The Trap of becoming a Magical Girl [Fantasy Fanatic]

[Tes]

She felt something but couldn't really pin down what after the beast vanished before her eyes, something in the puff of air getting attracted and then pulled into her own body. She couldn't see it, but there had to be somthing more to it. Of course there was the much more pressing issue of the girl she had saved. Going over her and checking her breathing, Alex can thankfully hear it and Mary begins to grumple, her eyelids twitching a bit before the flutter open.

Seing Alex face directly over hers and probably remembering last that she got streched around a huge knot, she screams and jumps of the car, reflexively going into fight or flight mode still. She held out her palm toward Alex, a bright ball of flame floating before it like she had only seen in videos of her. "Who are you? Where is that...that Thing?!" she yells at her in her high pitches voice, blushing as she talks about the cerberus and notices her state of dress. She also seems to catch onto Alex attire though, looking her up and down as the fireball becomes smaller and less chaotic. She scrunches her brows as in thought, waiting out her answer though as she hasn't ever seen Alex before and it's not every day that a new magical girl comes around. There even have been some cases of mimics disguising themselves as such. So her caution was somewhat justifiable.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Seeing the girl coming to, Alex was glad. She didn't know what she would do otherwise. However, her relief was short-lived as she was suddenly threatened with a fireball. "I'm Alex! I defeated the Cerberus. I'm sorry I couldn't help you earlier!" She responded, hoping Mary wouldn't be upset with her for her part in making things worse before she managed to help. "I-I don't really know what's going on. But suddenly I heard a voice telling me I had potential and could help, next thing I know, I'm a Magical Girl, so I tried to help." Alex began nervously explaining, respectfully avoiding looking at Mary as she did. I managed to blind it, and then cripple it before killing it. It turned into black dust, evaporating right in front of me." Alex explained, hoping her explanation was satisfactory enough for Mary.

[Tes]

Slowly Marys fireball shrunk as Alex explained herself but lit up again with even more ferocity as the puzzlepieces began falling into place. "Wait. Are you that moron that threw his phone?!" she asks riled up by anger, her long her beginning to rise by from the air currents around her. She supresses it though, knowing Alex must have fought hard to beat that thing and stop it from doing more to her. "Arghh!" she huffs, clamping her hand shut with the fire disappearing instantly. "Do you even know what you have gotton yourself into?" She sighes covering her face with her palm.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

"I'm sorry!" Alex squeaked as Mary correctly deduced her blunder, hanging her head in shame. "I just wanted to help. And then, I got a chance, I was panicking too much after messing up to really consider. I had to help." Alex explained sadly, figuring she must have messed up somehow if Mary was asking if she even knew what she had gotten herself into. "I don't really know what it entails being a Magical Girl besides fighting monsters, but I want to help, and since I'm here, I might as well do just that, can't I?" Alex offered, hoping that perhaps Mary would accept her, and maybe help her train, and so she could share some of her observations and ideas. Like the communicator one! In the back of her mind, she kept her freakout back for a little longer, not willing to lose it in front of one of her Idols.

[Tes]

Getting a bit annoyed by her rambling Mary sighs and says "Just stop for a second will ya? Come here." already walking towards her instead and placing her palm on Alex collar, scrunching her eyes. As close as she was now there wasn't really much Alex could do to not look at her. She isn't quite sure what she was doing but her scrunching eyes tighten and after a few seconds she steps away again with another bigger sigh. "Look. About that potential of yours...I'm sorry to break it to you, but you have the weakest magical affinity I've ever seen. You sure are a Magical Girl now, there's no doubt about that, but I assure you it would be in your best interests to just try living a normal life." she tells Alex without mincing words. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get on my way." she continues and turns away, flying towards the tunnels with her signiture propulsion technique, a jet engine like flame shooting from each of her extremities.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Alex stopped rambling as Mary told her to. She still wanted to help, and get some help of her own, so working with Mary was her priority, especially because she didn't know what to do otherwise. She stood perfectly still as Mary walked up to her to do... whatever she did. Alex felt awkward as she couldn't avoid looking away with her body locked up as it was. Seeing as how Mary was so close to her, while naked, she couldn't prevent blushing slightly, while feeling something fluttering in her stomach. As Marys stepped away, Alex let out a small breath she had been holding, although hearing what Mary said next killed the fluttering she had felt. Blinking in surprise as Mary suddenly left, Alex called out in confusion and desperation. "Hey! Wait, at least tell me how to transform back!" She demanded to know, only to stare hopelessly at the spot where she last saw Mary after she left.

For a while, she simply stood there, wondering what the fuck she should be doing. However, eventually, she broke out of her stunned disbelief and felt anger bloom in her chest. Give up? Why the fuck would she do that? She had defeated a Cerberus, pretty much independently, with no training. A monster that had given Mary herself trouble to boot, and she was told to give up because she had little magic? Well, Mary clearly had enough magic to spare for a flight home, yet hadn't been able to beat the stupid Cerberus. Alex on the other hand had done so with less magic, energy, whatever! Well, you know what? Just because Mary didn't see her potential, didn't mean she didn't have any. She didn't need to have a great affinity for magic, she was still a Magical girl. There were plenty of other areas in which to excel. Just because she had a weakness, didn't mean she couldn't make up for it!

Feeling her spite grow, Alex let it consume her, as her hero worship for Mary was fed to the pyre in order to feed the flame that was her determination. Plans on how to figure her powers out, train them, and become a better Magical Girl than Mary herself were already taking form in her head. With a huff of annoyance at Mary in her thoughts, Alex grabbed her phone, inspecting the damage, before walking home, trying to feel her remaining magical reserves, familiarizing herself with them and experimenting with pushing the energy around her body if she could. Low potential? Didn't mean she didn't have any, and if she wanted to mitigate that weakness, she'd have to push her magical abilities to their limits so they wouldn't drag her down. Besides that, she planned to figure out how to push the most out of all other abilities she possessed, known and unknown alike. In her head, she made a list of what she knew. Strength and durability were the most obvious. She suspected there might be some mental elements as well, but she'd have to experiment with that. Her analysis of the Cerberus had been fairly accurate, and it had served her well. She'd need to look into biology in order to prepare for future fights. She knew almost jack shit about how insects worked, so it would be best to look into different kinds of animals just for future reference. She couldn't allow herself to be careless after all.

[Tes]

Looking for her phone Alex finds it had opened up on impact as one of the corners took the brunt of the impact that cracked the screen in a web eminating from that point. The back had falled off and the battery diconnected, which would explain why the sound had stopped immedially even if she got lucky and nothing else broke.

Compared to the amount she vaguely remembered feeling right after she had been tranformed, the magical energy she felt spread across her body was quite weak. Still though she could begin to grasp moving it around, shaping and focusing it at different points, sensing some effects like feeling lighter when putting more in her legs and seeing further when she focused on her eyes. She also noticed that there was a small influx of this energy right under her sternum where Mary had put her hand that slowly supplied her with additional energy. She would have to experient with releasing the magic in different forms and areas on her body another time though as she had little left. Some strangers took a double take on her way home, but must have figured her outfit was a costume or simply her style like the others that just walked past her without batting an eye. But some men also looked at her in a different way, ogling fondly.

While she concentrated so much on the magic inside her body and moving it around she also became more aware of her new physical form, how her chest moved with each step and how her panties felt against her damp mound. That wasn't making it any easier to focus to say the least. Luckily she had come to this scene specifically for the fact that it was close to her home and in short time she had made it back safely but still had no clue if and how she would be able to turn back to her original body.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Arriving safely at home, Alex lets out a relieved sigh, before throwing herself on her bed, only to swear and flip over onto her back while glaring at the two mounds that now prevented her from comfortably throwing herself face down onto the bed. This day just kept on giving. Her experimentation had at least granted her some small amount of insight. She could feel the magical energy within herself enough to tell where it seemed to generate, her magical core? Well, she had a small idea as to how she might end her transformation, but it was a gamble, and there might be disastrous results if she was wrong, so Alex shelved the idea for the time being. Instead, she decided to deal with the more immediate issue... her damp panties. Sighing, Alex got up and went into the bathroom. With slight apprehension, she got undressed and put her panties, along with the rest of the Magical Girl outfit and the rest of her dirty laundry in the wash. She was so glad her parents had insisted on teaching her how to handle all kinds of laundry, even if they had been shit teachers, she had learned, eventually.

While the wash started going, Alex took a shower, a long, cold shower that gave her time to inspect her transformed body. She hadn't looked in the mirror, blushing at the mere thought as she felt self-conscious and confused, being a man in a woman's body. Trying not to think about it too much, Alex attempted to shower, only to find the touch of her hands on her own skin to give her goosebumps, and her new... areas, to be far too sensitive for their own good.

"Pathetic, it hasn't even been one day, and I already can't help but touch myself. Guess I'm still a guy at heart, no matter my body." Alex thinks, self-deprecatingly, unable to stop herself from letting her finger explore until she's moaning and feeling the pressure building from within herself. She can't help but enjoy it, despite knowing she'll feel guilty about it later. Although, the fact that it is her own body, and not another girl does help abate the guilt. Masturbation was normal, healthy even. Alex just wished she had more self-control so she could pridefully say that she wasn't someone that gave in to her monkey-brain lust that easily.

In the clarity of post-climax ecstasy, Alex does indeed feel regret and shame, which she decides to deal with by brushing her new, long hair out before drying it, already considering cutting it, just because of how long it takes. Looking over at the Magical Girl clothes she had worn, she frowns as she considers what to wear now, since all her female clothes are in the wash, and she doubts she'd be comfortable in a lot of her regular clothes. Sighing, she wished that she had something to wear, only to yelp in surprise as her Magical Girl outfit materialized around her, perfectly clean. Blinking in surprise, Alex was amazed. "Huh, that's convenient." She thought to herself, before feeling slightly better that she could have at least something going her way this day, as she walked back into her room, ready to sleep the rest of the day away, hoping for the next one to be better.

[Tes]

Her low magical reserves seemed to translate well into exhaustion, letting Alex sleep in quite easily. She dreams of her future, how she was going to show Mary what she was capable of, imagining herself in all the heroic memories she had of the magical girls. As they went on the face of that creature appeared again though and her dreams shifted towards the visions she had right before it tranformed her, seeing herself in them now too.

Finally she shook awake, sweaty and panting lightly in the early hours of the next day. Alex quickly recognised that her magic reserved had filled back up which would allow her to do more experiments. But along with that it also became obvious that she hadn't turned back to her former self, still trapped in this new body that she had started to explore in multiple ways the day before and that seemed to be much easier to arouse. Or was it simply her formerly male brain focusing on it? Still, there were many much more important questions left to be answered and now that she wasn't in as much of a shock as yesterday she could try and figure them out one by one.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Slightly disappointed at the fact that she hadn't transformed back while unconscious, Alex let out a heavy sigh after waking up and began deciding on what to do the rest of the day. She was already set on being a Magical Girl, but she'd have to deal with a lot of stuff before going out there and kicking ass. Taking care of her body was perhaps the first thing on her agenda. With a frown, Alex got up and showered like the night before, only without being distracted by her new body this time, and then sat down behind her PC to familiarize herself properly with everything she needed to know about the female body. Naturally, she had been curious about it previously, but as a boy, she had avoided actively researching female anatomy in-depth, hoping to avoid being seen as a creep for it, if only by himself at the time. Now having an actual need to know the information, however, it was far more important to rid herself of any pesky misunderstandings or misconceptions she might hold and not even be aware of. As much as she'd like to avoid thinking about it, she'd rather know how to deal with a period if she happened to have to deal with one before figuring out how to undo the transformation.

Following the rather soul-draining amount of research, and a few freakouts later, Alex finally remembered to eat some breakfast, and then sat down in an attempt to get a hang of her abilities once more. Much like the day before, she practiced simply moving magical energy around her body, trying to get comfortable with it, used to it, and master it, without really using any of it up for anything significant. She wanted to to make her awareness of magic be something like second nature if she was going to be using it for the rest of her life, transformed or not. Following what she'd attribute to magical/mental training, Alex decided that looking up how to properly meditate might be a good idea, before moving on to physical training. She knew her body had already been granted a significant boost in strength and durability, but she didn't know by how much, and if she could make herself even stronger. With that in mind, she set a stopwatch, googled a simple, full-body training regime she could perform in her apartment and began going through it, repeating it over and over, circling through all muscle groups until she felt too sore or too tired to keep going, giving herself a baseline. She knew it would be hell, but if she wanted to survive, this was necessary, and so, even while her body complained, she kept going until she simply couldn't. Hopefully, it would get easier over time.

[Tes]

Not having had much insight before Alex stumbles upon some querky feutures of her new body which she hadn't though about as a male. From any point of view the period seemed like it would suck while also being a messy affair, descriptions of clots and other discharges less than appealing to say the least. She also found out that regular soap was a no no for cleaning her insides as they needed a specific ph level to stay healthy, so no deep cleaning unless she does it with water or a specific kind of soap. And while there were guys that wiped back to front that was definitly not a good idea for any female.

All in all it seemed like a hassle. The rest of her reasearch was much more promising in comparison though. Training her control over the magic flowing inside her body she gained a much higher sense of precision to feel and distribute it where she wanted it. She also became aware of some distant sources of it, which felt much more menacing than her own.

When she started to meditate afterwards she first felt nothing much, but after a few minutes she started to become more and more aware of the link between herself and the source of magic in her chest, how it seemed to pulse and release energy in time with her pulse and breathing. Concentrating more on it she felt her conciousnes slip as if she was being drawn into it and a moment leter she felt like she was. A similar all encompassing view stretched her field of vision like at that time she met the creature, but this time it was calm, a pure darkness around her except for three glowing orbs with a hazy layer of particles around them. One was yellow with the particles constantly changing it's shape around it, random spikes shooting out and disappearing on it's surface in ungulating pattern, the other green, calm and gently pulsing while the last one glowed in a soft mix of blue and white spinning quite rapidly with the particles forming spiraling patterns around it.

Then another glow caught her eyes. And looking down to it she found a big glowing red crystal in her hand, a similar feel to the distant sources she felt but way more concentrated and up close. It became hotter to the touch each second and it looked like the particles from each orb started to reach out for it, slowly extending towards her as her ears began to ring.

Suddenly she was back in her apartment, the orbs and the crystal gone. What they had meant remained to be determined, but for now she went on to her physical training. She found the routine she got recommended as advanced to be quite easy and went over the speed of the instructor in the video without a problem the first time around. Only on the third iteration back to back did she really start to sweat, her speed on par with the instructor and only after eight did she feel her muscles give out from under her. At fifteen minutes each that left her with two hours on the stopwatch of pretty much nonstop physical exertion bar the short breaks between the different exercises. Not bad for a baseline.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Orbs:
-Strength: lvl1
-Constitution: lvl1
-Dexterity: lvl1

Points to spend: 1

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Alex couldn't help but smile as she felt a notable difference in improvement. "No potential my ass!" Alex thought to herself, thinking at least something was going her way in the entire messed-up situation. The fact that she could feel some kind of outside source was even more of a breakthrough. Being able to feel other sources of magic implied sensing abilities, which no matter how poor, was another advantage that could help her immensely in figuring her abilities out. If Alex was, to be honest, she hadn't expected anything significant to come from her meditation, at least not for a while after she really got a hang of it. The fact that she experienced some kind of vision was a very encouraging sign that she was going in the right direction, even if she had little to no idea as to what the vision could possibly mean. Perhaps dream interpretation or something could help her figure it out? She decided to leave the interpretation of the vision for later, after gathering more data, but with so many successes she felt very optimistic concerning her workout. Once more, she surprised herself with how much more she achieved than she had expected. Noting down the baseline of her abilities, she began thinking about how she should deal with her situation.

While Flare might have snubbed her, it was very possible she might still get some guidance from another Magical Girl, provided she could get in contact with one. If not possible to do through the internet, she'd have to hunt one down in person, most probably in the middle of a fight, or right after one. Something Alex was a bit concerned about. She was inexperienced and weak compared to Flare, even if she had proven herself more intelligent. If she ran into another, stronger monster, in less favorable conditions, she'd be dead meat. This is why she was set on training and practicing before heading out for any kind of monster battling. The question was, how much training would she need, and how long would it take? Either way, Alex had realized that her primary advantage was her out fo the box thinking. She had succeeded where Flare failed, and so she should continue the way she had. Thinking out of the box the first thing Alex did, considered what the fallacies of being a Magical Girl could be. Well, that answer seemed obvious enough. Magic.

Magic was the fuel of all the abilities of Magical Girls, relying solely on magic was stupid. No doubt there would be areas, monsters, or situations that completely negated, or at least suppressed magic. A Magical Girl should be prepared to deal with such issues. Alex wasn't certain if her supernatural durability or strength would weaken in such circumstances, but getting some kind of protective armor and a weapon did seem like a good idea regardless. Support tools in general seemed to be something she should consider. Communication, either to contacting the police or other Magical Girls in the future should also be something to think about, why limit herself? Smiling, Alex once again took to the internet to find inspiration by researching heroes of different kinds. Both real and fictional ones to see if there were any good ideas to keep in mind. After all, what were Magical Girls, if not heroes?

[Tes]

Researching the tools the magical girls used Alex found very limited information. In fact despite the plethora of sites dedicated to humanities only real heroes of which Alex used to frequent the most, now that she needed details about how they exactly functioned almost all of them came empty handed or worse contradicted each other or even worse yet themselves.

She learned a few things though. Most if not all of the girls that use items had also been seen conjuring them similarly to the way Alex did with her clothes. There also weren't any clues pointing towards a place making those, so in that regard she would only be able to think about acquiring the usual commercially available self defense tools. There was actually a big market for the normal every day citizen that feared the next attack in their neighborhood. There were vests, taserguns, sprays...most of it quite pricy...

If Alex wanted to be able to communicate she could probably get a strong case for her phone and wireless earbuds, anything over radio would require the person on the other end to tune into her frequency or her going onto theirs. In case of the police frequencies that wasn't exactly a simple thing and currently there weren't any people to sit on the other end of her own frequency.

From her own fanboy days Alex knew that magical girls kept there whereabouts hidden as even with their abilities they weren't invincable and who knew what that information would do in the wrong hands. As such their presence on the social media platforms was also frankly non existent as there had been more than one case where one of them got hacked, which again made them vulnerable to the wrong kind of people.

Looking into fiction instead Alex found great entertainment, but sadly little substantative help. One thing she noticed was that many of them had a person behind the sceens though, that often time knew their way around computers, which would enable her to have someone on the other end for her communications if not the police directly. The only questions would be who she could trust to know about all this?

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Alex felt her mood grow worse and worse as the internet proved less than helpful concerning support items. The best she got out of it was further ideas on how to experiment with her powers. She would have to see if she could conjure tools, or alter her current outfit at will. If not, she'd at least invest in getting herself some pepper spray. Getting herself a police radio seemed like a promising idea, it might help her find and get to monsters faster. Although, knowing that it wasn't strictly legal to do, she was a bit conflicted for a short while, until she decided that it was a necessary evil in the face of helping others, and avoiding getting in over her head. Looking into getting herself hands-free options for her phone, as well as a better case, she purchased them to be delivered to a PO box she already had set up.

The idea to find herself some kind of partner to help her out, had her consider some of her older friends. She wasn't all too social, but she had made some rather good friends she thought might be willing to help her out if she had a just cause and found herself in actual danger. Looking through her old contacts, she considered who might be willing to help her, not just with technical stuff either, but in general. She knew that it was important to have a good support group if you were going to be doing something dangerous, potentially scarring. She didn't want to isolate herself and end up hurting herself because of a mental breakdown or something.

[Tes]

Placing her orders in the end was easy compared to her considering all the available paths beforehand, a whole lot of unknowns making it tough to make the right call. But at least she got some things she was sure to help her in the future, the tracking widget showing they'd arrive over the next one to three days. In the meantime she needed to think about what else she could do right now that could help her, bringing her back to the current situation, left alone with her new state of being by Mary.

Swiping through her contacts further and further down weighing her options one of the profiles stands out to Alex. It was her past friend Lucas who she knew had landed a job as a software developer in recent years after spending most of his youth in front of his computer, not really interested in mostif any social interactions.

And it showed as his abrasive personality had driven them apart more and more over time as he never minced his words, bordering on insulting. But she also knew that he could keep a secret and had the intellect to help her behind the scenes and to make the most reasonable decicions going forward. The question was just how he'd react to hear from her after they haven't had contact for two and a half years by now.

[Fantasy Fanatic]

Alex considered Lucas for a while before sighing to herself. She didn't want to, but she didn't have much of an option at this point. With a heavy heart, she sent him a mail, explaining that she had ended up involved in a situation concerning Magical Girls, and now needed help. She was honest and transparent as she explained why she had come to him for help. While they weren't friends and hadn't stayed in contact, she still trusted him and considered him dependable. She decided to wait for his response before revealing exactly what she needed help with, or just what had happened. After all, who knew what might happen or who might end up seeing the mail as she sent it unprompted?

Having sent the mail, Alex laid back on her bed, waiting for a reply, while contemplating her situation further, imagining how Lucas might decide to respond and how she would respond in kind.