enough to have any reason like that, so… Let’s just pretend like it’s not extremely obvious even without the whole magic sight thing?” I suggested.

I didn’t know how good Raine was at lying directly, since as far as I could tell, she never really did that around me. Her domain was talking around things, half-truths, and redirecting attention, and she was really good at it, so really, unless someone asked her a direct question, and was really careful not to let her weasel her way out, she would be fine.

“I do want to know what’s up with you that let you see through it, but yeah, I agree, it’s probably for the best to just let her think her secret identity is just like her coming out was.”

Ah, Lottie’s coming out, that was almost two years ago… It took me back, thinking about it, back when her unrestrained lesbianism was poorly restrained lesbianism. I don’t think anyone was surprised by it, Raine even managed to do an ol’ switcheroo on her and come out herself (which I totally called by the way). My mom even offered to take her under her wing, being a queer woman herself, and they would still hang out together sometimes. I wouldn’t lie, with almost all the women I knew being queer, there was this sort of kinship there that I was a bit envious of, and it still inspired some thoughts in me that I probably shouldn’t have, but alas, there wasn’t much I could do about it as a straight guy, other than sit at the side with my dad and continue being a good ally about it.

Rainbow

Hello! I am back yet again, and this time I have something different for y'all, an actual novella instead of a short story!

So yeah, long story short, when I got back to writing, I signed up to be part of the Secret Trans Writing Lair Autumn Bundle this year, and I already had this story idea floating around in my mind for a couple months, so I decided to just go ahead with it... What I did not expect was that instead of my usual length of story, this would end up being a behemoth of 35 thousand words, quite literally almost three times longer than my longest story up until this point. It wasn't easy to do, and I cut it very close to deadline, and I can tell that writing that fast had negatively impacted my health, but I'm still super proud of myself for finishing this project, as well as the state I finished it in, and ultimately, it's been a good exercise for getting into longer form fiction, which I also wanted to do (and it's part of why this story was separated into chapters from the start).

With that out of the way, here's the deal for this one: since this story is already finished, and I don't really want to go stretching it out past its welcome, by the time you're reading this, all 13 chapters as well as the epilogue will have already been scheduled to come out exactly every three days, there is absolutely no chance of this being delayed or abandoned. Furthermore, if at any point you become interested in how the story will go next, it is, of course, already available in full on my Patreon as well as on itch.io linked above.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a great day! ❤️?????