Silver Light Chapter 2 (Patreon)

“I mean, being a girl isn’t that bad,” my friend, whose name I still could not remember huffed.

“I know, I know, it’s just… look at me!” I squeaked, my voice betraying my new feminine body.

Looking down at myself as I said it, my breath was again taken away. First off, I was like five feet tall if I was lucky. My friend was suddenly more than a head taller than me, and I was definitely feeling that right about now as I glared up at her. The rest of me would have to wait for a different time, but I could tell right off the bat that my boobs were kinda large. Not comically so, but they were already getting in the way as I gesticulated wildly. That was an interesting feeling.

“Yeah, you’re adorable,” she coughed.

“Yeah you’d think that wouldn’t you,” I grumbled, remembering the only thing I really knew about her being that she was super gay.

I mean, you could tell just by looking at her. She had short blonde hair with a fringe that was always pinned to the side by a cute little moon clip. Her whole build was like some sort of elfin warrior. Tall and toned but still with the soft graceful curves of a rather good looking woman. She moved with this sort of economy of motion that spoke of years spent in training at some sort of athletic pastime. Her face was all sharp angles and flat planes, and strangely I found that to be terribly interesting. Her shining grey eyes completed the look of a chick who could break me, before or after my strange transformation.

“Are you seriously going to be homophobic now?” she asked sharply, stepping back with a thunderous expression.

“What?! No! No way! I was just… shit. I’m sorry, my foot just kinda decided to move into my mouth. The rent must be better there or something,” I protested, frantically shaking my hands back and forth trying to calm her.

She tried to keep a straight face, but she failed pretty quickly, devolving into a snorting laugh that made her wheezing words sound really funny, “Oh my god. The others always said you were your own worst enemy, but I thought they were kidding.”

“I know alright geez, no need to rub it in!” I sighed, “I’m like a repeating gif of two toddlers running into each other.”

My joke landed home and she started coughing through her laughter as she held her stomach. I started to move forward to try and fix things before she coughed up something important, only to trip on my oversized pants and fall flat on the concrete. I managed to shield myself at the last minute with my arms, earning some scrapes but otherwise protecting my new face. I wonder what that face looked like. Whatever her name is was howling with laughter now, she even seemed on the brink of collapsing.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at her, my cheeks red with embarrassment, “What even is your name?”

She made a waving motion to indicate she wasn’t quite ready to speak, and instead leaned on a nearby parked car for support. It took her a while, and she actually had to start doing breathing exercises to get herself back under control.

“I’m sorry,” she finally grinned, “This whole thing has been just ridiculous and then here you are still stepping in shit by accident. It’s just too funny. You’re a disaster.”

I made a grumbling noise but otherwise didn’t reply. My mouth might betray me if I spoke.

“My name is Fiona by the way,” she smiled, “... and damn those are some nice legs you’ve got there.”

“What?” I blurted, sitting up to get a look at them.

She was totally right! Wow! They were like, perfect! I twisted them this way and that just admiring them for a moment. I was totally hot, at least from the hips down. That was new. Being attractive might be something I could get used to, assuming I didn’t horribly maim myself by falling down a hole or something.

“Oh geez yeah, look at them,” I finally agreed.

“Oh I am,” she breathed.

I snapped my gaze to her and saw that indeed admiring my legs. I quickly pulled them up to my chest and made a sound of protest.

“Right! Sorry… um, we should probably find you some clothes then hey? That polo shirt only covers so much, and your underwear is hella loose,” she said, stumbling a little over her words.

“Your underwear’s hella loose,” I shot back, shuffling my butt so that it wasn’t uncovered or anything.

“Yeah no it isn’t,” she shook her head, then offered me her hand, “Come on. Up you get. We have to get clothes and then find our friends.”

“Yeah… alright. Lead the way I guess,” I sighed, taking her hand.

She pulled me to my feet and then bent down to gather my discarded pants. My shoes seemed to have come off, and she also managed to find my phone. It seemed to be miraculously intact.

“Oh shit,” Fiona whispered when she stood back up.

I looked askance at her, but she was spinning in circles looking around our surroundings. The girls from before had run away, and in fact we were the only ones standing on the street now. There weren’t even any cars on the road, and perhaps even more telling as to the severity of what had occurred, the normal hum of distant traffic as missing and I couldn’t hear any sirens either. The night was dead silent apart from the occasional raised voice in the distance.

“What?” I asked in a hush.

“The power is out. Like, I can’t see a single light on anywhere. Only your friend the moon is lighting anything right now,” she said, waving her hand at our surroundings.

Actually I am merely reflecting the Sun’s light down on you all.

“Oh shut up,” I frowned up at the moon.

“What? Why?” Fiona asked, sounding a little hurt.

“No not you, the Moon. She corrected you about how she’s only reflecting light, not emitting it,” I explained.

My new friend seemed genuinely taken aback by my words, “Wait you’re not joking? The Moon is talking to you?”

“Yeah, she's a total ditz too. Can’t stay on topic to save her life,” I said wryly.

Oh that’s just rude.

“Why has the world gone to shit?” Fiona said, sighing theatrically and shoving her hands in her pockets.

I shrugged, then remembered how she’d handed my phone back to me. Time to check and see if anyone else had seen the crazy stuff that had just happened. I pressed the power button to wake the phone, but nothing happened. Hmm, I guess it must have shut off after it fell on the ground? I really hoped it wasn’t broken. These things were expensive, and my family was running out of old phones to send me. This isn’t my first time breaking or ruining a phone.

I groaned when it wouldn’t turn on and looked up at my new friend with hopeless eyes, “I’ve broken another phone. This sucks.”

She grinned back, “Oh you do that often huh? What’s your kill count?”

“What time period are we talking? All time or just this year?” I replied in defeat. Here comes more teasing.

She blinked a few times and then rolled her eyes, “Nevermind. Let’s see how the others are doing. Come on we’ll walk while I message them. Unlike someone I can avoid obstacles pretty well.”

“Meanie,” I grumbled, but followed her lead back down the street towards our friends.

We hadn’t gotten more than ten meters before she made a sound of confusion and stopped. I looked over to see her messing with her phone and tapping it a few times on a pole.

“You’re not going to fix it by bashing it on things,” I remarked.

“It’s called percussive maintenance, look it up,” she retorted absently, then looked up and grinned, “Oh wait, you can’t.”

“Neither can you by the sounds of things,” I teased.

“No no, I got this,” she mumbled, going back to concentrating on her phone and walking.

Her “getting this” didn’t last long. She stuffed her phone in her pocket with a huff and didn’t say anything.

“Not working too?” I asked.

“Yeah it’s fucked,” she said quietly.

I frowned and turned my eyes forward. Not having shoes was killing me. I casually noticed a car sitting dead in the middle of the road, someone grunting and complaining as they burrowed around under the hood.

“That’s kinda worrying, maybe I busted them with my magic display then?” I mused.

“Maybe, but for once I don’t think it was your fault. Look around us, there’s nothing electronic working at all,” she said, gesturing to the dark streets.

“Yeah… you’re right. Damn, do you think it was like, an EMP or something?” I asked.

“Uhhhh, maybe? There was a lot of explosions in the upper atmosphere so yeah I mean possibly. Those might have been the nukes going off that would cause it,” she shrugged, “I don’t really know much about that type of thing.”

“Neither. I hope the various shitty governments of the world aren’t ending life as we know it over something dumb like a twitter argument,” I said.

Fiona laughed, “Why do I feel like that’s the most realistic scenario these days?”

“Probably because it is,” I snorted.

We walked in silence after that for a few minutes, and things started to sink in for me. I was somehow, against the laws of the universe I had known since I was born, been turned into a girl. I was having trouble keeping up with my friend’s longer strides now, both because of my shorter legs but also because my hips were far wider and everything just moved differently. It was taking me some effort to walk around all of that.

On top of the whole leg and hip problem, I had two problems on my chest. I wanted to reach up and touch them, but I’d feel weird doing that around Fiona. Not touch in a weird way though! They were just moving all over the place and my new much larger nipples were brushing against the rough fabric of my shirt. At first it had felt nice, but now they were starting to chafe and it was getting painful. Damn, this was a lot more of a problem than I’d thought. Guess I’d need a bra…?

There was one thing that made walking easier than previously though. I no longer had a dick. It was a bit eye opening how much that had gotten in the way while I had it, even from my limited experience without it.

The strangest thing about this sudden transformation was my own reaction to it. I wasn’t wailing for my lost “friend” or “manhood” or whatever you wanted to call it like the gender bender isekai stories that had been my guilty pleasure. In those stories the characters had spent like fifty pages just writing breakup poems to their lost penis and it had started to drag on a bit. Here and now though? I fully could not care less about the disappearance. I’d need to examine that later that’s for sure. I felt like there was a whole mental can of worms going on there and if I took a peek under the lid I’d end up in a bad way.

I was dragged from my thoughts when Fiona stopped me with a hand and called out to someone on the other side of the street.

“Hey! Hello?” she called.

The man was wearing a suit and looked like he was in his late thirties and was rushing along going the other way. He looked worried, and I can’t say I blamed him. He looked up when she called out, and suddenly I was following my friend as we crossed the empty street.

“Is your phone working? Sorry our’s are both broken and we can’t figure out why,” she said as we got to the other footpath.

“No it’s not. Neither is my car, or anyone else’s phones and cars. Everything’s gone,” he said angrily, then continued onwards without another word.

We watched him walk out of earshot before Fiona muttered, “Dick.”

“The guy was right though, there’s no cars or anything… maybe we should find somewhere to hide till we know what’s going on?” I asked, suddenly worried about this whole thing.

Things had been rather funny and lighthearted after the Moon started talking to me, and Fiona was nice to talk to and had a great sense of humour, but now the reality of our situation was starting to settle in. I was getting scared. I felt vulnerable in this new smaller body, and that didn’t take into account the fact that I wasn’t wearing anything.

I looked up at the Moon and asked, "Moon... what's going on down here? Why is nothing working?"

I got no reply from her, just empty silence filled with my friend’s confused stare.

"Moon?"

Hmph

"Did you just Hmph at me?" I sputtered.

Yes

"...Why?" I almost whined. I could really do with some sort of divine knowledge right about now.

Because I'm not talking to you. You were rude to me.

"I was rude to you? Okay, look, I’m sorry… but please we’d like some guidance,” I pleaded.

Okay. Because I am kind and benevolent, I will tell you that I have no idea what is going on.

Oh that really wasn’t good.

“Thank you Moon,” I sighed, then leaned against an inert nearby car and told Fiona, “She doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Well shit. That’s worrying. If the freaking Moon is stumped then there isn’t much hope for us is there?” she grimaced.

“Wait, there’s something she can tell us though!” I realised with a start, then looked up again, “Hey Moon, how much of the world is like this?”

Oh that one’s easy! All of it!

I stood there in silence for a few moments as I processed this, then turned to Fiona and gulped, “The whole world is like this.”

“Whoa… so that means there’s no help coming if things go wrong right? Oh god that’s… what about all the people who rely on all the broken tech to live? Oh no, if this continues… I won't have my meds...” she breathed, her face going white as she spoke the ramifications of what was happening.

“Wait what do you mean?” I asked already worried for her.

“I have Cystic fibrosis. I have an uh, an inhaler and… I take antibiotics like… like I’m always on them,” she said haltingly. I could see her starting to panic.

“Hey whoa, we don’t know if this is permanent,” I said, reaching out to hold her hand and comfort her.

It is. The other celestial bodies in this system have already determined that whatever has been done is prevalent throughout the system and will not reverse itself unless there is further outside intervention.

I cringed and looked up at Moon. That did not sound good… which meant if this was permanent…

“What did she say?” asked my grey eyed friend softly.

I let go of her hand and ran my hand through my hair, finding it a bit longer than I was used to, about half a foot long, but nothing I couldn’t deal with. I wondered idly what colour it was, but I wouldn’t really be able to see it in the dark.

“She said that… she said that it looks like this might be a permanent thing,” I breathed.

“Oh no,” she replied in a whisper.

“It’s okay… if this is… okay one step at a time,” I said, trying and failing to comfort her.

I wanted to give her a hug or something but that would probably be super awkward and I’d probably end up headbutting her somehow.

She took a few deep breaths, then nodded and straightened and nodded again, “Yeah, you’re right. I can’t fall apart now. I have a little swan here to protect after all.”

“What? A little swan?” I frowned. Please tell me she wasn’t…

“Yeah! You! You’re pretty, but you’re kinda awkward and stuff. Plus you’re a mess. Gotta protect the little swan,” she smiled. It was a bit forced, but it was there.

“Alright look, first off… wait pretty?” I started to protest, then I registered that she’d called me pretty. Wow, why did I feel so good about being called pretty?

“Yup, cute as hell,” she giggled, reaching out and ruffling my hair, “Come on, it’s time to go. If this is permanent, then I suggest we make a stop in that store over there. You need clothes.”

“I don’t think the store is open though,” I pointed out, a little confused by all this now.

“Somehow I doubt that will be a problem for much longer,” she laughed… no wait, cackled.

Oh no, what was she planning? I watched her walk over to a metal road works sign, pick it up and hefted it like a weapon, then march towards the closed shop window.

“Hey, hey, hey! Fiona! What are you doing?” I called after her, following along behind.

“Oh shush, it’s a GAP store. No one’s going to care! Not even them,” she grinned, then swung her makeshift weapon at the glass storefront.