-Maia POV-

 

After I had control of both my eyes back, I looked back over at Reese.

“Ta-da!” I said dramatically, motioning to my face.

Reese clapped exaggeratedly. “So, can you tell me how you did it now?”

“Magic.”

“No, really. Was it contacts?”

“Nope.”

“Oh well. Ooh, I have a magic trick to show you.”

I watched as she held a hand in front of her pencil. With a look of concentration on her face, she slowly lifted her hand. The pencil floated up with it.

“Ooh, cool,” I said, clapping.

“I’m not done yet,” she said, her face beginning to relax. She then allowed her hand to fall, but the pencil stayed in the air.

I clapped again, then stopped abruptly.

I felt waves of fear and panic coming off of Tessa, getting stronger by the second. I stood up, almost knocking over my chair.

[Tessa?]

“Maia?” Reese asked, but I was already running for the door.

I burst into the hallway, looking around frantically. I felt my fox ears and tail reappear, but I didn’t care. Where was she? What was happening? I reached for a feeling of her location.

[Tessa, what’s going on?]

I ran for the stairwell, jumping down an entire flight of stairs to reach the bottom faster. I bolted through the hallways, honing in on a certain room.

I found it: a girls’ bathroom with the door closed. The panic coming from Tessa was stronger than I had ever felt before.

{Help me… please…}

I tried to open the door. Locked. I growled, took a few steps back, and charged at it.

The door caved in, free from its hinges, knocking over a trash can that was placed right behind it.

I surveyed the room. On the floor was Tessa in moth form, curled up in a ball and crying. Standing around her were three girls, one of them holding a pocket knife in a threatening manner. All of the girls standing up had turned to face me, and their expressions showed various levels of shock and fear.

“Get out,” I growled.

They didn’t move, only standing there with shaking knees.

“I SAID GET OUT!”

They ran out the broken door as fast as they could, the one with the pocket knife dropping it as she ran away.

I crouched down next to Tessa, saying both out loud and telepathically, “[I’m here now Tessa, I’m here for you, no one can hurt you while I’m here.]” I put my arms around her, holding her tightly.

Her sobs quieted, before stopping completely. She sniffed a few times, though she didn’t uncurl from her ball.

{…They said I wasn’t a real girl.}

[Of course you’re a real girl. You always have been.]

{…That I’m just a weird bug.}

[You’re my precious, beautiful moth, my soulmate.]

{…That I don’t belong here.}

[You're right where you should be. I need you here, too.]

{…Thank you.}

We sat in silence for several minutes, hugging each other. Suddenly, the bell rang.

{…I don’t want you to go.}

[Then I won’t.]

She looked at me questioningly.

[We can just go home now.]

{What about Reese?}

[You're more important to me.]

{…Thank you.}

I stood up, pulling her up beside me.

I closed my eyes and relaxed, allowing my ears and tail to disappear. I opened my eyes to see the last of the white fade from the tips of my hair. Tessa was doing the same, her orange eyes turning gray once again.

I squeezed her hand, and we left the bathroom. We made our way to the office, then out of the building.

Hand in hand, we walked home.

 

-Tessa POV-

 

Arriving home, we sat down on the couch and turned on the news. Maia positioned herself so that she was lying on my lap with our phone held above her. I smiled, running my hands through her hair. She gently blushed, before turning her attention back to the phone.

[I’m going to text Reese that something came up so we won’t be there after school.]

{Mm.}

[I’m also going to text Marissa about what happened to the bathroom before the school calls her about property damage.]

{Mm. By the way, how did you do that?}

[Hm. I dunno. I wasn’t really thinking, I just kinda let the fox parts out and then I was faster and stronger.]

{I wonder if I can do the same thing.}

Maia sat up, giving me room to change. I pulled my sweater off so I had room for my wings. Then, I reached out in my mind, feeling a release. My antennae unfurled, my neck fluff floofed up, and my wings gave a little flutter.

That… felt a lot better, actually. I stretched, arching my back and admiring how it felt. Surprisingly, I felt like I could stretch a lot farther than I could in my human form, though I didn’t try to test my limits. As I relished the feeling, a strange noise halfway between a chirp and a moan escaped me. I sat back upright rather quickly.

I looked at Maia, who was staring at me. Her face was bright red, and her mouth was open like she was about to say something. She seemed to have lost the ability to speak, though. Without stopping to think about what I was doing, I advanced forward until I was practically on top of her. Holding her hands on either side of her head, I watched as her breath quickened, and she blushed even more furiously. She bit her lip, alternating between looking directly at me and off to the side. Her breath tickled my antennae, sending warm shudders along my spine. I looked her in the eye, before saying a single word.

“Cute.”

Only then did my thoughts catch up to my actions, and my face began to burn. I quickly got off of Maia, moving myself to be sitting upright on the couch, hands in my lap.

[…You could have kept going.]

{Aaa.}

I covered my face with my hands, before hazarding a glance over at her. Her face was still flushed, and she had a faraway look in her eyes. Our eyes met, and I quickly turned away.

I tried to focus on something, anything, other than Maia. I could feel slight disappointment radiating off of her, and I didn’t know if I could resist.

I ended up watching the TV in order to distract myself from Maia. At first, I thought it was some action movie, but it quickly became apparent from the headlines and reporters that it was, in fact, the news.

Suddenly interested, I reached for the remote to turn up the volume. Maia, evidently having the same thought, touched my hand and the remote. I jerked my hand back, my face burning and breathing disturbed all over again.

Somehow or another, we managed to turn on the sound for the news.

“-just in, a metallic humanoid figure and a suspected bank robber are fighting in front of the bank on First Street.”

On screen were two figures. One looked as though it was a person coated in scrap metal, all rusted and bent but moving strangely fluidly. The other was a man wearing black, almost skintight clothes as well as a balaclava.

The two figures were throwing rather amateur looking punches at each other, though they were definitely also using powers. The metal person occasionally threw out large chunks and shards of metal as they punched, forcing the man in black to dodge. The balaclava man’s punches were largely ineffective against the metal person due to the armor protecting them, but the metal person couldn’t seem to land a hit either, with all their punches and projectiles seeming to simply slip past the man in black.

This stalemate continued for a while. The reporter on the scene seemed to be really agitated by it all, but honestly, I was getting kind of bored.

My eyes were starting to drift back to Maia, who appeared to still be entranced by the fact that there was a superhero fight on the news.

I sighed, looking at her profile. It was cute how she reacted to every blow on TV as though she was there. I found myself almost unconsciously drawing closer to her once again, when suddenly, a loud noise came from the television and my attention snapped back to the news.

 

-Maia POV-

 

I idly stared at the television, not really paying attention to it as a certain image kept replaying in my mind.

Tessa had pinned me down with an intense look in her eye. She had taken off her shirt, and she was breathing somewhat erratically. A blush colored her face, and her chest was barely brushing mine. I felt like I was going to melt into a blushy puddle.

Trying to clear my head, I blinked rapidly, before focusing on the TV again.

On screen were two people battling. They appeared to mostly be using their powers instead of properly fighting hand to hand. Their form was terrible. The metal thrown by one person was only dodged by the other using some sort of power to pull themselves and the projectiles away from each other.

I narrowed my eyes while watching the fight. I started to analyze it, thinking about how I would dodge certain attacks, or how I would try to retaliate.

With how common powers seemed to be now, I considered that maybe some fights would be unavoidable. I would have to practice.

Suddenly, a commotion occurred on the television. A new person had arrived on the scene, and both the news anchors and the reporter seemed dumbfounded.

A woman had fallen out of the sky and landed in a textbook superhero pose in the middle of the street, creating a small crater. Her striking black hair was matched only by her piercing silver eyes as she stood up and looked around, dusting off her suit.

The two people that had been fighting before had stopped, seemingly cautious of the new potential enemy.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m only here for you,” she said, first talking to the metal-coated person, then addressing the man in the balaclava.

Immediately the man in black braced, entering a very inexperienced looking combat pose.

The metal person was still cautious, but appeared distracted by something off screen.

Tessa and I were distracted by something different, though. The woman’s suit was disheveled from the landing, and the wind had picked up enough to lift her shirt a bit.

{Her abs…} [She’s hot…]

Tessa and I looked at each other, then burst into giggles. Focusing back on the screen, we watched the ensuing fight.

It could hardly be called a fight, though, as the woman swiftly engaged the man, slipping in close enough that he couldn’t dodge, even with his power.

She only punched him once, but he was already out cold. There was a small indent in the ground beneath him, a testament to how hard the woman punched him.

Her strength was amazing. I watched as she picked up the man, hauling him onto her shoulder like a sack of extremely light potatoes.

She winked at the camera, then jumped away, leaving another small crater in the asphalt where she was standing.

Tessa beside me gave a small gasp. I looked at her inquiringly, but she only pointed back at the TV.

The camera followed her as she practically flew off into the distance, becoming only a small dot as she fell back toward the ground.

The focus was then back on the reporter looking rather confused. She approached the metal person, then held up the microphone.

“Excuse me! Could you spare time for a few questions?”

The person completely covered in scrap metal looked around, then down at themself. They shook their head, before walking over to a piece of metal that had been used as a projectile, now lying harmlessly on the ground.

They stepped onto it, then floated off into the sky shakily. They disappeared into the distance, significantly slower than the woman, but still fast enough that the news people couldn’t follow.

The news anchors thanked the reporter, who appeared speechless once again, and the news changed to a different story.

Tessa reached over and turned off the TV. She still seemed somewhat shaken, whether from school or whatever she gasped about earlier, I didn’t know. I hugged her. She blushed, and I embraced her tighter in response.

Suddenly, the sound of the front door unlocking sounded out through the house. We broke apart, sitting a reasonable distance apart on the couch.

[Wait, your shirt!]

Tessa turned to me, suddenly anxious.

Lacking enough time for her to simply put it back on, I released my fox form, hoping that I could use it as an excuse.

Marissa strolled into the room, her business suit pristine as usual. I was startled by her horns, ears, and tail once again, still not used to them. She pulled a hair clip out of her hair, freeing it to fall in messy brown strands directly in her face. She blew it out of the way, then tucked it behind her ears.

“Hey,” she greeted us. “I sorted everything out with the school already, so don’t worry about it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief at her nonreaction to Tessa’s state of partial undress.

“So, have you been trying your wings?” Marissa asked Tessa.

“Um, my antennae,” she responded, the beginnings of a blush coloring her cheeks. She quickly allowed her moth form to dissipate, before tugging her sweater back on.

“Cool, cool,” Marissa said, before addressing both of us. “So, what do you two want for dinner?”