Midas Journal 25

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Entry: May 18

I think I should start with: I'm back to being a guy again. The day before yesterday, Brian came by my house. I let him in, and in my living room he said, “Well, you said you wanted to give it about a week. I kinda forgot yesterday, but if I'm being honest I really do like being the girl..not that we can't go back and forth sometimes, of course.”

“Yeah,” I said. After changing back into my male (but still werewolf) self, I gently tapped him on his shoulder. He started shrinking right away, his jeans shifting into short shorts and quickly tightening between the legs as nearly the first thing to change was his sex. She wrapped her arms around me in a hug just as her hair was starting to grow out, and soon after I returned the hug she lost enough height that I was carrying her up in the air. I felt her chest push out against mine with just our shirts between, and 'remembered' her just casually tossing her bra on the couch a minute ago. Before she'd even finished changing she planted her face on mine, and before we were done I'd landed on the couch with her on top of me.

I gently lifted Brie up and around until she was sitting next to me, her tail audibly swishing across the couch cushion. “Thanks, I think I'd just fall over if I tried to get up just now~,” she said a little teasingly. Reaching over and rubbing a finger across the base of one of my ears, she said, “Of course you know, I'll feel like switching you back and forth every now and then.”

“Well, y-yeah, of course,” I said, shivering slightly from the ear-rubbing.

I don't feel like I need to say too much more about what happened that day. We spent most of the afternoon alternating between talking and more kissing and/or petting, and she went home for supper.

At lunch yesterday, Adena waved at me. “Hey Kael. Back to manhood, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Brie really likes being the girlfriend, so...” I could feel myself blushing slightly, and I changed the subject. “Uh—how's your, dates going?”

“Oh, we had another one Saturday. Nearly all day, even longer than the last one,” she added with a smug kind of grin. “I've got it pretty bad, Kael, I'm sure you know the feeling.”

“Well, yeah, but I..” I paused, thinking. “You know, I've thought about something. I'm a really bad liar, you know that? Like, I don't just randomly blurt things out at people but if someone asks me something directly, and it's a yes or no question, it doesn't matter what I try to answer, the truth is gonna be pretty obvious.”

She nodded. “So if for some reason Rhia asked you about me, or boy-me, you'd give her the truth without meaning to if you were trying to lie, and if it was obvious you were trying to lie for me it'd make her mad at both of us?”
“Well..yeah.” I nodded; I hadn't expected her to finish for me. “So...I'd rather just tell the truth if that happened.”
“That's fair. But if I'm doing a good job then she won't even have a reason to ask you anyway.”

“..How do you...do you have each other's numbers at this point?” I said.
“Uh-huh,” she nodded, “I'm using two different sim cards, with different numbers and contacts, and lots of people have phones like mine. Aden's phone is busted up with a cracked screen and takes texts way more easily than calls.” She pulled out her phone and with a brief wave of her hand a spiderweb of cracks appeared on it, and then disappeared again. With a toothy grin, she added, “He's been trying to get a new one for a while now, but his folks won't let him until this one gives out completely.”

“Uh-huh...what contacts do you have on the other card? A bunch of names with fake numbers?”

“Mostly. I convinced another kitsune I know to be Aden's friend and classmate at some other school, who bugs him for homework sometimes. If she starts acting suspicious—which she totally hasn't, by the way—I can make some new 'real' friends who aren't Kitsune. Not you or anyone I know like this, because the two of us being connected to too many of the same people is just asking for trouble.”

“This whole thing is asking for trouble,” I said, but shrugged. “At least you're thinking ahead a little, I guess.”

That afternoon Rio caught me on the way out of school. “Hey—you're a boy again!” she said.

“Uh—yeah. Brie likes being the girl.”
She nodded. “I'm still a little disappointed I can't pet you a little more though, that was fun.”

“I can go back and forth more or less at will,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh? Cool. I-I mean I wouldn't want to force you to, just so I could, but—um...anyway, I...I do want to hang out a little, but I actually went looking for you because my master wants to see you.”

“She does?” I said. “Anything wrong?”
“I don't think so. She said she had something she wanted to 'ask of you'—like, a favor or something, but the way she said it made it sound like it wasn't any of my business, and I know better than to ask her about something like that. But—she said if you're free, could you come tomorrow after school. I think she's away on business today.”

“I don't have any plans,” I said, “I guess I'll see what it's about. She did sorta help me figure some things out.”

“Okay, I'll let her know.” She dug out a phone and sent a text before continuing to follow me home.

“So you do have time to hang out today?” I said, “Since she's away.”

“Sure!”

I shifted myself back to being Kaela in a matter of seconds, my clothes just shifting to girl versions of themselves. Rio watched, slightly wide-eyed, and when it was over she said, “Y-you really didn't have to...”

“It's seriously no problem,” I said, “easy as—well, maybe even easier than werewolf form. Hey, I've always been a little curious what your house looks like.”

“Oh? Well, I can show you around I guess, it's nothing too special.”

Her house looked normal on the outside, but was maybe two or three times that size on the inside. It looked like a normal home, sure, but there were some obviously magical things just decorating mantles and windowsills, and about a third of the books around the shelves looked like actual spellbooks. I guess she's probably from a family of witches and wizards (or whatever the male equivalent is, if that's not right). I headed home for supper, shifting myself back to male on the way.

That meeting with Threa is really the reason I'm writing this. I knew the way to the place, so I went alone this time, and stopped to ring the doorbell. Almost as soon as I did the door opened and Rio's master stood in front of me. “Good to see you again, Kael,” she said, “please, come in.” I followed her inside and she started leading me down a series of corridors and turns which I don't think I could've kept straight if I'd been writing them down, but all the same I'm nearly certain shouldn't have been physically possible: There must have been two or three times we went in what felt like a circle only to wind up somewhere completely different.

Of course, I wasn't writing it down or even trying to memorize the steps, and even if I had been she was distracting me with talking. “Rio has told me you seem to be more at peace with your unusual abilities,” she said. I guessed she had probably been interrogating her apprentice about me, not Rio randomly volunteering the information. If my guess was right, it was probably out of concern at least.

“Well..yeah, I guess you could say that,” I said. The thing about me not being a monster felt like something between me and Brie. “I have more control over it than the last time we met, too.”

“Good to hear,” she nodded. “Now..the reason I called you, is because there's someone I would like you to use that power on. But understand that I consider it entirely your decision whether to do so or not.”

“Okay...” I'd honestly suspected it was something like this from the moment Rio said she wanted to “ask something of me”.

“Allow me to explain the situation first. The man I am taking you to see has been a staunch ally of humans and other light-bound over many years in halting the ambitions of some very powerful demons, armies of them. He personally saved my life, in fact. But he is himself a demon—so that you are not too surprised at his appearance.”
“Right..”
“The most recent battle he participated in was half a century ago. He was injured by a power and king of magic which is eventually fatal to his kind, and nearly impossible to dispel. I put him in a kind of stasis at the time to delay its effect, and have only taken him out of it occasionally to make increasing efforts against that magic, to no avail. Your power is different from magic, however, and it changes things at a much deeper level. I'm aware you are not able to both heal him and leave him, himself. But in absence of any other options—and having made the greatest attempt I feel I will ever be capable of just a few days ago—I thought a kind of rebirth at your hands would be a more fitting reward than this slow, painful death.”

“Okay. Do you mind if...is it possible for me to speak to him?” I said. It already sounded like someone I would be more than happy to use my power on, but I need to follow my own rules or I might as well have not made them up.

“I believe so. I should be able to ease his pain enough to listen and speak for a few moments.”

Quietly, I asked my power to give me a retroactive “truth sensing” ability, to know if what someone was telling me was actually true or not, from the time I'd met her at the door until then. I didn't think there was any reason to suspect she was lying, but I still wasn't sure if “demon” meant someone capable of making her believe something that wasn't true or something else weird like that. I remembered that ability verifying everything she said since meeting me at the door, and then dismissed it again. It's the kind of power you'd really only want to use very selectively, like “listen to people's thoughts” powers, and anyway I hadn't put any thought into how it would react to things like opinions or ambiguous statements and didn't want to accidentally open some existential can of worms by still having it.

After leading me through a little more of the impossible maze, she finally stopped in front of a door which seemed to be made out of translucent green crystal. After she said what sounded like a spell and tapped the door with an index finger, it pulsed and started to slink into the room, which I now realized was entirely filled with that crystal. It retracted more while she led me inside, and eventually I saw the person she'd been talking about still encased in the stuff like a bug in amber.

The room itself was fairly small, but it had magic circles covering the walls and ceiling along with a huge one encompassing the whole width of the floor. The crystal shifted toward the center, where the man was floating a few inches off the ground in a standing position, and then started to remove itself from him and go down toward the center of the circle.

The guy was—well, the first thing I noticed was that he was huge, not just taller than Lue's werewolf form but very bulky and muscular too. The second thing, more obvious once enough of the crystal was off of him to show his skin, was that it was a kind of dark red shade that I would not expect to see on any normal human. He also had huge black bat-like wings and a tail coming from his back and horns extending out of the corners of his head. But he was hurt—really hurt. His clothes were old and tattered, and showed off a number of cuts and scars all over him; some cuts were very deep and still clearly bleeding. His horns were actually broken off maybe halfway up their original size, ending in abrupt jagged spots right where they were their thickest, and his wings were as tattered and torn-up as his clothes.

Eventually the crystal formed into a small circular tree-trunk-like shape just under his feet, and then he knelt down, groaning in pain. Threa was already at work casting something that made most of the circles in the room glow a bit more brightly, and then send a white light toward his body. He gasped a couple of times, opened his eyes (which were bright red), and looked at her, then at me. “..You..got me out again, I see. Is this—” his eyes turned toward me—“the 'other solution' you mentioned?”

“Correct. This is Kael.” She spoke slowly, still holding her arms up and probably concentrating on maintaining the spell. “His powers are unusual. Please speak with him.”

He nodded very slightly, and winced in pain from just that motion. “Kael. I am Giriah.”
“Uh..y-yeah, nice to meet you,” I stammered. Even as injured as he was, I could feel the pulse of some kind of intense power coming from him, and felt vaguely threatened by it. But I wanted this to go quickly as badly as either of them did, I started explaining right away.

“I'm able to change people by touching them. Not just their bodies—their history and everything. It has kind of a wish granting effect, and it can make it like you didn't, uh, get hurt. But it would make you a completely different person. And also female.”

“I see.” He closed his eyes and made a low, growling “Hmm” sound. “You...would be able to do this without undoing what I have done?”

“Yes, but I'm pretty sure it would happen by sort of making you not the you who did it. If that makes any sense.”
“That is...acceptable. I just want the world to still be safe.” He nodded, and my power suddenly gave me a huge spike in 'this person wants something badly enough to change just from touching them' feeling from him.

“Okay,” I nodded, stepping closer so I'd be in reach of him. “This..feels a little weird, but it shouldn't hurt.” I reached out a hand and touched him on the stomach.

The slight whitish glow around him from Threa's spell suddenly brightened and grew, and his wounds started sealing themselves up. The cuts became shallower and shallower until they disappeared, and then his scars faded away. His horns seemed to remold themselves using the same material, becoming shorter curved horns with spikes at the tips. His wings reformed in the same kind of way, becoming much shorter but whole again; the tail, which wasn't as badly injured, slimmed down all the same and grew a little longer. Giriah sighed, sounding very relieved, as the white glow faded and left him as if he'd never been injured in the first place.

He drew in a sharper breath right after, as he started to change. It happened in a way I haven't exactly seen before: His body shrank noticeably, both his height and the bulk all over him getting smaller all at once, and then...it unshrank. It sort of pulsed back out toward the way he'd started out, but didn't go all the way back to how he'd been before. Then it pulsed inward again, bringing him smaller than before this time, and back out again with the same timing, but only leaving him as big as he'd been after shrinking the first time. This began a steady rhythm of shrinking and growing, with whatever was making him grow back losing ground every time.

“Mnnh..” He made another low growling sound as this continued, slowly changing his position from kneeling toward sitting on the stump of crystal. His hair had been pitch black before, but now it was starting to grow out and turn paler; I noticed it wasn't cycling back and forth like the rest of his body. Another change seemingly not tied to the pulsing shift was a change in the color of his skin; it slowly brightened, but kept its red tint. His clothes were shifting and reshaping themselves, too, mostly turning into black cloth and pulling tighter where it landed.

Slowly I saw his body shape changing: His shoulders narrowing, his arms and legs slimming down, his frame shrinking in and down more and more with each inward pulse. He made another “mnnh”, this time in a much higher-pitched voice with almost none of the “growling” quality it had had before. He slowly crossed his legs over each other, sitting sort of Indian-style. I realized as I watched that the outward pulses were beginning to get...weaker, as if whatever was causing them was itself slowly disappearing. His body hair was all gone now, his clothes changed into a pair of thigh-length leggings, an increasingly tight pair of panties, gloves with some forearm-bracelet things, and a tiny sling-like top hanging awkwardly down from his neck down to his chest. Even as he shrank down to my eye level (which, given he was sitting on the stump thing, I guessed meant he really was about my height now), Giriah looked more than male enough for these clothes to be very awkward on him, and still sported muscular arms and legs and a six-pack.

That started to change now; his hair had faded to pure, bright white and fallen down to just past chest-level, and his face began to get smaller and rounder, giving the long something feminine to frame. “Mnnh..” His voice was getting in the higher parts of male range now, and I knew it wouldn't be much longer until he sounded like a girl. His shoulders narrowed more, his arms and legs shrank further, and his stomach began to curve inward while its muscles softened a bit. The outward pulses were even weaker than before, and now I noticed the underwear pulling very tight between his legs, showing a very small bump there still keeping him male. With the next inward pulse that bump shrank in size, and it didn't grow back when he grew ever so slightly in the matching outward pulse.

He was a little shorter than me now. I noticed that his bare skin had turned a bright pink shade, and lacked any body or facial hair whatsoever. His face was small, round, and cute, very girly; his cheeks were starting to blush (which was a deeper red than the rest of his skin), and his lips curled upward, beginning a smile. “Mmh..” His voice had jumped entirely out of male range now, sounded like a deep-voiced girl. The outward pulses were all but gone, little more than short breaks in the continued shifting of his body's shape. His hips drew themselves outward while his stomach continued to pull in, and his thighs thickened even as the rest of his legs continued to slim. The underwear drew closer and closer, what made him male visibly vanishing away, until finally it pulled flat and the demon in front of me let out a much more excited “Mmh~!” in a high, girly voice and her small smile turned into a sharp-toothed grin.

At this point her body stopped resisting the changes entirely, her curves deepening while her chest sprang to life, the new bumps there somehow managing to stay inside the tiny top as they grew. She giggled, closing her eyes and blushing a little brighter now, as her breasts grew out to their full size and her body eagerly finished its change.

“Well, if this is what you call 'weird' I'd love to see your 'bizarre',” she said, reopening her bright red eyes. I could remember meeting her as Giri, a fellow guest of Threa who I was visiting for...some reason, and who Rio's master was showing a room where her...ancestor had been kept at some point. I looked over at Threa and saw a very interested expression which suggested to me she'd seen the change along with me and was remembering both versions of events. Giri sighed contentedly and stood up, hopping off the crystal and slightly into my personal space; the top of her head was about at my chest so she had to turn her head upward to look at my face. “I forgot what it felt like to not be in constant pain. And this is...a whole different world and everything! Even if I'd been healed normally there's no way I'd figure out how to cope with all that's happened in the past fifty years. I don't know how I can ever thank you, but I know how I could start~,” she said.

“U-uh,” I stepped back and realized a strong heat in my cheeks. “I—have a girlfriend,” I said after a few more seconds to process what she meant by that.
“You could have two!”

“No, really, I—no thanks.” I shook my head.

She just giggled and turned to Threa. “Well, he wasn't kidding about it being a big change. Going from rage demon to succubus is pretty crazy.”
“I..imagine so,” she said slowly. “How much of your old powers do you remember?”
“Uhhh...all of them?” Giri shrugged. “I shouldn't, I know; I'm only like twenty-two so there's no way I should know that many spells. We may have to pretend you've been lending me some books and I'm really talented or something like that.”

“We can..work that out later. I'm sure you'd like to see the outside of this room first.”
“I sort of already have, but at the same time, so much yes.”

I followed the two of them out into the hallway and Threa lead the way back through the maze again. Giri placed herself beside me as we walked. “Well, to resist my powers like you did, I'd say your relationship is pretty serious, yep.”

“You were...using succubus powers?” I said, feeling a little worried about that.
“I should say 'charms' I guess. There's a magic element to it, and I can't actually turn it off. I'd never seriously come between you of all people and someone you're into. But there is something about you I really like.”

“That's, uh, that happens with a lot of people, after I change them,” I said. “I'm, not really happy about it.”
“Ohh believe me, I'm in the perfect position to understand that feeling. I do want to repay you though, I don't have the influence or stuff I did in my old life but I know everything I knew, including loads of neat spells as long as we can keep it from coming out I was the one casting them.”

“Here's the library...a logical step for now,” said Threa, opening a door to a huge, multi-story library.
“Do magic people ever get tired of bending spatial physics over backwards?” I said quietly.
“Hm?”

“Uh—so how are you handling having two versions of your memories?” I said at more of a hearable volume.
Rio's master looked thoughtful. “It is an unusual feeling. I suppose you have a lot more experience with it than I do. I recall...a period of mourning, my greatest attempt at saving Giriah's life coming much earlier and then our mutual acceptance that he was better off ending it and going in peace. It's very strange, though, he didn't really have a family before.”

“Yeah, my power seems to be able to shuffle more than one person around,” I said. “I don't have that much control over that part of it as far as I can tell, I just sort of have to hope it doesn't wreck anything.”

“Understandable. Giri..you may as well pick out books to 'borrow' with any spells you wish to 'learn' soon. For that matter, Kael, if you notice any books around here you'd like to look through, feel free. You have my gratitude as well as his—hers, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know, it's weird.” I just followed the new demon-girl as she skipped off toward some shelves, seemingly knowing exactly what to look for.

“So there is one thing I think you could help with,” I said, “since you know so much.”
“Uh-huh? You want some forbidden knowledge, Kael?”
“Nothing like that, no,” I said. “I've been putting together a list of kinds of magic people—like, werewolves, kitsune...demons I guess? Long story short, my power kind of messes with reality and I want to be as sure as I can it's not 'making' new categories of people.”
“Mhm,” she nodded, “I'm sure I can add a lot to that list, especially if you've just got all kinds of demons filed under 'demon' right now. I'll send you a text? Or, an email if your girlfriend's the jealous type.”

“I don't think so, no.” I already have the number of lots of girls, even some that weren't boys at some point. So I gave her my number since it seemed like she didn't have her phone on her, but as soon as I did she just held up her hand and a phone appeared above it in a small burst of what I think I can best describe as dark fire..it was black, but it kind of moved like fire in the air for the second or two it was there?

She sent me a text saying 'this is Giri' so I could add her number and know who the list was coming from whenever she eventually sent it. And I said, “Uh, what exactly...where did that come from?”
“What, you've been around magic for longer than a day and haven't got some kind of inventory spell going?” she said.
“I guess not.” The idea had never really occurred to me. It seemed like Rio didn't have anything like that.
“You have got to get you one of those. Since I'm sure I would already know that you can just take that book. How good a magic learner are you exactly?”
“Um..I haven't learned a spell in my life,” I said. “But I can technically just sort of give myself powers if I want? Using my power. It's kind of cheating.”

“Well, then the book's still a good reference if you don't want to make up magic that didn't exist before,” she said, pulling out a book and half-shoving it in my hands. “The demonic flair I use is totally optional, by the way, there's like all kinds of decorations you can have or just have things appear with none at all. If you're around normal people it's helpful to keep something you can 'pull your stuff out of', like a purse or backpack or whatever.” Oh, of course. Rio went to “normal-people” school so if she knew a spell like this she'd make it just look like she was getting things out of her purse. I tried to remember if she'd ever pulled out something that didn't look like it would fit in there or seemed too convenient for her to have packed, but couldn't really think of anything. Maybe as an apprentice witch she still didn't know a spell like that, though?

Giri went on to hand me six other books she said had practical spells “anyone should know”, as more references for me to “learn by cheating”. One of them was defensive spells, and it occurred to me when I noticed that that it would be nice to not have to use my “main” power for self-defense when I need to defend myself. I stuffed the whole set of them in a spare backpack Threa had and carried them home wondering why it had never occurred to me, or Rio or Adena or anyone else who knew a lot about magic and enough about what my power was capable of, for me to just “learn” a bunch of useful spells since I could. It's like having tons of extra money and lots of ways a new computer could make your life better, and just refusing to buy one. I read through the “inventory spell” and some of the self-defense ones tonight to be sure I understood them before “teaching” them to myself, and I plan on reading the rest of the books over this week probably.

Somewhere in the middle of that, when we were deep inside the library and after a short conspiratorial look-around-and-behind-herself, Giri said, “I'm sure you noticed, but poor Threa was trying really hard not to mention or even think about my little outbursts near the end of the change. She's always been a little hung up on that sort of thing, you know. I think it's why I put something like this on to visit her.” She gestured to her clothes.
“Oh—uh, yeah. Sometimes my power puts people in clothes a lot more revealing than they'd usually wear, and...sometimes it doesn't. I don't really know why.”

“Probably the same reason it makes girls, and makes them attracted to you~,” she said teasingly. “Anyway, you don't have to worry. I have a cute little black dress I stuffed in my inventory just after I came inside. So all this skin's just for you~.”
“I wish you'd stop that. You know, I can actually turn myself into a girl if I want.”
“Really? That's great! Twice the fun...” She gave another toothy smile at me and I decided not to follow through with it since it didn't sound like it would discourage her at all.

I got Giri's text later tonight, after getting home. It is a long list—the part that's not just all the subcategories of “demon” is still twice as long as the list I had before from everyone else. I'm curious if I've got a full list now or if there are some kinds of people secretive enough that Giri's previous “ancient demon” self never heard of them. Anyway, in terms of the list as it was before I know “demon” was on there and it's reasonable that the people I was getting it from at the time wouldn't know about the specific kinds of them.

The text ended with “Call me some time <3”, which is really not a good sign. I thought I had it bad with Carla teasing me before she got a boyfriend of her own, but this is on an entirely different level, especially since she really is very cute and I guess has some kind of magic advantage in being attractive to guys. Hopefully she was serious about not coming between me and Brie and really is just teasing me—I do not want to mess this up, and someone “helping” me mess it up because I helped them is just terrible.

I'm having thoughts of trying to play matchmaker and get her a date of her own so I won't have to worry about it but then I realize I'm thinking like Lue, which is even worse. Should I just try to avoid her? Forever? She's Threa's friend, Rio is my friend and Threa's apprentice, Threa's grateful to me and also knows I'm willing to use my power to help people this way now, so there's no avoiding her and there's no way to know I wouldn't bump into Giri when I go to see either one of them, or just at random, and I really don't know how to deal with the situation I'd be in if I ignored her completely and then ran into her.

I think the first thing I should do is tell Brie about the entire situation. If she knows what's going on and Giri tries to imply something she'll know not to trust it. I really hope I'm just worried over nothing again though.