Troy was a jerk, but he wouldn’t outright put me in danger. Wandering the streets in the evening alone was dangerous for girls and grown men dressed as girls alike. That’s why Miranda was going with me on this little trip. A forceful and violent lesbian like her was the best guard one could ask for. Oh, and she also had a black belt or something; that helped, too.

As soon as we stepped out of the apartment building, I felt a wave of anxiety hit me. I felt extremely exposed in a way I hadn’t ever felt before. It wasn’t like anyone would recognize me in this outfit and with all the make-up on, but I still felt uncomfortable going around like this.

“Let’s go, girl!” Miranda shouted.

My stomach made a backflip. Jeez, I got that I was pretending to be a girl right now, but she could have at least warned me. That kind of surprise attack was bad for a man like me.

Anyway, the evening adventure of one real and one fake girl began. We walked past the sidewalk and I caught sight of my reflection in a window of one of the cars parked there. I splendidly ignored it. Right, my breathing paused only for about five seconds and I didn’t even stop moving. I was proud of myself.

“So, Aster, how are you doing? I haven’t seen you in a while,” Miranda began.

Again, being called Aster made me feel a pang in my chest. Probably my manly pride being damaged.

“I’m fine. Still got a job, so there’s that.” I shrugged.

I got that she was trying to make small talk, but I never knew how to engage in it. I was a boring person, there wasn’t much to say.

“Still that crappy job at the retail store, right?”

“Yeah...”

It wasn’t the best job. No, who was I kidding? It was a terrible job and I freaking hated it. But it was better than being jobless and broke.

“Got any girlfriends yet?”

“No… I… no.”

It wasn’t as if I didn’t like girls, but whenever I tried to imagine myself with a girl, it always felt wrong somehow.

“And boyfriends?”

“What? No!”

“Sheesh, calm down! You know I, of all people, wouldn’t judge even if you were gay!”

“I am not gay!”

“Sure, sure… hey, since you’re a girl now, and you say that you aren’t gay, that means that you like guys, right?”

I shot her a death glare. Unfortunately, she had very high resistance to death glares. She simply laughed it off. Fortunately, it made her drop the subject, so my attack achieved its purpose in the end.

We finally reached the bridge and began crossing it.

“But seriously, you really do look cute, Aster. If you tried pitching your voice a bit, nobody would be able to tell you were a guy.”

Pitching my voice, huh? “Like this?” I said, sounding a lot more feminine than before.

She stopped in her tracks.

“Holy crap, what? Did you do some voice training or something?”

“A little bit.” I continued using the voice.

I noticed Miranda’s widened eyes and decided to get a bit of a revenge.

“What is it, Miranda?” I stepped closer to her. “Are you getting flustered because a cute girl is talking to you?” I copied her devilish grin from earlier.

“S-stop it!” She put her palms between us and backed off. “Oh my god, you’re calling yourself a cute girl now?!”

What she had said struck me. I had called myself a cute girl. God, what the heck was wrong with me? Even as a joke, I shouldn’t do that. I was a man, and this whole joke was going too far.

I quickly turned around and continued walking. “Let’s just go. Come on.”

“... are you blushing?”

“No,” I said, bringing back my male voice.

We continued in relative silence from then on. My counter-attack had successfully shut Miranda up. I just had to ignore the recoil damage it had done to me. No, I wasn’t blushing, it was the lighting. Shut up.

As we finally crossed the bridge, a muffled sound of metal hitting something resounded from the direction we were going in.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I think there’s some construction site over there?” Miranda answered with a question.

As we marched on, there was another loud crash, and then another. We stopped in our tracks.

“Hey, uh… I think there’s something going on that way, and it doesn’t sound safe. We should turn back.”

“Yeah, good idea…” I glanced at our target destination, which was a mere five-minute walk away now. “I’m just gonna take the selfie and then we can turn back.”

“Wait!” I ignored her protest as I ran up to the statue. I fished out my phone out of the fox hoodie and unlocked it.

Another crash. Miranda was still standing where I left her.

I quickly turned on the camera and put it on selfie mode when I heard a roar right behind me. I whipped my head around only to spot a man in hunky red power armor wrestling a lion made out of pure metal. The lion pushed the man against the statue and refused to let him go.

“Aster! Run!” Miranda’s shout snapped me out of my momentary frozen state.

I fumbled with my phone and accidentally dropped it. Upon crouching to retrieve it, an explosion resounded from behind me. I didn’t dare look back this time, quickly pocketed my phone and --

Got slammed by something in the back.

I yelped as I smacked the ground. With the adrenaline now pumping through me, I stood back up as quickly as I could.

There was a woman dressed in a purple bodysuit floating over the statue, shooting purple beams out of her hands at the lion construct. Together with the man in power armor, they managed to chip away at it and destroy it.

And then, right next to me, what had hit me in the back just a second ago, was yet another person. A girl with dirty blond hair and an iron mask over her face with only two holes for the eyes and one for the nose.

Time stopped for me at that moment. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I should have gotten out as soon as we’d heard those crashes. But I hadn’t, and now I was an arm’s length away from a notorious supervillain, Iron Pack.

She turned to stare down at me and my heart skipped a beat…  out of fear, probably. Part of me yelled to run away, but another part of me had me glued to the spot, staring back at the villainess.

“Aster!” It was Miranda’s scream that helped me break out of it and run away.

Except it was too late. Before I even made a single step, something cold coiled up around my right leg and climbed my body. Before I realized it, I had been entrapped, and I was staring down into the eye of a snake made out of metal, its teeth mere centimeters away from my neck.

“Don’t move!” the villainess shouted at the floating woman and the man in power armor. “Don’t move or I’ll rip her throat out!”

I did my best not to pee myself.