Sylvie has been an alien as long as I've known her. Or at least, part alien. Neither of us have ever been too concerned about the philosophy of it. Sylvie is Sylvie, and that's what matters.

When she was a little kid, before school, before we met, she'd gotten lost on a hiking trip in the forest. She doesn't really remember why or how she got separated from anyone, she didn't have a photographic memory yet. But somehow, she'd managed to stumble onto and activate a dormant drop pod. One of the bioweapon eggs, left over from the invasion.

Based on her instincts, Sylvie was pretty sure she had been designed for infiltration. If the invasion had progressed as planned, she likely would have spent her existence consuming inhabitants of the planet, stealing their memories, knowledge and appearance, and sabotaging our world's defence efforts.

Of course, since their orbital bombardment ended up blowing up that ancient Sumerian magical seal, reversing the thaumic flow of an entire Underworld (and tearing open all of the interdimensional rifts in the process), the whole invasion ended as suddenly as it began when the furious death goddess they disturbed swallowed the fleet whole. 

Too bad they didn't hit the seal before they hit mom.

Instead, the only part of the biological programming that stuck were the instincts to steal a form and blend in. In this case, little Human Sylvie, who got eaten by a shapeshifting bioweapon who then became her. Her, except now also an alien with all sorts of cool powers, which her instincts told her to hide around everyone else.

And since she couldn't really remember anything different, that was just Sylvie's normal. She might have been a little weird when we first met, but so was I, and we became inseparable. Honestly, I just thought it was because her parents were super loaded and she had cool older brothers and they all actually, like, cared about her. They went to all of her figure skating competitions and didn't even yell at her for not liking certain foods. 

When the Asterism chose me in high school, Sylvie was the first person I told. It wasn't even against the rules, there was a confidante clause in the oath and everything. I flew up to her balcony in the middle of the night cause I couldn't wait, ready to tell her that not only was I apparently a girl but a magical one too. 

Not my best idea. In my excitement, I hadn't really considered that, you know, somebody coming into your room from a fifth floor balcony in the middle of the night, most people would assume they were a burglar or vampire or something. 

Worked out though, once we cleared up the misunderstanding. She told me she thought my dress was cute, I told her I thought her fangs were cute, she corrected me that they were closer to mandibles than fangs, one thing led to another and I had my first kiss that night. 

And so it went. We fell in love, or accepted we had already been in love and were just too useless to realise it before the Asterism pointed out my gender for me. I helped her come out of her shell and feel comfortable in her natural form, and she helped me figure out makeup and clothes without the help of a transformation sequence. Her parents paid for my truer self potion as a birthday gift, and she became my monster-fighting partner as well as my romantic one. Turns out play wrestling with older brothers twice her age and height made her surprisingly prepared for giant crabs and lizardmen.

Obviously, when she got a full ride athletics scholarship for her figure skating, I followed her there without hesitation. She was everything to me.

She still is, of course.

Except now, thanks to the government, she's an eye grafted onto my body over my kidney.

I'm about three yes or no questions in before she rolls her eye and starts blinking in what even my dumb ass can pretty instantly recognize as Morse code. I transform back and grab my phone from my pocket to look up a Morse code guide.

{LOVE U RUM B5 MOL UHOW UJ}

Turns out I'm terrible at Morse code, but pretty good at figuring out gibberish from context. 

"I love you Sylvie, I love you so much!" I tell her, choking back tears, then follow her instructions and escape before more of the government goons show up to figure out where the last ones went.

Getting back to my apartment, I pry open the window and leap through onto my bed. I swear at myself once again for continuing to forget to set up an anchor in my room as I tear off my costume top to expose my side to the mirror on the wall.

Luckily for my dumb ass, Sylvie has been working on a solution to my struggles with telling the difference between long and short blinks. Once she sees me watching, she shifts her eye back and forth between her human eye and her alien one. Even I can't fuck that up. 

We spend the next few hours figuring out what happened, and what we're going to do. 

I promise her I'll find a way to turn her back.

She reassures me that I'm not a bad person for blowing up the assholes who tried to kill her.

We look up info on the aliens' biotech online, with Sylvie telling me which sites are conspiracy nonsense and which ones are legit. 

I have a talk with the Asterism by summoning one of its pastel coloured animal-shaped projections, in this case a mint coloured unicorn rabbit. It's more than happy to help in any way it's capable of, and to keep everything a secret from the other magical girls, saying something about the power of true love.

We find out that so long as their cores survive, the aliens can regrow from pretty much anything. Lucky for us, it seems that the infiltrator bioweapons like Sylvie have an automatic reflex to project their cores into other nearby organisms when mortally wounded. 

"That's gay," I tell her.

She turns her pupil into a heart shape.

As for regrowing her, it looks like the aliens need three main ingredients to regrow. The first is easy, energy. I've got more than enough magical power to give her everything she needs in that department. We're both already well aware that she can eat my magic, and have made extensive use of that handy ability for both work (mid-fight healing) and play (no comment).

The other two are a bit more difficult. Exotic matter, and a ridiculous amount of biomass. Part of the reason the aliens are so tough is because their biology uses some sort of four-dimensional protein folding, making them impossibly strong and dense. And regrowing her means replacing all of that, including the exotic matter bits that don't naturally occur on Earth.

Though they are commonly found in trace amounts in life forms that cross the rifts.

And other alien bioweapons, of course.

{I HAVE AN IDEA}

"What is it?"

{YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE IT}

"If it will help, I'll do anything. Hit me."

{EAT THEM}

"What?"

{THE MONSTERS WE FIGHT}
{EAT THEM}
{I WILL DIGEST THEM THROUGH YOU}

I feel a bit queasy.

"I... I can try but... you know how I'm a picky eater..."

{THEY TASTE FINE TO ME}
{I CAN JUST GROW YOU A NEW TONGUE}
{IT WILL BE FINE}

"Wait, you mean, like, change my body?"

{OUR BODY RIGHT NOW}
{BODY SNATCHER REMEMBER}

"...okay, pretty sure I'm totally fucked in the head at this point, but... that's pretty hot, not going to lie."

{SLUT}

I laugh until I start crying, and cry holding the pile of stuffed animals she's given me over the years until I can't cry anymore. Finally, I check back in with Sylvie, who looks back at me with love in her eye and streaks of tears running down my side.

{HAZEL?}

"Yeah, Syl?"

{WHAT ARE WE GOING TO TELL MOM AND DAD}

Looking up from the Morse code translator page, my brain finally registers the notifications for all the text messages and missed calls.

"...oh fuck."