Caio is glad that Connie agreed to meet with him, considering he almost killed her earlier. She was a brave girl, even if Caio could sense she was still afraid of him, despite her not showing.
"Right so... I'm really sorry for attacking you earlier. I lost control and it was all my fault for not being strong enough to keep the Wolf at bay. I don't even know why the wolf thought you were a menace." He sighs, struggling with words. "The thing is that does saying "sorry" do help at all? What if I've had really harmed you? Or killed you?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, Connie... I'm afraid of hurting you again or the others. I'd like to promise you this will never happen again, but I honestly can't. I try my best to keep the Wolf away, but it is so hard... but what I can certainly do is promise you that I'll do whatever I can for this not to happen again."
Max finds Horizon extremely hard to read. But she can guess. Time-displaced, mentee to an Alliance member, young but has worked with some of the biggest heroes operating today... he has it all together. He's probably on the track to be the next Alliance member, so what is he doing slumming it with a bunch of freaks and newbies?
Your enhanced senses can't help but pick up the whispering of students in the halls and just outside of view.
"There's the demon girl!"
"Crazy, right? Look at those hooves!"
"Freak."
"Gotta be a costume."
"Quit staring!"
"Totally bangin'."
"Why is a demon going to school? Don't they have rules?"
The boy is clearly startled at Femtite's approach. "Oh! Uh, hi. Conway. Conway Juszczyk. Um, really? No males? How do you-- wait! No! Too soon, sorry. That's uh, probably not appropriate."
His cheeks begin to get a sort of splotchy red. "Okay, um, you said something. About collecting? Why? I mean, there's lots of things to collect. Anything, really. As long as you like it. You know. You do you, if you understand?"
Feya is waiting near the Unseelie Stone when Percy arrives. She quickly casts a glamer when he gets close, shielding their magic use from the eyes of passers-by.
She claps her hands together and a spray of fire bursts out from between them, separating and scattering like embers rising from a campfire. They rise upwards and follow the flowing pulse of the ley line overhead. "As you know, Halcyon City is crossed by three major and seven lesser ley lines, creating one of the greatest loci for magical energy on the planet.
"What you may not know is that this confluence of magical flows creates any number of 'pockets.'" She gestures at the outlines, showing some swirling eddies along the paths. Magical energy can become concentrated in those areas -- or nearly nonexistent, like an undertow. Stumble into one of these while you're drawing too strongly upon your power, and you could get burned up, or burned out."[/b]
She looks at you to study your reaction. What do you do?
Max quickly becomes self-conscious listening to the whispers of the other students. She already feels out of place, both in this school and in her body, and the insecurities creep back into her mind. Suddenly, the halls and classrooms feel stifling. She needs to get some air.
The demoness pulls her sweatshirt’s hood up as she walks toward the exit. She doesn’t know where she’s going. Anywhere but here!
As Aqua began to blare Connie's eyes shot entirely open as her mouth contorted and flattened into a unrecognizable not-quite-grimace. She opened her mouth briefly, but then took off her glasses and busied herself cleaning them for a moment before admitting in a somewhat strangled voice, "Yes. I have some Barbies whose outfits you could use."
From one of the prep boxes stashed beneath her bed Connie pulls out a tupperware filled with doll outfits, each one kept sequestered from the others within their own ziploc baggie.
"It's uh, mostly focused on job stuff more than fashion - Dentist Barbie, Police Officer Barbie, Barbie Builder, couple of Halloween outfits, that kind of thing. Goth-Punk Barbie."
***
Connie listened to Caio's speech, pulling her bathrobe in tight and with a single raised eyebrow. "Mmhm. Well I guess 'I wouldn't hurt you, but I get so mad and I can't control it' is a step up from 'I wouldn't hurt you, but you just get me so mad and I can't control it.' Any plans that go farther than 'I promise I'll come up with a plan?' Three other things: is your lycanthropy contagious via bite? Am I still getting that blood, sweat, and hair for your change-adaptive clothes? Oh, and will you be more or less overprotective of Max's feelings if you f+@& it out?"
Femtite shrugs. “My mother didn’t give the school that note telling them not to teach me about human anatomy, so I guess I can tell you about mine.
“Lack of male genitalia aside, we’re not that contextually different, except that a pixite egg is fertilized by another pixite egg after it undergoes a chemical change at the end of the menstrual cycle. Productive mating occurs when one pixite’s ovulation aligns wi… oh, I’m sorry! You probably aren’t interested in girl stuff.
“Besides, I wanted to ask you about dolls!”
Femtite stops the music and giddily lays out several outfits.
“Connie! You’re the best roommate a space princess from the microverse could ever hope for!”
She shrinks to a foot tall, magical-girls her outfit to a pink bikini and tries on the doll outfits while Connie goes for a meeting.
As Connie asks many questions, Caio tries to remember all of them, but he starts with the easier ones. He reaches for his backpack to retrieve a small silver knife. "Do you have something with you to collect my blood, sweat and hair? Also, my human-hair will do, or would you require my wolf-hair?" He asks before cutting himself.
"Lycanthropy is contagious through my bite, but only to those already predisposed to it... I'm not sure this is true, but I've read that in the middle ages there were a lot more werewolves and they were really a menace. To fight this, some wizards started to work together on a cure for the curse. They were somewhat successful, for while they've failed to find a cure, they did came up with something like a vaccine instead." He explains in a rather simplistic way. "Many were exposed to it back then, with this protection randomly passing to their offspring. Nowadays, very few people are actually susceptible to it. I was, even if none in my family was. Lucky me." He jokes.
"Max is my best friend. I like him and he likes me, and in the Wolf's eyes, this makes him part of the Pack. The Wolf will protect him instinctively. Given time, if this team endures, it is possible for the Wolf to consider all of you..." He pauses, thinking about Horizon and how he doubts the Wolf will ever consider him part of the Pack. "... part of the Pack. This would mean you'd be safe for sure."
He then gets ready to answer the most difficult part.
"My situation is not easy... I'm a time bomb, Connie. Usually, when someone becomes a werewolf, they shift and murder their own families and friends. The shock of this is so great that the person loses a big part of their humanity, and the wolf and the person becomes one." He tries to explain. "My grandfather created these sigils to stop this shift, so I've never killed anyone. This means that I'm not 'one' with the Wolf. Until I surrender myself, I'll not be able to control it properly, and the longer I wait, the angrier and stronger the Wolf gets... It is even possible that if kept away for enough time, the Wolf will become so strong that nothing of me will remain after the shift." He eyes Connie, dead serious. "And if or when this happens, you'll need to kill the Wolf... and me. Do you think you can work on something to kill me, if this happens?"
"Cujo, I'm in my pajamas. Of course I have something to collect people's blood, sweat and hair- yeah both hairs." Part of the bulge in her bathrobe-pocket turns out to be baggies, a dropper bottle and mini tweezers.
"I'll see if I can engineer the Lycanvax recipe for the rest of the team just in case. Unless its something that was already in Percy's core curriculum..." She scowls at the thought that the answer might already be there for the asking, but begins to squirm uncomfortably when Caio talks about Max.
"Uhh Uh huh. Just so you know, Max has never indicated anywhere I've been that we should use anything but feminine pronouns. I know you've known Max for a while, possibly longer than that's been the case, but if you're not on the same page about something like that, you're the one who needs to fix it. And if you're sublimating/panicking, it's not even a little gay for you and a hot trans succubus to go to town on each other. Hypothetically. In Minecraft."
She replied to Caio's dead serious request without a lot of fanfare. "Nah I'm not gonna do that. But don't worry about it."
"The goal is to prevent harm to others, and against essentially invulnerable targets, incapacitation and/or imprisonment are usually better objectives. Once I've got you secured, I have all the time in the world to figure out longer term solutions or regrettable last resorts. So I won't work out how to kill you until I'm 100% certain I've got a way to capture you. And Caio, it's been hours since you tried to kill me. I've got the first prototype on the roof already."
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Percy, now dressed as his alter persona Indarius nods along, "I remember you saying that Halcyon was built almost laughably in the epicenter of one of the largest leyline convergences on the planet, but I guess that's also happened with other places like London, New York, and Istanbul of a few places. Funny how meer men managed that huh."
He listened at her explaining the pockets and the ebbing and flow of mystical energy that she seems to highlight with her embering flames. "That's why it's safer to draw a new ley-line that acts as a more controllable 'flow valve' that connects to the radiant aether produced from those lesser leylines and by proxy the pockets? So you don't just erupt in an arcane torrent right?"
Thanks to their previous lesson he had studied a little bit on ley-lines and the properties of major and minor 'pools', but the reading was sparse to say the least.
"So you aren't in your pijamas to seduce me?" He clearly jokes. Caio doesn't get the Cujo reference, but he cuts himself with his silver knife, frowning deeply. A small cut like that should not be as painful as he was suggesting. "The stories about silver are true, by the way." He then wipes sweat from his brow and cut a few hair. "I'll give you wolf hair the next time I shift."
When Connie speaks about Max's pronouns, he tries to defend his point. "I've known Max for what? Ten years now? The amount of time since he became a 'she' is too short in comparison, and he wants to change back badly. I believe that this helps him for now to feel normal, like how he used to be... With time, however, if we can't revert the curse, I'll talk to him and help him to accept his new self... But wow, no... we are friends. Just very good friends!"
As she denies his request to kill him if the worst happens, but then says she'll work on a way to instead trap him, be is relieved. "If you believe you can trap me, then it should be good enough I guess. We should test your prototype later then... just perhaps with others around and the music ready, just in case." He then gestures for his silver handcuffs and reaches for the keys. "So... I guess it is it then. Thank you Connie."
Conway takes a step back at the word dolls. "Dolls? Huh? Are you talking about your basic eighteen inch? Or your fashion dolls? Cloth, yarn, or plastic? There's a lot of different styles. Vintage, stuffed, raggedy, you name it. And I know dolls are not considered masculine, but if you don't even have men in your society I don't think you should judge, okay?" He sets his jaw defiantly, as if daring her to make fun of him.
Max finds herself outside near the faculty entrance. The landscaping is not as immaculate as the main entrance, but there are still some impressive flower beds and a few ornamental trees ringing the faculty parking lot.
A lone groundskeeper is methodically raking the mulch, hunched over and with a wide-brimmed hat shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. He lifts his head up and looks at Max, his face shrouded in shadow though his eyes somehow glow red underneath the brim of his hat.
"It's not your time yet, Lilin," Max hears, though she can't be sure if it came from the groundskeeper.
He returns to his raking as if he never stopped.
The ornate edifice of the museum welcomes the pair as they enter the grounds. Connie's student ID lets her pass underneath the looming skeletal dinosaurs and stuffed megafauna.
Veering away from the biospheres and past the prehistoric animal exhibits, Connie finds the outer space section of the museum. Just before the big planetarium room, there is a roped off exhibit featuring an actual meteorite. The object sparkles with a near inner light, surrounded by placards that describe some of the physical characteristics of the meteor and its suspected origins from outside the solar system.
Feya arches an eyebrow. "Mere men, or were the mere men drawn to the locations by the ley lines?"
Her mouth twists slightly as Percy discusses ley line theory. "Doable when one has the power like you have, I'll admit. But a skilled practitioner doesn't need such crutches. Right now, you're a painter who is scooping up a bucket and flinging the paint at the canvas. You're far too unrestrained to wield a fine brush."
She stares at the man again, and this time she opens up her supernatural awareness. Sometimes, Max can see beyond the veil. She can see the true weight of a person’s sin. And while she dreads what she might see now, she know she must look further...
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Percy raises an eyebrow had he not even realized the connotation with how he'd said that. "So, you don't think I even need a proper ley-line to draw from? I mean, you mean most people don't when they're skilled enough... is that just something
possible here in Halcyon due to the high presence of latent aether?" He looked around trying to keep his wandering gaze from lingering too far from Feya, but he figured there had to be some reason she brought him here other than just to go over the basics of leylines even if he had asked specifically for that.
There's a heady, euphoric sensation that comes from knowing someone's sin. It's intoxicating, the power that comes from knowing the correct strings to pull to orchestrate a mortal's downfall.
Instinctively, Max knows that most people's sin are as mundane as they are; predictable wants and desires and shames that they hide from normal society yet bubble up in their private actions. Avarice. Lust. Apathy. Prejudice.
So even though Max feels an unshakable fear as she draws upon her demonic nature to sense this caretaker's sin, there's also the expectation (or hope?) that his sin is mundane and unremarkable.
What she senses, however, is nothing at all. It's as if this man in her gaze has no soul at all.
What do you do??
"You might feel some strain if you were in the middle of the desert, leagues away from the closest ley lines. What I'm saying is that most practitioners can scarcely move a pencil, even here in Halcyon City. You're practically a ley line yourself. There hasn't been a practitioner at the scale at which you're exhibiting since Doctor Infinity, nearly forty years ago."
Flirty deflection would have been a welcome distraction, but not having **any** firm sense of the conversational terrain re: Max was something Connie needed to resolve before her squirming discomfort got out of control. She thought about just fleeing the rooftop, but "Umm... Just so you know. That is a lot of New Information to me. About Max. I knew the succubus body was new, but umm... I would maybe check back in before spreading all that around?? If I were you?? If Max hasn't okayed it?? 'Cause it's kinda private??"
***
Connie: (Hey)
Connie: (We're not speaking)
Connie: (But you should know to touch base with Caio about what he should be saying about your Personal History before you got Succubized)
Connie: ((What are your pronouns?))
Connie: ((And what pronouns should I use when talking about you within the team?))
Connie: ((And what pronouns should I use when talking about you to other people outside the team?))
Connie: ((If you ever want help or access to something like a binder, or a packer/gaff, or makeup lessons, or whatevs, hmu.))
Double Dee: Read
***
"It's beautiful."
She'd given her pocket a little tug so Femms' hearing would be less obscured, but her words were still barely over a murmur as she saw the Nanometeor.
"Umm. How close should I get? And will your mom be able to hear me if I say hi?"
“That’s right. We don’t have men. Which means there is nothing strange about doing what your world does not consider masculine. My mom’s BFF is a mechanic. Not feminine on Earth, but on my world, ladies do everything?
“I am judging you. My judgment is that you have the good sense to say, ‘I am a man and I like dolls.’” She is being sincere. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Conway. Maybe take some photos of your dolls and show me sometime. I’d love to see them.”
She gives a friendly smile and walks away…
Femtite slips out of the bag, flitting up to Connie mere inches tall. “Please watch the glass closely. You will see two pixites, just under a millimeter tall. That will be my mother and I. We’ll be able to perceive you. I’m sorry we’ll just look like firefly buttocks to you.
“Wave when you say hi. Your voice will be like a whale, if you speak in a high enough pitch.”
Love Bug, The is no bigger than a ladybug. Femtite hops in, and soon the craft is a speck, then nothing.
There are guardswomen clad in amethyst armor modeled after the depictions of amazon warriors. These women tower over Love Bug, The. They bow to the princess as she passes. A younger amazon’s eye sneaks a peek at Femtite, then bows extra-humbly knowing she was ‘caught.’ Femtite waves to the guards.
The city is bustling with life. Humans can’t perceive pixites, but the glow of them, clustered together, seems to register clusters of her people—or perhaps entire villages—as sparks of life, subtle and constant.
Femtite stands roughly a picometer tall—the height that most pixite cities accommodate—as she exits her craft. She waves to guardswomen twice her size and enters the Lavender Spire.
(The guardswomen dilates her size until she can carry Love Bug, The in hand to deliver to Mel the mechanic.)
Femtite sees her mother on a throne. She is 5 picometers tall. Her handmaidens are various sizes from double Femtite’s size to knee-high. The smaller are giving manicures and pedicures. The average-sized are massaging shoulders and legs. The tallest is feeding the queen sweet spotted fungi.
<Mommy! Mommy…!>
Eventually, two yellow sparks fly up from the meteor, hovering as close as they can to Connie from within the confines of the glass case.
Connie: (Hey)
Connie: (We're not speaking)
Connie: (But you should know to touch base with Caio about what he should be saying about your Personal History before you got Succubized)
Connie: ((What are your pronouns?))
Connie: ((And what pronouns should I use when talking about you within the team?))
Connie: ((And what pronouns should I use when talking about you to other people outside the team?))
Connie: ((If you ever want help or access to something like a binder, or a packer/gaff, or makeup lessons, or whatevs, hmu.))
Double Dee: Read
Double Dee is typing...
Double Dee: I am not having this conversation over text. Let's talk tomorrow night IRL.***
"Hey! A!*+~%&!" she says, stepping up to the groundskeeper, even though her instincts are yelling at her to run away. "Who are you? What do you know about me? What do you mean, it's not my time? You'd better start giving me some answers!" she shouts.
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He scratched at his chin for a few moments giving Feya time to answer in her own way before he prompted the question of the night. "I know I wanted to talk to you about leylines, but why here at the ubseelie stone exactly?"
Caio looks confused at Connie, but then it hits him. "Putz, you did not know... I thought you did, because you were talking about it not being gay for us... and calling him a trans succubus... I thought you knew for sure." He explains embarrassed as he puts the handcuffs back into his backpack and nears the border of the rooftop to jump. "You are the first person I've ever told this, and only because I thought you already knew about it... I'll speak to him. Bye!"
***
As he reaches back his room, Caio sends a text to Max.
Caio: Hey Max, sorry about texting this late.
Caio: Met with Conflux to apologize about harming her earlier and accidentally slipped to her about what happened to you. Thought she knew because of the way she was talking to me. Really sorry man.
Max: She already texted me.
Max: It's fine. It would have come out eventually.
Max: Gonna talk to her about it tomorrow.
The groundskeeper doesn't react. He keeps focusing on spreading the mulch in the flower beds as Max shouts. Not until she gets into his face does he look up from his task. Beneath his hat, he appears grizzled and worn with black eyes. Scraggly stubble frames his mouth which suddenly pulls back across stained teeth into a rictus smile.
He reaches up and taps her forehead. Max blinks, and suddenly the world is changed. The sky is the color of dried blood smeared across bruised flesh. The glittering spires of the Tower District are broken and in ruin. The school building is gutted and wreathed in flame while the air is choked with ash and greasy smoke.
The cars of the faculty parking lot are wrecked and twisted, while naked bodies writhe amongst the jagged metal in alternating bliss and agony. To her horror, Max recognizes the faces of the bodies to be those from the school -- teachers and students alike.
Stalking through the tormented figures are demonic beings, in similar shape to the one Max now wears.
The groundskeeper, almost forgotten amid the scene of horror, leans in close and whispers in Max's ear. "This is your time. Be patient, Lilin."
The vision of the nightmarish hellscape vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and Max finds herself standing alone near the parking lot. The groundskeeper's overcoat is still in Max's claws where she had instinctively grabbed him, but even that fades away leaving a blood-red gown in its place.
Feya regards Percy grimly. "No, no one of the power that Infinity demonstrated. There have been some, yes, but of limited scope or not from the mortal realm. Sadly, the reasons behind this is unknown to me.
"Perhaps the answers lie with Doctor Infinity."
Feya shrugs when asked about why they're meeting at the Unseelie Stone. "It was nearby."
Suddenly, it's over, and she's all alone. The coat changes into a dress, and Max cries out! She hurls the gown as far away as possible and runs for the safety of her dorm room!
***
Later that night, Conflux receives a text inviting her to visit Max in her dorm room. When she arrives, Max lets her in and sits on the bed across from her. The demoness is dressed in an oversized 'Star Wars' t-shirt and shorts.
"Hey. So..." Max begins. She trails off a bit, avoiding eye contact with Conflux, before finally looking back at her. "Sorry for blowing up on you the other day. You didn't deserve that."
She waits for the other girl's reaction to the apology.
"...don't make a butt-face joke, don't make a butt-face joke, don't make a butt-face joke..." Connie muttered to herself as she prepared for Femms and- Femms's Mom? Definitely should have asked earlier what to call her -to reappear.
The two lights twinkled into existence, and she couldn't help but smile. The shrinking is just a matter of precision, shouldn't be conceptually too hard at least, but figuring out all the surrounding mystical architecture for shrinking down that small not to kill me is... complicated.
She waved gingerly, keeping her hand pretty close to center mass and rotating it in what she hoped was still a friendly greeting.
"Hi," she piped practically in a falsetto.
Holding up her phone she tried her best to point the screen towards the little motes of light. In the smallest font her phone could manage she'd written:
(Femms, please translate): Hi Your Majesty. I'm Connie Westcott Mathers, Femtite's friend and roommate. I'm so honored to meet you and see the beauty of your world. I hope that someday we'll be able to converse more naturally. (Thanks Femms)
***
I mean, if Max's oldest friend is the only one using masculine pronouns, then yeah, my first assumption is going to be that I'm looking at an old friend who's having trouble keeping up with reality... Unless their first language didn't use gendered pronouns or something.
***
"Hey. So..." Max begins. She trails off a bit, avoiding eye contact with Conflux, before finally looking back at her. "Sorry for blowing up on you the other day. You didn't deserve that."
Connie just nodded along with apparent amiability. "That is true and correct."
After a moment she added, "We can go deeper on that if you want to stall, or as long as your succubus powers don't make it literal, you can just tell me to go to hell. We could actually talk about why you invited me over too, your choice."
Max grimaces. "Cut to the chase, then. Okay." She looks up and meets Connie's gaze. "So, Caio told you that I used to be a guy. Before... before all of this. I haven't told very many people. Besides Caio and Femtite, you're the only one who knows now. I would have preferred being the one to tell you when I felt comfortable with it, but cat's out of the bag now. I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread the word any further."
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His shoulders relaxed slightly it was nice to talk with someone who actually had some sort of idea as to what the heck was going on. "Oh one last thing, I'm looking for some basalisk venom for a spell, nothing dangerous I promise. Any idea where I might be able to get some that won't make me regret it for the rest of my career?" Knowing good and well Feya was more tied into the ins and outs of procuring reagents than him, it couldn't hurt to ask. [b]"And.. thanks for well this, it's all really hard to grasp especially when there's no one else to really go to for this kind of stuff. I mean Conflux is magically inclined but she uses talismans and wards so it's not the same."
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Back at your dorm room, you find the dress hanging in your closet.
"There wouldn't be any-- well, there's that robot. The old one," Feya thinks. "See if it knows where Infinity's sanctum was. That would be the place to start."
Feya's face twists, showing what she thought of Conflux's style of mystical talent. It was only slightly more than same amount of disdain she shows Percy -- her generation of mages required a lifetime's worth of study and practice. She produces a card from a side pouch. "Try Basil and Bane. Their stuff is fresher than most on this side."
Connie's face was the picture of incredulity. "Of course I'm not gonna out you, are you crazy?! I'd never do that to a trans or questioning person. That's why I wanted to know your pronouns **and** which ones I should actually use. Assorted affirming activities and accessories also anonymously available alongside-" A penny dropped somewhere behind her eyes. "Femms knows too?" How did that come up? "How'd she take it?"
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Arriving back at the dorms Percy decided it was too late to go hang with Conflux tonight, besides he wanted to try and get her gift more finished up and that'd require at least a day of pouring into it. So he settled in for the night and did just that after school the next day.
Hey Connie, wanna hangout tonight, I got a thing to show you. We can even go diving afterwards if you want, dunno how ahead you are on schoolwork I know you've usually got that stuff down and pat.
”I told Femm after the fight with the Confectionist. I was feeling really low and she helped cheer me up. She took it in stride, like she takes everything,” Max says with a wistful smile.
”Pronouns. Yeah. My mind is still my own. In here, I’m still one of the guys.” She points to her head. ”But the rest of me... Unmistakably female. And, I don’t know if it’s this body or an echo of the demon’s spirit that infested me, but, uh... I wasn’t attracted to other guys before, but now I’m... kinda attracted to everybody.”
Her purple cheeks flush. ”So... questioning is definitely the right term for who I am now. And female pronouns are just easier. Less explaining needed.”
Max looks directly at Connie. ”I’ve been questioning a lot of things lately. Like, what defines me? My mind or my body? What do you think?”
Her mother is relatively colossal, tended to by her handmaidens varying in size.
Thankful she isn’t interrupting too private a moment, the excitable princess soars to the queen mother.
”Mommy! Mommy! I am here with a friend from school. Are you available to come out and observe her?“
Queen Millie rises regally as her attendants flit about. She floats imperially into the air and shoos away the dedicated servants. She looks down her nose at Femtite, regarding her daughter for a moment.
"Femi!" In a blink she is embracing her daughter and smothering her in kisses. "Oh, Femi, welcome back! Mwah! Mwah! How was the titan world? Tell me all about it! Did you bring us a souvenir? Have you solved the mystery of the 'It' that we are supposed to Just Do?"
Femtite giggles, “Haha… it’s a human thing to be purposely vague. The viewer, reader and/or listener defines the it for her-or-himself. But the ‘it’ is actually ‘buy sneakers.’”
"Fascinating!" says the queen. "Have you bought the sneakers? They seem useful!"
”I have not,” Femtite replies, “Mel programmed several outfits I can crystallize onto my body. Sneakers imitating a rival brand are included in the program.”
Femtite lingers in her mother’s embrace a little longer, then tells of her exciting battles—befriending heroes, rescuing an adorable candroid, and taking on “an alien who is nearly double my maximum height. I hit him with my Love Bug, The, disabling his technology! —and my roommate used her magic to send him away.”
She does not (yet) mention the infighting. She wants to focus on the positive.
“Connie is my roommate—she’s out there, at the edge of the velvet rope unauthorized titans are forbidden to pass.”
Queen Millie listens closely to all of Femtite's stories. "Let us go view your roommate! Banisher of titans to titans!"
She gladly leads the way as her and her mother soar. Once well above the amethyst mountains, she and Millie grow immensely larger than any other pixite can. Femtite keeps herself about 50-100 micrometers short of her mother’s maximum size.
Connie is like a cloud that stretches from one end of the sky to the other.
“Connie is approximately 1600 times your height. Over 4 billion times your volume. She’s kinda the runt among our team… but she’s really smart, and kind, and fun. We share a room, and…
“I like her.” Femtite places a hand against the glass as she gazes into her roommate’s eyes. “I don’t mean like…”
Femtite won’t lie to her mother. She does like Connie. She just doesn’t want to kiss and accidentally melt her face off.
“…she has given me friendship, no more than that. Her friendship makes me very happy.”
Femtite then tells of the fight that came after. There was infighting among the team, and Love Bug, The was damaged partly from shielding Connie.
After telling the whole story, Femtite asks about the in-fighting, interested in the perspective of her mother: one of five queens whose power is considered equal, in a system which values the opinions of the masses.
Queen Millie is wide-eyed and attentive as the events are revealed by Femtite. The whole of Nanometeor seems to be abuzz in fascination with the titans' world. The colors mute, however, as the conflict is described.
After some deliberation, Queen Millie lays a hand on Femtite's cheek gently. "You have come to their side from a place of excitement and hope. Many of your companions have come to the team from places of pain, and confusion, and uncertainty. Is it then, any wonder that they fight among themselves? They fight within themselves too. Heal them inside, and you heal the team."
She shrugs. "Or tell them to 'Just Do It.'"
Femtite doesn’t care how many pixites are flitting about and watching. She hugs her mother.
“You really know how to make a sportswear slogan deep. Far deeper than the titans’ ♬The More You Know♬
“At least Just Do It’s an independent clause.”
Joking aside, she says, “I’ll do my part to help the teen titans heal from the inside.
“Also, could I borrow some cool nanotech? Without Love Bug, The, it might be a good idea to have a means of armoring myself. Can I borrow one of those cute amazon outfits like the gaurdswomen wear?”
Femtite asks for one more thing—“not for myself. Is there any tech I can use that will let another see what I am seeing?
“I want to give Connie a gift. She’s curious, so… if there’s a way she could view my thoughts, I would like to show her something human technology cannot.
“An atom, up close!”
"Don't the titans dream of splitting atoms? That seems dangerous to me."
Before Femtite can explain that that’s already happened, she sees Connie hold her phone close to the glass. Though Femtite had in fact learned ‘The King’s Language’ from her mother, she translates Connie’s words into her native tongue so her mother can ‘hear’ the message with Connie’s intended tone and mannerism.
Queen Millie inclines her head regally in the direction of the titan Connie. "Please convey to her that I am grateful for the friendship she has with my daughter, and extend to her the hopes that we may meet as she describes." Then her eyes get really big. "And give her a great big hug for me!!!"
Femtite wipes a tear as she promises, ”I will, Mommy. And then she’ll get an even bigger hug from me!”
* * *
One of the yellow lights fades…
And soon Connie feels movement in her backpack.
After a moment or so, Femtite flits into view, only a foot tall, clad in the goth punk Barbie outfit and a pinkish-purplish tiara.
She flies in front of Connie’s face and says, “My mother says she’s grateful for the friendship you’ve given me, and hopes one day you can meet as you described in your message… and then she said give you this!”
Femtite flies up to Connie’s face, entire body pressed against her cheek.
Femtite’s tiny body is very warm.
"Ack," Connie groused through a smile she couldn't quite suppress. "Giant firefly on my face." She gave Femtite's back a squeeze with a couple fingers anyways.
Once Femtite was hidden away again, Connie put some earbuds in so she could talk to her slightly open backpack without looking crazy "I've got some sort of vague pop-culture sense that meeting my new roomie's mom is supposed to come with sushi or Mexican food or something, but I guess a hug is okay. Good visit though?"
***
Or you just hadn't noticed you were into dudes et al and becoming a demonic bombshell gave you the push. Though if anything would incidentally expand your attractions, a succubus transformation would do it. Eh.
"Questioning's a good place to be, but I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about the exact dividing line between mind and body. Your mind can change your body and changes in your body will have effects on your mind, so my vote is just lean in. Don't eat anyone's soul or anything- Can you? Eat souls? -but if you think a boy's cute chances are that it's your mind and your body in agreement, and there's not really any reason to stress out about it. Same goes for non-sexy stuff with the new you. If there's something you're thinking about trying, I say go for it and see how it feels. Don't just sit here and try to think your way through everything."
***
Percy: Hey Connie, wanna hangout tonight, I got a thing to show you. We can even go diving afterwards if you want, dunno how ahead you are on schoolwork I know you've usually got that stuff down and pat.
Connie: Sure
Connie: Where we meeting?
"I can't eat souls. At least, I don't think I can," Max says. Her eyes nervously dart to her closet before returning to Connie.
"Thank you. You're right, I have a tendency to overanalyze things. This is who I am now, for better or worse, and I'm going to have to figure out exactly what that means for me. And I can't do that if I'm too worried to act."
The demoness sighs. "It's going to be a long process, obviously. But I'm going to try. And as long as I have friends like you in my corner, then I think I'll be able to succeed." She gives Conflux a warm smile. "I've... I've never really opened up so much like this to anybody before. Not even Caio. It feels good to have somebody to talk to who is as caring and understanding as you."
Femtite gets in the backpack. “It was a wonderful visit. I don’t think sweet-spotted fungi has any taste or nutritional value. You are approximately four undecillion times the volume of a pixite.
“Nanotech, on the other hand, can expand with my body.” She lets those words sit a moment. “I brought a gift. I gotta be your size before I can give it to you.”
|
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Percy: Hey Connie, wanna hangout tonight, I got a thing to show you. We can even go diving afterwards if you want, dunno how ahead you are on schoolwork I know you've usually got that stuff down and pat.
Connie: Sure
Connie: Where we meeting?
Percy: How bout the new old station that our mutual friend let us crash at?
Percy assumed Connie was good enough to figure that one out, she was always the most suitable for mental gymnastics of his friend group. In the meantime he gathered his things and headed out for Unity station.
This place was such a neat location and a perfect hub for the pair to continue their sprawling dives into the proverbial guts of the city. But to facilitate their meet up Percy started to clear away an area and lay out some supplies that he'd gathered, fetching a small colander which had rusted from the pile of junk that they'd all sequestered to the corner he gave a wave of his hand and a small arcane word. The rust jittered and shook like the hair on some rabid creature made of goo before tearing off the piece of cookware and landing in the space where the rails sat. Bringing it over he found a good spot and set the colander down pulling out some chalk and drawing a circle around it with arcane symbols before filling it with the dry ingredients making sure to place a cheese cloth in the bottom first. Then he waited for Connie to arrive.
At around 6am, everyone would get a comm ping from Horizon, as he speaks to the team.
"I'll be offering some one on one peer mentoring today before school - really, it's just some time for me to answer questions you might have you don't want to air to the team. I'll keep everything you have to say confidential. If you're interested, I'll be waiting at the park down the street from Halprep, by the statue of the Jumper. If you see I'm with another team member, please wait and I'll get to you next."
And about an hour later, Shin was there in the park underneath the statue of a bronze masked hero wearing a jumper. He's got the stone bench underneath to himself, with a thermos of green tea and some small muffins ready to eat for anyone who comes to show up.
Devil Diva arrives at the park shortly after Shin sets up on the bench. Clad in her sweats with her hands in her pockets, she walks up to the bench. ”Hey, jefe. I’m first, I guess.”
She sits down beside him and pops a muffin in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Her earlier attempts at observing Shin from afar hadn’t yielded any insights as to the team leader’s nature, so Max appreciates the opportunity to talk to him directly.
Once she has finished the snack, she looks at Shin. ”So, um. I wanted to know some more about you. I’ve seen the stories on the news about your earlier exploits, but beyond that, I don’t really know who you are. Like, as a person. You play things pretty close to the chest. So, if you’re gonna be issuing us orders, I want to be sure they’re coming from a good place.”
"I've... I've never really opened up so much like this to anybody before. Not even Caio. It feels good to have somebody to talk to who is as caring and understanding as you."
Connie waved a hand dismissively. "I'm just the first person who could come to all this fresh. Except Femms? Eh? I'm the first person from our cultural context who could come to it fresh. I'm glad I could help, and I mean that going forward too, but don't... I dunno, don't make too much of it, okay?"
***
"Oh. I didn't get you anything."
Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird.
"I guess I'll see it when we get back to the dorms."
***
"Heya Perce." Connie had arrived in one of her 'Pockets-Pockets-Pockets' outfits, but for good measure she pulled on a lab coat from her bag when she saw Percy's setup. "What all we got here?"
"Well, we've only been working together for a few days at most. And while we've gotten together, I haven't had too many chances for one on one conversations with people. So I also understand that you might not know me all that well. I can tell you a few things, but remember that this is a private conversation, so I expect you not to share anything I tell you in confidence as well."
Shin pours a cup of tea, offering to Max. "I suppose I should start by saying that I'm technically from another timeline - and from eighty years in the past. Though I grew up in this city, that was nineteen forty when I ended up somehow transported to a different future - or, well, the future if I had never left. And now I'm stuck here, doing my best to make the most out of this new life."
He pours a cup for himself, blowing softly on the steaming liquid before taking a sip. "As for my hobbies, I enjoy baseball, chess and shogi, and catching up on all of these movies I've missed. Which reminds me that I have to figure out how many Disney princesses there are..."
Max chuckles. ”Heh. There are a lot of princesses, and they keep adding more. Got to sell those toys, right?”
She accepts the offered tea and takes a sip as well. ”The man out of time. Reminds me of a comic book character. But this is real. Well, I know way more about pop culture than any sane teenager should know, so I’m happy to help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge, when we have the time.”
Max is quiet for a few moments as she drinks more of her tea. Finally, she talks again. ”So, as team leader, there’s something you need to know. I don’t think I was changed into this form by accident. Something did this to me, and I think it has more plans for me. The other day, I ran into this creepy groundskeeper. Except, he wasn’t a real human. He...had no soul? I think... But he said that my time would come, and I saw a vision of... of horror...”
Max shudders. ”Anyway... That’s something we will need to watch out for...”
Half asleep, Caio picks up the comm link and answer Shin, not realizing he is in fact sending the message to everyone instead. "I believe this channel should be used only for really important stuff. 6 am, porra."
He then tosses the comm link across the room, luckily hitting a pile of clothes he'd be watching later, so it doesn't break. He falls asleep almost immediately, trying to get back to a particularly pleasant dream, even if bizarre.
Femtite eventually removes the doll clothes, but not the tiara… and she also has a sort of belt like a pro wrestler would wear.
If Connie prefers, Femtite will don her bathrobe, literally growing into it. With Femtite now human-sized, Conflux can see that her tiara is a two-piece accessory—essentially, a crown and a circlet.
Femtite removes the circlet. (The ‘crown’ remains in her hair.)
“Your gift. Wear it. When I reduce myself beyond the nanometric scale, my crown will become energy. It will connect to your circlet, which will allow you to see what I see at subatomic size.
“I thought… you’re the only one intellectually curious enough to want to see this.”
If Connie permits, Femtite places the circlet onto her head.
When Max leaves, a one-foot-tall Femtite floats down from a nearby tree branch. She is clad in a black mini and thigh-high lacy boots.
“Top of the morning to you, Horizon! Shall we chat a bit?”
If he asks, “These doll clothes don’t change size with me. I was going to ask Connie if I could borrow an outfit from her, but I would require undergarments, which I believe are considered personal items in most human cultures.
“Besides, I like her goth-Barbie attire. Shame it doesn’t come in bright pink.”
(Apparently, the three-point crown and pro-wrestling belt are not part of the goth set.)
"That's pretty worrisome, Max," Shin tells her, looking concerned. "Let me know if you encounter him again. Though...I'll be honest, magic is not something I know a lot about. I'm hoping we can get someone to come and assess the magical abilities of people like you and Caio in the group. I'll ask if there's anything about soulless people we should know," He said, taking out a notepad and paper and scratching a note onto it.
"...I'll be honest, you're rather charming for someone who considers our regular world macro-sized," He says as he breaks off a tiny piece from his muffin, handing it to her for snacking. "You know, if you need clothes, there's an allowance for that. I can see that you'll be able to shop around for something that you find suitable to your tastes."
Shin sips his cooling tea, looking up above him at the statue. "So, how are you finding the bigger world? I'm sure that you're still acclimating to a place so much different from where you left. At the very least, you've seem to taken up our language rather well," He says, looking at her carefully.
|
|
Percy looked up, "Sup Connie. This here is hopefully a successful summoning circle. I got a bit of an idea from Max and Caio the other day after the whole thing went down. We played some Magic the Gathering, which I suck at. I understand the irony, but but it got me thinking about magic users in other media and all that about how they can summons stuff. And we'll my book has a formula for summoning of course, but I wanted to try it on a smaller scale. While you were here of course."
He grabbed some more things our of his bag holding them up, "Wouldn't do any good to summon something wither a witness. I think it'll help me channel my magic a bit, act as a sort of byway for any excess charge ya know?" Walking to the circle he poured the Basalisk venom and stirred it with an errant metal rod. The slurry bubbled for a moment and smelled awful. "Also gives us a great chance for you to try out the gift I made for you. In the front pouch of my bag there's a small box for ya."
Connie doesn't seem bothered by how Femms chooses to dress once she gets back to the dorms, only requesting the bathrobe if she gets too big and bright to comfortably look at "-At least till I get the shades working." She does immediately reclaim the Goth Punk Barbie outfit and sets the pieces aside for inspection before putting them back in their baggie.
As Femms disassembles her tiara and explains her gift, Connie profoundly fails to stay still. Her toes scrunch and twitch while she rubs the hem of her skirt between her fingers to let all of her mind focus in on what Femms has to say.
“Your gift. Wear it. When I reduce myself beyond the nanometric scale, my crown will become energy. It will connect to your circlet, which will allow you to see what I see at subatomic size."
Her mouth falls slightly open, but she doesn't say anything right away, like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I thought… you’re the only one intellectually curious enough to want to see this.”
Connie ducked her head to the side when Femtite brought the circlet towards her.
"I don't- I shouldn't take something like that from you. It's too much and I don't have anything that- Y'know, I actually forgot; I have an errand. Private stuff. Should've done it while we were in the city, but I should really..." She gathered her things with all the grace and organization of a tornado, barely pausing at the door for long enough to say "Bye Femms. Back, uh, soon."
***
"Don't get me wrong, Perce, excited to see what pops up here, but uh, did you say whence or what you're planning on summoning?" Her eyes had started vaguely aimed at his face, but by the end were entirely focused on cataloguing the construction of his circle.
"That's pretty worrisome, Max," Shin tells her, looking concerned. "Let me know if you encounter him again. Though...I'll be honest, magic is not something I know a lot about. I'm hoping we can get someone to come and assess the magical abilities of people like you and Caio in the group. I'll ask if there's anything about soulless people we should know," He said, taking out a notepad and paper and scratching a note onto it.
"Thank you," Max says. "Despite our earlier, ah, missteps, I think this will be a good team. Especially with you as our leader. See you in class, Shin." She offers him a small smile, then gets up and walks away.
“Oh, but Connie… you don’t understand, I…”
By the time Connie gets home, Femtite is asleep, using a tissue box and facecloth as her bed and blanket. She is wearing both parts of her tiara, and her shoulders are bare. (She’s not wearing doll clothes.)
When Femtite meets Horizon, she is like a fairy made of yellow fire with a pink tiara and belt. Technically, she is nude, but a human might assume she is wearing a yellow body suit.
When offered food, Femtite says, “No thank you. I just had breakfast up in that tree. I consumed a microorganism, possibly a type of bacteria that infects birds.”
Regarding clothing—“Oh, fabulous! I wish to shop today. I need perhaps three outfits, as I cannot clothe myself without Love Bug, The. Well… except with this belt. It will armor me in an emergency.”
Femtite hovers in a sitting position, one leg crossed over the other. She grows to human size. “I try to be charming. My mother is one of the five queens—Queen of the Lavender Spire. The spire is a particularly long and narrow amethyst structure, with spacious caverns. Spacious to our plasma forms…
“Anyway, I try to conduct myself as a princess. It’s not an easy task. You’re the only level-headed one, which makes you fit to lead, and also, best fit to listen to another, more experienced leader. Of course, that would be the local heroes, but you may be interested in my mother’s perspective as well.
“I asked her to advise me on the in-fighting. She said: ’Many of our companions have come to the team from places of pain, and confusion, and uncertainty. Is it then, any wonder,’ she asked rhetorically, ’that they fight among themselves? They fight *within* themselves too. Heal them inside, and you heal the team.’
“…I hope you find that helpful.”
The lunch period at Halcyon Prep is a chance for food, friends, and frantic scrambles to cram before the afternoon sessions. Some of the seniors venture off campus to hang out in the nearby restaurants and coffee shops, while the cafeteria and common areas are jammed with students refueling or hanging out.
Shin, due to his burgeoning relationship with Grace Gilliam, is accepted among the athlete tables where Gavin, Sophie, Jaden, Ne'veah, and other members of the girls volleyball and boys basketball teams get their nutritionist-approved meals.
Skyler's typical lunch routine is to grab the daily lunch special and retreat to a remote corner of the cafeteria to eat in solitude.
Max prefers to avoid the crowds in the cafeteria. Once she has picked up her meal, she takes it outside and finds a relatively quiet spot. Usually, she'll hang out with Caio, and today is no different.
"Hey. How's it going?" she asks as she sits beside her friend, inspecting her sloppy Joe dubiously before taking a tentative bite. It's not particularly tasty, but it is palatable.
"Great!" Caio answers as he bites a large burger. "The chicken wings were very good, but had to switch to this burger because the lady in the cafeteria was giving me the weird looks after I've ordered them for the forth time." He looks at Max's sloppy joe. "You picked wrong..."
It is true that Caio could have ordered all the food that he'd require in one go, but the "pile of food" would bring too much attention to himself, something he usually avoided... of course, this point was moot now, since Max's new form already drew a lot of attention.
"I'll let you pick for me next time," Max says with a sigh.
"I spoke to Conflux, by the way. It's all good. We talked it out. You don't have to feel guilty for telling her about who I was before... all of this.”
"Pick something else then... I'll eat yours, so you do not have to suffer the whole lunch. It is barely a snack for me."
When Max talks about "the talk" with Conflux, he feels a bit uncomfortable besides his words. "I know you are cool about it, but it was not my secret to share. It should not have happened and I'll take care not to let it slip again..." He stops his words as he overhears a group of guys talking about them, mostly disgusting stuff.
"Do you hear better than normal people now?" He asks, afraid of the answer.