NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 – Rainbow (K)night
As Mom was busy saving lives by treating people and giving them notes on how to get their medical bills covered even without insurance, I had to walk home from school. And as per usual, I was accompanied by Emily. The school day had proved to be as boring and uneventful as usual after the morning encounter with Horton. I hadn’t regained my voice for the whole day, however, all because I was scared people would find out about Potato Bun.
Emily and I reached the front door of my home without difficulty, and got out our homework to do it together. Or at least we fully intended to, when I recognised this as the perfect opportunity to prove what I’d told Emily earlier. So I lifted both Potato Bun and the wand out of my pack and put them down on the coffee table. Emily raised her eyebrows in surprise at the wand. “Interesting color scheme,” she said, picking it up to look it over. “Doesn’t feel like plastic, but that still doesn’t mean it can’t just be a prop. And the critter looks like a plushie.” She poked Potato Bun, who simply fell on her side, pretending very hard that she wasn’t alive. I got off the couch, grabbed her by the head, and got into a pitching stance.
“Please don’t you start too, I endure enough headaches from your mother’s actions!” Potato Bun cried out, and desperately tried to wriggle herself out of my grasp, so I set her back down on the table. Emily poked her again.
“Did you get a wish granted for becoming a magical girl?” she asked, and I shook my head no. “Are we talking Sailor Moon Magical Girls here or Madoka? Are you gonna turn into a witch if you get too depressed to keep the universe running?”
I shrugged, and looked at Potato Bun, who shuffled her feet. “There really isn’t a deal with Magical Girls? Those possessing a Spark are granted a guide and a transformation item, and told to fight Nightmares.”
“So why should Dave fight? Even our military promises to cover your college tuition if you sign your life away, what does he get out of it?” Emily rested her cheek against my wand, with an eyebrow raised, waiting for Potato Bun to answer.
“That’s, well, because… Because those with a Spark have a strong moral compass! And they can’t help but fight!” Emily hummed at Potato Bun’s answer.
“Charming mascot. What was it about your mom giving them headaches?” Emily turned to me, the wand now sitting in her lap.
“M-mom keeps throwing her around like, like a ragdoll,” I stuttered, my voice back thanks to the combined feeling of safety from being at home with Emily next to me.
“I can see the appeal of that. Magical Girls need to either be fighting largely harmless opponents, or have a deal with the devil situation when fighting horrors. You can’t be fighting horrors without a deal with the devil.” Emily stretched. “Your mom should channel her inner Karen and demand to speak with the mascot’s boss.” She then held the wand in front of me. “I’m honestly curious about your transformation.”
I scratched the back of my head and looked away. “I don’t… I don’t want to transform. When I, when I did it felt weird.”
Emily tilted her head to the side. “Weird how?”
“W-well, it, it makes me physically a girl, right? And, and I’m s-supposed to be a boy, so that, that should have given me dysphoria, right? I-I-I read about it,” I admitted. The really, really well written transformation stories I had read addressed it. The feeling of discomfort because your body doesn’t match you, because the way you’re seen is wrong, because what you see in the mirror is not what you’re supposed to be seeing.
“But it didn’t.” I nodded to answer Emily. She made the universal sign for ‘want a hug?’ and I leaned so that I would fall onto her for said hug. “You should come along to the queer meet-ups sometimes.”
“Would-wouldn’t I be in-intruding?” I looked up into her eyes, and she gave me a shrug and a smile.
“Not as much as you think you would, by the looks of things. We should start getting through homework now, though.” I nodded at her suggestion, got out of her embrace, and we began getting through math.
Mom’s face when she got home was a mask of pain and frustration. She at least managed to give me a quick smile, and Emily a “Hey, Emily,” before her feet took her on a journey to the fridge to grab a can of iced coffee, followed by her sitting down on the couch next to us and grabbing Potato Bun by the head, using her like a stress ball while taking a sip of the coffee.
“Hey, Doctor Cloudton,” Emily replied at last, earning a chuckle from my mom.
“Emily, I told you to call me Pamela, you’re basically family at this point.” Potato Bun kept trying to wriggle out of Mom’s grasp, but she just kept squeezing.
“It still feels weird, Doctor. Tough day at the clinic?” Emily asked, earning a very long sigh from my mom.
“Yeah. Antivaxxer. Didn’t even have an angle of approach against her. She didn’t want an autistic kid, didn’t believe vaccines worked, thought the preserving chemicals were as poisonous as lead.” Mom took a sip and threw Potato Bun at the wall. “Oh right, you’re not rubber, you won’t bounce back… I’ll put a trampoline there.” She finished her coffee in a final long gulp. “I couldn’t even do a conspiracy theory angle. You know, shoot down ‘The moon landing was faked’ with ‘You think the moon exists?’, but with vaccines, going ‘Anti-vax rhetoric is Russian propaganda to weaken the populace’. Never mind the misogyny on display. Made me consider getting a binder and a fake beard.”
“I’d kidnap the kid, call child protective services on her for endangerment of child,” Emily offered, to which Mom just chuckled sadly.
“If only that’d work. Anyways, Emily, you want to stay over for dinner?” Mom said, earning a headshake from Emily.
“Nah, Mom’s trying to learn to cook something more complicated than box mac or microwave pizza rolls, so we all want to be supportive. I should get going by now anyways.” Emily got up, gave me a quick hug, and went to the door. “See you at school, Dave!”
“S-see you later!” I called out as she left, which left only myself, Mom and Potato Bun in the room.
“How’d Emily take you being a Magical Girl? It’s obvious you told her,” Mom asked, and I nodded, fidgeting with my hands.
“She, she said the color sch-scheme of the wand was, was interesting. A-and she questioned Potato Bun about what I, I’d get out of fighting.”
“True, military recruiters usually go for the poor kids or those about to flunk out due to a poor GPA. Speaking of, Potato Bun?” Mom turned to where Potato Bun had landed. Bun perked up when her name was called. “I’m going with David on patrol tonight. I need to see what the other Magical Girls deal with.”
Potato Bun was beaming at the announcement, grinning ear to ear. “Yes yes yes! My assigned girl will finally do her duties!”
“Who said anything about duties, Bun?” Mom interjected, an arm around me protectively. “David’s only going to watch.”
“I-I don’t… I don’t want to fight. And, and I don’t know how, how transforming again w-would affect me.” I looked down and grabbed the hem of my shirt. “L-last time, I was in-in shock over the transformation. Now, now I’d-I’d have clarity while trans-transformed.” I pulled my knees up and retreated into myself as much as I could. “I’m, I’m sca-scared how I’d feel. That someone would know… that, that it was me. And and and about what they’d do a-after.” Mom began rocking me back and forth while glaring at Potato Bun.
“And you wanted this kind and amazing anxious mess to be a child soldier. Shame on you.”
The car ride was mostly quiet. Mom would occasionally ask for directions from Potato Bun, but other than that there was silence. The atmosphere of suspense was as thick as jelly. We were all on the lookout for the other magical girls when Mom suddenly stopped the car.
On the road in front of us lay a figure. The impact marks around it made it clear it had fallen. The figure was like a dark swirling mist wearing army fatigues, shaping it into a vaguely humanoid shape. I could see its face was taken up by a single huge eye, bloodshot and darting around, and its hands were bigger than a person’s should be, at least the size of dinner plates. It began getting up, but before it could rise another figure fell in front of us, driving their polearm into the ground. The mist figure had rolled off, avoiding the impact of the stab, and got up while the knight before us got their weapon out of the ground.
I wasn’t sure what to categorise the weapon as. It was as tall as its wielder, the materials looked distinctly modern, and the metal part up top was a double-edged blade that was long enough to be used as a shortsword were the handle to break. That wasn’t the most striking thing about the knight, though. That would have been the armor they wore. Half-plate, with pauldrons, greaves, gauntlets and hip plates, the leather armor underneath resembling reptile skin, reptile skin that had large scales. Their metal armor shone with all the colors of the rainbow depending on how the light hit it, and their shoulder was adorned with a rainbow flag.
They did break the illusion of grace and composure when they did a double take behind themself and noticed the car me and Mom were in. The ‘Fuck’ they yelled out was heard loud and clear, even with the car windows closed.
They then appeared to notice Potato Bun, and sighed, rubbing their face in frustration. The mist creature had been very polite to give them enough time to do all that, but after the sigh it clearly decided enough time was wasted, and it lunged forward, with me as its intended target.
