By the middle of Tuesday, it was clear that something was wrong, and not even for any good reason. Nothing has happened, I haven’t made any progress on figuring out what was actually going on, but in the back of my mind, there was an ever-growing feeling that something was about to happen, and I could tell it was drawing closer, and yet… nothing.

Of course, that didn’t exactly help me with coping with everyone’s most behated subject in the world – physical education.

I was, of course, busy doing my best to separate my mind from my physical form (a noble pursuit I had no luck with so far), so I was especially extra startled when a girl I didn’t know nudged me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, are you okay? You look a bit… out of it,” she said.

Looking at her, I realized she was just one of the girls from my class, Liana.

“Oh, sorry, I’m just a bit lost in thought. I’m doing fine, at least as fine as one can be during this infernal class,” I answered.

The irony of calling something ‘infernal’ while possibly needing to deal with someone called Demon Queen was not lost on me.

“I see then… Can I sit next to you?” she asked.

She took her hand off of my shoulder, and I could swear I felt something leave me…

I was probably just that touch-starved.

After sitting down, she adjusted herself and began speaking again.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you hate P.E. so much?”

“So, do you want me to go alphabetically, or…?” I asked.

“That bad, huh?”

“I mean, I get if you don’t get it, from what I’ve seen, girls generally tend to get left alone after the initial exercises, but, like… it’s all just pushing everyone to do the exact same stuff, regardless of their ability, and some smug dudes who made soccer and the fact that they use half a of deodorant spray can per hour their entire possibility can’t help but be tryhards, kicking and throwing balls with full force to increase the injury rate that the teacher couldn’t care less about… Ugh…”

“I mean, being left to our own devices isn’t exactly the best either, it’s pure sexism, we’re not receiving the same kind of care as the boys get,” she explained.

“Quite frankly, if this kind of care is what we’re receiving, I’d rather not get any care at all…” I took a second or two before fully processing what I was doing. “Ugh, I’m so sorry, I just… You’re talking about real issues caused by patriarchy, and here I am, throwing a pity party about how I, a man, totally have it worse, like some sort of dude… thing.” I hung my head low, before looking toward the field where the game was taking place. “Why am I kidding myself, I’m just as bad as them, just a disgusting, awful guy…”

After that, Liana tilted her head, and her eyes shone with understanding.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, I don’t think tha–” she started, before getting interrupted by an ear piercing whistle.

The man made out of muscle tissue and poor understanding of empathy called my name in a low voice.

“Come on, I know what you’re doing, don’t think you can weasel your way out of playing,” he said.

“Sorry, gotta go,” I said to Liana before getting up and running onto the field.

~~~~~

“Okay, normally I’d say that Lottie is a worrywart, but are you sure you’re okay?” Raine asked.

“Would you be able to tell if I lied?” I responded.

My ability to lie could only take me so far when it was clear something was going on.

“With most people, I have my ways, but you don’t lie like most people, so no, I rely on your respect for me as a friend. Not to mention that if you don’t want us to bug you about it, you can literally just say that it’s private or even that you’d rather not talk about it, you know, like a normal person,” Raine said.

I’d call out the irony of her trying to implore anyone to act normal, but I was the designated normal one of our little group, and I was also not in the mood for banter…

“Touché,” I said.

“Uh oh, I just, uhh… forgot my notebook in the classroom, be right back,” Lottie exclaimed quickly, before running away.

“Ah, yes, the P.E. classroom…” Raine remarked. “At least she acts like some sort of early warning system, eh?”

“Y-yeah,” I mumbled, desperate to distract myself from the rolling feeling in my tummy. “Wait… are your ears always this pointy?”

Raine had ears that were a little pointy by nature, but they seemed ever so slightly more so right now.

She raised her hand to an ear, feeling it.

“Oh, shit, you’re right,” she brushed her finger against it, and just like that, back to normal. “Don’t worry, just magic stuff I forgot to cover up. Good thing you were the only one to notice.”

Just as I was about to respond, a loud voice drew our attention towards another victim of the corruptive energy.

“Come on, you’re a natural, it’d be a shame to waste it!” said Liana to… the same guy who was involved in the previous incident. Huh.

There was a feeling in the back of my head about the new corruptee being someone I’d physically interacted with very recently. Did that also happen with Stacey? Was I the villain here?

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” responded the guy whose name I really should bother to learn.

“Oh, I have a feeling you do know, or at least, hope you know what this is about… Come on, haven’t you ever thought about getting in touch with your feminine side?” she asked.

I had to give one thing to the guy, he did learn something from the last time and was clearly trying to back off – unfortunately for him, however, Liana saw right through him in more ways than one, and her confident walk forward was effortlessly getting him cornered.

“D-don’t be silly, it’d be ridiculous,” he awkwardly chuckled, looking to the side.

Liana countered it by bringing a single finger under his chin, capturing him in with her eyes.

“I think you’re the one being silly here… Look at yourself, so gentle, so sensitive, so yielding whenever a taller girl as little as touches you, it’d be no problem if you just…” she lowered herself to whisper something in his ear, which caused him to shudder. “Think about it, I’m sure your girlfriend would like you much better that way, and I assure you, the relationship would be much more rewarding that way.”

Okay, I was officially very very confused about what was happening.

“I-I, I mean, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it, b-but… there’s no way it’d work, I’d just look like a disgusting creep…” he confessed.

Liana’s face softened at that.

“Come on sweetheart, you gotta know that that’s just the dys–” she was about to say, before getting interrupted.

“Halt, evildoer!” Magical Knight Lottie exclaimed, surprising everyone, most of all me.

I knew she wanted to say something like that, but I did not think she actually had it in her to do it in public. I was also uncertain if evil was what was being done here, but to be entirely honest, I did not know what was, so I had no right to say anything.

Liana turned towards Lottie, clearly angry, and was about to shoot her a glare before… I was almost directly behind Lottie from her perspective, and I could swear she looked right in my eyes, after which she smirked.

Suddenly, there was a connection between us, like a rope, or perhaps a tunnel, in which some sort of one-sided mutual understanding took place. I couldn’t even tell if it was her powers, whatever was happening with me, our prior conversation, or all of them at once, but… whatever it was, it lasted just a split second, before she looked back at Lottie, and prepared to throw a dark energy ball, just like Stacey had done before.

Lottie prepared her sword to block the assault, but… that wasn’t what happened at all.

Instead, the ball of purple glow flew right past her and straight into my face, causing me to black out.

~~~~~

Slowly but surely, the world returned, and I was feeling surprisingly well given what had just happened, especially given that I was sitting down on a chair, instead of laying on the hard, cold floor like I’d expected. I risked opening my eyes, and in the blurriness, I could make out the face of a Magical Knight, however, it was not Lottie that greeted me back in the waking world.

“Hey Mom,” I said weakly, still recovering from… whatever had just happened.

“It’s okay, take your time, you got hit rather hard just there, especially given that your body seems to have rejected it,” she explained.

“Wait, that’s not… She’s not… We’re not–” came a familiar voice from the right of mom.

I turned slightly, using my still rather flawed sense of sight to confirm that it was in fact, the young Magical Knight sputtering out a weak attempt at a lie.

“Hi Lottie, fancy seeing you… wherever this is,” I responded.

Whatever was in the background of the two magical girls, it was still too blurry and grey to identify.

“Don’t worry Lottie, I had a feeling this would happen, that’s why I teleported us somewhere private – this used to be a family business after all,” Mom said.

“Wait, you’re saying that I…?” I began to ask, unsure of how to formulate the question.

“No sweetie, you were the first one I checked when I had a reason to suspect this mess was happening again, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, you were incompatible with this power – that’s why I brought Lottie in. I know her, she knows me, I can trust her to do the right thing and trust myself to keep her safe. I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t compatible either…” Mom explained.

“So…” I tried asking before getting interrupted.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions honey, but I’m afraid we don’t have much time, I do need to drop the two of you back at your school before people get suspicious, and I’m yet to figure out what’s going on with you, so please try to stay still.”

She then reached both of her palms towards my head, but without touching, and they started to glow in a golden color.

Rather brightly at that.

“Oww…” I complained, closing my eyes.

“I’m sorry sweetie, but… Oh! This is remarkable! You got even more dark energy than I thought you would from that, but it’s rapidly fading, it’s like… You seem to naturally expel dark energy at a rate faster than it could possibly do any damage to you!”

“So I’m fine?” I asked, starting to feel better.

“Personally? Yes, you should be completely back to normal, albeit a little disorientated from passing out, in less than a minute, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that – dark energy is really strongly attracted to people it can corrupt, to the point where its flow will change in whatever way it can in order to find its way to a target. Basically, the energy that leaves you is likely to find someone else and corrupt them, just like the girls at your school. I’ve confirmed that that hasn’t happened just now, and this place is fairly well insulated so there isn’t really a risk, but you should still be careful, even if you don’t make any dark energy on your own,” she explained.

“O-okay, so what now?” I asked.

“Now? As far as I can tell, everything’s alright, so I’m going to drop the two of you off. Lottie, please come to our place after school, both of us have some explaining to do,” she said, before we all got enveloped in blinding golden light.

If I was being entirely honest, I was unable to pay attention to anything that happened for the next hour after those revelations, and before I knew it, the school day came to an end.

Rainbow

Poor girl has been having a rough time during P.E., as was cisgender to do at the time... And I'm sure all the other characters in this chapter were cisgender as well, there's no way they wouldn't be, that's statistically improbable! And what now, we're getting an exposition chapter already? Almost as if this story is carried by emotional stakes and not some sort of dramatic information reveals! Not that I don't want people theorizing in the comments, I always wanted to write something that inspired people to do that tbh...

Oh, right, copypasta time: If you want to read this story to its ending now, you can find it in these places:
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I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a great day! ❤️?????