Fan Fiction ❯ What a Magical Mess! ❯ Chapter 1: You have GOT to be kidding me! ( Chapter 1 )

Author Notes: A weird SI idea I got one day and has kept growing ever since. The main character acts and thinks much like I think I would but, to distance myself, I have changed his name. Laurent Veilleux is an extremely non-descript name where I live. Quick warning, I tend to swear so, in this fic as well, some characters tend to swear.

 

Anyway, this is a SI magical Girl parody loosely inspired by Sailor Moon but I have messed liberally with the story for no better reason than the fact that I could.

 

***********

 

What a Magical Mess!

Chapter 1: You have GOT to be kidding me!

By The Hunterminator

 

 

A magical call echoed across the planet and an ancient power awakened. While it was not sentient per se, it DID possess a form of inhuman intelligence and a mission: to awaken the protectors of the goddess queen who had created it. Its senses stretched out to assess the situation.

 

One of the first things it noticed was that its power was almost depleted, which was peculiar because only several millennia of slumber could drain its power to that extent. A quick estimation showed that it could only awaken one of the warriors, and it reflected on which of the eight should be awakened.

 

The Clear-Mind and the Illusion both filled support roles and, as such, useless if they were the first to be awakened. The Rogue and the Healer were much same. Though the Warrior and the Protector could fight very well on their own, seeking the others would be far from their minds in the heat of battle. The Scout was almost chosen, but she lacked the information needed to find the others despite her speed and exploring ability. Thus, only the Knowledge was left and the power focused its search on her. After an immeasurable amount of time, the spirit found two suitable descendents of the original Knowledge.

 

As per tradition, it only considered descendents on the mother's side and their mother was the daughter of a daughter of a daughter and on and on until it ended with a daughter of the previous Knowledge. As their heritage hinted, they were both quite smart, although in very different ways.

 

The youngest was gifted with what some people refer to as smarts, the ability to improvise ideas out of thin air. The eldest, on the other hand, possessed a more intellectual intelligence. A great curiosity coupled with the ability to recall theory with ease.

 

The latter was what the intelligence needed and it teleported to the vicinity. Of course, an immortal mass of power was not really a suitable form and it selected a nearby vessel that would serve its purpose. It entered the animal mind and enhanced it, changing the body as well.

 

***

 

At that moment, Laurent Veilleux had just woken up and was cooking breakfast in the kitchen. From the corner of his eye, he saw his cat Shadow enter, his usual perky self.

 

Knowing that it was probably yet another case of the kitten wanting to be fed a better fare than the usual, he smiled and asked, "Hey, Shadow, hungry as usual?"

 

Some people might consider it strange that he commonly spoke with his cats, but he had always enjoyed doing so. Even so, he never expected to hear a perky reply: "Yeah, I am. Those chicken strips from yesterday would be really good right now."

 

While the cat had been speaking, Laurent had turned around and was now looking in open amazement at his talking cat. Noiselessly, he mouthed, "What the fuck?"

 

After a moment, Shadow noticed the look and tried to look at himself, "What, do I have something stuck in my fur? Oh, I knew I shouldn't have put so much attention in cleaning my privates but, really, you know how important they are to us males right?" Then, almost as an afterthought, he did a back flip, which was completely impossible for a cat. "Oh, here's something for you."

 

The `something' was a watch made of a blue metal and decorated with various blue gems that had appeared out of nowhere and fallen at Laurent's feet during the flip. Laurent took it out of reflex and the act of grabbing something that wasn't there a second ago seemed to jog his mind back into gear. "What the hell?"

 

Well, maybe not. But then again, a talking cat is not something that anyone could recover from quickly. Shadow seemed to realise this because his features stretched into a cat's closest approximation of a look of understanding, "Oh right, the talking thing. Gist of it is, big mystical force just decided to change me, not too sure why yet, didn't integrate much yet. Supposed to change you too at some point, first part should be painless and just about unnoticeable."

 

Laurent frowned, unable to stretch his mind around the idea of a talking cat. Such things, to his knowledge, only happened in fiction, "What the hell are you talking about? What kind of change could make a bloody cat talk? And what do you mean, me too?"

 

As he was saying this, Laurent waved his arm around and suddenly noticed a weird detail. Quickly bringing his hand in front of his face, he saw that his hand had suddenly grown smaller. Not only that, the proportions were all wrong too. The fingers were longer compared to the rest of the hand; the hand was slimmer, daintier, and the back was much less hairy.

 

The more he looked, the more the hand seemed to be somebody else's. More specifically, it seemed to be a girl's hand. And yet, the fingers flexed on command and, bringing both hands together, he could also feel everything they touched. Having a bit of trouble seeing, Laurent straightened his glasses. Except... they didn't seem to want to stay in place, as if the face had changed shape.

 

He felt his face with a gasp and found something other than his own features. The nose was no longer the Veilleux nose that his mother kept commenting on; the face was less rounded and more oval shaped, the chin more pointed. The last observation brought another, namely the lack of beard.

 

After a quick sprint to the nearest mirror, Laurent found a stranger's face looking back. Yet... he was not looking at a complete stranger. The short and unkempt dark and dirty blond hair, the greenish blue eyes, the glasses hadn't changed either even though they no longer fit the face. The differences themselves were not too strange either; he could recognise a bit of his mother's face.

 

All in all, he was looking at a cute, young face, and even that was not so strange. Laurent had always looked young for his age, which was why he had always kept his beard a bit on the long side. His eyes travelled down and he was thankful for his habit of wearing baggy clothes.

 

A quick peek into shirt and pants confirmed Laurent's fears. He was somehow now a she. Feeling light-headed, the trans-gendered man sat on the nearest chair and tried to understand how this could have happened.

 

During all these self-examinations, Shadow sat on the ground, looking at Laurent with a puzzled look, "You know... you really should brace yourself. The second part of the transformation could kick in at any moment now."

 

Laurent turned his head to look at his cat with an incredulous look. "Second part?"

 

Then it hit. Both hands went to the sides of his head while his mouth released a silent cry of pure anguish. Inside, unbelievable pain ripped through Laurent's mind as a transformation went across his brain. As his back arched in intense suffering, Laurent saw flashes of different scenes.

 

He saw a great city surrounded by water. He saw a beautiful queen surrounded by eight ladies clad in what Laurent identified as a Sailor Fuku of different colours. Then he saw great comets of various colours falling down from a planet that looked very much like Earth. The succeeding scenes showed an army of monsters rampaging across various cities, destroying everything in their path.

 

A few of those scenes showed one or more of the ladies he had seen around the queen fighting against the monsters and, very often, they seemed to be winning. Then he saw one of the ladies fall under the endless stream of creatures. A few scenes later, another one fell. And another, and another, until there was only one clad in Green protecting the queen from a seemingly endless stream of monsters.

 

A young girl being protected by a ring of soldiers was suddenly killed and, although the scene was silent, the look of utter anguish on the queen's face almost let Laurent hear the grief stricken cry of a mother who had lost her child. The queen's face hardened and she took a jewel that stood at the head of her sceptre and brought it to her heart.

 

The creatures seemed to be terrified at the idea of whatever she was doing because they suddenly redoubled their efforts, finally bringing low the green clad lady and rushed towards the queen.

 

The long claws of a black skinned monster were inches from the queen's perfect features when a light of intense white erupted from the jewel, incinerating the beast. The light spread like an explosion, dissolving the monsters wherever they were, cleaning the entire surface of the planet from their taint.

 

The light came back to the jewel for a moment, seemingly seeking more of the evil creatures to eradicate and, suddenly, shot up towards the planet hanging in the sky. It hit the surface of the planet and, with a white shockwave, burned away everything on its surface, leaving only the familiar cratered face of the Moon.

 

The light came back to the jewel once again before leaving it entirely as a formless mass of light. Balls of light left the bodies of the eight fuku-clad ladies and joined the mass before a crystal shaped light appeared from the body of the princess. The crystal flashed and disappeared, leaving only the mass that flew up to find a corner of space to rest into and await patiently the call of duty. On the Earth it left behind, the dead, dry husk of the Queen's body fell silently to the ground.

 

***

 

A strange mind found itself born. It possessed a computer like intelligence and the ability to calculate thousands of scenarios in seconds. Yet it also possessed the ability to initiate research of its own, circumventing the need for a user.

 

It quickly decided to investigate its own limits, and almost immediately found a strange part of itself that seemed to be a trigger. It decided to leave it for later and quickly found a lot of knowledge stored into its mind. Having investigated everything else, the mind triggered the part of itself it had not examined.

 

Laurent gasped as his mind came back to himself. His eyes wide, he remembered how it had felt to be a living computer. He could also remember the images he had seen as information engraved in his mind. It reminded him of something, though he failed to recall exactly what.

 

He spent the next few minutes flicking back and forth between his two minds, getting used to the increase in logic and knowledge and learning to cope with the loss of emotion and imagination. The way he saw it, flicking back and forth at regular intervals gave him the best of both worlds. He had a moment of imagination and emotion, and then a moment of logic to weed out the illogical.

 

Something suddenly registered in Laurent's mind: he was petting a cat. It had already happened a few times with Shadow; the kitten tended to decide he wanted to be petted and then just climbed in someone's arms. Laurent was quite used to this and would usually just absent-mindedly begin petting him without noticing. Considering the transformation Shadow had gone through, seeing him acting just like he used to was reassuring and puzzling at the same time.

 

Laurent arched an eyebrow, "What the hell is up will all that lovey dovey purring thing? Didn't you get some great higher intelligence or something."

 

One of Shadow's eyes opened, "I don't care what you have to say about this. That feels good and that's all that's important." Shadow then rolled on his back, "Now start scratching my belly."

 

Laurent shrugged and did so. There is something profoundly Zen like about scratching a purring cat, almost like meditation. The enforced immobility and the feel of being the centre of the universe-for one being, at least-tended to promote quiet introspection.

 

This introspection centred on the theme of "What the hell am I going to do now?"

 

Laurent was legally a man, and he could no longer use any of his identification papers that had a picture-a fairly large proportion of them. On top of that, he could hardly be seen by his family until he found a way to control the encounter. At least he had already been planning to move out; he would simply do so earlier.

 

Thus a large part of the morning was spent planning what to take, what to leave behind, and what to acquire on the road. Being on the road was a bit of a problem, since Laurent had just enough money to last for only a few weeks even if he watched his purchases very closely.

 

Finally, his plan finalised, he rose and started packing. (Getting an "Hey!" from an irritated cat that found himself dumped on the ground)

 

Then, bag in hand and with cat hidden in said bag (he could hardly convince someone to let him hitchhike his cat as well) he walked down the road to the nearest village and hitchhiked his way to Saint-George.

 

***

 

In a dark room elsewhere, a circle of humanoid beings spoke amongst themselves in a language never heard by human ears. The first to speak was a large 'man': "What of the warriors, our ancient enemies of old?"

 

A thin 'man' replied, "We have been unable to trace the mass of energy that possesses the same pattern as the energy our ancestors recorded during the great cataclysm. We have, however, narrowed down eight rough locations for the warriors and dispatched soldiers to infiltrate the locals. We will find them, and they shall die."

 

A smaller black-cloaked 'man', the most average man imaginable, spoke up, "Make sure your soldiers understand that they must contact me before attacking; my assassins are the most suited to the killing itself, your soldiers would just let them escape."

 

`Thinny' growled, a sound no human throat could ever produce. “My soldiers are competent and, unlike your assassins, they are powerful as well. All our enemies have to do to beat your troops is find them.”

 

An unpleasant chuckle rose from the cloak, “Perhaps, but all it takes to beat your soldiers is to ask them where the corner of a circular room is.”

 

The large `man' interrupted an indignant gasp, “ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU! Do your duty and leave your childish bickering for after we've won.”

 

Everyone bowed to the speaker and left, the cloaked one and `Thinny' bowing lower than the others. Some teleported, some slinked away, some flew away, some swam, and a few walked away to be original.

 

***

 

Laurent stepped out of the truck and thanked the driver. One of the things he had always liked about the region was the general helpfulness of everyone. In more urban areas, there was usually more distrust, which made getting a ride a nightmare.

 

As he stopped in front of the mall on his way to other shops, Laurent remembered that the shop he had bought his glasses from offered free adjustments. A few hours had been long enough for him to get thoroughly annoyed with his now ill-adjusted glasses and getting them adjusted for free certainly warranted a quick change of plan.

 

As Laurent exited the shop, Shadow poked his shoulder with a claw. “Hey, I can feel something evil around here. Follow me.” Shadow jumped out of the bag and ran towards the escalator.

 

Laurent frowned and ran after him, “Hey, what the hell do you mean `evil'? And why should I care?”

 

Shadow ignored him and instead pointed at a shop around the corner, “Right there.”

 

Laurent looked at the shop for a minute, “That's the knick-knack shop. The wares might be a bit tasteless, but they aren't THAT bad.”

 

His exclamation attracted the clerk's attention and Laurent felt some sort of magical scan wash over him. The only reason he knew what he felt was the fact that he had seen a description of it amongst the information that had suddenly popped into his mind.

 

The clerk then smirked evilly and grew… quite a lot. Laurent's eyebrows shot up as the fairly thin and pimply youth turned into a 3 meters tall humanoid hunk of stone. Of course, the space in the cramped shop was small enough the monster was unable to easily leave the shop.

 

Laurent looked down at Shadow, “Why the HELL did you bring me here, you moron? You want me to die?”

 

Shadow looked up, and shrugged. “Just say what comes to mind.”

 

Laurent frowned. “Wha?”

 

That's when it clicked. Girl plus magic plus bauble plus talking animal plus monster equalled a magical girl show. Laurent waved his hands. “No WAY. No FUCKING way. I am *NOT* turning into a GODDAMNED MAGICAL GIRL.”

 

Shadow arched an eyebrow. “Well it's that or getting flattened.”

 

Laurent looked back at the monster that had, by now, managed to break it's way out of the shop. “Aw fuck.”

 

Laurent didn't need to think long- the words came as naturally as if he had been the one to invent them: “Let the knowledge of the sea arise.”

 

A column of shimmering blue water burst from the ground beneath Laurent's feet. White foam closed over his head, trapping the newly made girl in an aquatic cage. A fierce fire sprang to life in his chest and light flared over his heart. The world went white. The water was gone when his sight returned and the pavement was unbroken beneath his feet.

 

Laurent looked at what he was now wearing and a sigh of weariness mixed with despair escaped his lips. It just HAD to be a sailor fuku. Worse, it HAD to have bows, and it HAD to have a GODDAMNED panty-shot-for-all grade skirt.

 

Further complaining about the getup was interrupted by the painfully slow monster that was finally close enough to punch. Of course, being distracted, Laurent never saw it coming and took a strong left hook to the stomach. For a minute, he had the impression of flying until the travel agency's storefront on the other side of the mall broke his flight a bit.

 

The storefront being made of glass, Laurent fell on a floor littered with broken glass. The great conversationalist that he is, Laurent said, “Ow, fuckit. That hurts.” Well… no one ever said that getting launched across a mall and into a storefront was a good conversation subject.

 

Slow rumbling steps punctuated every painful breath Laurent took and a feline face suddenly appeared in front of his face, “You know, he's so slow, you should have been able to dodge that.”

 

Laurent growled, “Shut up.”

 

Shadow didn't. “Like, he's so slow, a turtle would call him slowpoke. He's so slow that he couldn't outrun the movement of the tectonic plates even if he had a head start.”

 

Laurent growled louder, “I said, shut UP.” As he yelled the last word, he sat up and tried to hit Shadow.

 

The kitten dodged the clumsy swing, “There, now THAT'S the spirit. Now get off your ass and kick his.” The cat nodded in the monster's direction.

 

By the time Laurent had gotten to his feet, the monster was halfway around the escalators. Laurent switched his mind and looked for some instructions about magic. What he found was a literal gold mine of information on elemental magic, arcane magic, clerical magic, cooperation magic, and magical combat tactics.

 

Having the processing speed of a computer meant that it only took an instant to learn what he could do and how to do it, leaving Laurent with plenty of time to run to a comfortable distance from the lumbering hunk of stone.

 

For a moment, Laurent was puzzled as to how he could pierce stone with water, but then he remembered that streams of pressurized water were used in many factories to cut materials that were too hard to cut with regular industrial equipment.

 

After checking his internal manual, Laurent focused on a pinprick of blue light that kept trying to escape from his finger. The beast was almost close enough to be called a danger when the trans-gendered magical girl pointed his finger at the monster and released his magic.

 

The stream of concentrated water had no trouble piercing the tough skin and the creature bellowed in pain as its internal organs were shredded by the projectile.

 

Laurent looked at his finger in amazement, “Cool, I can't believe this actually works.”

 

Amazingly, even though he had been looking at his finger, Laurent managed to dodge the viciously precise hammer hand strike that `Rocky' sent his way. He barely had time to cheer himself when the stony faced monster revealed basic planning skills in the form of a follow-up punch that connected with Laurent.

 

As he flew across the length of the mall, the sex-changed magical girl cursed his complete lack of knowledge of how to fight. Luckily, there were no obstacles to stop the flight and, thus, Laurent skidded almost harmlessly to a halt.

 

Yet again, Shadow had his grain of salt to add. “Are you sure you're not masochistic? I mean, you literally stepped into that punch.”

 

Laurent was not one to reply imaginatively when annoyed. “Shut up.”

 

Shadow kept talking, “Everyone with an ounce of fighting skills knows you have to stay out of the punching range of anyone who hits that hard.”

 

Laurent frowned at the cat. “What fighting skills? The closest I have is a few months of Karate classes 14 years ago.”

 

The cat shrugged. “Well, you ought to learn quick then.”

 

The magical `girl' grumbled as he got to his feet. The monster was already too close for Laurent to be able to charge another armour piercing spell so he looked around for an issue. The descending escalator that sat right beside him attracted his attention. A quick jump later, he was charging the spell up and, at the same time, distancing himself.

 

`Rocky' reached the top of the escalator and stepped on it in an attempt at following. Unfortunately for the monster, the escalator could not support his extreme weight and, with a thunderous crash, the monster fell to the ground below.

 

A few cries of surprise reminded Laurent that, although the second floor of the mall was almost always empty, the first floor was packed. Luckily, the stone beast was single minded in its anger and, as he was getting the last of the spell charged, Laurent saw the monster step around the ruined escalator.

 

A wicked grin stretched across Laurent's lips as he took careful aim. The creature barely saw the arrow of water before it impacted with its head. With a rumble of grating stone, it fell lifelessly to the ground.

 

With an audible sigh, tension left Laurent's body along with most of the adrenalin rush. Of course, this meant that there was room for the pain of having glass embedded in your back. “Ow, fuckit.” For a few minutes, he tried removing the glass himself, each attempt punctuated by exclamations of pain.

 

A quick mental check revealed a full section of Laurent's mind to be about the Warrior's magically enhanced physiology. Laurent sighed in relief as he, with the help of a graph designed for this purpose, estimated that it'd take only a week for the wounds to stop hurting, provided the glass was removed, of course.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

Laurent whirled around and saw that a few of the bystanders were standing just behind him. Laurent shrugged and turned his back to them. “I will be as soon as you pull the glass out.”

 

The various people looked at each other, and started pulling the glass out of Laurent's wounds. Once it was done, (And Laurent managed to only yell in pain instead of the swearing fest he was considering) one of the bystanders walked to the monster. “What is that, anyway?”

 

Not really wanting to answer any questions, Laurent slipped away while everyone else was exchanging thoughts on the nature of `Rocky'. Of course, he also wondered what he had been fighting. Laurent browsed his internal library while searching for the supplies he needed.

 

The process was much longer than usual because a lot of `computing power' was monopolized by the simple act of controlling his body but finally, as he stepped into the bus for Montreal, Laurent found an entry that resembled the creature he had fought.

 

Suddenly, what he read caused a mental exclamation, “Mostly harmless? And I had that much trouble?”

 

Laurent swallowed in nervousness and decided to work as much as possible on improving himself. According to the basic treaty of elemental magic, learning to enter one's elemental form was the best way to learn elemental magic. As the bus pulled away from the parking, Laurent focused his magic as instructed and looked in amazement as his hand turned blue.

 

***

 

Author notes: Well, that's that. Next chapter should be out by the end of April. If you wish to give me your opinion of this fic, I can be reached at Gabriel.Pelletier@Sogetel.net or Hunterminator@Gmail.com

 

Oh and, I would like to thank the supremely talented Dumas1 who beta'd this fic with skill and just the right dose of cruelty towards that which was created by sweat and blood. He also wrote the transformation scene for which I am quite grateful, I had absolutely no idea of how to write it. Without him, this fic would have been a technically-correct-yet-not-so-attractive-to-read mess.