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The Angelic Saints are the only force protecting the hearts of innocents from the evil Abyssal Forest and its monstrous Beasts. Juggling their responsibilities as magical girls with high school and their other friendships, the Saints will never give up their struggle against the forces of Sin and darkness!
But Charlie isn't one of them. He has no magic, no powers and no hidden wells of inner strength he can use to always triumph over the villains. He is not beautiful or strong or brave, no matter how much he wishes he could be. Instead, he finds himself held hostage by nearly every other monster of the week.
Charlie would give almost anything to stand with the Saints. And yet, when he finally gets an offer to step onto that stage and claim everything he's ever wanted, Charlie finds that the price may be too high.
These apply to the work as a whole: depression, dysphoria, internalized transphobia, transphobia, abusive family, abusive counselors, suicidal Ideation.
The monster towered over a host of innocent high school students, an eight-foot tall humanoid assemblage of television and radio parts with arcs of blue-white electricity cascading across its ramshackle form. The only complete device in its body was a large radio that sat where a head would have been.
"Listen!" it called with a susurrus of voices drawn from a hundred failed disk jockeys. "Listen to me!"
The radio monster advanced slowly and clumsily through the station lobby, each ponderous step driving the increasingly panicked students further into a corner. Electricity arced out from one hand and crashed into a wall, showering the students with debris. A boy fell to his knees.
There wasn't much point to running, and everyone knew it. If you took away the furniture, the lobby was just a large box with a single door from which the monster had come in the first place. No one had any route to escape; at most a student might have avoided the monster for a few more moments as it tore through their friends instead. A few students started to cry.
Naturally, that's when an arrow made of fire crashed into the back of its head.
"HOLD EVILDOER!" a crystal clear voice sounded from the far side of the room. The monster stumbled into the crowd, grabbing an unlucky student and then spun around, holding him—me—up as a shield between it and its attacker.
The teenage girl who'd spoken lowered her bow and spun in place, finishing in a familiar pose with one hand holding the bow at her hip and the other pointing a flaming arrow at the monster.
She was dressed in something that looked almost like a school uniform, though I had yet to see a school uniform that exposed anyone's midriff, or that came complete with a pair of tiny fluffy angel wings and a brilliant halo forged out of solid red light.
Her skirt and her ponytail fluttered in the heat of her own magic, the red of the skirt a perfect match for the red of the hair. Both also neatly matched the scattering of freckles that stood out against her pale skin. She held the pose as she said her customary introduction, "Cleansing evil with the flames of purity, Angelic Saint Castitas has arrived!"
Castitas probably would have kept attacking if it wasn't for me. Ever since the Saints had acquired their magical weapons, Castitas tended to favor shooting absurd numbers of arrows into anything that moved. Instead, she froze for a moment. The radio monster used its free arm to send a blast of electricity toward the girl.
Castitas tensed, but even I could see she'd be too late to get out of the way. Her hesitation had cost her.
Of course, Castitas rarely fought alone. The floor rose up to diffuse the attack, before crumbling under the monster's power to reveal a dark skinned blonde, her shield positioned to guard the Saint of Purity.
Aside from the fact that the new girl's yellow costume was very similar to Castitas' red, the two were as different as could be. Where Castitas exuded a fiery charisma, the second Saint had a sturdiness and stoicism to her that lent her a knightly mein. She was also, to Castitas' frequent consternation, a great deal taller.
"Steadfast as the earth," I found myself muttering, oddly distant from yet another near death experience.
"Steadfast as the earth! Persevering forward one step at a time, Angelic Saint Diligentia is here!" she shouted.
Which left…
A pressurized jet of water struck the mechanical monstrosity in the arm that wasn't holding me, sending it reeling. Taking advantage of its distraction, Castitas leapt over her teammate and bounced off Diligentia's waiting shield to soar toward the radio creature. Landing just in front of it, she plucked me from its distracted arms and carried me as if I were a princess.
The monster swung one clumsy hand at her head. Without pausing to recover or setting me down, Castitas dropped into a crouch. The displaced air from its attack left me with little doubt as to how dead I would be if we had been hit. But Castitas showed not a hint of concern as she bounced up in the monster's wake and jumped once more. Her feet struck the arm that had just swung past us, pushing it further off-balance and sending both me and Castitas careening through the air away from the electrified beast.
Diligentia dashed toward the melee as Castitas soared over her head and landed the pair of us safely out of immediate danger.
Temporarily free from the fight, Castitas glanced me over to make sure the mere mortal in her arms had made it out relatively unscathed. Even as she gave me a small comforting smile, I heard a soft and cold voice call out behind us, "Calm as still water. Biding until I strike like a tsunami, Angelic Saint Temperantia..."
Castitas carried me through the room's lone doors as her teammates kept this week's monster busy. Gently, she set me down in a deliberately cozy hallway whose walls were covered with posters advertising musicians of all stripes. For a lingering moment she looked at me, fighting the urge to say something, before she settled for a weak smile.
"I have to get back to the fight C… Charlie, but you should be safe out here."
I'm not sure how I managed to keep a straight face. Yes, quickly correcting to my name after accidentally slipping into a nickname that barely anyone used was a decent save. However, I had never, in the dozen odd times that Castitas had ended up saving me from a monster, given her my name.
Sure I'd thought of telling my best friend—who'd just just saved my life again—that she was really bad at this whole secret identity thing; but it felt like it would be rude to pry when she clearly didn't want to tell me. And the only times when I might have had the courage, when she'd just saved me yet again and I burned to tell my hero that I knew what was up, always ended up being the times I couldn't speak.
I might have said something right there, in that floating distant high of another near death experience. But for some reason I couldn't find the air to speak. On closer examination, my heart was doing its best hummingbird imitation and I was panting desperately. I managed to force out a barely audible thanks as Castitas slammed the doors open to dramatically reenter the fray.
I waited a few moments, then sagged into the wall and fell to the floor as my legs gave way under me.
Freed of the all too familiar dance of hostage and rescue, I had little to do but realize how scared and frustrated I actually was. I hated how powerless this always made me feel. My best friend was out there risking her life, being a hero and doing something bigger and better than anything I'd ever manage in life and all I could do was huddle into a ball and try to avoid losing my mind. "Pathetic," I muttered to myself.
At least I didn't cry. Boys aren't supposed to do that.
----
I got sent to the nurse's office when the teachers finally corralled us back to school; everyone else got to return to class. The first few times a monster had interrupted a school field trip, class, and/or assembly last fall, they'd given us all at least a day off. By the fifth time, and the looming realization that none of us would be getting through half of the required curriculum if this kept happening, they'd simply decided to soldier through.
Except for me apparently. For whatever reason our routine monster attacks honed in on me like Inessa—Castitas—honed in on Lupin, the senior class' token goth girl. Of course, while Inessa tended to just sigh longingly at her crush from a distance, the monsters were a lot less shy about things. The end result was that I'd assembled a pretty impressive history of being manhandled, getting thrown at things, turned into an object, held hostage; charmed and, naturally, of being rescued by magical girls. Honestly, you'd think I would be used to it. I hadn't been surprised when Shocker grabbed me. Hell, I'd made no real effort to not be one of the closest students to the monster. And yet, I'd still panicked like an idiot and ended up trembling in a hallway.
And, well, requirements or not, they couldn't just let you get used as a human shield by a monster materialized from a failed shock jock's desperate greed for rating success and send you back to class. That would be inhumane. And, obviously, they couldn't cancel field trips,major club activities or holiday celebrations even though these were basically guaranteed to prompt magical terrorism.
And so, my December report card had absolutely looked like the victim of a monster attack, and, even though we were already in mid-January, I could sense that this term would be just as bad if I didn't work as hard as I could to stay afloat. And sure it was the last part of senior year and colleges wouldn't really be making any acceptance decisions on these grades. But if I wanted any chance at a scholarship I had to work as hard as possible on my classes.
Instead, I found myself bored out of my mind in the nurse's office. It had been nice, the first few times, to have a quiet place to gather myself. But this was no longer a simple matter of getting attacked once or twice and nothing really bad had actually happened to me. I didn't need to be coddled like this. Inessa and company had been the ones actually fighting for their lives and they didn't need to skip class afterwards.
No, they'd been able to fight instead of freezing up like a little…. person who is not particularly manly. Which, like, sure, that was toxic masculinity or whatever; internalized despite my best efforts at avoiding dad's bullshit. But like, what was the point of even being a guy if I couldn't even stand up when a man was 'supposed' to?
The school bell interrupted my wallowing before I could really get into it and I practically sprinted to the nurse to ask his permission to head home. Begrudgingly, as if he wanted me to lie around being useless for even longer, the nurse let me go after extracting a few concessions like "taking it easy" and "setting up an appointment with the school's guidance counselor."
That left only one more obstacle before I could escape to the quiet solitude of home.
"C!" the redheaded bane of my existence crashed into me outside the nurses office, wrapping me into a tight hug, "I heard you got attacked again," Inessa said, as if she hadn't literally princess-carried me out of danger.
"Just the usual, no big deal," I tried to play it off.
Inessa Brandt, without the magical uniform and its accompanying heels, was a petite and thoroughly upbeat girl, whose breezy disposition, freckles, and cute looks had made her quite popular in the last few years.
She let go, and took a step back. A flicker of something sad worked its way through her face and ended with a pout in my direction. "It is a big deal C, you could have gotten hurt."
"Well," I parried, "Castitas was there to save the day, so it all ended fine." Honestly, it burned a little that Inessa had gone and become someone so amazing while I was still the same boring C. I couldn't resist teasing her. "I just wish there was a way to thank her to her face for saving me so much and tell her how amazing she is."
Inessa blushed, "W-well, I'm sure she knows she's appreciated and really she's probably just sorry that you keep getting involved."
"Yeah," I trailed off, guiltily.
"What's wrong? You can tell me."
I thought, for a moment, of telling her that I knew exactly who'd saved me; that I was so grateful and also so jealous of how radiant she'd become, while here I was unable to take a step forward or make anything of my life. I would never get to be a beautiful strong girl like Inessa, standing in center stage and challenging the forces of evil.
"I just wish…" I said instead, unwilling to admit how bitter my heart felt to someone who'd immediately decide it was her responsibility to help me.
"Yeah?"
"I just wish that I wasn't so powerless. That I could, you know, do something to fight back if I'm always going to get pulled into these things," I laughed awkwardly. Inessa didn't deserve my issues, not with everything she was doing. "But I guess I'd look pretty awful in a Saint's uniform."
"C…" she hesitated, not sure what to say.
"I dunno," a quiet, emotionless voice cut in, "You're pretty leggy, I think you could probably pull the look off."
A tiny pale blue-haired girl stood a bit away from Inessa, looking somewhere between apathetic and awkward. After transferring to school in late November, she had almost instantly become Inessa's close friend, despite almost everyone else finding her off-putting. It made perfect sense to me. Obviously the blue haired girl named Temperance Atwater was actually the Angelic Saint of Temperance.
And yet… Somehow no one but me seemed to have realized that the blue haired girl named Temperance might be connected to the magical girl named Temperantia. Temperantia had first appeared on the day before Temperance had transferred to our school and they shared distinctive blue hair. In my mind, this was a strong point of evidence that everyone else in this town was an idiot. Alternatively, everyone else in this town had long guessed Inessa, Ida's and Temperance's identities and was simply being circumspect out of gratitude.
"Ha ha," I laughed awkwardly, more angry at myself for making the joke in the first place than Temperance for hammering it home, "as if."
"I think it would at least be a much better aesthetic than oversized hoodie," she nodded sagely, her voice betraying not a hint of emotion.
"Just drop it okay, and I'm not even wearing a hoodie!" I didn't hate her, for all her endless needling, but I did not understand Temperance Atwater at all.
"Spiritually," she corrected without a single indication that she was joking. Temperance drifted into companionable silence and I took that as a momentary victory from her near constant teasing.
"A-anyway," Inessa said, shooting Temperance a glare, "are you coming over for dinner tonight? You haven't been by since the end of winter break and my folks are a bit worried."
I hesitated. I didn't want to inflict my issues on Inessa, who was already doing so much for me. I also didn't want her family to worry, and if dad ended up coming home earlier and he saw me in this kind of mood, the evening would be unpleasant. It struck me that it might be in my own interest to stay out for as long as possible.
"Y-yeah, thanks, I'd like that."
Inessa sagged as she let go of a tension I hadn't realized she was holding. Then broke out into a big smile, "Great!"
Temperance, for some reason, offered her a high five.
Despite my mood and how much I hated relying on others, Inessa's parents were as sunny and happy as always. They showed me a kindness I didn't deserve and made all the right little gestures about how they'd missed me these past few days and how much they wanted me to know that I would always be welcome. It would simply have been mean to act all gloomy around them and bring everyone down just because I was feeling particularly self-loathing.
I'd anticipated a night of brooding. But between the fact that it was hard to fake being upbeat around genuinely kind people for long without becoming a little bit happier yourself, and that I'd beat dad home despite the late hour, I felt remarkably good. It was still unpleasant to dwell on the day's events, but I didn't feel compelled to obsess over them for once. Instead, I spent the night alternating studying with reading silly little stories online and wishing that kind of thing could actually happen to me. It was enough to almost let me feel like I could handle things by the time I went to bed.
I dreamt equally ridiculous little dreams of a world where Temperance's jokes weren't just jokes and I got to be one of the heroes, fighting side by side with my friends. They were silly and impossible and I woke with an unusual spring in my step and a smile on my face.
---
My good mood lasted most of the—thankfully monster free—school day, up until shortly before my last period appointment with the school's guidance counselor.
I was missing too much school as it was. But no, instead of enjoying Friday afternoon AP Macroeconomics, I had to be sitting on a couch in Mr. Noir's small office. The bespeckled man carefully lit an incense stick then took a seat across from me. He was tall, in a kind of reedy way that made it seem like there was more suit than man there, with sickly gray skin and a smile that didn't quite reach his sunken eyes.
"So," he pinched out the match, "what can I do for you today Charleton."
I hated him instantly.
"Everyone just calls me Charlie," I tried not to let my irritation show. I had an objectively terrible name and the less I heard it the better.
"Ah," he shook his head, "You know there's a great power in names. Charleton, that's a good name. Rare, a bit old-fashioned, serious. Too few appreciate that kind of thing," his voice was shrill and crackly, like the static between radio channels.
I bit my lip and tried to let it go. It wasn't his fault that I'd been on edge for weeks, or that I desperately didn't want to be here, and taking it out on the innocent guidance counselor wouldn't be fair, no matter how weird he was being.
"Everyone says it sounds like Charlatan, so I go by Charlie," well, people might have said that if I had social interactions with anyone my own age that wasn't Inessa or her friends.
He nodded sadly, "A shame, well, children. I suppose it can't be helped. So Charlie," he hesitated on the name, as if he found it distasteful. "What brings you here today? Or just wanted an excuse to skip out of sixth period?"
I shook my head vehemently, "the nurse made me. I've missed too much class as it is. I have to study extra just to stay on top of things with the way everything's been going."
He nodded sadly and jotted something down, "Terrible, and why is that? Trouble at home?"
I shook my head, "My dad's fine," that was more or less true. Neither of us respected the other much at this point and I couldn't remember the last time we had had a pleasant conversation, but he wasn't a monster or anything. He kept a roof over our heads and food in the pantry. "I've just ended up getting wrapped up in a lot of these monster attacks."
Mr. Noir paused at that for a moment, staring at me deeply, as if really looking at me for the first time, before breaking into a wide grin. He didn't say anything else until just before I reached the point where I could no longer endure his silent judgment.
"Fascinating." he cut me off just before I said something dumb, "Getting wrapped up in all of that business, I mean. And how does that make you feel?"
I hesitated, "Well, it's not like I can really control it, right? And, barely anyone really gets hurt, what with the Angelic Saints saving us all the time and all."
Mr Noir adjusted his glasses, "Yes, yes, but surely you must be angry? Always getting pulled into their fights, forced to take part in business that disrupts your life? It must be upsetting?"
The incense smelled of cinnamon and something coppery that I couldn't place. It gave the whole room an odd, dreamlike quality. None of that made Mr. Noir the least bit less creepy. If anything, a part of me wondered if he was about to turn into a couch themed monster and try to devour me.
"No? If anything, I feel bad? Here are these amazing heroes who have to spend so much time saving me and I don't even really deserve it."
He watched silently, considering.
"And they're powerful and beautiful and amazing and here I am and I can't even keep away from a monster for longer than three days at a time."
He perked up at that, "Ah! I see. beautiful, yes, that makes sense. Luxuria then, after all this searching."
"What?" Okay, he was definitely giving me monster vibes now. Latin tended to do that lately and I was starting to get a sense for when these things were afoot. I took a deep breath, nearly coughing on the overpowering scent of incense.
"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some things have become clear. Well, I must say you shouldn't put yourself down. You seem like a young man of great potential, Charleton."
"It's Charlie," I muttered, drowning in cinnamon.
"Well Charleton, let me ask you a few more questions. I wouldn't want to take too much of your time today young man, and this has been quite a valuable conversation already."
"What?" I asked more sharply than I usually let myself speak. The heady mix of the scent and how off Mr. Noir was left me with the bizarre floating sensation of being in a bad dream from which I couldn't wake up.
"A problem I frequently see with 'well-behaved' boys your age," he said paternalistically, "is that they don't want to admit their own needs. Oh, they try to be 'good,' and the world rewards them for being nice little diligent drones."
"And that's bad?" I asked, worriedly.
"Oh yes," his smile showed his teeth, "hiding your darker emotions helps no one in the end. You can run from adolescent desire as long as you want, run until you can't even remember what you're running from if you want. But the primal need will catch you and it will be all the more empowered for your attempts to confine it. Boys should be boys."
I hesitated. I wanted to ignore him, to say that was nonsense. And yet, on top of everything that had happened in the past few months, beyond mom and the monsters and dad, he wasn't wrong. There was a hollowness in me I couldn't quite name.
"I can see it in your eyes. You know I'm right. You know that your desires are there, boiling beneath the surface and that nothing will make them go away beyond embracing them."
Was he right? Was the ache deep in my soul whenever I thought about Castitas and the others desire? It wasn't as obviously wrong as I wanted it to be, but I had no clue what it was he thought I desired. Power maybe? Agency, the ability to help? Nothing felt wrong, but nothing felt like they grasped the entire picture either.
"For now, it's enough to understand that suppressing all this need won't help you. Try to think on it, to feel it. If we want to overcome your problems, you'll need to be able to vocalize what it is you crave."
I nodded. For all he was disturbing, there was something to this advice that felt right. Now, if only he could give me any tips on how to name what it was I needed so deeply and so primally.
"That will do for today," Mr. Noir said.
Then he removed his glasses. He gently folded the arms in and placied them on the table with slow meticulous movements. Only then did he raise his eyes to stare into mine.
"I'll leave you with few things to think on for our next session," he said.
I tried to look away. But I couldn't. His eyes were wrong. There was something there so much worse than any of the monsters I had seen. His eyes were wrong. I wanted to bolt, to run, to do anything. Instead, I nodded and sank back into the couch. His eyes were wrong and the air was cloyingly sweet….
---
I yawned loudly and cracked my neck as I made my way from Mr. Noir's office. It took a few moments to clear the overpowering scent of that incense from my nose, and I barely noticed a girl approaching.
"Hiya, how's it going? Charlie, right?"
"Yeah, Charlie," I coughed pitifully a few times as I looked my interlocutor over.
Lupin Noir was our small school's resident goth, and the focus of Inessa's silent adoration for all of senior year. Between the faux-leather jacket, the spiked collar around her neck, the neon purple highlights in her raven-black hair and the faint hint of an unplaceable accent, Lupin had no shortage of aesthetic. Allegedly, she was also the school's resident rumormonger, and a girl who always got what she wanted.
"What brings you this way?" I asked. I hadn't heard the school bell, engrossed as I was in my talk with Mr. Noir, but my phone told me school had let out half an hour ago.
"When uncle dearest decides to spend the afternoon with a student, well, I can't leave until my ride's ready to go, so…" she shrugged.
"Mr. Noir's your uncle?" they were both pale to the point of being gaunt, but beyond that I could hardly see the family resemblance.
She nodded mournfully, "Yeah, I've been living with him since I came abroad to study. He's a bit of a square, but he's not that bad once you learn to speak his language. He treat you okay? It smells like he's been going hard on that incense of his."
I laughed at that. "Well, he was a little weird at first, but we had a pleasant man to man chat in the end and I think he really helped me clarify my thinking on some things and it was nice to talk to someone who's, you know, older and wiser? Get things off my chest for once." I stopped there for a moment, then continued. "I just feel like I can trust him."
She looked at me oddly for a few moments. "Well, I'm glad you got along I guess. But Charlie, what deep dark secrets do you need to unburden yourself from? Got a crush? Is it Inessa, inquiring minds would pay good money for this info!"
I winced, "No, that's just gross. Inessa's like a sister to me and besides," if I told Lupin that Inessa was probably the single gayest girl in school everyone would know by tomorrow, "I really don't think I'd be her type," I offered as a diplomatic alternative.
She nodded eagerly and, "I see, I see, so you're not together. Is she dating anyone then?"
Somehow, it felt almost like she was taking notes.
"That's not really any of your business is it?" That remained true, no matter how much Inessa wished otherwise, "Sorry I can't give you anything bankable."
She shook her head, "Nah, my uncle can sometimes be a lot and I've been waiting out here for ages. Wanted to make sure that you weren't too overwhelmed or anything, especially since it sounds like you've gotten involved in, what, two monster attacks this week." The last was said with a coy innocence that made me wonder just what Lupin's angle was.
I shook my head. Honestly, he'd been a little weird at first, but it had become obvious he was a guy I could trust as the conversation had gone on. Besides, I really wished people would stop babying me just because I kept getting in the way of these things, "It's fine. Honestly, we even made an appointment to talk more next Monday."
She looked almost worried, "he wanted to see you again?"
"Is that so weird?"
"Nope, just that he's usually got most of what he needs from a student after a single meeting. I guess that means you must be a real head case," she laughed, but her tone was only gently teasing.
I gave her a mock glare, "Well, it seems like he spends a lot of time with you, being your uncle and all. If I'm a head case, what does that make you?"
"So, you've seen through me then," she grinned in a way that showed all of her pearly white teeth and took a few predatory steps toward me. I backed away, suddenly a bit nervous. It wouldn't be the first time a student had randomly tried to attack me before suddenly turning into a money themed monster, "I'm a greedy greedy girl of course! Practically terminal."
I laughed awkwardly, and she took a step back.
"Seriously though Charlie. I just wanted to check in? I'm sorry about how you seem to keep getting caught up in the middle of all of this stuff going on. It's really not fair to you."
I shrugged, "The Saints seem to get caught up in a lot more than me, and besides, it's not like it's your fault I seem to be natural monster bait."
"Right, obviously it's absolutely not my fault at all!"
With that strangely guilty rejoinder, Lupin practically dashed into her uncle's office.
I couldn't help but muse how little the two resembled each other. They were both unnaturally pale, of course, and there was a hint of shared accent in both their voices. But Mr. Noir was off-putting and a bit staid, while Lupin was just such a strange girl. Well, they both were nicer than I'd been led to expect.
Maybe Inessa's taste in girls wasn't so disastrous after all.
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
After an argument with Michael, Inessa and her friends go to visit the local gardens to take a break from all the fighting. Michael follows in secret, however she ends up separated from the group just as a new resinner transforms the gardens into a deadly hedge maze. Can our heroines find their trusty advisor in time to stop Avaritia Wolf's newest monster!?
Tune in for Episode 13: Michael Lost? The Labyrinth in the Botanical Gardens!
I'd like to give a huge thanks to @NemoMarx and @Squishy and @Chehrazad for their extensive feedback on earlier drafts of the work as well as their encouragement. I'd also like to thank Tomoyo on the SV discord for C&Cing this first chapter and @Pawn Lelouch for reviewing the first few.
So, this started as a Nano project, of which roughly 50k words have been written. At the moment, chapters 1-4 are in final editing while the rest need some structural edits and pacing fics. This has been inspired by a few things, especially Curse You, Magical Girls! A Flower Blooms in the Heart of a Villain!? an excellent short magical girl transfic by Rooibos Chai. But Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon have both been an influence on this as well.
I'll be posting this to my Scribblehub Profile about a chapter or two behind the SV releases. If you like this silly little novel of mine, it would be a huge help if you favorited or left a review over there!
While this work will touch on a few dark issues, it's ultimately meant to be on the fluffier side of things.
Well, I can say for certain you've got me interested in seeing more of this. And not just because the complete and utter mess formed from multiple disasters all getting mixed up that is being foreshadowed sounds hilarious to read.
As I said, I was really excited for seeing this on SV and I'm glad you posted it while I was asleep or I would certainly have stayed up to gush about it. Excited to see where it goes!
The weekend was exhausting. But it was less unpleasant than I worried it was going to be when Inessa called and told me we absolutely had to take a classmate's offer to visit the botanical gardens' special winter hedge maze together. Inessa was insistent that I (as well as Temperance and Ida) join her on the trip to "relax and be kids for a while." She used this reasoning a lot; it generally ended in monsters.
But, even if I knew what was coming, what kind of animal would reject his best friend when she seemed so desperate to blow off steam that had probably built up from saving the day over and over again for months? Deep down I mostly just felt glad to be included.
I was mildly surprised that Ida, the tall, dark and athletic superstar of the volleyball, basketball and lacrosse teams, joined happily. If I was busy juggling the county level basketball tournament with the start of lacrosse practice, I would not have had the energy to spend a day out with people. This would have been triply true if I was also a superhero juggling a class-load almost as bad as mine. But I wasn't a magical girl literally named after her diligence. Ida would not have struggled to lift my small burdens.
For my part, I did my best to smile and offer whatever vague support I could muster when an increasingly anxious Inessa started wondering loudly about what hypothetical people should do if they'd said something mean to a trusted companion. And I managed to find a justification to make everyone split up when the whole group got trapped in the maze that "Winter Rose" created.
Inessa had clearly been panicking about finding a place to transform in secret. Even if I couldn't really do anything to help the Saints, I could at least give them that much cover and act oblivious once they'd returned, flushed from victory.
"Honestly," Ida muttered as we made our way out of the garden, "boys!"
I tried to hide in my winter coat, suddenly extremely cognizant of how out of place I was among an otherwise all-girl friend group.
"Not you, C you're, like, the exception! You would never even think of quintuple timing those poor girls like that," Inessa clarified, looking equally steamed despite the cold January air. "Well, at least I was able to make up with Micha…"
Temperance swatted at Inessa's shoulder and gave her a pointed look. Far, far too late, Inessa clamped a hand over her mouth to avoid mentioning anything more about "Michael." I had no idea who or what they were; but Inessa accidentally mentioned them enough that I was sure they were connected to the whole magical girl thing.
"Umm," I fought the urge to try and figure out what story they were avoiding this time, "I wouldn't…"
"See, C is just bad at being a boy, not even trying to two time anyone," Temperance attempted to distract me with more of her usual harassment. "I stand by the assertion he'd be better as one of the girls," she nodded expertly. "Just get in the skirt C."
"Hey, don't be mean to her… to him like that!" Inessa said, blushing brightly at the Freudian slip.
"Nah, can't see it," was Ida's equally thoughtful contribution. For some reason, the fact that one of them wasn't playing along with the bit made the whole matter that much more irritating.
"Thanks, all of you," I offered sardonically, "Seriously though, if you want to hang out with just the girls," and presumably vent about the monster attack that had predictably interrupted their attempted break from all the monster attacks, "I can head home. I wouldn't want to intrude."
Ida was the fastest to respond, "You're good C; and really, you're a friend. You're welcome here. Besides, I think Inessa would set us on fire if we actually chased you out."
Inessa blushed, "I invited you here because I want you here. C, you've been my best friend forever. You're like the brother I never had and I don't want to let anything come in the way of our friendship. With everything it's just been so hard to find time to spend together lately."
"And I can't force you to try on a skirt if we let you escape," Temperance said intemperately.
"Thanks, both of you. That really means a lot," I blushed. Obviously I didn't really fit in with the group. I'd lucked into befriending Inessa as a kid and now her friends had to tolerate me because of that. Besides, between mom and the monsters, things had officially been bad enough for me over the past few months that giving me the boot would probably make them feel bad. But it felt nice to hear anyway, and it'd be rude to point that out when they were already sacrificing their precious free time post-monster to assuage me.
Inessa pulled all of us into a group hug, "It's like you said earlier, if you don't say things when they're bothering you, you'll end up fighting and hurting each other no matter how much you want to avoid it."
I vaguely remembered saying something like that, but it sounded a lot more thoughtful and put together in Inessa's lips.
"I'm just glad we can all be so open with each other," Inessa added with only a touch of guilt.
---
Dad was home early that afternoon. But I was lucky and he was too moody and self-consumed to pay any attention to me. He was also probably drunk, but that wasn't any of my business. Either way I didn't have to lie or deal with the warring blame and guilt that fought across his face whenever he looked at me. It hadn't always been this bad; but, recent events had left us both a lot worse at hiding our worst selves.
Of course, he also stayed home all Sunday and had plenty of time to tell me exactly what he thought of me being such a disappointing waste of space who'd never be a real man. I managed to resist inflicting myself on Inessa's family that evening. Boys shouldn't cry and—even if letting someone see me in that state had been on the table—I didn't need to add managing my inability to deal to Innessa's long list of troubles. Besides, I was oddly eager to talk to Mr. Noir again on Monday. I trusted him and I could tell him about almost anything after all.
Instead, I locked myself in my room to do homework and sedate myself with the kind of online stories that can eat your attention and help you shut off your own thoughts for a little bit. I dreamt once more of a world where I could actually fit in with the group and help them instead of constantly being in the way.
---
"Your problem," Mr. Noir said with a cloying condescension, "is that you try to restrain yourself too much. You're a growing boy, it's only right to have desires, to want things."
My Monday morning session with Mr. Noir was not going well. Life had taught me that you had to control your desires, to be a good person. You had to restrain yourself from wanting things you weren't allowed to want, or at least to stop that from becoming anyone's problem if you couldn't want the right things in the first place.
"Boys have needs! When you're young, you need to indulge! Turn your back on the world of light that demands you restrain yourself to match everyone else's level, to be merely normal. These magical girls are beautiful and charming. It's perfectly normal to want them; healthy even."
There was something seductive in his tone, in the way his eyes seemed to bore holes right through me as we sat in a fog of incense. He reminded me a bit of my dad. At least, he would if I took away the penetrating gaze, the care and consideration and the fact that Mr. Noir seemed to almost respect me.
"I guess," it didn't really seem like he could be wrong. Mr. Noir wasn't ever wrong, was he? I could trust him.
"Now," he continued, "tell me more about these dreams of yours."
I hesitated, as much because of the overwhelming urge to meet his demands as in spite of it. To disappoint him was unthinkable.
"I dream of fighting together with them, the Angelic Saints, as a member. I'm not a victim. I can give something back to them for everything they've done for me and do something that matters."
Mr. Noir shook his head and I winced. I couldn't tell him everything. What weird boy dreams about being a magical girl? My recalcitrance must have disappointed him.
"To give back? To do something that matters? No, no one really cares about such pretensions. Admit it, you want to win their respect, but not for some silly altruistic notion. You want them to be yours, to fawn over you and praise you, to serve at your beck and call."
His words filled the room in an almost tangible sense. It was impossible not to take them seriously. Was that what was going on? All that strange nameless longing I felt was some kind of distorted attraction to my only friends filtered through whatever inferiority complex being so useless had given me? I couldn't admit I wanted them, so I imagined being one of them instead?
Mr. Noir watched in silence as I thought, smiling so widely that—if he weren't so trustworthy—I might have called it megalomaniacal. It was nice of him to give me the space to come to my own answers.
But, what were they? I'd definitely noticed that Inessa and her friends—many of the girls in class—had grown up to be beautiful. And, definitely, when they transformed, they could shine so brightly it hurt to think about them. And I definitely felt something in response to that beauty, an ache I wouldn't dare form into words.
I wanted to challenge him. To find the line of argument to rebut what he was saying and tell him what I really felt. I looked into his eyes and the weak objections died on my lips.
"Maybe…" I admitted slowly. Maybe I was just a useless pervert after all. Even Ida had said that's how boys were. I'd heard it from my dad over and over again, how men were supposed to act toward women. Maybe all of this was just running from myself. I was a boy. That sucked, but I knew deep down that was all I was and all I'd be.
And because I was a boy I could interrupt, dominate a conversation, stare, harass or do any number of things that made all my friends uncomfortable and probably get a free pass from the world for doing it. I probably made use of these things in ways I didn't even notice. Probably, deep down, a part of me wanted to revel in that advantage. And it was easy to see how I could run from wanting that. Everyone wants to imagine themselves as a good person.
"Yes, that makes sense," I said with a sense of defeat, "All of us men are just beasts."
Mr. Noir nodded patronizingly, "good, you're getting closer to facing yourself. One or two more sessions and we should be able to make something great of you indeed."
---
I avoided Inessa throughout the rest of the day. I couldn't see her without realizing how cute she was when she smiled, and felt even worse for all the more it made that horrible nameless feeling stronger in me. Was that why I kept dreaming about being a magical girl? Because I knew Inessa would never want to be with a boy and it was the only way my subconscious could envision getting close enough to do whatever unimaginably weird or gross things that I probably wanted to do to her deep down. Imagining what I might really want made me nauseous.
Unfortunately, rule one of dealing with Inessa is absolutely that if someone runs away, she will chase them. At first it was easy to avoid her. She'd try to talk to me in the halls and I'd make a quick greeting then retreat. But by third period, she absolutely knew something was up and I had to shift from pretending things were normal to actively hiding.
And, even more unfortunately, I was so focused on dodging Inessa that I never noticed a Temperance as she snuck up behind me at lunch.
"How are you today C?" she asked, flat as ever.
"Not great, please no more jokes about shoving me in a skirt right now."
She pouted, "But you seem to enjoy them."
"I, what? Look, guys don't like it when you challenge their masculinity. It's," I hesitated. I'd never been macho, and time with Inessa's family had helped me avoid internalizing most of dad's bullshit, but I knew how the world worked, "It's demeaning when you say that I'm not a real guy. People don't like that!"
She tilted her head to the side, betraying rare signs of some faint emotion, albeit one I couldn't parse, "Is that so? You keep blushing and smiling whenever you hear those jokes."
Did I? That didn't make any sense. I glared at her, "I don't like it! Look, that's because they're embarrassing! Okay! I get that you don't really do emotions, but that's why I react like that!" I hated myself a little for lashing out at Temperance. It wasn't even like I really minded as much as I should. But I knew what I was. And I probably wasn't even one of the good ones, not really.
She winced, and somehow, I felt like I'd gotten through to her.
"Sorry," she managed, unusually pensive, "I'll drop it if it hurts you. But, I wanted to talk to you about something without Inessa or Ida around. Do you have a moment?"
I desperately wanted to avoid her entire friend circle for the day, but I'd basically never seen Temperance emote. On the other hand, I was inches away from screaming at someone. I hated that my friends did so much more for me than I could ever repay. They'd literally saved my life multiple times within the past week. And here I was unable to even sit through a simple conversation in return. I owed Temperance far more than that.
But I couldn't manage it, "I'm not feeling great. Could we talk some other time?"
I tried to tell myself that if Temperance wanted a serious talk, she deserved me actually focusing and not obsessing over my conversation with Mr. Noir. But thinking of that conversation only made me notice how slender she was, with a cold beauty as if she was carved from ice.
Temperance nodded, "it would be best if you're in good condition when we talk," she said, then turned to leave. "I'll keep Inessa off your trail," she offered emotionlessly.
I couldn't help but stare after her. Temperance was definitely cute in her own odd way. A stupid impulse made me wonder if she wanted to ask me out. It was a silly thought; that would never happen to someone like me.
Still it was less deeply uncomfortable to imagine dating Temperance than Inessa. I allowed myself to imagine us. I would grab the tip of her chin and lift it up even as I bent over and brushed the hair out of her face. Tentatively our lips might brush against each others'. Honestly I had to fight the impulse to start giggling like a maniac then and there. The thought wasn't bad or gross to imagine. The image was just so deeply awkward and implausible that I couldn't find anything tempting about it.
And even if Temperance was to start dating me in some alternate dimension, it wouldn't go anything like that. For one, she'd probably take things up a notch and actually bully me into a skirt for anything even resembling a date. That felt alarmingly plausible. Temperance would sit me down and threaten me until I let her do my makeup and put me in a sundress. She'd tease me of course, and I wouldn't know at all how much of her praise was mockery (not that it could really be anything else). Then she would drag me out in public like that, to watch a movie or get dinner, leaning in to whisper quietly how right she was and how she'd made me almost as cute as her…
I buried my head in my hands. Mr. Noir was right and there was no way I could ever talk to Temperance again.
----
Senior year was not going well. I'd picked a demanding course schedule, with 5 advanced placement classes, under the hopes it'd look good to college admissions departments and help me escape my family. I would have struggled to stay ahead in the best of situations. Then mom had just left on the third day of the new school year. She hadn't come back. I'd handled it badly; but it broke dad. He just gave up on avoiding all the mean little feelings he'd always tried to hide around me.
It wasn't the worst. He was nasty, and he said nasty things, but he didn't hit me or anything. He wasn't abusive. Still, I'd already been in a bad spot before I factored in the constant monster attacks.
I'd barely scraped by with a 2.8 GPA on my report card in Fall and, while I didn't think colleges would look at my spring grades before deciding on admissions, my hopes for a merit scholarship depended on them.
We were only on our third week back at school and I'd already gone through four monster attacks; I'd missed most of my classes on three of those days, to say nothing of the bruises or the restlessness they provoked.
And now, instead of studying I spent Monday evening obsessing over Mr. Noir's words and the strange thoughts they'd made me face. I drifted off to sleep confused and worried, and woke much the same. I only knew one thing: Mr. Noir could help me; I could trust him.
Dad was up early that morning, which made breakfast a quiet affair full of unspoken barbs and veiled glares. I wondered what dad would think of Mr. Noir's assessment of me. He'd probably have told Mr. Noir that whatever my perversions, I'd never be manly enough to act on them. I was more kitten than lion, and undeserving of the energy.
Granted, Dad also had somehow convinced himself that I was going to end up dating Inessa someday soon, so maybe he'd think Mr. Noir's advice about acting out whatever I was feeling was just what I needed to be "a real man."
I had to shove down a fit of nausea at that thought. With a last glance and a mumbled goodbye at Dad, I abandoned the rest of my breakfast, grabbed my backpack and made my way to the door.
Inessa Brandt, who I'd managed to avoid for nearly a full day, was naturally waiting for me outside. She looked sleepy but determined and I knew instantly there would be no escape.
"Morning C," she said, with a tension that told me avoiding her had not gone unnoticed.
I did my best to smile comfortingly at her. Judging by her expression, it didn't work.
"Morning Inessa," I offered weakly.
"How are you?" she asked in a tone that said very clearly that she knew I was avoiding her and was now demanding my explanation.
I didn't know what to say. Could I tell her I was struggling with emotions I barely understood and didn't want? That the past 3 months had been one disaster after another and that I'd only managed to mess things up more in every instance? Should I have told her that I'd turned around and my only friend had started to shine so brightly it hurt to look at her sometimes. Was I supposed to tell her that—while I honestly had nothing but respect and admiration for her—it still hurt a lot to know she'd gone and made herself amazing while I languished in the mud.
"I'm fine," I said with an air of nondescript finality.
She put her hands on her hips and glared. "Oh come on, don't be such a boy! You can and should talk about your feelings!"
I winced, something about being judged as a component of my gender always stuck me the wrong way. But I wasn't going to try to tell anyone that "not all boys."
"It's okay to talk about what's wrong," she continued in a more conciliatory tone. "Everyone knows you're struggling with things lately. We're here for you C."
I bit my lip to avoid responding with my first impulse and marched past her wordlessly, starting the journey to school.
"It's not just me. Everyone wants to help: Ida, Temperance, my family. We all care about you a lot. But if you don't tell us what's wrong, we can't fix anything for you."
"I don't need anyone to fix me," I snapped at her, with a degree of confidence in that statement I did not feel.
Inessa winced, "that's not what I meant C; you know that."
"I don't need pity," I said, hating myself for saying it. Inessa had been nothing but nice to me. I was the one who'd worried her, who'd leaned on her while she was busy fighting for the fate of our world. I was the one unable to do literally anything for myself.
"I don't pity you C. Just, talk to us. We're not trying to fix you, we just want to help!"
"Right, because Mom left and Dad's himself and the monsters won't stop bullying me. Poor C," why was I shouting at her? Inessa, of all people, deserved none of this. "But the truth is? That's not even really why I'm so miserable."
I wasn't sure of that. There is no easy way to separate strange nameless longings from other things. How are you to tell apart feeling sorry for yourself because your future is going down the drain from feeling sorry for yourself because you're constantly assaulted by monsters themed after innocuous household objects from feeling sorry for yourself because you weren't good enough to stop half the people in your life from abandoning you? I lacked a sophisticated palette that could differentiate such miseries.
Inessa clenched a hand around the strap of her backpack, her knuckles turning white from the strain. "Why then?"
"You and the gang all know who you are and what you want. You're reaching for things, growing every day, standing up for people. You've all become so amazing. And I'm just a dumb useless boy who can't do anything for himself, who doesn't have parents who care enough to help him figure out college if he can't get a scholarship he doesn't have the grades for."
I took a deep breath. My throat stung and I was half certain dad could hear us from inside. I would face consequences for that later, but that wasn't enough to stop me.
"But even if I did it's not like I have any idea where I want to go or what I want to do in the first place. So much is going wrong and it seems like the only thing I can do is to sit on the sidelines and wait to see what monster attacks me next and whether the Saints have finally gotten sick enough of it that they don't go risk themselves to rescue me. I'm powerless, and even if you offered me the world, I wouldn't even know what to ask for."
As pathetic as I felt, there were no tears. I'd learned that lesson well enough.
"So no, unless you know a way that someone useless like me could actually become, I dunno, a magical girl, then I don't think there's anything you can do for me Inessa."
Was the howling need buried deep in my chest really lust? I didn't know. Either way, Inessa didn't deserve this.
For her part, my best friend since childhood looked confused, then she smiled at me, and I found that some little part of me didn't think being upset at her was the worst of my many terrible decisions after all.
"I'm really not sure the Saints are girls only," she offered, stumbling a little of her words, "I'm sure they'd take boys, if the right one came along."
"That's not," that did nothing to fill the emptiness, "that's not the point Inessa."
I wondered what the right boy would look like. Obviously he wouldn't actually be anything like me, whatever Inessa's implied offer.
"Sorry," she sniffled.
"No, I'm sorry, I'm being awful to you," I sighed, "you don't deserve any of this. You're right, things aren't great, it makes everything," was I going to try to justify myself? Make excuses for my bad behavior instead of just owning what I was doing?
"C, I literally just asked you to vent," Inessa said, shaking her head like I was a lost cause. Then she laughed and tried to hug me. I wanted to recoil, but she'd done nothing to deserve that, so I smiled weakly and pretended like I was in on the joke.
"It's fine C, I come to you with my problems all the time," she added, reassuringly.
That wasn't true. Sure Inessa and I had argued a few times, and she was usually the one who lost her temper, but I almost always deserved it. And sure, Inessa frequently came to me for advice, but we talked about things like sane mature people that were practically adults. She didn't just start screaming attempts to bury me with her inadequacies. And even if she had, she would still be the one secretly fighting for her life against a horde of monsters.
"I'm working through some things," I did my best to smile, "I'm talking to the school guidance counselor. He's been really helpful in reframing things for me. So much has happened, I just… need some time to figure myself out." There, that was true more or less, and it definitely sounded like the kind of thing that might make people actually worry less. Of course, Inessa wouldn't give up until she could find a way to help; it was best to give her a bone with this kind of thing. "When I know how you can help, I'll ask. If you're not mad at me for just now."
Inessa pulled me into a tight hug. "You're basically family C, of course you're not going to get rid of me that easily! Now, don't you feel better for letting it all out?"
I didn't.
----
It did, however, give me the excuse of being tired and needing to think about things to avoid everyone for the rest of the day. Mr. Noir hadn't scheduled our next appointment, but I was buzzed over the PA to visit his office in the middle of third period. That should have been a pain. Calculus BC was the hardest by far of all the courses I was struggling to stay afloat in. But, while my sessions with Mr. Noir had only made me more aware of how awful I actually was, they'd given me a glimpse into just what was wrong with me. That had to be a step toward getting better. Besides, I could trust him. It only made sense to do what he asked of me.
I packed up my textbook and made my way to him, struggling to pretend the odd looks from the other dozen students in the class did not exist and no one had noticed me getting called to the school shrink right in the middle of class. Really I just had to imagine that no one could perceive me. Yes, easiest and best to just imagine a comforting world where no one knew I existed at all as I made my way to Mr. Noir's.
A now familliar olfactory wall of cinnamon and copper greeted me as I slipped inside his office.
"Charleton, good, take a seat," his voice was strained, but Mr. Noir seemed happy to see me at least. I wondered how he could breathe sitting in this incense all day.
Nonetheless, I did as instructed, keeping my gaze on the table between us.
"Now, now," his voice seemed faintly mocking, almost bemused. "Look me in the eyes Charleton. It's only polite."
Reluctantly, I lifted my gaze to stare at his completely ordinary eyes.
"Much better. See, you can do that much if you try."
"Thanks," I muttered sarcastically.
"None of that now," something dangerous lurked under his tone, an undercurrent of authority looking to lash out at the slightest disobedience. I'd heard that tone enough from dad that I understood the meaning.
"Sorry," I offered more sincerely.
"So Charleton," he continued, emphasizing my name in a way that cut, "have you been thinking over our last meeting."
I nodded, "I don't know," I admitted. "I'm not happy with the way things are, and it's not like I don't have things I want. But, well," I wasn't sure how to finish that thought. My daydream about Temperance swam through my head.
"Your problem Charleton," Mr. Noir cleared his throat, "is that society demands we domesticate ourselves. People used to be able to live with their emotions, to let their inner beasts run free. Boys could be boys before civilization caged them up."
He stared at me seriously, "No beast survives a zoo Charleton. Take the mightiest alpha wolf, the deadliest tiger, and confine it to a cage for lesser beings to come and gawk and it will die as surely as if you tore out its heart."
"What do you mean?" I vaguely recalled that alpha wolves were a myth, but Mr. Noir seemed sure of himself and I had to trust him.
"I mean, your problem is that society is strangling you with its expectations. Be polite, respectable, meek and virtuous. These are the means by which lesser men trap their betters and strangle the life out of them, Charleton."
I wasn't sure. There was something appealing about seeing society as a cage. It would be nice to declare evil all the pressure to think about my future, to know where I wanted to go and to make sure it fit inside that nice little mold everyone seemed to think a good man should fit told me a man should fit and declare those things the enemy. It would be freeing to abandon them as the enemy. But, would anything be left of me if I did?
"And then what?" I asked despite myself.
"Indulge yourself. Howl at the moon and run rampant. Reject this safe little zoo we call civilization and return to the forest where the wild things are. Face yourself as a true beast and satisfy all of your desires!"
I giggled despite myself at the, no doubt, accidental reference to a children's book. Stormclouds drove the impassioned smile from Mr. Noir's face.
"S-sorry," I managed, worried I'd offended the odd man. "It just sounded like Where the Wild Things Are and my mom used to…"
"It seems you will still need more work," Mr. Noir's voice was arctic. "Now, Charleton, look into my eyes."
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
The gang goes to cheer on Ida during the first match of an important basketball tournament. However, when Temperance discovers Avaritia plotting to make a Resinner, Ida could be forced to choose between showing up for her team and showing up for her team. What will the Saint of diligence do when her responsibilities pull her in different directions?
Tune in for Episode 14: Go for the Gold, Attack During Ida's Match!
And here's chapter 2 where we get to dig a bit deeper into C's issues and anxieties. Hopefully things start looking up for our poor egg soon enough?
As noted, Chapter 3 should be out probably sometime next week as both that and 4 just need a few final rounds of edits to go.
Dangit, you mean we need to wait an entire week for the next episode of "No, we aren't revealing if C is a Magical Girl or Dark Magical Girl just yet!"? Say it isn't so...
Dangit, you mean we need to wait an entire week for the next episode of "No, we aren't revealing if C is a Magical Girl or Dark Magical Girl just yet!"? Say it isn't so...
I think she absolutely could be a Dark Magical Girl if Mr. Noir wasn't such a TERF-y acting motherfucker who is basically going to keep on trying to turn her into some bestial Alpha Male out of the stupidest male power fantasies.
He's basically sabotaging actually managing things... I think his actual goal is the creation of a "Resinner" which I think are created from the negative emotions and evils and yada yada of etc, etc.
So encourage toxic masculinity and antisocial brutality masquerading as male empowerment. I think he's literally just reading Charlie completely wrong.
E: Like this motherfucker literally mentions "Alpha Wolves" at one point.
I think she absolutely could be a Dark Magical Girl if Mr. Noir wasn't such a TERF-y acting motherfucker who is basically going to keep on trying to turn her into some bestial Alpha Male out of the stupidest male power fantasies.
He's basically sabotaging actually managing things... I think his actual goal is the creation of a "Resinner" which I think are created from the negative emotions and evils and yada yada of etc, etc.
So encourage toxic masculinity and antisocial brutality masquerading as male empowerment. I think he's literally just reading Charlie completely wrong.
E: Like this motherfucker literally mentions "Alpha Wolves" at one point.
Oh yeah, I absolutely got that. My question is more a case of "Does the MC become a Magical Girl of one sort or another before they manage to make it through a complete 'session' with Mr Noir, or do they manage to mumble the 'right' things for just long enough for Mr Noir to try to create a Resinner from them, only to receive a great surprise out of it"?
Oh yeah, I absolutely got that. My question is more a case of "Does the MC become a Magical Girl of one sort or another before they manage to make it through a complete 'session' with Mr Noir, or do they manage to mumble the 'right' things for just long enough for Mr Noir to try to create a Resinner from them, only to receive a great surprise out of it"?
I can see this being a 'Careful what you wish for, you might just get it' event for everyone involved.
Inessa wants to help her friend feel better about himself (and maybe one day, have the option to stop lying to him about the whole magical girl thing).
Noir wants a Resinner to defeat Castitas and thinks he has the perfect raw material in Charlie.
Charlie doesn't know what he wants. Or at least doesn't consciously really know what he wants even if he's trying to figure it out.
So when Noir thinks this pot is done boiling and releases Charlie's 'deep dark unbridled desires'; the result is not going to be what anybody expected.
My family moved to the Brandt's street when I was nine years old. Even then I was quiet and weird and I'd barely had any friends before the move. The new school only made that worse. Inessa went as well, was in the same grade and lived only a few blocks away. She was also a lot less popular among our peers back then. A pair of outcasts, we bonded out of desperation as much as anything else.
Our relationship was built on a symbiotic foundation from the start. I stood up to the bullies for Inessa in a way that made my mom worried and my dad cheer (I tried at least). Inessa shared her family with me. I gave her companionship in her many hobbies and fandoms and I got to copy her love of magical girl anime like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura and Princess Knight Orion in return. Both of us were a bit depressed and aimless and we took solace in sharing that, even if Inessa learned to fake a smile as she got older and the bullies went away.
And then, while I was busy with my own issues, Inessa's smile stopped being fake. She just turned around and figured herself out. She came out, suddenly and proudly, and made everyone accept her for herself. She made new friends and started dragging me out to meet Ida and then Temperance as well.
And of course, though it took me a few weeks to realize it was her, she had literally turned into the very figure we'd both admired so much as kids. I respected her, both as Castitas and as Inessa.
But, on another level, I kept expecting her to drift away over time. I couldn't really contribute anything to the friendship anymore. She had secrets she had to keep now. And, okay, she was really bad at keeping them. But either way, that put a wall between us.
It just seemed inevitable that she'd move on to bigger and better things than me. It was only proof of how good a person Inessa was that she'd stayed with an aimless waste of space like me for as long as she had.
At least Mr. Noir was helping me get my head on straight. I spent time in his office after classes let out on Wednesday (the first half-day of the new term) and during second period AP English Lit on Thursday. I had yet to grasp his whole "embrace your inner beast" philosophy to his satisfaction. But I knew I would soon. Mr. Noir was always right; I could trust him. This would help.
But understanding the repressed desires that Mr. Noir said were secretly causing all of my problems proved impossible. No matter how much he suggested it was a crush, or a desire for a girlfriend or something more embarrassing, I couldn't quite make the feelings line up in my own head. Sure, the idea of a relationship seemed nice, but it was also just not that important. Even if I became someone else, I couldn't really imagine being the kind of guy anyone would have a reason to date. And imagining a relationship didn't make the void go away.
On Friday the 26th, however, class was cut short before Mr. Noir could call me. The school piled into the gymnasium for a pep rally in anticipation of the first match of our school's regional girls' basketball tournament. This was annoying, as Mr. Noir had promised me definitively that he'd 'force me to break out of my cage' in our next session and now I would have to wait until Monday.
I probably would have avoided the game itself; but the match was important to Ida and she was a friend, so that meant it had to be important to me. And that meant we had to go and I had to spend time with my friends despite the fact that I was deathly afraid I'd blurt out something of what I'd been discussing with Mr. Noir and ruin things with everyone forever. It's easier and safer to be unseen and unheard when you feel like you might say something you shouldn't.
I was dreading needing to pass two hours on uncomfortable gymnasium seating in close proximity to Inessa and Temperance. I remembered their comments at the botanical gardens. How would they react if they knew that every time they were near I couldn't stop obsessing over them. They'd be disgusted to see what a boy I really was deep down.
My sessions with Mr. Noir—as much as they would definitely help eventually—had only made that faint need flare into an agonizing want every time I saw Inessa being brave, straightforwardly expressing herself, or even just existing as herself with our friends.
As much I wished I could take Mr. Noir's advice and just embrace my id, letting Inessa, Temperance and Ida know exactly how constantly aware I was of how beautiful they all were, was a step too far. I needed desperately to retain my exception status to boydom.
But, the more I tried not to say anything, the more I thought about saying it instead. And that, in turn, made me focus even more on not letting anything slip. And on and on.
So of course, I sat next to them on a green plastic seat, cheering on Ida and almost pretending to focus on the game while my thoughts accelerated into a horrifically self-destructive spiral of conflicting impulses.
And really, even if I gave into Temperance's teasing and let her do whatever she wanted to dress me up, there's no way either of them would ever be interested in dating someone like me. And okay, a part of that was that Inessa was both gay and practically family. But I was also me and they were them and the gap between us was pretty big. It was only a quirk of fate that they tolerated me in the first place.
Fortunately, if there was one thing that attending social events with my friends had taught me, it was that they were absolutely going to have some kind of crisis in the middle. I would either enjoy the welcome respite of being victim 0 for another monster attack or they would get pulled away and vanish abruptly for half the night.
Sure enough, Ida exchanged panicked whispers with Inessa during half-time and both Inessa and Temperance promptly declared they needed to go to the bathroom. I waited five minutes, saw no sign of them, and let out a quiet sigh of relief; I was worried of course. I knew how scary the monsters could be. And even I could see that Ida was wracked with anxiety during the third quarter and barely able to play at all. But a petty part of me was still happy I didn't have to spend time being seen by my friends.
And okay, maybe I was a little panicked when the fourth quarter started and Ida didn't show up; but of course all was well in the end. She returned (exhausted but unharmed) post-game and Inessa and Temperance (also exhausted) made their way back to their seats at the same time.
"If I never see a fidget spinner again for as long as I live," Inessa groaned as she approached. Temperance nodded wordlessly, looking ever so slightly frazzled.
I was too consumed with my own issues to bother with our usual dance of Inessa making very obvious slips about magical girl business and me pretending to misconstrue them. I simply pretended not to hear that.
"Sorry about that C! We, umm, ran into someone we know on the way and one of her friends was in trouble so we had to help out and, well, we lost track of time." Inessa dipped her head in apology.
Translation, they bumped into Avaratia Wolf, Gula Shark or some new leader of whatever shadowy force kept turning people into monsters, and she had a monster attack the gang. Ida tried to stick with the basketball game because this match was important but they couldn't defeat until she came and helped.
"Are they okay?" I asked despite myself.
"Well, everything is all fine now, but I think we still have some things to talk about with our friend next time we see her," Inessa only panicked a little as she tried to translate what had happened.
In other words, whichever general had shown up to lead the enemy had gotten away (it was probably Avaritia Wolf, I hadn't seen Gula Shark in any monster attacks since early December.)
Temperance nodded along stoically, "Right, she's still confused about a few things, but we'll help her see the light soon enough after all this."
Which is to say Temperance was livid, insofar as Temperance actually felt any emotions at all under that mask of hers, at whatever this fidget spinner themed monster had been and was probably totally determined to crush her enemy next time she saw her. I nodded pleasantly and hoped that there was a way out for Avaritia Wolf, or at least a quick painless end. Castitas was pure and straightforward and would never give up or surrender. Diligentia was athletic, hard-working and determined to do the right thing. Temperantia was simply terrifying.
"How'd the game go?" Inessa asked after a few awkward moments. .
"At first, without Ida, it seemed pretty bad," I admitted though I'd barely managed to pay attention, "but then they called a time out and talked some things over really intensely among each other and then they started to get hyped up and played a lot better and they managed to pull out a miraculous three point shot right at the last second that put them just in the lead."
Inessa sighed in relief. Temperance nodded thoughtfully.
"What?" I asked, unable to resist despite all my desire to be alone with my own thoughts.
"Ida was worried that she had to be in two places at once," Inessa said, "like everyone was depending on her." I managed to ignore that a hypothetical Ida who wasn't secretly a magical girl should have had no other responsibilities at all right now.
Temperance nodded, "And now she grasps her own irrelevance."
"And that's good?!" I managed to avoid raising my voice, but the idea of being like Ida; of being someone who could go out of my way to be there for everyone and then ending up learning that I wasn't really helping, just indulging myself… That would hurt.
"I wouldn't say it quite like that," Inessa clarified, "But she felt like she needed to hold up everything everywhere at once, and now she'll know she can rely on others too!"
"Yes," said Temperance even more woodenly than normal. "She will definitely learn her lesson this time."
Inessa poked the other girl in the cheek, "Unlike a certain someone who had to be taught her lesson how many times?"
Temperance did not dignify that with a response.
I had no idea what the exchange was about, and happily filed it away under the long list of things that would make my friends panic, lie, and then feel guilty about lying to me if I asked.
---
It wasn't a good weekend.
Dad wasn't pulling any shifts, so he lingered around the house in one of his moods. Usually I'd find an excuse to spend at least one day at Inessa's, but I didn't have it in me to face her with all the thoughts wreaking havoc in my head.
If Inessa wasn't an option, I tended to try to hide in my room and distract myself with all sorts of mindless online stories; but, given the content of what I tended to read, the attempt only served to drive me deeper into my own anxieties. This was reality and I was me and no one was going to show up to zap me into being someone useful and good no matter how nice that would be.
At least the absence of anything else I could do to distract myself from imploding drove me to devour my schoolwork with a desperate intensity I'd rarely managed. I would be hard pressed to remember much of what I accomplished. As a plus, I only had to listen to one of dad's rants about my conduct, my (lack of) prospects and the need to 'man up.'
And then, after several eternities, it was Monday morning and I could meet with Mr. Noir and get back to trying to work through whatever this was. I needed his help; he would make it all make sense if I just listened to him. I could trust him after all.
I left early for school and managed to dodge Inessa (and dad) and made my way to Mr. Noir's office. I couldn't say how, but I knew he would be there waiting for me.
Lupin was leaving Mr. Noir's office as I arrived; storm clouds on her face. I mumbled a hello, but she just growled at me and shoved past. I had no clue what had her in such a bad mood. I was tempted to break from my compulsion to see Mr. Noir and see if anything I could do to help; but something about Lupin's tone told me she might actually bite me if I tried to talk to her.
Anxiously, I knocked on his door.
"Ah, Charleton, perfect," he grinned at me. "Come in. I was just about to call for you."
I followed and took a seat.
"Hmm, you've certainly done a good job teasing your sins to the surface," he said, "though the form is still surprisingly vague. It would suffice for a mere monster, but…"
"What do you mean?" I asked, worried.
"I mean," he rose to his feet and swung his arms grandly, "that you've allowed your lusts, the essence of luxuria, to percolate through your thoughts, to transform your body into its vessel. And yet you hold yourself at the precipice, too bound by society's rules to take that leap that would set you apart from the lowly sheep around you. Are you ready, Charleton, to let loose that beast lurking deep in your soul, tear through these chains of false virtue holding you back and claim the power that should rightfully be yours?"
Mr. Noir offered me his hand as he spoke. His voice was as shrill and menacing as normal, but the anticipation was thick in his tone.
I hesitated. I had no idea what he was talking about, though obviously it had to make sense. This was the solution I needed. I needed to take his hand and become and all the anxiety and longing would finally stop.
"No?" I tried as gently as I could manage. I didn't want to offend him after all. Mr. Noir's teeth ground against each other as his expression slipped for a moment.
Hastily, I continued, "I want to. I'll be a beast if that's what it takes to really know myself and be someone I can live with or even just to stop obsessing over it all the time and get back to being there for my friends in whatever little way I could even once I really realize how much I hate what I am deep down."
I hesitated, that was true, but it didn't seem like it was quite what Mr. Noir wanted from me. "I get it," I clarified, "I don't like being me, being C or Charleton or Charlie or any of these disgusting useless pathetic boys. And the more I realize I don't like being me the more constantly I notice it and the harder it is to just hide from these feelings. If I have to become a beast to be anyone else, then I'll gladly become a beast if it means I can stop all this."
"Then why do you refuse to take my hand?" he asked, his tone clipped.
"I don't know what it is that I want. Sure, I see a cute girl and I find my head filled with all these strange thoughts and now they won't go away at all; but, where do they even go? Like, I'm a beast, not a magical girl and it hurts that I'll never stand on that stage with them and win their admiration and trust. How can I become a beast if I don't know what kindI?"
He looked at me appraisingly.
"Regrettable," Mr. Noir said, colder than I'd ever heard him, "Even now you insist on defying me. It seems like this method may be insufficient to the task."
"What does that mean?" he was starting to scare me.
"It has brought you to a simmer. You're clearly just too comfortable with the current status quo. What we need is an external catalyst, and a punishment is merited for wasting so much of my time" Mr. Noir ignored me.
"What?" I asked.
"It means we'll need a more dramatic strategy. Tell me, who in this school draws you the most?"
I wasn't sure. If there was anyone I dreamed about the most, it was Inessa. I admired her; I obsessed over her; I worried about her. I wanted to help her do what she had to do. I desperately wished I could be as amazing or even just half as confident and straightforward about my own needs as she was.
But if Mr. Noir was right about what I was thinking, then I refused to let the answer to that be Inessa. And that only left one other candidate. One person's actions had sent my daydreams into a tizzy and revealed how right Mr. Noir was about my underlying cravings.
"Temperance," I admitted after a pause.
"Seek her out," he demanded. "Talk to her. Tell her exactly what you want, let her see how depraved you really are and make her push you over the edge."
I shook my head frantically, "She'd never forgive me if I told her what I really was. I couldn't show my face in public ever again and," I couldn't talk to my friends, not until whatever this was was passed and I could exorcize whatever feelings were stuck inside me.
"That was not a request," Mr. Noir's mouth was leaking smoke. What was wrong with him? What was he?
I wanted to stand and run, but the full force of his eyes bore down on me and there was nothing to do but obey.
---
I stretched as I came out of Mr. Noir's office, almost unable to believe that I'd spent so long talking to him that it was already lunchtime. I should have been anxious about missing class, but I couldn't be bothered. For all the details of our conversation felt a little vague, I'd left Mr. Noir's office with a new sense of purpose. I knew now exactly how to pin everything down. The answer had been staring at me in the face the whole time.
Temperance had been wanting to have a talk anyway. Sure, I still had my issues, but something told me that I needed to have that conversation, that talking to Temperance would help me sort things out. Mr. Noir had been clear that I needed to seek out an alternative perspective on things. He was always right. I could trust him.
So I made my way to our usual lunch table and waited for the others to arrive.
"Hey," I said nervously once they'd sat down with food. "Temperance I'm, uh, feeling a lot better and there was something I wanted to talk to you about if that's okay, and I thought it might be a good time to talk over whatever it was you wanted to bring up last week?"
She hesitated for a long time, then led me out of the cafeteria. The hallway was mostly deserted and that seemed good enough for her. I didn't know why I couldn't have this conversation in the cafeteria itself, but she seemed to welcome the relative anonymity of a quiet hallway over the attention of our friends as much as I did.
"You go first?" I offered, surprised that she almost seemed to flinch. Temperance did not do anxiety. It was not within her repertoire of skills. What on earth was she trying to say?
Was she actually going to confess to me? I panicked at that thought. What would I do? Obviously she wouldn't want to date me if she knew me better and, really, it was ridiculous to imagine her judgment was that bad.
Besides, sure, I'd had a daydream or two about dating Temperance and I didn't dislike her, but it would make things even more awkward with Inessa. Really, I didn't even have time to date in the first place and, her jokes aside, obviously Temperance wouldn't actually try to force femme me or anything anyway.
At the same time, she was literally a hero. I owed her my life a few times over. Would it really be okay to turn her down just like that? I had no experience here. How was I supposed to let someone down gently!?
Temperance, ignoring my internal crisis, finally gathered herself. I tried to focus on her. I had to maintain a straight face. Obviously I was wrong, but if I wasn't, I couldn't risk letting anything show that might hurt her.
"I just want to make sure you know that we're here for you and," she trailed off for a long moment, then took a deep breath and stared me straight in the eyes, "you don't have to be a guy if you don't want to," Temperance spoke quietly and forced a smile that was probably meant to be comforting, but mostly looked deeply awkward on her face.
I froze, staring at her in abject confusion. Was she just messing with me again after all this build-up?
"We get put in boxes," she continued as if that was a segue that made sense, "And no one is encouraged to think about it. If everyone acts like there's nothing else, then no one has to ask if they ever really fit inside their box in the first place."
"But," she hesitated, "I want to make sure you know that the view from outside is worth it in the end. You can be a girl or anything else if you want and we'll—all of us—have your back, no matter what you end up."
I'd never heard Temperance be so loquacious before. Even her catchphrase and named attacks were delivered in a quiet deadpan. It was so absurd to see her like this that it would have been almost impossible to process the words if she hadn't stabbed each and every single one of them into the cracks in my heart. I'd have thought she was joking, but, well, for all her teasing Temperance was one of Inessa's friends and I couldn't imagine her being that mean on purpose. No, as nice as her vision sounded, as much as life would be so much easier for me if I could just decide to be a girl or something like that, she was just looking at me and trying to find a better person than the one in front of her.
At the end of the day, Temperance was a good person. Her speech was oddly similar to some of the things Mr. Noir had taught me, but Temperance made it all sound noble. Society forced us to conform. It strangled us. But where Mr. Noir saw me as someone who deserved to be repressed, Temperance was looking for a person who's opposition to the world would be valid. She was looking for a worthy core that simply didn't exist. At least I wouldn't have to find a way to turn her down.
"I'm not a transgender." I didn't manage to keep the frustration out of my voice, "It would be great if I was! I have nothing against them; I'm not my dad." No, I wasn't thinking about him now.
"But, look, if I was, if I could just press some magic button and be," I couldn't say the word, "that would be great. But I'm not; I'm a boy." I said the last words with some bitterness. No one, I was sure, could really want to be the gender that made Inessa and her friends shout "Boys" and all know exactly what the problem was. But some of us were stuck with it.
"And I've never felt like I was or could be anything else no matter how much I wished I wasn't. If I have a problem, it's not that I'm a girl trapped in the wrong body. If anything, I'm drowning in how much a pathetic perverted boy I am."
I felt something against my cheek. They weren't tears; boys don't cry. My lungs had stopped working for some reason. That wasn't enough to stop me. I had to let her know what I was, what she was really dealing with.
"It sucks but that's what I am: just another dumb perverted teenage boy who hides every sick thought in his head even while he's fantasizing all sorts of terrible things about you deep down. So, yes, I want to be a magical girl. Who wouldn't want to be powerful and brave and beautiful and have everyone look up to them? But I don't get to do that because I'm not a girl or a good person. I'm just some weird deviant that can't be content standing in the background where he belongs and keeps dreaming of stealing the spotlight to satisfy his narcissism when he won't do anything to deserve it in the first place."
I paused for breath and found I could barely breathe. Saying that hadn't helped. Admitting that I was some pervert who wished he could be a girl so he could fit in better with his friends, had not brought about any catharsis. I remained a creepy, ugly, clumsy, useless, waste of a boy that couldn't even get his mom to stay or his dad to respect him.
Every student in the hall was staring at me now and a few heads had poked around corners and out of classrooms at my shouting. I tried to find some reaction I could make, to play it off and go back to being invisible. My eyes made contact with Inessa's as she exited the cafeteria. She stared at me with concern in her eyes.
Temperance, likewise, stared at me with undisguised compassion. Of course they would worry. They were good people. And as much as I wished I could be like them, I didn't belong.
I ran.
---
I found myself in the dark in an empty house that once felt safe and welcoming a few years ago. The school would call and they would be upset, and that would make dad upset and then I would have a bad week. I was being dumb. I couldn't afford to miss any classes. But, the thought of returning after that, with everyone staring at me?
Worse, what if Inessa or any of them tried to understand, to brush aside this part of me and tell me I was just going through hard times? I could survive their disgust; forgiveness would break me.
No, better to sit in the dark with my own thoughts and hope dad worked late. At least, in silence and darkness I could pretend I was no one at all. It would be so easy if I could just abandon everything and be someone else without my baggage, with a hint of Temperance's stoicism or Inessa's charm or Ida's indefatigability. I would love to be someone cute and nice and as different from me as the sun from the moon. But no force on earth could do that. And I still didn't know what I was missing to let Mr. Noir help me even after all that.
The doorbell rang. I ignored it; It rang again, then again, and again. I couldn't make myself answer it. But a part of me needed to know if Inessa was coming to help, or if Temperance had come to break me again.
I got up from the table and went to my bedroom so I could steal a glance out from the second floor window. There, against all reason, stood Lupin Noir. As if she could sense me watching, she lifted her head. Her eyes met mine and she smiled savagely, like a cat who'd just realized its prey was cornered and now it could savor the game.
Then she opened the front door and let herself into my house.
I was too exhausted to parse what was happening. Maybe she'd been possessed or something and I was about to be eaten by a monster. The possibility felt oddly welcoming; I wouldn't have to explain that outburst to anyone; I wouldn't have to crave something I couldn't name.
I sat at the window, waiting as her footsteps slowly made their way up the stairs. Gently, almost mockingly, she knocked on my door. I didn't answer. She opened the door anyway.
I was wrong, I realized, as she looked me up and down. It wasn't Lupin. Sure, her face, build and general aesthetic looked oddly similar, and she shared Lupin's trademark purple highlights, but this girl had a large pair of wolf ears on her head and a tail.
Her outfit looked like a twisted reflection of Inessa's, keeping the frills and assorted ribbons, but trading the skirt for a pair of shorts and a tighter top that managed to slim her build down instead of accentuating it. All she was missing was the halo. She made up for it by exuding chaotic malice and having a pair of wicked claws I'd seen tear through concrete.
I recognized her instantly: Avaritia Wolf. She was the most persistent and dangerous of the Saints' enemies, and the most frequent culprit behind the many monster attacks I'd stumbled into.
"Hiya Luxuria; I'd say it's a pleasure to finally meet you as me, but uncle dearest has told me alllll about what a messed up little freak you really are deep down, so I honestly have no idea why we're welcoming you into the fold." She even sounded like Lupin, though the other girl's basic compassion was nowhere to be found in Avaritia's eyes. That was for the best. Being looked at like I was a cockroach she wanted desperately to crush hurt a lot less than the thought of tolerance in Inessa's eyes.
I wanted to run, to scream, to at least go down trying futilely to fight back. Any of the magical girls I admired so much would have done that and more. But the scents of cinnamon and copper were in the air, so I followed her mutely downstairs and then outside. She walked to the wall of a nearby building for a moment, before slashing out with one claw to tear a rift in the world in front of us.
Avaritia pulled it wider, then spun on one heel to knock one of Castitas' fire arrows out of the air.
"Get away from him," Castitas shouted. Her voice was alien, furious in a way I'd never seen her. It wouldn't matter. She was too far away to reach me.
"Sorry Inessa," I had just enough time to give her a sad smile before Avaritia Wolf dragged me through the portal.
NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!
Oh no, Charlie's been kidnapped by Avaritia Wolf and taken to the mysterious Abyssal Forest! With Michael's reluctant help, Castitas, Temperantia and Diligentia chase after Avaritia to stage a rescue attempt. But, just as they think they may succeed, the mysterious leader of the Abyssal Forest makes his appearance!
Tune in for episode 15: Rescue from the Abyssal Zone! Superbia Dragon Appears!
So, C finally hits their nadir! Hopefully things improve for our poor protagonist from here on out though!
I know it helps some people, but the idea of being 'trapped in the wrong body' never really sat with me. In practice, I think it kinda promulgated a view of transness as something essential that you can't help but know about yourself. That's what C's heard and, well, their self esteem isn't really there to come to terms with themselves at this point, and Mr. Noir's done a lot of damage in the past few days, but I do kind of think that having a very misguided set of beliefs about how you have to be able to construct yourself to be trans is a part of it and something I wanted to pull out in this one.
I'm reaching the end of the chapters I have more solidly edited, so things may slow down a bit after 4 comes out, but I am trying to space things up to keep up with reworks on later bits.
I can't tell if this makes Mr.Apparently-a-Dragon? the best or worth therapist for both totally misreading C's transness as lust but still giving them advice that technically would've worked out great if it weren't obviously supposed to result in their public humiliation.
Is this going just as planned or horrifically backfiring because Magical Girls are good at providing a support group? Fuck if I know but I want to.
This is simply amazing. I'm so excited to see where this goes! I love how the evil Guidance Counselor is fumbling so hard trying to get C to lash out using Toxic Masculinity and its just not working I can imagine him ranting in his evil otherworldly castle.
"I don't understand this boy! I'm so close to unleashing his primal desires and making him into a Resinner but every time I think I'm close he just spirals into self loathing! I can't use that shit! What's wrong with him! Any youngman in his position should have broken by now!"
Then the comic relief minion speaks up.
"Maybe he's not a young man! Maybe he's actually a girl!"
The minion is swiftly bonked by the boss.
"That's ridiculous! The fine young man I'm trying to lead down a dark path? A girl? Utterly preposterous. 40 lashes for you this week minion for even suggesting such a ludicrous notion!"
Edit: Ninja'd by a new chapter and wow I'm excited to see where this goes next. The villian got her to admit it to Temperance but once again it wasn't at all what the baddies were expecting. What Fools the forces of evil be.
Be interesting to see if this ends up being a 'I know you're in there somewhere' fight against the newly minted Dark Magical girl when the BBEG (Big Bad evil guy) send out his newest minion against the Saints.
Other option is Castitatas smashes her way in and then princess carries the semi/unconscious and fuku'ed body of her friend/future teammate back to safety.
You know, we already have an Avaritia (Avarice) and a Gula (Gluttony), and C got pegged by the big bad as a Luxuria (Lust) and the teaser implies C is going to become Superbia (Pride).
I might not know enough about trans people, but from the story I would have guessed Invidia (Envy)...
For those following, the missing ones are Ira (Wrath) and Acedia (Sloth)
And since I'm busy with it, lets add the Angelic Saints as well.
We have Castitas (Chastity), Temperantia (Temperance) and Diligentia (Diligence)
The missing ones are Caritas (Charity), Humanitas (Kindness), Patientia (Patience) and Humilitas (Humility)
You know, we already have an Avaritia (Avarice) and a Gula (Gluttony), and C got pegged by the big bad as a Luxuria (Lust) and the teaser implies C is going to become Superbia (Pride).
Well, the thing with C getting pegged as Lust is Mr. Noir being dead wrong about what the issue is. And I think that Mr. Noir himself is Superbia/Pride. After all, he's very self-assured that he knows exactly what's up with C, and any evidence to the contrary is C's own failings, not the possibility that he's mistaken or needs to re-evaluate. Plus there was that whole "black smoke seeming to emit from his nostrils", which is very dragon-y.
Already commented, but I wanted to ask if this was being uploaded anywhere else? I would love to share this with some friends that may not like reading on SV.
On one hand. Very well written, I like it. On the other hand, wow, how dare you. Uncomfy. This hurts. It took me over an hour to get through Chapter One! Why u do dis to me
