The Dean admitted she was struggling to get Soda authorized on the campus with the Resident Advisor... on the other hand, little girls drinking and smoking was a Bad Idea and she REALLY hoped she didn't have to break out the power-point presentation to explain why!
But this was a winter vacation for her and her fellow staff as well. And the group had gone through a dimensional portal provided to visit Santa's workshop (and getting their Christmas present directly). And also a stop over of the planet of the brightly colored miniature unicorns. And the Dean even got to ride some of the unicorns over the rainbow. There were some benefits on being turned into a immortal little girl with magic powers.
"One semester down, five to go to turn theses collage boys into proper cutie magical girls who believe in justice and love. Hopefully they don't hate me too much for making Japanese a mandatory class this semester. At least I got the Resident Advisors not to zap students over every glass of spilled milk. Too bad deserting is still a zappable offense." Sadly, there was no room for draft dodgers here.
"Okay girls, let's get you all checked up," said Celeste, their collage nurses who was literally an angel-of-mercy magical girl.
"YAY!" Cheered the three new seven year old, one was an asian girl with fox ears and tail, wearing a kimono with a blue flame lantern that followed her wherever she went.
Angelic magical girls were as rare as they came, insanely powerful, and CONTRARY to urban legend, where NOT pathological stickers for the rules who wanted to 'purge' everything they laid their eyes on.
'Five semesters left, I just hope it's enough!' Though the Dean.
-
"Hey Mikey," said Miki leaning over a chair, sitting in what looked like a cross between a princess' bedroom and the quarters of a brave knight.
"Hey Miki," Mike said, he didn't need to ask if they were dreaming again. Their meeting spot had stopped being black void a couple months again, starting out grim and spartan, but slowly becoming more lady like.
"You know why they're doing it this way right? The Resident Advisors I mean. They could just as easily make our sexuality be consistent through the character instead of changing from heterosexual to homosexual."
"But it IS the same!"
"We're a special case from what I can see. We're in flux. But I've been paying attention to other people, not just on how this has been affecting us Mike. Have you notice how many guys who were homosexuals BEFORE their change are STILL homosexuals in spite of having their genders flipped?"
Mike startled, he hadn't noticed that, he'd done his best to 'play nice' with the staff so he didn't end up getting 'fixed' the hard and fast way.
"So, it's like the Sacred Band of Thebes."
"Happy to see you paid attention in history! Boys are a distraction. But falling for a fellow magical girl? You'll fight even harder."
"But... I've SEEN Juri from psychology class... I saw her sneaking in play girl magazines, and I KNOW Jeremy was as straight as a rod."
Miki crossed her arms looking down thoughtfully, leaning forward on the back of the antique looking wooden chair. "And so is Juri. I'm guessing that it's not something they're being super strict on. On the bring side, it means you and Sammie shouldn't have trouble."
"Hey we're just friends!"
"Don't play dumb. You're me remember? We were relieved when we found out Sammie swung both ways."
"Okay fine, but why did you want to tell me all this?"
"Because I'm YOU remember? Except I'm not scared of my own feelings! I don't want Sammie to lose the person she loves! ... You know she's going to apply next year right?"
"... I was hoping I was wrong."
"Me too. But she wants to be closes to us. To help us. And signing up is going to be the best way to do it. And becoming a magical girl for the sake of the person you love? She'll SAIL through the selection process."
"She thinks you're trying to kill me."
"You're me! That would be suicide! If you get zapped, I get zapped! We'll both be wiped clean!"
"So why haven't I 'absorbed' you yet?"
"... Because you won't accept me, and so you won't accept yourself. I didn't ask to be a magical girl anymore than you did. I didn't ask for my choices to be taken away from me... But here we are. Responsibility isn't always asked for. We'll protect Sammie, her friends, her family, everyone. And you can't deny that IS something we want."
Mike could only nod at this, "Maybe it is."
---
Two surprisingly things happened over winter break besides the students getting a spurt in their transformations (being exposed to the love and friendship of their kin and kith speeding up the magic, and knowing who they'd be fighting for as magical girls).
Rosa had touched Zach's blue bass again the next morning... and it glowed white, shrank down, and become a little pink bass covered in stickers!
Rosa had held it in conclusion, and gave it a few strings, and VISIBLE MUSICAL NOTES floated out from it. Rosa laughed, and did a bass rendition of 'twinkle twinkle littles star.'
Her family flapped at their little musician. Her path as a magical girl became crystal clear in her mind.
-
Marinie had spent the Christmas season practically worshipping the ground Calce walked on. Celce was gonna be a magical girl, just like in all the cartoons! Little Marinie's destiny was set in stone as soon as she had laid eyes upon a real life magical girl. Even if she wouldn't remember the encounter itself in later years of life, she'd remember that big sister Calce had always been her role model (even still referring her to big sister even after her age was frozen at ten years old, and would be biologically three years Calce's senior).
But this isn't time for that story.
Calce's family, like all the families of the Stonewood students, were surprisingly accepting of their son coming home as a seven year old girl with magic powers. Then again, they'd already accepted their son might end up a bunny girl at some bar, a statue in an art gallery, or any other number of transformation fodder for the exceptionally powerful.
Being turned into a bunny girl or statue could never be considered murder since the person wasn't legally dead, and it couldn't be considered slavery since the bunny girls' new self was happy being a witless cocktail waitress. On the bright side, race and religion were non-factors on who ended up TF-fodder, it was down to who could change or be changed.
So all in all, Calce's new existence was more than they'd been actually hoping for!
But even this wasn't the major thing.
They'd stopped at Bear Burgers... run by a mix of human employees and life size teddy bears. The teddies spoke in the same voice, the same body language, the same vocabulary, and had no need for breaks or pay. The human employees seemed to always be on edge.
Lucy had ordered their food (including the special meal for with the toy for Celce). Celce saw all the happy designs, everything carefully made to appeal to the customers as much ass possible right down to the pattern on the plastic seats.
But Celce felt something off, something... WRONG about this place! Something wasn't right about it. And the giant teddies LOOKED cute, it wasn't some failure on the designers part that had left the teddies in the uncanny valley, it was something she FELT!
Celce told a slight fib in that she needed to go the bathroom (which was true, but also wasn't why she wanted to go).
Celce followed her instincts, something in her telling her where the wrongness was centered... and she went into the 'Employees Only' sign... she felt very bad about breaking the rules, she hoped that she didn't get in big trouble for this.
She saw a pockmarked skinny young man in the store's uniform. Towering over him was an obese man with big muscles on his arms.
"Please! I couldn't understand the man's accent! I didn't mean to get his order wrong! I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I promise!"
"This much is true..." Grinned the big man, the manager?, in a predatorily way. "But you know what your contract said."
"You said it was just standard stuff I didn't need to read!"
"And you believed me."
The manager grabbed the skinny youth, and in a flash, his skin became faux fur and cloth, his inside became stuff. His eyes became glass beads, his body bulged and morphed, into one of the endless identical teddy bears... the manager pulled out a glowing red heart shaped gem out of the bear's body, and it went stiff and lifeless.
"Now, let's just erase your name, your past, anything really except how to be a good worker really, oh I can feel you're scared, don't be, you won't feel anything in a -"
Then it happened. Celce became the first.
Calce transformed.
In a flash her clothes became a mass of sparkles, she was in a swirling pocket reality of green leaves of various kinds and shades, and a giant drop fell from one above her, and struck her, and her clothes reformed into a frilly light green dress with trim that matched her hair color, with silk frills on the back that resembled transparent fairy wind.
In her little gloved hands appeared a gold and emerald staff that was a cross between a wand and a scepter that she twirled around and managed to avoid tripping herself over with.
"HALT VILLAIN! Bounty Celce is here to stop you!" She shouted, striking a pose, that was supposed to be dramatic, but looked adorable instead.
"What this? A kid in a costume? Don't you know there's punishment for customers trespassing?" He took a step forward.
The entire restaurant shook. The teddies stopped what they were doing. Lucy quickly went looking for Celce, looked everywhere, and heard her voice behind the forbidden door, and her love for her family overrode her fear and looked in.
"Oh thank you!" Said the teddy in the room with a name tag saying his name was Jimmy. Using body language and tones that were different from the rest. "You saved me!"
Lucy saw Celce in her magical girl costume, next to an ugly looking tree that was stuck in the ground in the shape of a man.
"Anything in the fight against evil!" Celce said with a smile, but Lucy could tell she was shaking inside.
"CELCE!"
"Lucy!" Celce looked embarrassed, and hide her wand comically behind her back.
"What did you do?"
"She saved my life," said the teddy bear. "I'd have been just another zombie if not for her... "
"I'm not done," Celce whispered. She quickly went to the other human sized teddies, and began to bop them on the noses with her wand, to the confusion of the customers. The teddies blinked, and began to move like individuals.
The teddies found some red ribbons to wear as bowties or bow to establish which of them had been boys and which ones had been girls.
"You..." Lucy was confused. "You're a person?"
"You bet!" Jimmy said in his own voice, but more cutie than before.
Jimmy would admit later that the teddies were still driven by their purposes to be restaurant servers... but Bear Burgers suddenly had an entire group of Teddies demanding workman's comp, breaks, and being PAID.
Celce had done what was thought to be impossible, she'd restored people who had been reduced to non-human objects. Jimmy's coworkers described her time with their selves wiped away, not as happily working with their fellow bears in a zen-like bliss, but empty vessels following instructions.
"Lucy..." Celce asked finally letting herself show fear. "Are you mad at me?"
Lucy hugged her.
The Dean got the phone call.
"Assign Celce a bodyguard AT ONCE! Tell the teddies we're willing to offer them protection if they want it! ... and make Celce a giant ice cream sundae in honor of being the first to transform."