The streetcar ride back to the apartment had been awkward. Plynx and Mynx had argued away in their alien language, leaving Kevin unable to follow anything. Andrew, meanwhile, seemed vaguely hypnotized by his chest half the time, and definitely wasn’t offering much of a conversation partner. O’tmyil was also quiet, seeming to have entered ‘therapist mode’, asking how he was feeling while making disconcerting levels of eye contact. As if she was trying to read him, rather than talk to him.

So Kevin slipped into thought as they rode into downtown. He tried to focus on the more basic things, like how he would prove he was himself to other people during all this. He needed to find a mirror to see how much his face had changed… if it had been as minimal as Andrew’s change, then he could probably still use his old ID. Maybe just toss on some even baggier clothes to hide his figure.

Sports bras would be a good idea. They compressed things. He wasn’t sure how much, but that would probably help people not notice the difference.

Getting off the streetcar, he figured his boss probably wouldn’t notice or care. His boss hadn’t cared when an alien robot wearing a moustache and a trench coat had claimed to be one of his coworkers a couple weeks back to stage an ambush for him… and the coworker it was pretending to be didn’t even have a moustache. So, it was probably a safe bet his manager didn’t care who came in as long as the shift was filled.

With that covered, he felt better as he and the others quietly took the elevator up to his and Andrew’s apartment. It would just be a few days of hiding out and then he could go back to his “normal” life as a guy.

The thought made something inside him break, and a shiver ran down his back. Stepping in his apartment, he held the door open for the others, before going to lock up.

“Do not lock it, Kevin-dearest,” Plynx said.

“Why not?” he asked, before his phone began to vibrate away. 

Right, he’d turned data off because he was pushing his monthly cap. 

“I summoned the others for an emergency meeting,” Plynx replied. 

“Ah,” he replied, before pulling out his phone.

Plynx had indeed left a simple message of ‘emergency meeting’ in the group chat. No further details. He took off his shoes before reading the rest, which consisted mainly of Augusta demanding a clarification. Thisbe said she would be right over at one point, followed by further ranting from Augusta about Plynx’s lack of communication skills. 

[It’s not really an emergency,] he sent into the chat, before heading to the bathroom.

Flipping the light on, he was stunned. The girl staring back was him was… well, him. Not just in that she looked like he normally did, assuaging fears of being able to get around identification issues. No. No. The girl in the reflection felt like him. More than his reflection ever had before. He’d always, on a rational level, known that it was him, but had never felt it was him.

The girl in the mirror now, though…

There was a crash as the front door burst open, causing Kevin to jump. Hurrying over, he found an irate Augusta marching into the apartment. Plynx hurried over from the kitchen, leaving her younger sister with what Kevin guessed was a mug of tea.

“What. Is. Going. On. Alien,” she seethed as she marched over to glare down at Plynx.

“Kevin-dearest has been temporarily transformed,” Plynx replied, her tone as flat as it usually was when dealing with Augusta.

“Transformed!? Transformed into what?” the blonde frenchwoman hissed.

“A girl,” Kevin said.

Augusta spun around, staring at him. There was only confusion in her eyes at first, until recognition hit. 

“Kevin? Chéri?” she asked.

“Yep.” 

“It is indeed him,” O’tmyil added.

Augusta’s eye twitched as she spun around, shouting a string of French profanities at Plynx, before finally switching to English to add on: “What did you do!?”

“My little sister made another attempt to get me to break up with Kevin-dearest,” Plynx replied. “It is reversible.”

“Well, then, reverse it!” Augusta shouted.

“I would need to take Kevin-dearest to the nearest Issiod’ran station,” Plynx said.

That resulted in another burst of French from Augusta, before the blonde started throwing accusations that this was part of Plynx’s plan to steal Kevin away into space to marry him. Kevin let out a sigh and left the argument in the living room behind. Augusta loved to argue, presumably from a love of her own voice. Plynx did not tend to start arguments, but she refused to lose them. Issiod’rans being a warrior society and all that, meaning her and Mynx hated losing anything.

It all meant the argument could last hours, and Kevin had better things to do. 

Which apparently meant staring at his reflection some more, because he’d gone back to the bathroom without thinking about it. He felt warm and fuzzy, looking at this new reflection. If he made silly faces, then the girl in the mirror did too. He wished that was the real him…

A realisation struck him then. One he wanted to talk over with someone else.

Stepping out of the bathroom, he realised Plynx and Augusta were still shouting at each other. Thisbe had shown up while he’d been distracted by the mirror, but had clearly been worked into a panic by the argument. She had a bad habit of believing the things the other girls claimed. 

So, Kevin headed down the hallway, knocking on Andrew’s door. There was a flurry of sounds of Andrew slamming something shut, before, at last, the door opened a crack.

“Oh, hey Kevin,” the redhead said, peeking out from the narrow gap between the door and the frame. “How can I help you?”

“May I come in? I’d like to talk about something and… this is awkward, plus,” Kevin said, before there was a crash from the living room and he let out a sigh. “Plus, I might have to shout to get heard over them.”

Andrew blushed, his eyes falling for a moment, before he gave a nod and stepped back, opening the door. Kevin walked in, turning to sit on the chair by Andrew’s desk, when he found himself rather distracted.

“Y—you’re wearing a dress?”

Andrew’s face went redder as he made an indecisive noise. 

“Where did you get it?”

“Uh… it was my Halloween costume from two years ago…” Andrew muttered.

“Ah. Right,” Kevin replied, as he remembered. 

It had been such a fun party. Then Andrew’s parents had seen pictures online and yelled at him.

Kevin had figured his roommate had thrown the outfit out.

“Does that mean you, uh… you… like this?” Kevin asked, blushing himself.

“I mean… I’m a babe now, so… uh… what’s not to…” Andrew said growing quieter as he walked over to sit on the bed. The final word came out as a near whisper, when he finally said, “yes.”

Kevin gave a slow nod. He would have never expected to see his roommate so coy like this, outside of times when his parents were around. Seeing the normally shameless redhead looking at him with such nervous eyes made Kevin feel less worried about admitting his own feelings.

“It doesn’t weird you out too much, does it?” Andrew asked, before Kevin could say anything. “I mean, I know it’s weird for me to like this, as a guy, but…”

“I don’t think it’s weird,” Kevin replied, eyes drifting over to the closet door as he tried to think over his own words. “I… I like it too.”

“You do?” Andrew said, shifting up onto his knees. “I didn’t… I mean, I guess I should have figured. Who wouldn’t, right? Girls are just so much prettier.”

“They are,” Kevin said with a grin, before kicking to spin the chair about. “I never thought I could be this pretty.”

The conversation then shifted to the details. Specifically, Kevin and Andrew trying to figure out if they could call themselves girls or not. After much debate, they agreed that, since they had no plan to change back into being physically male, they could probably get away with it. They were certain they didn’t meet the innate standards of womanhood to be actual trans women, but… they’d been blessed with entry into a grey zone and they were going to seize it. 

Which would mean they could use female pronouns too, right?

The enthusiasm faded a bit when they both realised they had to figure out bras. All they really knew about them was that they were complicated. But necessary. Especially for Andrew, who was getting some serious discomfort from the unsupported weight.

“We probably need new names too, don’t we?” Andrew said, after a pause, as she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Probably. Legally too, I’ll bet,” Kevin replied, before pulling her out phone again, to look up costs for that. She was left with a significant take away. “It costs the same no matter how much you change it.”

“Really?” Andrew asked, sitting up.

“Seems to…”

The redhead nodded. “We should get our money’s worth then, shouldn’t we?”

“We should,” Kevin replied, rubbing her chin.

“Are there any rules?” Andrew asked.

“There don’t seem to be,” Kevin replied.

They both nodded to themselves, wondering about name options. Kevin had a few thoughts, as she always had had. She’d asked her mother what her name as a girl would have been when she was younger, but hadn’t really cared for that name much.

As she weighed options, Andrew tossed out an option for herself, which drew a stare from Kevin.

“You’re not naming yourself after a video game console,” she said.

“It’s a cool name,” Andrew protested.

“It’s a brand name… plus, you’d probably end up getting sued for defaming them. Not to mention that it’s a Japanese name, and, trust me, having a Japanese name when you’re… well, when you at least look white is awkward. People look at you weird when you show up for job interviews and the like,” Kevin replied, slumping in the chair. 

It wasn’t her fault her grandfather had had married an Italian-Canadian woman, and then her father had married a Ukrainian-Canadian. Sure, that odd mixture of genes had apparently what lead to her having enough ancient alien DNA for O’tmyil to recognise her as a member of the lost galactic imperial family, which was cool, but… it had also lead to the chaos of all the girls fighting over her and the title she was attached to.

She didn’t even like the idea of being ‘emperor’ all that much. 

“Huh… I guess I’d be empress instead…” she muttered to herself, before a realisation struck her, and she hopped to her feet. “Oh! Oh! I’ll be empress of the galaxy!”

Andrew blinked, as Kevin smiled to herself. That title sounded so good. ‘Galactic Emperor’ made her think of a wrinkly old man, but, ‘Galactic Empress’… now that was a title that could fit a woman who was young and attractive and full of life. 

And maybe a little sexy.

She couldn’t help smiling to herself at the thought. “Yes.”

Andrew seemed to pick up the vibes filling Kevin’s head, letting out her own little ‘oh’.

“I think you’d look good in the outfit the Evil Empress in Super Galactic Warriors wore,” the redhead said, a smile spreading across her face. “A leggy girl in something like that…”

Kevin took a moment to remember the specific character from Andrew’s large collection of retro anime. When she did, she blushed. “I’m not sure that what she wore would legally count as clothing…”

Andrew paused, to think it over a moment. Then she shrugged. “Probably not, but still. You have to admit it gave her screen presence.”

“That’s true…” Kevin replied.

---

The buzzing of her alarm drew Vivian Wong out of bed, crawling across her small bedroom to shut her phone off. The clock said 5:00 am, as expected. An hour that gave her plenty of time to get ready for work. It gave her time for something else important, though. As the only member of the mess around Kevin who worked days, she usually needed a bit of time to digest whatever chaos had happened the night before. 

Today was definitely no different. One cryptic message about an emergency from Plynx, the alien cat girl still seeming to hate typing on Earth phones. Which, hey, Vivian couldn’t blame her. She found them clunky, and she’d not grown up on whatever alien technology Plynx had. 

That single message was followed by the snooty claimant princess of half of the continent of Europe Augusta demanding details a hundred times. The obnoxious blonde never seemed to grasp that other people weren’t all her servants. 

Scrolling through the ranting and French insults, she found one message from Thisbe saying that she was on her way. Well, ‘on m wy’, as Thisbe seemed unable to abandon her telegraph era impression that each letter cost money. 

Because she was a two hundred year old vampire. 

Vivian had long gotten over the shock of aliens and vampires and the other strange things she’d encountered lately, but sometimes, when she was tired like this, she needed to take a moment to think about it. About the mess her life had become thanks to being in love with Kevin Fujikawa.

Speaking of him, Kevin left a single message himself, saying it wasn’t really an emergency. Which left Vivian with even less idea as to what was going on than Plynx’s message had offered.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose for a moment, Vivian hurried over to find some clothing to pull on. She grabbed a box of poptrudles to have something to eat as she hurried out of her apartment. 

Kevin only lived a few blocks away, and Vivian had long legs, so she opted to walk. eating as she went. Even though it was barely 5:30 am it was late June, so it was fairly warm. The sun was rising too. Waiting for a stoplight at King, she fished out some loonies for the homeless guy starting out his day, before setting off down Catherine again.

A couple of minutes later she was at Kevin’s apartment, stepping in to find the living room in chaos. Plynx and Augusta were lying on the floor, clearly exhausted, but groaning what Vivian presumed were insults in their native languages with what energy they had left. The walls and several pieces of furniture showed slash marks from swords. Which fit the fact that Augusta had her rapier in one hand, and Plynx had her alien blade at her side. Thisbe was sitting on a chair in the corner, deep in thought. Plynx’s little sister was also sleeping on the dining room table, curled up like… well, like a cat. 

The only one who noticed her come in was O’tmyil, who was quietly sweeping up some of the mess. The alien robot… hologram… artificial-being-which-exceeded-earth-technology-too-much-for-there-to-be-an-english-word-for-what-she-was looked as calm and peaceful as always as she looked up with a smile.

“Hello, Vivian.”

“Hello, O’tmyil…” the tall woman replied, still taking in the tableau. “Why did the princesses try to kill each other this time?”

“Well, Ladies Mynx used an Issiod’ran sexual reassignment ray on his majesty Kevin, and the easiest way to undo the transformation involves taking Kevin to a nearby outpost station. Lady Augusta objected to Lady Plynx taking him off world, for fear she might not return him, and,” O’tmyil gestured to the property damage, “a lively debate ensued.”

Vivian had, not entirely on purpose, tuned out much of the rest after the ‘sexual reassignment ray’ bit. The idea of Kevin, the only guy she had ever liked, turned into a girl… she couldn’t deny that it tickled her curiosity. How changed would he be?

Apparently the fates decided to answer her, because the door to Andrew’s bedroom opened and a woman who was tall (though not as tall as Vivian) with dark hair, pale skin, and a face that unquestionably Kevin’s but softened, stepped out. The woman was beautiful… and also wearing a dorky grin while half skipping over to the living room.

“Vi! You’re here now too!” the woman said cheerfully. “Good, good. Because I have an announcement: after a good deal of thought, I have decided that I do not want to change back.”

As Kevin took an authoritative stance, her hands on her hips, one thought hit Vivian.

“Well, that explains some thi—” Vivian started.

“WHAT!?” Augusta, Plynx, and Thisbe shouted, in varying levels of outrage and shock.