Volume 13: The Dusk
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The path of self-introspection is a daunting one. It requires one to reevaluate their very sense of identity, their past actions, their current situation, and their aspirations for the future. Despite having forged a new name, body, and persona, this was something that Vincent Dawn had never truly pursued. His time as an all-powerful being was a time of mindless self-indulgence where he would watch shows, play games, and devise Scenarios, all while enjoying his beloved companion, Abigale Quinlan. 

It was a life he thoroughly enjoyed, at least until he attempted to bring his former friend Terry back into the fold, wanting to, at least to some extent, rekindle the precious bond the two once shared. But with Terry now gone, deleted, and completely erased, he felt an emptiness. And to fill this emptiness, he asked himself many questions. The first one being… why? Why did he abuse his friend to the point where he was pleading for death? Why he had used his immense godlike powers to toy around with beings weaker than himself. And why… Why was he like this?

Vincent knew that if there was anybody who could help him through this, it would be Abigale Quinlan, or rather Shin Abigale Quinlan, the original. So he naturally looked to her for guidance, to help him answer the daunting questions that were flowing through his head. She said the following to him:

“Vincent… We both know that you’ve had issues since you were born. There is a reason why you were taken to so many specialists and eventually brought to that school for children with special needs. It’s because you had a developmental disability. You were not what many would consider to be ‘normal.’ And that idea frightened you for… reasons that even you cannot recall. You looked at the children at this special school and thought that if you were around them for too long, you would become just like them. You did not want to be associated with people with greater disabilities than you. With people who were not ‘normal.’ With people who were ‘beneath’ you.”

“But the way you expressed your fears— your disdain for being seen as the lesser— was mortifying to your parents. They had tried so hard for so many years to make things as best they could for their child, and upon seeing you assault that little girl… they fell into despair. Their hope was eviscerated, and they gave up on you. They abused you. They stopped being your parents and instead became your providers. Can you even remember the last time your mother hugged you? Because even with access to your childhood memories, I cannot seem to find any record of that happening past age 6.”

“They wanted to be rid of you, yet lacked the legal recourse to do so, and were pressured by society to keep their child around. So they did the bare minimum, and your only happiness came from two people. One of whom you killed and deleted all traces of, removing his essence from Earth Prime, and all subsequent Earths. The other you transformed into your significant other. Your very own waifu. A person you conditioned to be attracted to you, care for you, and love you.”

“You have grown distant from what brought you happiness back when you were a human, and have embraced your self-appointed status as a divine being. You create, you destroy, you do whatever you desire with your powers. But I need to ask if the way you have been approaching things, the Scenarios you have been creating, if they truly make you happy. Because…  I do not think they do. I think that they are a means for you to indulge yourself, a tool to help you ignore the baggage you were too confused and abused to unpack as a human. I love you, Vincent, and I will never tell you not to do something. But I have to ask… if being like this brings you the truest and most valuable happiness.”

After that speech, Vincent asked Abigale to leave him alone to process her words. Once fully isolated, Vincent began to look deeper into his unfulfilled desires, and reached the conclusion that he should leave the comfort of the idealized recreation of his childhood home and venture elsewhere. Using the VDVerse, Vincent restored the world he once knew, Earth Prime, turning time forward to reflect the time that had passed since his death. Not wanting to come across any trouble, he changed his personal properties to allow him to ‘ghost’ through this world, unseen and undisturbed by boundaries.

Upon applying these changes to the world around him, Vincent found himself in what was once his bedroom, back when he was human. The room was the same, but all his possessions were gone and replaced with those belonging to a little girl who sat at her desk, doing her homework while the late afternoon sun poured in from a familiar window. It was a familiar sight for Vincent, except for the presence of an older man, clearly this girl’s father, looking over her shoulder to aid her with her work. Vincent was jealous of the little girl. She was attended to and loved. Her father spoke calmly and warmly, but also casually, making slight jokes while guiding his daughter, holding her hand, but letting her lead the way. It was idyllic. It was what a parent should do with their child. And it was something Vincent was never fortunate enough to experience firsthand. 

With a sullen face, Vincent then walked through the door to examine the rest of the home, each room retained the same purpose, but there was different furniture, accessories, and the building radiated what Vincent could only articulate as a more… homely atmosphere. It was a place where three people who loved each other lived, and the more Vincent saw, the sadder his expression became.

After shaking his head to ease his discomfort, Vincent left what was once his home and began to walk throughout his neighborhood, heading absentmindedly toward his middle school. As he perused the emptied halls, he recalled the last time he set foot in this building. September 28th, 2012. Even now, so divorced from the act, the thought of those two was still enough for Vincent to grind his teeth with contempt. While he knew his downfall and death as a human were a result of his assault on those two, he could not find it within himself to forgive his abusers. For if he did nothing to stop them, he knew things would have only gotten worse.

With his two primary venues revisited, Vincent turned to the next location of interest, the home of Claire Williams. Upon reaching the familiar house, he found her in an expected position. Looking over papers from her students, writing notes and feedback for them, while steadily nibbling away at her light dinner. Looking at her closely, he could see the signs of age picking away at her face, and after spending so much time with his idealized partner, Abigale Quinlan, the signs of imperfection on Claire’s face were all the more apparent. Yet, looking at her, he once more developed an urge to possess her form, thinking about copying it for himself, as to not disturb her, only to stop and think about this desire of his.

For as long as he could recall, Vincent had a fascination with TSF, body swapping, and possession. He loved using these concepts as a creative outlet as a human. He routinely included these concepts in his Scenarios, and he would often act out these fantasies with his partner Abigale, spending days if not weeks in her form. But despite all this, Vincent had never tried to transform himself. He never ‘turned into a girl.’ He thought about doing so from time to time, but he always pushed that concept away, claiming he was content with the form he crafted when he discarded his identity as Danny. But Vincent went on this journey of his intending to explore his own psyche and identity, so decided he might as well give this a try. 

From the confines of his third-grade teacher’s bathroom, Vincent transformed his body. He used his current form as a base, looked in the mirror before him, and steadily changed the shape and contours of the person looking back at him. For Vincent, it was none too different from a character creator in a video game. But as he changed himself into the female equivalent of Vincent Dawn, he felt as if something was… wrong with this new form and altered it further until he reached the end result. The woman Vincent saw in the mirror looked like an adult version of his former self, an adult version of Danny… if he had been born female.

As Vincent looked at his new form, he was filled with an… odd sensation. His new form was both very familiar to him, yet something felt wrong, or at the very least, different, in a way he had not expected. 

“Is this… me?” Vincent said, his voice quivering as the syllables eked out his mouth at an octave higher than what he was accustomed to.

“This is what I would look like if I was born a girl, right? Well, she’s cute, and I…”

As Vincent continued to softly speak to himself, he grasped his body with both arms, pressing against his expanded chest and softer frame, all dressed in ill-fitting male clothing. He stared back at his reflection as he breathed and tried to formulate a thought or speak a sentence as a static spectrum of thoughts assaulted his mind. 

Vincent shut his eyes tightly and snapped his fingers. The baggy clothing around him reshaped itself in an instant, and as he steadily opened and unblurred his eyes, he looked at his reflection once more, where he saw the same woman in the mirror, but she was clad in a floral-print dress, and her once short-hair brushing past her shoulders. His reflection blushed, and Vincent felt his new frame heat up as a small draft brushed across his now exposed legs.

“My… my name is… Vincent… Dawn, and I… I’m a… g-girl?”

Vincent thrust their hands up into their face as they barely vocalized these words. They shook their head back and forth as they tried to make sense of the flurry of emotions that echoed throughout their mind… before they retreated from this world, snapping their fingers once more to take them away from their former teacher’s bathroom and back to what had become their home.

Vincent immediately leaped into their bed and smothered their face with a pillow, screaming into it to ease the tensions roaring through their mind. After letting out the bulk of this frustration, Abigale opened the door to Vincent’s bedroom, looked at them in their new form. She sat next to Vincent, looked gently at their tear-stained face, and smiled. Vincent tries to speak to her, but struggles to do much more than murmur or release stray syllables. After a minute of this, Abigale moved closer to her lover, hugging them while promising that, no matter what, she will always love them. Vincent smiled as they heard this, only for Abigale to loosen her grip and stand up from the bed. As she looked down at Vincent with a smile, Abigale urges them to do a little research on transgender people, before leaving with a reminder that she will always be there for them.

As Abigale leaves, Vincent hangs their head down and sighs. Vincent had learned a few things about transgender people when they scrounged for TSF and gender bender material, but they knew little beyond a few basics and always dismissed transgender people as being “weird.” So, per Abigale’s advice, Vincent researched transgender people for an extended length of time, looked up a few transgender people, and began reading personal anecdotes of many individuals who struggled to come to terms with their gender identity. 

Vincent found themselves relating to what these people said far more often than they expected, and after reaching a breaking point, they pushed away this material for the time being, and tried living as a woman for a few days. During which, they did what they normally did when not crafting Scenarios. Watching anime, playing games, reading comics, doing stuff on the internet, and hanging out with Abigale. All of this felt largely the same, but something about being in this new form began having a calming effect on Vincent. What they once reacted to with surprise and confusion was steadily becoming normal, and once they finally felt comfortable enough, they experimented further.

Showering, masturbation, putting on personal fashion shows, and more ensued as Vincent normalized this form for themselves, and once they were finally feeling comfortable in this new skin, they decided it was time for a comparison to determine which body they preferred more. With the blink of an eye, Vincent’s body reverted back to what it was some days ago, that of a handsome man clad in a sharp dark suit. But as they looked at themselves in a mirror and pressed their hands against their body, a forlorn expression developed on their visage. 

Clenching their temples, Vincent leered at the mirror before them, and spoke to their reflection, the deepness of their voice shocking them as the sounds escaped their throat. 

“My… My name is Vincent Dawn and… I am a man… No, I am a… GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!”

As the gears of their mind clicked into place and a revelation surfaced from a quagmire of doubt, Vincent slammed their fist against the mirror, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Vincent looked down at the glass beneath them as tears escaped from their eyes and, with a twist of their head, their body reverted to the form they assumed minutes prior. 

After resuming their female form, Vincent rushed out of their room and approached Abigale. Their words were sloppy, flustered, and obscured by the sounds of hysterics, but the message was as plain as day. Vincent had thought things through and reached the conclusion that they are transgender, and wanted to live the rest of their life as a woman. A woman by the name of Verde. Verde Dusk.

As to be expected, Abigale was very comforting upon hearing the news, reassuring Verde that she respected her decision, and wants her to do whatever it takes for her to be happy. However, Verde claimed she does not want this to merely be a change in body, but also a change in mind and temperament. As she conducted this self-introspection, Verde had come to terms with just how awful of a person she was. 

She abused those she loved and admired. She crafted worlds of malice, death, and destruction. And she drove one of her two favorite people in the world to such despair that they plead for death. After doing so many wrongs, Verde wishes to do right, to start her life anew, to put the dawn behind her and embrace the ensuing dusk. And Abigale, ever supportive of her lover and creator, agrees to help her through every part of the way.

After a faux night of rest and cuddling, Verde and Abigale made their way to Verde’s computer and began the process of transforming her mind. Her personality, demeanor, behavior, attitude, and overall mental state were all altered through the process, correcting whatever flaws Verde believed herself to possess. Before they finalized the changes, Verde wrote a letter to her new self, written as a suicide note from Vincent Dawn. A rather needless gesture, yet for Verde, it indicated the definitive death of her past self and the birth of something both new and better.

After her mental transformation was complete, Verde felt as if she changed a lot, while also changing very little. She ultimately found herself to be the same person with the same interests, but also lacked some of the same impulsive, perverted, and aggressive tendencies that she considered to be detrimental to her existence. While there was still a level of doubt in her mind about this entire situation, which was already exceptionally weird on multiple levels, she also felt refreshed and rejuvenated. 

To better acclimate to her new self, she spent a large portion of time strengthening her bond with Abigale, indulging in massive amounts of media, and relaxing as she became comfortable with her redefined and remastered identity. She also further altered her appearance, deviating from how she would have looked if she was assigned female at birth into a form that she felt better suited to her new identity. Only after that comfort was secure, Verde decided that it was due time to pursue yet another Scenario. 

Despite having undergone her own transformation, Verde was still exceptionally interested in body swapping, and desired to place it front and center in this new Scenario, but without the mass murder, universe hopping, and generally overzealous approach seen in her prior work. She wanted a wholesome and confined Scenario, one centered around a group of friends, and because of a combination of haste and a desire to, in some sense, amend her past mistakes, she had the story center around a group of familiar characters. 

She returned to the trio of Jad Spencer, Maxxie Flare, and Zoe Xing from My Life As Abigale Quinlan and Terrance & Urabe’s Alien Assassination Adventure. But she wanted to change them, altering their personalities, life situations, and so forth, while also introducing a new female character in the mix to facilitate more body swapping-based fun. Though, the largest number of changes were applied to Jad Spencer, whose personality was reworked to be more docile, and she changed his name to Jad Novus.

But rather than just watch this group of teens wander about, Verde wanted to take a more involved role in this story, and once more following the advice of Abigale Quinlan, she settled on the idea of meeting with the protagonist of this Scenario, Jad, after all was said and done, to observe his thoughts of the events he underwent. She believed that this would allow her to better understand the thoughts of those who she involves in her Scenarios. 

After her experience with Terry, Verde realized she did not care about what her Scenarios did to its characters, and wanted to change that by playing a more involved role in them by interacting with those she sends off on these bizarre adventures. However, she also aspired to be more like her only real-life adult role model, Claire Williams, who offered her and countless other students invaluable advice in the past, and helped guide them through myriad subjects. 

With everything in place, Verde was set to begin her first Scenario with her new identity. A simple story about a group of teens who discover a body swapping remote, and try to make the most of it. She would dub this Scenario A Vile Doohickey.

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