58. Beautiful (Patreon)

A/N: Hey everyone! Thank you for your patience. I have rested and my health is doing a lot better. Enjoy the chapter!

My chemistry teacher stares at me. The class stares at me. Ida struggles to breathe. I smile pleasantly back at all of them, acting as innocent as possible. Hannah has had enough crazy crackers, world! It's your turn, now! Come jump off the frying pan with me!

I am, of course, aware this maybe isn't the healthiest line of thinking. It's certainly not the most logical or optimal course of action. However, it is very fun and I'm so beyond done that I just do not care anymore. So I'm going to smile. I'm going to wiggle my extra limbs. I'm going to cast the one spell that I actually like and don't have horrifically mixed feelings about. And everybody else gets to shut up and watch.

"...That's an excellent idea, Hannah," my teacher sighs. "Everyone, return to your work, please."

What! You're not supposed to—! Aw, dang it, I can't even complain, I was literally just counting on the stick-to-routine thing at the start of class. I just… I showed him actual magic! Does he think it's a trick? Is he just too tired to care? …Eh, he looks pretty tired, it honestly might be that.

Sure, there's no good way to explain anything I just did as 'just a trick,' but people look at perfectly explainable things and assume the supernatural all the time. Why wouldn't the reverse also happen? Assuming any given set of events falls in line with whatever your worldview happens to be is a profoundly human thing to do. Even if something is literally impossible via your worldview you can always just say 'well, I sure as heck don't understand that, but there's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.' I don't know how that works, but I'm sure some scientist does. I don't know how that works, but I'm sure god is involved. I don't know how that works, and I don't need to know in order to be correct about it.

How frustrating. I pout, drum my fingers on the desk, and silently mix the sodium hydroxide powder back into the water because I honestly have no idea how dangerous pure sodium hydroxide is and it's probably a good idea to not find out.

"That was incredible," Ida wheezes. "Holy shit. Just fucking weigh it, by the way."

"What do you… oh. For the mass? We're not supposed to use a scale for this lab."

"We aren't supposed to use magic either!" Ida laughs. "Fuck, you are insane."

"I'm not insane!" I protest. "My therapist says so!"

"How convincing!" Ida grins unrepentantly.

"No, I'm serious, look, it's just… I'm just a little pent up, okay?"

"Hmm, well, you are recently single," Ida muses, her smile shifting to something a little more sultry. "I suppose if you're having problems with being pent up I'd be happy to help with that."

"Goddess, Ida, please," I whine, feeling a blush heat up my cheeks. I wonder what color I blush? Last I checked my blood was still red, I guess.

"Ahahaha! Finally embarrassed now that you know I'm not joking, huh?"

"Ew, Ida," the goon says, wrinkling her nose.

"Awww! Are you jealous, Cassedy?" Ida taunts.

"I'm not a fucking dyke," the girl answers crossing her arms.

"You sure?" Ida grins. "Your loss, I guess. Personally I find women tend to know their way around a whole lot better. Boys are just kind of guessing at what might feel good, but us girls? We know."

And now the goon is also blushing. She looks away, and I try very hard not to think about… any of this. Ida is in high school and she has probably had more sex than my parents and I just can't help but be a little uncomfortable about all of that. Is she even eighteen yet!? I'm pretty sure her birthday is super close to mine, so she might be. …But then I would have missed her birthday, and that seems unlikely because Ida is not quiet about stuff like that the way I am. Shoot, I need to get her a birthday gift.

"...Ida, is there anything you want for your birthday?" I ask.

"Oh ho ho ho!" Ida grins. "Well that's a transition. It just so happens, as a matter of fact, that I'd really like to fu—"

"Ida," I cut her off. "Please. Just… answer the question."

"Not a bad question, actually," the goon agrees, crossing her arms. "Is your birthday coming up, Ida?"

Ida blows a faux-irritated raspberry, leaning her chair back on two legs.

"...Yeah, my birthday's this Thursday, actually," she says. "The party's Friday, though. Yes, you're invited, Cassedy. Hannah… well, you're super welcome to come if you want, but you'd fucking hate it. It's gonna be loud. If you wanna drop by Saturday night, though, I'm doing a smaller thing for my less party-happy friends."

"Oh, sure," I nod. "That sounds fun."

"Cool," Ida grins. "See ya there. You gonna cause any more mischief today?"

"...Maybe," I admit, squirming slightly. "I have gym class after this, and I, uh, kind of want to see what happens if I don't hold back?"

"Shiiiit, I want to watch that. Think I could get away with it? Mr. Attenborough is kind of a hardass."

"Yeah, he'd probably kick you out if you tried to watch," I agree. "Though we're probably using the track today, so you could maybe sneak out and watch from a distance?"

"Hey, that's not a bad idea," Ida muses. "Never thought I'd hear you encouraging me to cut class, though."

I shrug.

"Recent changes in my life have made school seem a lot less important."

"You say that, and yet here you are," Ida smirks. "At school. Going to class. As a Goddess-damn mutant."

Yeah, but that's different. I'm not really at school because I think school is important. But I don't want to have that conversation right now, and thankfully I see an easy subject change.

"...You're saying that too now, huh?" I ask.

Ida winces. She actually winces, a solid, genuine crack in her usual facade.

"Yeah, I guess I am," she says quietly. "It feels weird not acknowledging Her when you know She's there, right? Swearing to a fake god while a real one watches just…"

"It's scary," I finish for her, since I doubt she'd admit to it herself.

"It's something," she agrees in her own way.

"Why are you two being so creepy?" the goon asks. I think her name started with C? Or K maybe? Nope, I've already forgotten. "Did you start a cult or something?"

Ida and I look at each other, mild embarrassment wafting between us.

"...Uh, I guess technically yeah?" I admit.

"Yeah we uh. Hmm. I guess we did," Ida admits. "That's probably bad."

"Well, at least it's the great old one kind of cult and not the indoctrinate-you-and-steal-all-your-money kind of cult?" I hedge.

"I don't… Hannah, I don't think that's better."

"Okay, seriously, what are you two talking about?" the goon demands. "This is just wacky gibberish to me."

"Uh, I mean, there's not a lot to say," Ida shrugs. "We just… actually have a weird little gay witch coven because it turns out magic is real and Hannah is a mutant and uh. Yeah. Like, I know it sounds really stupid when we say it out loud, but you just watched Hannah do something impossible via conventional physics. That wasn't a trick."

"Also I'm a bug girl," I point out.

"Also she's a bug girl, yeah," Ida agrees. "A fourth-dimensional bug girl that can travel between universes."

"It's more that I can't not travel between universes," I muse.

"That makes no sense," the goon insists.

"I agree with you!" I tell her brightly. "Honestly, I do. But also, check it out, I can move my arm into w-space."

I do so, causing it to appear to shrink away and almost implode on itself before vanishing all the way to the shoulder. The sleeve of my t-shirt droops, suddenly empty. The goon's eyes bulge and I grin, moving my hand invisibly closer to her. Quickly rotating just the hand back into visible space, I snap my fingers in front of her face and say "Boo!"

She yelps and jumps out of her chair a little, which is of course an unequivocal victory by itself. Then she realizes that I seem to have a floating disembodied hand, and everything immediately gets even better. A wide smile splits my face and I wiggle my fingers, causing her to jump again. Scaring humans with my weird body is so fun, oh my gosh!

"How the… what…?" goon stammers, and I answer with a cackle and a shrug. Carefully, she reaches out to my hand and I let her grab it, poking and prodding at my chitin. It feels kinda funny at first, but that quickly escalates to super weird when she starts poking at my wrist.

The inside of my wrist. …Kind of.

My hand is floating without any apparent arm attached to it. My arm is, of course, obviously still attached to it; it's just at an angle that brings the elbow into w-space before heading back to normal, visible space to meet up once again with my shoulder. So my hand isn't like, cut off and exposing muscle and blood vessels and whatever to the world. Instead, the backside of my hand is just covered in that weird black pseudo-skin that's in between the chitin plates of all my joints. And that… that leads to a lot of questions.

Obviously, my body is somewhat fourth-dimensional. If it wasn't, I couldn't move through w-space so naturally or eat several times my own body weight without using the bathroom. But outside of that vague general awareness, I don't have the slightest idea how my body actually works. Sure, I can "see" in four dimensions, and I find moving through them to be instinctive, but that's it—it's instinctive, something I just do without thinking. I can't describe what it's like to see or move in four dimensions beyond the fact that it's just something I do. I'm not even all that good at it; ninety-nine percent of the things I'm looking at with my spatial sense are just normal 3D objects anyway, and the only 4D object I regularly see is the world tree, which doesn't ever move on a scale I can detect.

This moment, with some random girl whose name I don't even know poking at the inside of my wrist, is the first time I've ever really come face to face with exactly how much I don't know about my 4D nature. It's sort of hard to learn anything about myself when I am the foremost leading expert about my crazy body and the only things I know about my body are that it is mine and it is crazy.

Like yeah, my body has the physical structure needed to traverse in four dimensions. But while I'm four-dimensional, I'm not… that fourth-dimensional. Like, on the w-axis, my body maybe reaches a few inches in any given hyperdirection, while the world tree presumably stretches countless miles. …Hmm. Come to think of it, maybe that's why it's not dead. Sure, the world tree isn't doing great with being on fire and uprooted, but what if it's actually less on fire and uprooted than we think? What if its roots simply reach the ground somewhere in 4D? What if the inferno above us doesn't dance into that extra dimension? Things might not actually be as bad as they appear. …Of course, just thinking that thought at all makes it difficult to take the idea seriously. If there's one thing I've learned it's that when things aren't as bad as they appear it's only because they are actually worse.

Carefully, curiously, I start moving my arm back into 3D space as Ida's goon continues to prod at the back of my wrist. I'm irrationally terrified that it'll somehow fuse her finger to my flesh or something, but that's obviously wrong because I can see that it's wrong. I'm literally just… moving my arm. My arm isn't actually gone. So while it looks like my arm is spontaneously filling into reality like liquid rapidly filling a mold, a shadow twisting rapidly into being as the object it reflects moves against a low-angled light, all that actually happens is that the goon's finger gets gently pushed aside, the exact same way it would get pushed were I to move normally. Because, well… from my perspective, I am moving normally.

It looks so alien to my eyes, yet it feels so utterly mundane to my spatial sense. Routine, yet indescribably mesmerizing.

I'm kind of beautiful, aren't I?

The thought hits me harder than I ever could have expected, purging everything else from my mind for a single, overwhelming moment. I'm beautiful. Beautiful! I've never felt this way about myself before. Sure, I take care of my appearance, but it's mostly just a routine thing. I pretty myself up because my mom taught me girls need to pretty themselves up, using makeup to hide imperfections in the face the way I use silence to hide imperfections in personality. If she can't see it, she can't call me out on it. I've never really considered myself ugly, I suppose, but my appearance has always been something I minimize, something I avoid thinking about beyond what is necessary to not be bothered.

But now I'm beautiful, and it's an empowering, intoxicating feeling that I never expected in a million years. Everyone else might think I'm a freak or a monster or a demon or an angel but I know, right now, that I am what I never knew I wanted to be. My bone-white arms gleam in contrast with my dark gray skin. My teeth are sharp and deadly. My claws are dangerous and imposing. I move between dimensions with a fluidity and grace beyond human, and my boobs are impeccable. My. Body. Is. Awesome.

I kinda wish I wasn't bald, though.

"This is completely insane," the goon mutters, and as I snap out of my euphoric fugue I realize that I'm once again getting a lot of stares. "Is this kind of stuff going to be at your party, Ida?"

"What?" Ida asks. "Heck no, are you crazy? I'm not summoning an evil Goddess to my birthday party."

"Uh, evil Goddess?" she asks. "Specifically?"

"Yes," Ida and I affirm together.

"Magic is very cool but it comes with a lot of baggage," I continue. "Overall: do not recommend."

I don't actually know if I'm telling the truth or not. I hate magic. I hate the Goddess. But also, I love magic. I love, love, love, love, love magic and She is the source of all magic. Without Her, I wouldn't be beautiful. I wouldn't be horrified, I wouldn't be a monster, I wouldn't be constantly terrified for my life and my sanity, but… I wouldn't be happy, either. I'd still be caught in that depressive haze, flinching away from any physical contact with other people and mindlessly obeying my mom out of fear.

It's not all downsides. The fruit may be poison, but it tastes so, so good.

"Okay, well, ignoring my ten million other questions for now, why would you follow a god that you think is evil?" the goon asks.

"Well, I'm not really 'following Her,' per se," I say, making air quotes. "I just don't have a choice in the matter. Honestly, I'd really love to thwart Her plans, but unfortunately She's a Goddess and I have no idea what I'm doing. So for now I guess I'm just delaying Her plans as best I can and hoping I can think of something?"

"Okay. Okay, sure. You realize you sound totally insane, right Hannah?"

"Absolutely," I nod. "But also I have alien bug limbs, so I figure that makes me a little more difficult to argue with."

She swallows.

"...Little bit," she agrees. "I just… I have no idea what to say."

"Then don't say anything," I shrug. "You don't really need to know any of this stuff anyway. It's my business."

She doesn't seem very satisfied with that, but she doesn't press me any further and that's good enough for me. Class ends soon enough, and I can't help but get a little excited for gym, for what is perhaps the first time in my life. Though when I head into the locker room and spot Jet, that excitement quickly pools into a clump of anxiety. Oh, right. It's the girl whose life I ruined. I studiously ignore her as best I can in a futile attempt to not make things awkward.

"Oh, hey Hannah," Jet says, causing me to flinch. "You're really going out like that?"

"Uh… yep," I confirm.

"Hmm. I guess we probably should too?" Jet muses.

"Huh?" I ask, and then suddenly I remember she has wings and a tail and cute little caracal ears and I did that to them, they're right there, how did I forget that? …Oh right, Pneuma magic. Agh, unpopped kernels! Pneuma magic!!! Aaaah!

Then Jet spreads her wings and I'm much more distracted by how massive they are than my ever-simmering guilt. Holy crap they're longer than she is tall! Alma thrashes behind her, the scaled, toothy tail clearly anxious but not outright objecting with a bite.

"We agreed to go public too, remember?" Jet reminds me. "Gym is as good a time as any, and… well, honestly, I'm tempted to try flying a little? Our wings are sore from growing so fast and I just… I need to move them, you know?"

My own extra limbs twitch in sympathy.

"Yeah," I confirm. "I do know."

You know because I know. I needed you to know. I'm sorry.

"I figure if we're gonna be stuck like this, I may as well try to figure out the one part of it that could be awesome," Jet continues. "Don't let me go too high, okay? Well, assuming I can get off the ground at all."

"Okay," I nod. Why is she talking to me? I thought she wanted nothing to do with me. I thought I ruined her life.

She's beautiful too. She's beautiful and wonderful and I lost her by being a pathetic, inconsiderate, impulsive monster. Jet hates me even more than Alma does. So why is she talking to me?

"Hannah, chill out," Jet says. "You look like a rabbit that saw a hawk. Did you think dumping you meant we'd pretend you didn't exist?"

"Um. Kind of?" I admit.

She snorts.

"That would be impractical. Don't get me wrong, I don't like you, but you're still the only person I can rely on for shit like this. Who else am I going to walk up to and ask 'hey, I'm going to practice flying during class, can you try to catch me if it looks like I'll break my neck?'"

Oh. Hmm. Yeah. I guess Jet's very practical. Like Helen. …I hope Helen doesn't hate me, at least. I mean she said she doesn't, it was actually a super heartfelt moment, but what if she actually secretly hates me anyway? Oh boy, I get to be anxious about this now.

"Well, uh, let's go I guess?" I allow awkwardly, and the two of us head out to the track. I'm probably going to get used to all the stares someday, but not today; everyone is looking at us, and Jet's presence has completely crushed my earlier high so it's no longer a pleasant experience.

"What are you two wearing?" the gym teacher snaps at us.

"...The gym uniform?" I answer innocently. "I know I haven't been wearing it for over a month now, but I didn't think it would be a problem to start?"

"Cut the crap. We're running the mile today, ladies. If you start the run in that I am going to make you finish it."

"Don't worry, Mr. A," I smile. "I plan to finish first anyway."

"Uh-huh," he grunts, clearly unconvinced. Which is fine by me! It'll be all the more fun when I suddenly start moving at like thirty miles an hour.

"I've never actually tried to see how fast I am, either," Jet muses. "Wanna race?"

"Oh, are you getting stronger and faster and stuff too?" I ask.

"Yeah, absolutely," Jet nods. "I'm kind of looking forward to this, not gonna lie."

Why are you looking forward to it if you hate what I've done to you…? Ugh. Gah. Y'know what, it's probably not even about me at all. Jet just got a spell that allows her to talk to Alma, something she's wanted for like… forever. She's probably just in a good mood in general.

The class crowds up around the starting line, and with a quick countdown we're off, Jet and I blazing forward ahead of the crowd. Oh dang, she's fast! Alma-tail sticks her tongue out at me, flopping happily behind as Jet leaves me in the dust. I squawk in surprise, speeding up as best I can. We're at the first turn in moments, and I instantly wish I didn't have these gosh dang shoes on. I can't stand the lack of traction from having my claws bound up like this, and I nearly trip taking the turn. Ugh, if only there was some way to get rid of… hmm, wait a second.

My clothes don't follow me into 4D space, so if I just twist my ankle a little bit towards… there. My shoes and socks fall off mid-step, and my feet are free to tear up the track. My claws sink delightfully into the squishy polyurethane, sending a shudder up my ankles as I push myself harder and take the next turn sharper. Jet has something like an actual runner's form, her body tucked extremely low as her tail counterbalances. Long, leaping strides carry her down the straightaway, and it's obvious she isn't even sprinting; she's just fast.

I'm also fast, though, and I am sprinting. I'm sprinting for perhaps the first time since my transformation started, and even with the wind whipping by my face I'm starting to get a little… warm. I remember all the way back when I first started being lucid on the world tree, and Sindri persistence hunted me into mandatory friendship, that I noted my body seemed to have pretty low stamina. I guess that's still the case; external forces don't really heat me up, but when I overwork myself external forces aren't very good at cooling me down, either. I won't be able to keep this speed up for four laps, not by a longshot. Of course, by the time Jet and I finish our first lap, the rest of the class is barely a quarter of the way down the track. So that's certainly something.

I slow down a little on the straightaway, resolving to focus my sprints on the turns. I don't know if it's a smart strategy, but the sheer joy of letting my claws sink into the ground and fight the centrifugal force of the turn at full speed is too intoxicating to pass up. I'm, uh, probably ripping the track up, but… oh, well!

Another lap down and I'm starting to really feel the burn, and while I've been gaining on Jet at every turn, she's just too fast on the straightaways for me to think that I can actually beat her. We've passed the rest of the class twice now though, which is pretty funny. Rushing past slow humans like I'm a car on the highway is just so empowering that I start to shake a little of my bad mood again. Heh, this is probably how the whole day is going to go, isn't it? Euphoria making me feel good, then memory reminding me I should feel bad, then euphoria making me feel good again, then reality ensuring I feel bad… it's a bit much, but hey! Better than just feeling bad all the time, right?

I'm officially flagging halfway through lap three, while Jet is still going strong. I settle back down to a more comfortable jog, though I'm still going twice as fast as anyone who isn't Jet. On the last lap I feel like I'm burning up on the inside, but I manage to stagger onto the finish line just after the rest of the class completes lap one. And that's… y'know. Pretty good.

"What do you mean you didn't check my time?" I overhear Jet growling at the gym teacher. I stagger a little closer, barely getting myself off the track before I collapse into a panting heap.

"Look, I don't know what you two did, but you're obviously not running how you're supposed to," the gym teacher grunts. "It's impressive, but it's cheating."

"Cheating? We're not at a track meet! …Alma, no," Jet says, grabbing her tail to stop it from biting the gym teacher. "Look, I'll run it again if you want me to, but I still want to know my time."

"Well I didn't check your time, kid. What I did do is write you up for a visit to the principal's office, because whatever you're doing to run upwards of thirty miles an hour on my track is not school-authorized and it is definitely not safe. Grab Hannah, get out of here, and don't come back until you take that crap off."

"It doesn't come off, sir," I croak.

"Then have fun failing gym," he snaps back. "I mean it, get out of here. And I will be checking that you actually went."

Welp. He's a jerk, but I suppose this was inevitable. It's probably necessary that we clear things up with the person in charge of the school anyway. I get back up with a groan, my body still protesting the abuse. It's a shame that super speed doesn't mean super stamina. …Well, I guess it kind of does, it's just that my standard for what counts as exertion has changed. But whatever. I stand up and stretch, trying to ignore how exhausted I feel.

"Practice flying on the way back?" I ask Jet. "Just don't go too fast, I'm pooped."

"Uh… I guess so," Jet sighs, glowering at Mr. Attenborough as we head back towards the main building. "This might actually be kind of bad. If I'm sent to the principal, my social worker is gonna know about it."

"Well, I'll do everything I can to make sure we don't get in trouble," I promise her. "I don't want to actually get my family involved, but my mom's a massive Karen and I bet the principal is still scared of her."

"...Alright, I'll hold you to that," Jet says, petting her tail reassuringly as it coils around her torso. Then her wings snap open and she jumps ten feet straight up into the air. She flaps her wings twice, nearly flips herself upside down, and immediately collapses back to the ground, barely stopping herself from faceplanting.

"Woah!" I yelp. "Warn me when you're going to do that!"

"Alright, alright," Jet grunts. "I'm trying again."

This repeats pretty much the entire way back inside, Jet insisting that she's 'going to figure it out this time' about ten times in a row before the roof over our heads forces her to put her experiments to a close. It's slightly funny and extremely concerning, but I guess I'd also continuously toss myself at the sky if I thought it meant I could learn to fly.

The principal's office is boring, sparsely decorated, and occupied by a woman I'd guess to be in her early thirties. Principal Netter (according to the nameplate on her desk) is an exceedingly average woman, pale and slightly stocky. Personally I think her best feature is all the cute freckles on her nose, though her bulky glasses hide most of it, which is a shame. She gives us a very confused look when her secretary waves us into her office, but I just give her a polite nod and a closed-lipped smile and hand her the disciplinary slip the gym teacher gave us.

"There was a bit of a misunderstanding," I say as diplomatically as possible.

"I'm… sure," Ms. Netter frowns. "You know, Hannah, your chemistry teacher just sent me an email about you, as it happens."

"I'm sorry," I grimace. "I'm not trying to be disruptive, but it's… more difficult than expected."

"Well, these costumes of yours are very… impressive, but I feel like it should have gone without saying that they aren't appropriate for a learning environment," Ms. Netter says calmly.

"Yeah, uh. About that," I hedge. "They're not costumes."

And thus begins the long and arduous process of convincing yet another random person that I am, indeed, a biological impossibility beyond the ken of modern science. Except this time there's an extra added spice of 'and therefore you can't ban me from school because this is basically a medical condition,' except I can't ever actually phrase it as a medical condition, because while they can't demand medical records they would certainly at least make a fuss about it.

The upside to all of this is that Jet and I are eighteen, and politely reminding the principal of that fact dissuades her from calling our parents. I'm not sure what that means for Jet in regards to her case worker, of course, but Ms. Netter never even brings it up. It takes nearly half an hour to convince her that our changes are physiological and not something we can undo, and at that point she seems much more concerned about the whole 'my students are monsters' thing than any mischief we might have gotten up to.

"I just, I feel like this isn't something for me to make a decision about at this point," Ms. Netter insists, clearly anxious.

"There's nothing to make a decision about," I insist. "Preventing us from attending school would be discrimination."

"Yes, but it's not just about you," Ms. Netter counters. "I have an obligation to every student and every parent to ensure this is a safe and productive environment for education, and I can't do that if you're starting a… a national controversy on the nature of the universe!"

"I don't look like this because I want to, ma'am," Jet scowls.

"That's worse!" Ms. Netter says. "If you had no control over this, if you don't know what caused it, you're potentially endangering the other students!"

I open my mouth, then close it, unable to avoid glancing at Jet. I can't deny the validity of the argument, as much as it pains me. I am dangerous, as much as I don't want to be. Although, out of all the bad things that could happen at school, accidentally turning everyone into monster girls isn't actually one of them.

Nature's Madness transforms people based on how I see them, and for ninety-nine percent of the school I just don't care about them enough to see them any way at all. I don't have to like a target of Nature’s Madness. I don't even have to want them to be a monster. But I do need to know them, or at least feel like I know them, for the spell to have an effect. If I unleashed it at full blast in the middle of the lunchroom, only a handful of people would actually be affected, if that. Because that's just how I see the average classmate: as a boring, normal human who doesn't understand me, never will, and who gives me no incentive to change that status quo. My apathy makes them immune.

It's only when I really start to care about someone that I can hurt them that deeply. Still, no sense telling any of that to Ms. Netter.

"I don't particularly appreciate being treated like a threat to others just for being different," I say out loud, channeling as much of my 'impending lawsuit' voice as I can muster. I am my mother's daughter, whether I like it or not. "I've been changing like this for months now and nothing has happened to your school. The only thing that's different is that I don't want to have to hide what I am anymore, and I think that's more than fair."

The longer the conversation goes on, the less I like Ms. Netter. It becomes fairly obvious that she's more interested in keeping her job than she is in actually running a good school, and she's too busy freaking out about how weird Jet and I are to actually consider our needs as people. So instead I just frame Jet and I as threats; not to her safety, but to her position. If she's unable to consider us as anything other than a potential problem for her own easy life, I can make it clear that trying to shaft us isn't going to be easy for her. She's not happy about it, not at all, but I manage to prevent Jet and I from getting disciplinary action. We'll just have to see how things work out from there.

It's… weird, having conversations like this. Partly just because I feel like I have to channel my mother to get things done, and I really hate that, but mostly just because I have to explain to people that I'm turning into a gosh dang monster and expect them to not treat me like I'm insane. And it's just… kind of surreal! Both having to do it at all and succeeding at it. I'm sure there will be plenty of people who look at me and refuse to believe anything, but my success rate has been startlingly high so far.

This continues throughout the school day, countless random classmates asking me questions that I answer as honestly as I'm able. Autumn no doubt gets plenty of questions of their own, though I don't see either of them at all after we leave the principal's office. Which… well. It's probably for the best.

It's a long, stressful, but exciting day of school, and I'm pretty worn out by the time I meet up with Valerie and ride home on the bus with her. I kind of wish I could just head back to her place and hang out, but instead I head home, quickly change into my work uniform, and drive myself to work. This will be the real test, I suspect. My principal could get in serious trouble for denying a student education for frivolous reasons. My boss, however, owes me jack diddly squat and is entirely within his rights to fire an employee for any reason or no reason at all. My co-workers all give me weird stares as I walk in, reaching up to tie my hair back in a ponytail before remembering that I'm currently bald. Well, that'll make things a little easier, I guess. My hair can't be a health code violation if I don't have any!

"Uh… Hannah?" a co-worker says, blinking in disbelief at me. Hmm, I think he's one of the two that saw me disarm J-Mug.

"Hey," I greet him, giving him a halfhearted wave before walking right past him and into the back so I can drop off my backpack. My boss is tapping away at the computer on some spreadsheet or another, so I give him a nod hello as well.

"Hi boss," I say. "Where am I today?"

"Register one, if you don't have a preference," he answers, turning to look at me with a smile. Then he actually sees me, and his smile locks in place, his sudden bewilderment so all-consuming that it shuts down his facial expression functions entirely.

"Uh?" he says.

"Yeah, uh, sorry I look a little weird," I apologize nervously. "I sort of came out as nonhuman yesterday? And like, I wasn't totally sure about coming out at work, but my hair finished falling out today and I didn't really want to lather foundation all over my entire head so I just figured… hey! May as well go to work with my bug bits out, see what happens. Also I'm really sorry about the chicken supply variance lately, that's been my fault."

He blinks at me. I give him my best customer service smile to show I am ready to work.

"What?" he finally asks.

"I eat raw chicken in the walk-in sometimes," I admit quietly.

"What? No, wait, back up. Hannah, what is… why do you look like this?"

"Because I'm a weird magical mutant, I guess?" I answer apologetically. Gah, talking to my boss is always so much more difficult and stressful than talking to anyone else. Like, he's a nice boss, I like him, but he's still my boss and I have a weird complex about that. Probably because of my mom, honestly. Most of my mental problems seem to be because of my mom, in retrospect.

My boss sighs and rubs his face.

"Hannah, please explain this in a way that I can understand," he says.

"Over the past few months I've slowly been transforming into a many-limbed bug monster due to a magic spell that I can't fully control because magic is real and I am the prophet of its Goddess. Downside: I look very strange now and that might turn away customers. Upside: I have a really, really good cleaning spell and I can make this place super spotless. Watch."

I point at his desk and immediately lift all of the dust off of it in one move, along with the stains, pen marks, cluttered trash, crumbs… everything. It all levitates right into the trash, leaving the area as clean as it was coming off the factory line. He stares at me, his mouth dropped open in an 'O.' I glance away from his gaze, nervously wringing my hands together.

"So… magic?" he eventually ventures.

"Um. Yep," I confirm. "Magic."

"Huh," he says.

"Yeah," I agree.

There's another terrifying pause, my boss just kind of staring at nothing with a faraway look. The suspense is too much for me, though, so I finally manage to work up the courage to ask the question burning in my mind.

"So… am I fired?" I squeak.

"Wha?" my boss asks, turning to look at me again. "Fired? Heck no, are you crazy? We've already had two people call out today, you're pretty much the only reliable worker I have left."

Oh. Oh! Well, that's nice. …Except for the two people having called out thing. That, uh, really sucks. But not being fired is nice!

"If you think you can handle being front of house today, I'm not going to complain," my boss continues. "Magic is… well, uh, technically not against the health code? Just be sure to follow the letter of the law with… whatever it is that you're doing. As long as you're not leaving like, invisible radioactive poison behind or something I guess I don't care."

"Um. Just like that?" I ask.

"I guess?" he shrugs helplessly. "I have… so many questions, but we're due for a health inspection this week and if we fail another one I'm gonna lose my job so if you wanna use literal magic to clean the store… sure, fine, I don't give a fuck. I need to call the area manager about people taking pictures of you in uniform, though, she's probably not going to like that. You okay with talking to her? You'll have to meet her anyway, if you still want to become a manager."

"Well, I… sure?" I answer.

"Cool," he says. "I'm gonna panic about the nature of reality for a bit and then I'll be out to help you guys during the rush, okay? Could you try to clean as much as you can before then?"

"You… want me to clean with magic?" I ask.

"If it makes the store look like this?" he asks, pointing to his desk. "Yes. Clean everything with magic. Whenever you have time."

Oh gosh. Oh wow. I love my job.

"Yes sir!" I salute, giving him a big grin. He flinches, tells me not to move, and then takes a picture of me before sending me off to get work done. I happily head back out to the front to clock in and get myself assigned to the first register, where my fellow employees stare at me open-mouthed.

"So," I ask them, "did any of you have money on 'extradimensional?'"

"W-what?" one of them responds.

"The betting pool you think I don't know about, regarding 'what my deal is,'" I clarify. "Did any of you have money on me being an extradimensional bug monster?"

The kitchen workers turn to each other. One of them clears his throat awkwardly.

"...Nope, I bet on 'yakuza,'" he admits.

I snort. Because I'm half-asian? Really?

"I thought you were a child soldier or something," the other says.

"Uh-huh," I scowl, walking back into the and hitting the whole place with a series of Refresh casts. "That's a lot less inaccurate than I want it to be, honestly. My therapist keeps comparing me to soldiers as a point of reference."

"Does… does that mean I win?" kitchen worker number two asks, seemingly mesmerized by the sight of dirt and detritus twisting out of all the coolers at once.

"Sure," I allow flatly. "You can win."

People start to trickle in before long, and I start taking orders. I get a lot of questions, but most of them are fairly polite. Confused, more than anything. People start to take more photos, though. More videos. I'm going to go viral sooner or later, especially when things start to get really busy and I'm using my extra limbs to take out five to six trays at once.

I scowl as I pick up one of the trays, grabbing a meal and pushing it back towards the kitchen when my spatial sense notices an issue.

"Remake this!" I snap. "The chicken's not fully cooked!"

"Wh—yes it is!"

"You wanna lose another bet, number one? Remake it! Now!"

"'Number one?' Wait, Hannah, you know our names, right?"

"Make! The! Food!"

The dinner rush is pretty brutal with just the three of us, but we make it through. I'm exhausted by the time I get home, but it's a good exhaustion. Getting to openly use my favorite spell and be unambiguously helpful with it is such an indescribable relief. I really, really needed it. We even got to go home early despite how understaffed we were, thanks to my magic cleaning everything up so fast. I could just handle all of the cleaning while the kitchen duo put everything away.

It's… nice. I like cleaning. I really like it a lot. The Goddess brushes lightly against my shoulders as I sit alone in the parking lot, trying not to thank Her. She could so easily be someone worth thanking, for all the good She's capable of. All the good She does. But She's not interested in morality, and the evil so comprehensively outweighs it. Is there some way to get Her to care? Some way to have the good without the bad? I wish I could find it.

I shake Her off and She happily indulges me, departing as I start the car and drive home. She always wants to indulge me, after all. Indulgence is kind of Her thing. Seek joy, no matter how fucked up or messy. Burn hard and burn bright. Those that limit themselves, hold themselves back, fear themselves… they can be entertaining, certainly. I can be entertaining. But wouldn't I be all the more beautiful if I quit being afraid of the pit I'm dangling over and just let go?

It's up to me, of course. It always is. But it's harder than usual to argue with Her, in the lonely silence of my car, the memories of actually liking myself still sharp and strange in my mind. My body isn't perfect. Far from it, even. But I never realized how brutally painful it was to hide until I just… wasn't hiding anymore. I've actually been kind of confident today. Assertive.

Happy.

I'm not exactly sure when I start crying, or why. But when I park my dad's car in our garage, I have to take a few minutes to wipe the tears from my eyes, clean up the snot from my face, and make myself presentable again. I'm not human. I'm not human and I don't ever have to pretend to be again. For good or ill, come hell or high water, from here on out I at least get to be myself.

I head inside, and for once I find I'm not fearing either one of my tomorrows.