Mahou Madness!

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Lucas was now even more embarrassed as he very clearly saw her eyes move downwards, the skirt was easily long enough to keep everything covered, and he kept his legs shaved due to a dislike of being overly hairy... But it still made him nervous since he knew a skirt was not something he should really be wearing, even if it WAS really comfortable.
"Well I uhh... Umm... I don't think I can wear this... I'm a boy, that's obvious right?... So what if someone sees me? Or I fall over and the skirt flips up or something else goes wrong?"
He asked, seeming to assume she could just fix the situation.

In an amazing show of bad timing the two girls suddenly felt a strong toothache, a chimera had just moved into range, And was moving fast! They normally only moved like that if they had a target and knew where it was... If left alone whoever it was chasing was almost guaranteed to be killed...
This seemed to snap Lucas out of it a little at least.
"Wait... That feeling... That's a chimera right?!"

 

[twinkletide]

"Well..." Namiko scratched her head. "I'm not really sure what you're expecting me to do..."

She felt it with Lucas. The toothache. Immediately her face hardened. "Yes. Duty calls, Lucas. Let's hurry." She looked back at his uniform. Crap. "And about that...well, nobody is gonna notice, I'm sure." She smiled reassuringly and bit sheepishly. "Sorry. It'll just be for a little bit. We can rush out."

She pulled out her phone and texted Pharah. Chimera, gtg, save our food pls - or feel free to eat it yourself if you want. Got to rush out. Brb.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

That smile combined with the sudden urgent situation was enough to reassure Lucas and he ran out into an alley, it was odd how chimera seemed to know how to use the city to hide themselves, like they didn't want to be seen, perhaps they were as eager to keep magic hidden as magical girls and governments all seemed to be, just one of many hints at their odd intelligence.
They quickly caught up to the mass of goo that was the chimera, it had no obvious animal traits and seemed to move by shooting strands of goo at the walls and pulling itself along with surprising speed.

"Whoah... It's a slime!"
Lucas declared, quickly transforming, it was kind of odd actually, despite the magical girl outfit being incredibly more flamboyant and revealing than the Orphan uniform, Lucas never seemed nervous or embarrassed while transformed, more confident if anything.
"Umm... So I don't know how good a punch will be..."
Lucas admitted.

 

[twinkletide]

Namiko transformed as well. The slime was pulling itself along walls like a rubber band, making disgustingly loud suction-cup noises as it slung itself from surface to surface. Its cloudly green body glistened even in the faint light. It was like a huge version of a child's homemade experiment, made with glue and water and food coloring.

She sucked in air through her teeth. This would require some creativity. "Yeah...me neither. Give me a second." She summoned Roanoke out of her nether regions and - with a warning to Lucas, "Get ready to move" - fired an experimental shot straight into its body.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

The shot collided with the slime, making it nearly halfway through the body before completely coming to a stop, the wound closing up behind it as the bullet quickly dissolved within the slime, oh great, it was bullet proof AND acidic, what a great combination!
Though at first it seemed as if the slime hadn't even noticed them, a moment later a thick tendril of slime shot out at them, Lucas just barely managing to dodge as it hit the wall and went right through, leaving a wide hole behind as it returned the tendril to it's body... Before firing off several more.

"Ahhh! This is really not fun!"
Lucas declared, punching one of the attacks and managing to deflect it, it seemed when it attacked the tendrils were solid, whether that was of any use was anyone's guess, especially since they went beyond solid and were in fact quite sturdy, at least enough that a magical powered punch couldn't easily do more than just crack it... And any damage was repaired when it returned to the main body.

 

[twinkletide]

Shit. What a mess of a situation. Her brain did the work as she jumped around, avoiding tendrils to the best of her ability, leaving much of the heavy lifting - or punching, as it were - to Lucas. Acid. Lots of acids didn't dissolve plastic, but that was about it. So...throw guns at it? That probably wouldn't help, and the thought of what would happen on the off chance that it used the guns against them or even tossed them back made her shiver. Nor did she want to see what would happen if an explosive somehow managed to survive its acid and sent said acid splattering everywhere. The result would be much like Lucas's earlier gaffe but much, much worse. No dabbing this off with brown napkins.

She noted that the chimera's tendrils hardened when it attacked. But...so what? If Lucas couldn't do much to it, then she doubted any sort of round could do anything, except the ones that would probably snap her shoulder in half. And if they did do something - if by some miracle they snapped that thing off, which would be the rough equivalent of a mouse chewing a stalactite down to the size of a Pocky - then they'd have to do that at least a few hundred more times to whittle it down, which seemed a Sisyphean task what with what they were doing.

Her brain struggling with the variables, Namiko only continued to skip on the buildings, firing sometimes to distract it, but mostly just observing, waiting, thinking.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Lucas let out a shriek after a few more minutes as several tendrils pinned him, and then began slowly retracting, trying to pull him inside it as he struggled to escape the grasp, the tendrils were thick enough now that neither of them could break him free... And he sounded pretty terrified, Lucas had seen what happened to that bullet, and was certain that bullets were a lot more solid than skin and bone!

It was at this moment that one of the shadows on a roof suddenly seemed to stand up... Someone was there? Had they been watching the whole time? Or arrived and taken cover within the shadows, waiting for an opportunity?
"Heh! You weaklings can't even kill one chimera between you?"
A girl's voice taunted, it was familiar...

"Well I guess I can help you just this once!"
Suddenly two glowing rods flew into the slime, exploding with a flash of blue energy that burned up the acid and freed Lucas before the shadow finally revealed itself... It was Kana! She was here to help, well, more like taunt but same thing right?
She attacked with brutal efficiency, every hit creating a blast of blue energy or injecting an energy rod that took out a large chunk... Within minutes she had reduced it to a tiny blob that she promptly crushed with her foot.
"Heh, so easy! That new girl can't even land a hit!"

 

[twinkletide]

Her brain overclocked itself, tripping over variables, amending the variables, recalculating, running through Euclid and zero-sums and everything she could think of. But nothing seemed to work, nothing seemed to work, she saw Lucas get pinned and look on in horror at the tendril pulling him to his doom and she was too far away to do anything brain mowing through equations thick fear mix of horror and logical apathy think think think -

And then she heard a familiar voice.

No more than three minutes later the battle was over, and it wasn't even close. Kana, her...colleague, stood triumphantly and gloated. Namiko frowned. Not only because of the self-satisfied smugness but because it was wholly justified - Kana was hands down the strongest magical girl she knew personally. She wasn't really all that annoyed - her tension was pro forma - but anyways she landed softly on the ground and directed her grimace to Kana. "Thank you for the help," she submitted, "but there's no need to insult my friend. And I'll have you know he did land a hit. Several, in fact. Though I'm not surprised, considering your eyesight." She smiled. It was occasionally fun to shoot the shit with Kana, even though you couldn't call them friends. And she really was grateful (though she also really did feel a bit annoyed).

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

"Heh... We can't all have the eyesight of a gunner... Some of us have to handle the front line so you can actually get a shot or two off... Not that it ever seems to do much..."
She fired right back, suddenly smiling as she heard that Lucas was a HE rather than some random magical girl.
"So that must be the weird anomaly I felt before... Though they don't look like a guy..."
She declared as Lucas dropped his transformation.

"I... I'm a guy!"
Lucas insisted, earning a quick look up and down.
"Oh? One of those trans guys?"
Kana asked, clearly confusing Lucas with the to him, new word before she walked up... And flipped his skirt up.
"Heh... You really ARE a guy... Though that is a tiny penis... And your face is way too round..."
It was true, Lucas's face had gotten softer and rounder, his chin receding.

Lucas for his part could only hold the skirt down, barely managing to make a noise at the unexpected inspection from this strange girl.
"Hahh... You two want this?"
She asked, holding up a moderate sized crystal from the goop monster.
"You two seem like you need all the help you can get".

 

[twinkletide]

Namiko could only groan at Kana's antics. She knew this would happen. She was relieved when Kana wasn't at base, but the universe had different plans, it seemed. And the audacity of the girl - not only taking a look at his genitalia but calling him "trans" outright. Kana was in desperate need of a lesson on manners. But alas, her love was in the fight, and the only lessons she'd ever take were where shoot and how dodge.

But. No sense in passing up a perfectly good shard. She briskly plucked it out of her hand. "Normally," she said, "I wouldn't take the fruits of someone else's work, but I know you're not exactly having hunger pains. Thank you." She pocketed the shard and sighed, dropping her transformation. "Anyways, is that all? We have to catch the next train soon, and Pharah is waiting in the restaurant."

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Lucas certainly seemed unlikely to put Kana in her place, and honestly, it was doubtful if there even was anyone who could take her down a peg in Japan, she seemed to hold a little respect for Pharah, but not enough to follow any orders that didn't come right from HQ, and sadly it was unlikely they were going to issue a direct order to one of their aces to be nice to the new kid.
"Ehh, I guess that's all, I don't need to see Pharah today anyway... But... You're going after that weird chimeric signature right?..."
She asked, actually seeming serious.
"Look, be careful there, an AAD girl who was pretty tough went after it and hasn't been spotted since... So like, don't get killed?"
She requested, before leaping up a building and running off with a wave.
It was rare for her to show concern... But for all her bad attitude she did care enough about her allies to not want them running off and getting killed.

Once she was gone Lucas fell to their knees with a sigh of defeat.
"She was... Kinda a bully".
He declared, looking... Confused? He stood up again and faced.
"What was that thing she called me anyway? Trans? What's that mean?"
He had some pretty big knowledge gaps... Though he had been absent during most sex ed classes so he hadn't really had much of a chance to learn those particular things.

 

[twinkletide]

"Yeah. Bully is a good way to put it." Glacing back at the little stain that was now the chimera, she added "But, she gets the job done."

That warning. When Kana was serious it was never a good thing. Just what was that chimera? If there was one thing Namiko didn't like it was unknowns, because you can't easily figure unknowns into equations, at least not unless you're solving for them. Unknown variables made for surprises and surprises made for disasters, at least in her book. Perhaps, she thought (though not consciously—even if she was right, she'd never admit it), that was what put girls like Kana above her, beyond even her meager firepower—the ability to rise above data and see the world simply as it was, free of abstracts. Her train of thought was so immediate she nearly didn't hear Lucas ask "Trans? What does that mean?"

Namiko looked at him and sighed. Dammit, Kana...if he knew what that meant his blush would've caused the heat death of the universe. "It's...to be transgender is to identify as a gender different from that of your birth," she said. "A girl who identifies as a boy is a trans man. Vice versa is a trans woman. At least...that's how I understand it."

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Lucas took the warning in stride, at this point he was kind of scared of every chimera, so hearing one was more scary than the others wasn't something too bad... He would just have to be careful if they did get into a fight and look for an escape route of things got scary...
Though if he was alone that would be quite difficult...
Or maybe easier? If he was alone running would be easy, but if he had someone else there, Lucas didn't think he could actually leave them alone against something that could quite easily prove to be deadly.

Upon hearing that answer Lucas's eyes went wide, rather than blush his face actually went very white.
"So... That's a thing?... That happens?"
He asked quietly before shaking his head as a little alarm rang from his phone...
"Oh! I gotta get home... My parents might be there soon..."
He mumbled, running off towards the train station as Pharah walked down the street, moving a little to let him run past.
"Oh... So this is what you two were up to?"
She asked.

 

[twinkletide]

Lucas's face went ghostly pale after she told him the definition, which was confusing. What did it mean? Why did he react like that? Did that...scare him, somehow? He didn't seem like a bigot...

Anyways, she didn't have much time to contemplate these questions because they had to keep moving, northbound over to the train station. Hopefully Pharah ate the food, she thought...waste of perfectly good gyoza. Oh, and sushi stuff. That too.

And speak of the devil! There she was, walking down the street towards them, a slight skip in her step that somehow still managed to make her look graceful. Namiko raised an eyebrow at her inquiry. "If you mean chimera killing, then yes. Though, we didn't end up getting the kill," she added drily. "Kana paid us a visit."

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

While they talked Lucas ran off, quickly escaping their sight, what on earth had set him off like that? Was it finding out what trans meant? Or was he just really eager to get home before his parents did... That last one made some sense as he was currently wearing a skirt...
Either way his train headed a different way to hers so they wouldn't have been able to ride together anyway, not that she actually knew that, neither did Lucas for that matter.

"Oh, so that's where she was... Well I guess I am going to have to cash in a whole load of crystals tomorrow, it's been a week and she has been slaughtering chimera without turning anything in..."
Of course that was normal for Kana, she would sometimes go completely off the grid for weeks at a time and then turn up with a sack of crystals to turn in... She wasn't really a big team player.

"Anyway... I have these for you..."
She handed over some paper with Lucas's contact details.
"Since you are his partner... Though by the way... What was up with him? He looked like he was about to cry when he ran past..."

 

[twinkletide]

"Oh thanks...wait, what?"

She blinked. She could see Lucas's silhouette moving in the distance, a small blob of convulsing black. "Huh? Lucas!" she cried out to him, but he either didn't hear her or completely ignored her. He disappeared in a huddle of buildings.

"I...don't know." Her brow furrowed. She'd spent her whole life numbing herself with facts and so it was baffling to see someone so affected by one. "Kana called him trans, and he asked me what it meant. I told him. And...he seemed to be moved by it or something." She shook her head. "I'll need to speak with him...thanks for the info, Pharah, and the food. I'll see you some other time." Without further words or gestures she tottered off after Lucas.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

"I see... Well if you need me you have my number, I'll be in the usual place".
Pharah declared, her usual place was the base, she even seemed to work there on weekends, though did sometimes step out to get lunch or take a break... But only when she could rope someone in to hold down the fort for her.

Lucas had arrived at the station and was waiting for his train, having just missed the one he was aiming for, he was looking towards the tracks and would see anyone coming up from behind as he kept glancing at his phone, it seemed he really did want to get home, either that or he was hoping the train would arrive before Namiko caught up... What had spooked him so much?

 

[twinkletide]

Namiko caught up to him despite her screaming limbs. The sky burnt holes in itself like cigarette smoke over a thick orange cloth. A chemical disaster sky framing Lucas in darkness and a queenly orange outline. The sight of him on his phone had a strange weight to it.

"Lucas..." she spoke softly. "What's wrong? Why'd you run away?" They looked like two dramatis personae on an overlit open-air stage, a girl bathed in creamy light and a boy hidden under darkness, two sides of a mask.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Lucas jumped visibly as she spoke his name, a few people sporting surprised expressions as they realized what they thought had been a young woman was actually a guy in a skirt, though no one bothered to say anything.

"Umm... N.no big reason... I just need to get home... If my parent see me like this they would flip..."
That wasn't a lie... They WOULD flip if he showed up in a girl's outfit that they had never seen before and wasn't on any card bills.
"So you see... Nothing's wrong at all".
He assured her, peeking at the time table on his phone once again.

 

[twinkletide]

Namiko shook her head. No, there was something wrong, but...what? And what could she do to help? And could she help?

"Lucas," she spoke softly, so that you could only barely hear her over the distant roar of engines, the low chatter of scattered humans. "You can talk to me. It's what I'm here for." It was silly to be worried that Lucas was mad at her; an empirically-minded girl like Namiko couldn't really think such a thing were true. But she was worried, she was worried. Something was wrong, and when things were wrong magical girls made mistakes, gender be damned.