Hunter looked over their notes on their quarry.
It was the night before their last final exam, and for Hunter it was much more important to spend their time preparing to force feminize someone. Or at least give their quarry a choice, despite Lori grumbling that the first option was more fun. Such were the trials and tribulations of being divine.
Artemis didn’t have a set schedule for Hunter to follow. Or anything resembling a help guide. So Hunter decided to make it up as they went along.
Lori walked in wearing a cute little robe. The two had pretty much moved in together. Next semester they would make their living arrangements official, though Hunter knew the two of them were going to be very messy together, which may or may not be a bad thing. Lori threw an earpiece on the table.
"What's this for?" Hunter asked while buttoning their shirt.
"So I can give you tips while you do your thing. I can be mission control!" Lori beamed, evidently very pleased with herself.
Hunter grabbed the earpiece and slipped it on. "This might be the first good idea to come out of your Business Admin classes."
Lori's response was simply to stick her tongue out at Hunter while Hunter waggled their eyebrows at her.
***
The person in question was in Hunter's art history course. A guy by the name of Steven. Steven had a habit of drawing in class, and whenever Hunter got a look at what he was making, the pictures were all of cute girls in various scenarios. When Hunter showed Lori a photo of Steven’s drawing of three cute girls all kissing, Lori jumped on the interpretation that Steven was trans, and Hunter agreed to dig a little deeper even though they were aware Lori would be happy to think literally anybody could be trans.
Hunter and Steven had decided to meet in an isolated study room in the campus library, with Hunter's pretense being that they would do some last-minute studying for the final exam together. Hunter picked up their bag and had picked up a few materials to help.
They discreetly looked into the study room window from outside and noted that Steven was already in there. They looked around the library, and after being satisfied there were no cameras or people staring at them, they changed their appearance to that of a random guy who had no resemblance to Hunter in any of their forms.
Showtime.
"That must have looked really cool if I could have seen it from a third person perspective," Lori said in Diana's ear, earning a smile.
Diana opened the door, shutting it and lowering the blinds so that nobody could see into the room. They sat down at the table opposite from Steven. Steven barely looked up, not noticing that anyone was there.
Until Diana coughed, and Steven looked up.
"Uh, I'm supposed to be meeting someone else right now; this room is reserved," Steven said hesitantly.
"Let's not worry about that," Diana grinned, and then stood up from the chair. They tapped on the bracelet they were wearing, which didn't actually do anything besides look dramatic.
At the same time, Diana altered their appearance to go from the random guy with no distinguishing features, into the more feminine form they found themselves in after Artemis got her hands on them, with a few changes to the outfit.
The key color was gold, because gods liked gold. They wore a green and white dress, matching flats, not heels, and everything else being color coordinated. It was exhausting to figure how they best wanted to represent themselves, and it took a while to figure out how to best invoke the imagery of divinity. What made it harder was they were effectively coerced into a fashion show with Lori, who delighted in having them go through all sorts of pretty outfits.
"I still think you should snap your fingers, everyone knows that's cool," Lori said.
In response, Diana turned down the volume on their earpiece.
Steven nearly fell off his chair upon witnessing the dramatic transformation. If Diana and Lori’s hunch was correct, Steven’s reaction was much more personal than it appeared.
“Firstly, I must apologize for all the, uh…” Diana waved their hands and scratched the back of their neck. “Trespassing, manipulation, stalking, and all the other breaches of morality that come with being divine. We’re sorta in uh, morally gray territory here.”
“We need to work on your divine presence, dude,” Lori commented while Diana barely suppressed an annoyed frown. Apparently, it wasn’t as natural as Artemis made it look.
“What are you?” Steven asked, a mixture of awe and confusion on his face.
“Not what, who,” Diana corrected. “I am Diana, Champion of Artemis,” they said, projecting as much authority as they could into their voice. “And I’m here to help.”
“Much better,” Lori said.
“Help me with what?” Steven asked with a tone Diana couldn’t place.
“Oh, this guy is so trans, he’s got hope in his voice. That all his fantasies are about to come true. Wait, maybe I shouldn’t gender him right now. Or them,” Lori mused. Her ramblings were somewhat helpful and somewhat not helpful.
Instead of responding to Steven, Diana studied the guy’s notebook. “What are you drawing?” Diana asked innocently.
“Um…” Steven hesitated and blushed while covering the notebook with his hands. “N-Nothing important,” he lied. Without even looking at the notebook, Diana could tell what the common theme was.
“You just saw me turn into a girl before your eyes. I think you can understand why I’m interested in your notebook.” Diana pointed out.
Reluctantly, Steven relinquished the notebook, and Diana picked it up, staring at a couple of the drawings. The common theme of the drawings was completely expected. Being hit by a spell in very fine detail, becoming a superhero, and the last one being transformed by a god. Diana chuckled at the last one.
“Ooh, one of them is being turned into a doll in a cute little factory. I give that my seal of approval.” Lori said.
Diana focused their attention back on Steven. “Hey, these drawings are really high quality,” they said earnestly. “There’s a bit of a personal stake in these, no?”
Nervously, Steven shook his head up and down. “Y-yeah.”
“Mind if I do something about that? You know, something along the lines of what I did to myself as I walked in?”
Steven froze for a few moments, with their reaction mostly consisting of stunned disbelief. Then, slowly, they gave Diana a determined nod. Somehow, without even saying anything, Diana sensed that Steven had worked out exactly what was about to happen, and was giving explicit permission to continue.
Diana smiled. “Consider it done.” They snapped their fingers, earning a gasp of approval from Lori.
Steven’s body glowed, and shifted into a rather butch form, matching the drawings that Diana had looked at. Diana was only able to go off of the common looks in the notebook, noting that she was making some of the changes ‘manually’, so to speak. They wondered what it took for a ‘true self’ spell along the lines of what Claire had accomplished. Artemis had said that Hunter now possessed magical talent, though the intricacies of spells versus innate divine powers escaped them.
The smile and tears in Steven’s eyes confirmed that Diana was at least in the ballpark with their guess.
“Pronouns?” Diana offered. “She/her, or something else?”
Steven enthusiastically nodded. “She/her. And uh, I’d like to go by Mary.”
The newly minted girl was trembling, ready to collapse at any moment. Diana recognized Mary’s unsteadiness and moved in for a hug, letting Mary take a few breaths against their shoulders for steadiness.
It was nice being the one on the other side of the hug, and being the person to provide the comfort and security for the people who really needed it.
“You gave me everything, just like that.” Mary breathed.
“It’s kind of my thing,” Diana chuckled. “Now, ready for what comes next?”
Mary took the hint and broke the embrace, idly tidying up her scattered notebooks while Diana fished something out of their bag and threw it onto the table. Mary picked up the green pen and stared at it.
“What’s this?”
“It’s got contact info for an on-campus support group. Without going into detail, it’s extremely trans-friendly. Also it’s basically one giant polycule. You’ll love it. Plus, a link to a community server in case you need more support from us.” Diana winked. They had set up some infrastructure to help the girls caught up in their and Artemis’s conflict, just in case the initially-unintended benefactors required any additional divine intervention to address the sudden changes in their lives. Some of the girls probably could connect the dots and realize Hunter was the connection from it all, but luckily they seemed to be keeping it quiet.
“That’s amazing!” Mary jumped up and down a couple times, unable to stop grinning. “You’re amazing. A god came in and helped me. That’s amazingly amazing.” She bobbed her head from side to side.
“Adorable,” Diana said. “So, my work is done here, I guess.” They shrugged, and heard a faint laugh from Lori on the other end. “Just know that you’ve got support, okay? Now I’ll take my leave.” Diana tapped the bracelet again and had their form revert to the same unassuming guy they came in as. They gave Mary another wink, and left through the study room door.
***
Hunter and Lori cuddled on the couch together in Lori’s apartment, with Hunter sleepily recovering from their literal bout of playing god as Lori went on about what she thought about what went down. Hunter was back into what Lori had dubbed their ‘classic cis boy’ form.
“I give that a seven out of ten. I mean okay, you’re fucking hot no matter who you look like, seriously, but we gotta give you a little bit more presence, right? You had some great stuff, but we can elevate the craft. Make you control the conversation. You can say whatever you want, you’re in full god-mode there, right? Who cares what they think; make them quiver before you in their brand new little dresses and heels.”
“That was great feedback until you started projecting,” Hunter quipped.
“But it’s true, right?” Lori gave Hunter a cocky grin.
“Yeah, it’s true…” Hunter mumbled. “Though you did give me an idea for some new material.” They stared at Lori for a few moments, until she noticed her clothes had become nothing but a tiny dress and heels.
“Oh, you fuck--” Lori started, but Hunter leapt at her before she could finish her sentence. They pinned their girlfriend against a pillow, and wrapped her into a big kiss.
“You like?” Hunter teased as they came up for air.
Lori for her part was barely able to manage a strained ‘yes’.
“Good, yeah? How about now?” With a wave of their hands, Hunter shapeshifted into their ‘Diana’ form, and ran one of their smooth hands along the side of Lori’s head, then planted a gentle kiss on Lori’s head.
“You’re…a…monster,” Lori gasped between breaths.
“Now you see what happens when you mouth off, yeah?”
“Never should have encouraged you to be mean,” Lori complained while pawing at Hunter’s body.
“You’re really paying for it now, huh?” Hunter said with a cocky grin of their own, shifting their form one more time to a more androgynous one, then went in for round three.
Hunter had no idea what their life would be like now. Even with the divine shenanigans, they still had a final exam tomorrow they were totally unprepared for! They sensed they would be fine, but running around and doing magic things with Lori just happened to be going on at the same time. You know, normal problems for normal people. They’d found out they were genderfluid, and it turned out Lori really did just need a good ol’ dose of feminizing to let herself live as who she wanted to be.
Even though Hunter may look different than they did before, they were still themself. Exploration of gender was something to be celebrated, not shoved into a shameful box. Lori certainly had a lot to unpack and probably continue to unpack, and Artemis’s lesson about the journey not ending even after they’ve gone through their trial still lingered in their mind.
Who said the two of them had completely figured themselves out yet, anyway?
The chains keeping Hunter from exploring their own gender had only very recently been shattered. It may not be a journey most people took, yet being able to cast away their own assumptions and what they took for granted was incredibly cathartic. Hunter went from someone rather uninformed and not able to engage, to someone having conquered the first step of their lifelong quest to understand their gender. For a certain definition of 'lifelong', with the immortality at all.
Lori knew about herself way before Hunter ever did, and had to grapple with a history of shame, and continued self loathing. Lori did so much critical thinking about her gender, and until now, hadn’t given herself a chance to live with her gender. Yet even with the negative aspects of her journey, Lori still became the delightful little gremlin Hunter loved, never missing a chance to get a joke in.
There was still a lot more exploring to do. And adventures. And funny jokes. Maybe trans a few more people’s genders, in an affirming and perhaps-ambiguously forced way, as a treat. Hunter and Lori were going to help a lot of people who needed it, with some kissing and cuddling along the way.
Hunter took a moment to admire Lori. Scratch that, a lot of kissing and cuddling along the way.
Such a perfect conclusion!
"I still think you should snap your fingers, everyone knows that's cool," Lori said.
“We need to work on your divine presence, dude,” Lori commented
…though I’m not happy that you’ve got me agreeing with Lori twice in one chapter…
This was so cute and I really need that contact info for the support group, please?
Such a good story
Awwwwww <3
Awww
This story was so cute!
thank you for the story!!! loved it very much
i’m so early!! absolutely loved it! hunter and lori are such cute dorks together
what a wonderfully cute story based on some great satire/introspection on force femme! it really is an interesting concept that a lot of trans women latch onto to escape realities of transition in the real world! i really liked it! 
A lovely wholesome fun ride!
This was really great <3 Definitely looking forward to whatever comes next.