The Best Blade

Midas Journal 14

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This entry is a result of a combination of something I was meaning to do with this entry before, and an idea someone anonymous posted in a comment on the previous entry, which went incredibly well into what I wanted to do here. So, thanks to you, whoever you are. I'm probably going to use another idea from that batch of comments for the next entry, by the way; so your ideas are extremely appreciated. If you have any more please comment them here.

Entry: Apr 23

Almost a week. I managed to pull out almost a week of things being about as normal as they could possibly be now, with me knowing about Nekos and werewolves and fox-girls or whatever, and now this happened.

I think my concept of what's normal has seriously shifted since my birthday, okay. Like, I wouldn't have thought that having my best friend flirt with me and talking to a girl who is legitimately a witch about magic and occasionally turning into a girl to go shopping with someone who is inexplicably shorter and stronger than I am and likes to talk about how beautiful the moon is would be anything like normal. I don't get tired from turning into a girl anymore, by the way, and I can change that way as naturally as turn back into a guy, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. And I joined the group Adena and Tina are in, and yes there are a couple of guys in the group still and no I won't be changing them because they don't go to my school and the game does not involve physical contact in any way and I told them I have a thing about people touching me, which Adena backed me up on.

But none of that has to do what what happened today. Okay, no, wait, one of those things definitely has to do with what happened today. It has freaking everything to do with it.

I don't know how to deal with this, so I'm just going to go into what happened. Today on my way home from school, with Rio and Carla and anyone else I know happening to go home other ways which left me alone this time, I met up with Lue and she said she wanted to go shopping with me again today. I got her to agree to let met put my school junk down at home first, and change in private because I'm still not really comfortable with people seeing me do that, even when they already have before.

So I was Kayla, I'd managed to get myself to keep my clothes as jeans and a t-shirt this time, but of course both of them were a lot tighter, and more flattering I guess, by the time I was finished changing. And Lue led me down a different bunch of streets from the usual way we went to the mall, and when I asked her where we were going she said she wanted to bring a friend along. We finally stopped at a certain house, she went up and rang the doorbell while I stood awkwardly out in the yard, and she came back with a guy following her.

"Hey, so, Brian, this is Kayla; Kayla, Brian."

"Nice to meet ya," he said, and put out his hand to shake it.

Okay, so, I need you to understand that I can speak and think objectively about this right now because I'm a guy right now. But right in that moment, when I first looked at that guy, my brain kind of melted. I could feel my heart beating faster, and heat coming to my cheeks, and those weird feelings I got that one time I checked to see if girl-me was attracted to guys? Yeah, that happened. I fought to keep myself from acting weird, and just took his hand and shook it like a normal person.

And I can objectively say that, yeah, this guy was attractive. I mean, he looked really tall to me because I was shorter than normal, but not too tall I guess, and he looked strong but not bulky, his face was kind of normal, and his hair was bright-colored and spiky, but not too obnoxious. His clothes weren't exactly helping, either; he was wearing jeans and that was normal and okay but he was also wearing one of those sleeveless shirts designed specifically to show off a person's muscles. I mean, it's not like I didn't have a reason as a girl to be attracted to this guy but this was way out of proportion to that, and I didn't and don't know exactly what about him made it that way. But anyway, in other news, I didn't get the kind of feeling I would get when a guy was likely to be turned into a girl by me, either, so I didn't hesitate about the handshake at all.

I didn't even realize that I was sort of staring up at his eyes (they were yellow, and now that I think of it I probably should have realized that's not a normal color for a perosn's eyes) until Lue said, "Okay, let's get going." I managed to look away from him before the staring could get really awkward, but I was pretty sure he'd noticed it and I had no idea how to deal with the possibility that he knew I was attracted to him as much as I was and might be able to do something with that, like, I don't know, take advantage of it and manipulate me, or worse, actually let the feeling be mutual.

So I tried to keep myself calm, and my eyes on Lue the whole time. She talked her usual talk, and Brian seemed to be pretty used to her qurikiness, so I guessed I could assume they actually are friends. I tried to distract myself from his voice, which of course gave me small echoes of the reaction I'd had the first time I saw him, by focusing on the content of the conversation. By the time we got to the mall, I was able to speak normally without any of the kind of weird nervous wavering that kept trying to sneak into my voice.

At the mall, Lue led us through some stores selling clothes for both sexes and then some stores that sold things other than clothes like books and video games, and I managed to calm down a little more by focusing on shopping. I mean, that's really weird now that I've typed it out but yeah, doing something that I'm still pretty sure is just part of my misconceptions of what a girl is supposed to be like impressed on my mind by supermagic calmed me down from being really attracted to a guy, something I think I definitely could only do as a girl.

After that, Lue did something completely on purpose that I'm not totally sure I'm gonna be able to forgive her for. She suggested we all get some drinks at the food court, her treat, took us over there and had us sit down, and then left to go get the drinks. In case it isn't clear what I'm mad about, she left me alone with that guy.

Once she'd left us alone I knew it was a choice between looking at and trying to hold a conversation with Brian and just ending up getting worked up again, or awkwardly looking everywhere else and not saying anything, which in the long run would definitely tip him off to the whole me-being-attracted-to-him anyway. I guess I was sort of lucky I didn't get the chance to make that decision, since he just started talking anyway.

"Yeesh. This again?"

"Uh..what again?"

"Eh, let me tell ya. This is the third time this month Lue's tried to set me up with someone."

"Third time..?"

"Yeah. Sorry she dragged ya into this, Kayla."
"Oh, um.." I started to say something about how I was okay with it because of something something he was attractive but I stopped myself by literally biting my tongue. It didn't hurt all that much, you know, like when you intentionally bite some part of your mouth it never hurts the way it does when you do it by accident, but it did the trick anyway.

I looked at him another time and did a double-take. His ears had changed. Specifically, they were big furry triangles, I mean, not as big as Rhia's or Adena's (having points of comparison is really weird, by the way), and with rounded off ends instead of sharp ones, but they were definitely twitching animal ears, anyway.

"Um...don't take this the wrong way, but, uh, are you a werewolf?" I asked.

"Mnh? Oh, yeah, sure," he said, "same as Lue. She didn't tell ya that?"

"No. Also, what." I was getting better at ignoring being attracted to him and talking like myself again. This was a good thing, but what he was telling me was...I don't know, maybe not bad but definitely surprising.

"Heh. You know what a werewolf is but you didn't catch on she's one? Stronger than an ox, always jabbering about the moon? She's an alpha in the making, Kayl--can I call ya that?"
"Uh..sure." I don't blame people for wanting to get rid of syllables that waste time, but it was really strange that he'd accidentally invented a nickname for girl-me that is my actual name. I tried not to think about that.

"Alphas're always like that, you know. Trying to dominate people, push them around into where they want them to be. They don't really even do it on purpose, I don't think."

Lue came back with the drinks, and started a conversation about something else entirely, which Brian took up. I kept up with it, too, after resolving we were definitely going to have words later. I didn't think about what had just happened right just then, not until I was walking home alone, still as Kayla, and realized what exactly had happened. I was angry then, because Lue had tried to play matchmaker with someone she knows is really a guy, or would rather be a guy, and then I was scared, and I still am, because it almost worked, and I'm actually still not totally sure it didn't work.

That's why, after I was at home and a guy, after supper and I was in the general privacy of my room, I called her. She'd actually given me her number on one of our trips, I don't remember which one, but I'd never felt the need to call it before.

"Yo, what's up?" she said.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?!" I didn't actually mean to blow up at her, but I didn't want to waste any time on just saying hi or give her any opportunities to change the subject before I even got started.

"Oh, I think I'm sitting on my bed. You wanna know what I'm wearing?"
"Wh--you--you know what I'm talking about. Why did you..what are you trying to do?! I did not need to be introduced to a guy like that, okay? I am dealing with bizarre magical powers tied up in a huge ball of sexual confusion and trying to get me to date some guy is not going to make the situation better!"

"Oh, so you liked him?"
"That's beside the freaking point!!!" I wasn't yelling, by the way. I kept my voice down, but it was pretty clear I was mad. "If you're gonna do that again--if he's gonna be around, I'm not doing this anymore. I can't deal with it right now, okay?"

She stayed quiet for a few seconds or so. "..Alright, alright. So..I guess I really should come clean, then. Didya know I'm a werewolf?"

"Well not before today. Brian told me. You could have mentioned that, you know?"

"I wasn't sure you'd believe me. But anyway, you know any cliches about true love? How..once you've been in love with someone the first time, none of the other times are anywhere near as good?"
"Um..yeah. Where are you going with this?"
"Well, when you turned me into a sixteen-year-old girl--for which I am eternally grateful by the way,

I'm really not trying to antagonize you--I couldn't help but notice I was really attracted to you."

"Okay. That's happened a lot of times I've accidentally turned people into girls. Almost all of them, in fact."

"Ah, but you don't know werewolves, my friend. For us, it's different. We have a natural sense of loyalty, and once one of us is really into someone, it's harder to get back out. Way, waaaaaayy harder."

"So..wait..you're trying to tell me that you asked me to turn into a girl so you'd stop being attracted to me."

"You're sharp! Yep, and I didn't want to get you tied up with werewolf politics or anything, I didn't want to take over and tie you down. I knew if I asked you out and we started dating I'd get super possessive and any female friends you have would be in danger; the whole thing would be a big emotional mess for the both of us, and that'd be no way to show my gratitude." I noticed she'd stopped sounding like the impulsive girl I was used to. She sounded serious, and a lot more mature. "Also, I'm waaayy too young to make that kind of commitment right now. I'm not gonna waste my second youth constantly infatuated with some guy, I'm gonna make good use of it." Okay, that sounded a little more like normal Lue. I think. Can someone please remind me what normal is? Because I think it fled the country. And the world. And the universe.

"Okay..fine..then why did you keep coming to my house and making me turn into a girl to shopping with you?"
"Well, after our first meeting I honestly thought you were a really interesting person, and wanted to get to know you better. But I couldn't really do that with you as a guy."

"Do you have any idea how confusing it is for me to go back and forth between being a girl and a guy? I..look, I still don't understand my power, like, at all, but basically it lets me override my normal mind by turning into someone who thinks 'like a girl', and I'm still not even sure the person I am when I turn into Kayla is entirely me, but even if it's not I have to deal with her memories, and remembering spending a few hours being really feminine like that is just really weird and I have no idea how to deal with it."

"Um..I hadn't really thought of that, I guess. I'm sorry, I thought when you were able to turn into a girl so casually, especially the second time, maybe you were used to it?"

"Well, I don't think I ever will be used to it. And even assuming that, why did you try to..what was up with inviting Brian along today? I mean, I'm sure you've been a girl long enough to know he's kind of attractive and even if I'm used to changing my own sex back and forth that means I don't want to be tied to one or another, so why did you..?"

"Well..I thought maybe, if you had a reason to stay a girl a lot we could hang out more..and maybe if you had a beau I could remind myself of that even when you were a guy, and we could hang out like normal then, too. Also, he seriously needs a girl in his life..but that doesn't mean I needed to get you involved. Sorry about that."

"I--but..he already has a girl in his life, doesn't he? I mean, not like a girlfriend, but you're definitely a girl and friends with him, right?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, but I don't feel that way about him."
"Ugh..never mind, I don't even want to get into that. Look, just..I don't know what the heck I'm doing so if you want to take a guy along on one of our trips for some legitimate reason please let me know ahead of time, okay?"
"..You mean you still want to go on doing that, after what I've put you through? I think you might be more forgiving than is wise, Kael."

"Uh..look, hold on a second, okay. I need to talk to you as a girl, or this will sound really awkward, what I want to say to you."
"Okay."
Still sitting there on my bed, I turned myself into a girl. Even though the wave of changes came quickly, I still could feel every one of them happening, just like every other time. It's like even though I'm used to it in a way, it doesn't ever get any less strange. And when I was Kayla again, I said, "Okay, I'm back.

"...Lue, I really like you. I think you're a great friend, a wonderful and interesting person, too, and I want to stay your friend. But I don't want to do anything romantic, with anyone right now, not until I figure out about my weird girlifying power and how to control it, and I think it's safe to say..least of all with a guy. I'm not even sure I can meet Brian again without it getting really awkward, and he seemed like a pretty nice person, too. So please..don't ever do that again. But yes. I want to hang out with you sometimes, too. Maybe you could meet some of my friends, and I could meet some of your friends, and you could tell me some stuff about what it's like to be an awesome super-strong werewolf...but no more playing matchmaker, okay?"

"..Okay. That's fair enough. I'm glad we had this talk, Kayla."

"..Me too." She hung up after that, and after a deep breath and a few seconds of preparation, I turned back into a guy. Into me, I want to say, but I'm not even sure anymore.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. Today was a close call. I was telling Lue the truth about still wanting to be her friend, but if I keep practicing turning into a girl and "being a girl mentally" means sometimes suddenly being so interested in a guy that I almost lose every bit of my self-control..is it really worth it? Is this another horribly sexist misconception I have about girls that I need to worry about?

This sounds crazy, but maybe my power is deliberately sabatoging my attempts to control it, because I seriously don't think I've ruled out the possibility that it's sentient. No, that's nuts. Rio would tell me it's nuts. My powers are a part of me, and anything they're doing that I don't think I want them to do, they're doing it because some part of me does want them to do that. And..I have to admit, that scares me more than anything else.

Gradual Cat

Eh...not sure about this one.

I looked through my archives and found I hadn't used the name "Alex" before. I guess it just seemed too obvious.

Omega Wolf

 
Decided to try white text with black background, since the character's hair color is white and that tends to be how I determine text color for a caption..and just to be a bit different. It turns out that simply making a big white region black is actually much easier in MSPaint (the Win98 and such version, not the version that comes with 7) than in programs designed for Serious Image Editing.

A Choose Your Own Adventure!?

Alright, so. I've been really really busy with real life lately, and that is almost the entire reason why there have been practically no updates here. I'm very sorry, but responsibilities that help me to survive are generally more important than this. Anyway, that's not really what I'm here to talk to you about.

I had an idea about a week or two ago, and like a foolhardy nearsighted bull, charged into action without really thinking too hard about it. All the same, I think the end result will at least be enjoyable for someone. You see, a very long time ago (very long in internet years at least), a TG-anime-centered site known as Mashiro's castle (or something like that, the exact spelling escapes me) had a link on the Japanese side to a link-managed TG choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing. I don't know Japanese, and Google translate was no help in comprehending what was going on in that, but I've always thought it was a pretty neat idea. So I decided to start work on one of my own. I've set up a brand new "blog" which is actually just one post and a bunch of linked pages to handle this idea. So here's the URL to it:

http://whatevr89532adventure.blogspot.com
LATER EDIT: The above link is deprecated. See the tag "adventure" on this blog to find links to all of the adventures.


As of this writing, I've only written 13 pages, including 4 endings (which are basically fully-written second-person changes), but I mean to expand this greatly, with a huge number of choices. I might even eventually make another adventure based on a different theme or something if I get a good idea for it. (I'd rather have a good amount of pages for this first adventure before I even think about doing that, though)

Anyway, go on ahead and check it out, see if you like it and stuff.

Intelligence

This is certainly one of the longer captions, but it's not the longest. The image is so tall because the source image was so thin, and I felt I had to keep the caption at most thrice its width. Apparently that caused blogspot to reduce its size considerably when I uploaded it. If you are having trouble reading it as-is, here is a text+image form:

Click to Reveal :

Remus knew his friend Kell was the kind of guy who would take any advantage he could. College applications were very competitive to the kind of schools he wanted to go to. Remus stuck to the more traditional method of improving his standardized test scores--studying. Kell studied too, but he looked for anything else that could give him an edge.

One day Remus was hanging out with Kell at his house when a package came for him. He didn't pay much attention until Kell pulled out a pair of red-rimmed oval-shaped glasses out of it. "..Glasses? You don't need glasses."
"No, but these are special. They were being sold on E-bay for cheap," said Kell. "Supposedly they make whoever wears them smarter."
"Another lucky charm, then."
"Yeah. Why not try, right?"
"Well, for one thing, those look like prescription glasses, so they'll probably just mess up your vision and give you a headache. And for another..why do they have that strap thing on the back instead of ear hooks, like normal?"
"Huh?" Kell took a closer look at the glasses. "That part wasn't in the picture. No big deal though, I can still put 'em on." Kell put the glasses on, and waited.

"Well..I don't feel any smarter."
"It's probably just someone's prescription glasses they didn't need anymore or something, and they knew they could get a quick buck out of 'em."

"Yeah...they don't seem to be doing anything but making it hard to see," he said. "You might be right. But I still don't get the strap thing. Why would--whoa."
"What?"
"I just had a small cranial affliction," he said, rubbing his head.
"..What again?"
Kell blinked a couple of times. "Uh..I had a brief headache. It felt as if something exterior was entering and accommodations had to be made."
"Oh. Why are you talking weird?"
"I..do not know. When I attempt to communicate I find myself spewing excessively polysyllabic terminology. Wait, that's not what I--"
"Oh! You're talking smart. That means it worked, doesn't it?"
Kell thought for a moment, not quite noticing the hair showing up on the sides and top of his peripheral vision. "Well..I am not certain. I mean, vocabulary is not exactly a yardstick for intellect."
"Yeah, but just knowing all those words is sure to..uh..wait, what's up with your hair?"

"What do you mean?"
"It's turning green!"
"Huh?" Kell pulled a strand of his hair over to his eye from one side, and he could clearly see that it was getting a greenish tint to it, and getting brighter. "Wait..it is lengthening, as well!"
"Maybe you should take it off."
"Yes, of course." Kell quickly lifted the glasses off his head, strap and all, and handed it to Remus; the whole time his hair's color continued to brighten, and it slowly grew until it was framing his face, just short of his shoulders.

"Wha.." Kell looked around for a second. Everything far off looked blurrier than usual. "It..made me nearsighted? I wouldn't want to wear it again, however..I suppose I could afford a prescription--" He stopped short, and did a double-take. Remus looked a little taller than usual.
"What is it?"
"I--I am diminishing!" As he spoke, Kell's body rapidly lost height, the whole room rising up around him. "But..my apparel..?" His shirt, hoodie, and pants both seemed to be getting tighter on him, especially the pants. He put a hand up against his stomach, and observed, "My girth is decreasing, as well.." He looked up as the shrinking came to an abrupt halt to find that he was now a full head shorter than Remus. "I..I do not think removing the spectacles halts their effect," he said.
"But..what are they doing?" asked Remus, looking at the glasses.
"I--cchkkt!" Kell sudden feeling of choking brought Kell's hands to his neck, and they found what seemed to be a collar. Yet, it didn't feel all that tight--he could breathe just fine again after the first second.
"What happened?"
"Some kind of...mm!?" Kell's eyes widened in surprise at his voice--it sounded much higher than before. He cleared his throat, and even that sounded strangely high. "My vocalization was altered! I sound..I sound like..oh."

"Oh, what?"
"I think I understand the purpose and end of the effect.." said Kell, while his jeans suddenly turned all to cloth, splitting at the thighs. Below, it turned white and squeezed tightly against his legs, seeming to push them in as it did. His upper legs seemed to grow as a direct result, and to push back and apart at the top, widening his hips; the upper part of the pants turned black and began to shrink still tighter, especially between his legs. "They make one at least appear more intelligent by altering one's vocabulary, but..they also alter one's physiology, to an..an extensively effeminate end."
"Um..so you're..they..?" The bulge between Kell's legs rapidly shrank into nothingness, allowing the shorts to fit snugly, as well as some underwear that he hadn't even noticed changing underneath.
"Yes! They alter one's sex," said Kell, with some resignation in her voice. Then she suddenly could feel her ears, seemingly stretching out on their own. "Oh..is that not all?" she said, tugging at one of her ears. It was growing, and felt fuzzy to the touch.
"I guess not," said Remus, staring at the ears. "It looks like..cat ears!"
Kell could feel something pushing its way from her back, through the bottom of the hoodie and shirt, just above the shorts. "And..a matching tail, I presume."

She managed to maneuver the tail, as it came close to its full length, so she could get a hand on it and look at it. It was bright green like her hair now was. This is a..dubious bonus--I was only expecting.." Her eyes widened again at an odd, pushing feeling from her chest.
"What?" said Remus.
She unzipped her hoodie, and got a look at two small bumps up against the inside of her shirt. "M-mammaries," she said, blushing, as another push expanded the bumps. "R-rather sizable ones, at that," she added, feeling another, bigger push, and watching them grow still larger.
"Um..when did your eyes turn green?" said Remus, trying not to stare at her growing breasts.
"I..d-do not know," she said. There was one last push, completing the rapid filling out of her figure, and she had a brief, strange sense that it was 'done'.

She looked up, into Remus's eyes. They were both silent for a few very long seconds. A small smile crossed her lips, along with another blush. "I..think it is over. And..it must have completely altered my gender as well."
"W-what's the difference?" said Remus. He was starting to blush, too.
"If I were sexually female but male in gender..I, do not think I would feel much attraction toward you."

A moment of awkward silence passed. "Well..I suspect the spectacles have done all they will to me, and I am still nearsighted. So. I could probably use them."
"S-sure." Remus handed Kell the glasses, and she put them on her nose, pulling the strap over her feline ears (which she had enough control over to fold them flat against her head).
"I suppose we at least know the purpose of the strap. But..why create glasses that transform their wearer into a female feline hybrid, and alter her speech into excessive verbosity? Are the feline parts meant to create some sort of stigma?"

"I dunno. I think they're cute."
"And my irregular communication?"
"It's kind of cute too..even if I don't understand all of what you're saying."
"Hm. Is there anything in which the glasses curse me with some disadvantage?"

"Well, you're not a guy anymore, so I guess you aren't as strong.."
"I was not particularly athletic to begin with, though."
"Well, I don't know then. You look great, I mean, I bet you could be some kind of model if you wanted.."

"Perhaps I could try a sensual pose to test that hypothesis?" She adjusted the glasses with her right hand, putting her left hand against her hip (which felt oddly natural), and licked her lips. 

"Okay, wow. Y-you are officially the hottest girl I have ever seen," said Remus, blushing.
She laughed. "That was..m-merely meant as a jest. I would rather not display clothing for a living, I think. Would you care to join me for daily sustenance?"
"You mean..lunch?"
"..Yes."
"Sure."

This was something I needed to finish before the story idea mentioned off to the right, in case you were wondering.

Midas Journal 13

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Entry: Apr 16

Part 2

Okay, now the real reason I'm writing this is because of what happened this afternoon. Before today, Aden and I hung out a couple of times, on Tuesday and Thursday. I introduced him to Carla at lunch, and he flirted with her a little bit. She didn't mind, and I was glad to have her not teasing me for once. We talked a lot, and at the lunch table, and I got to know him pretty well. He's into gaming..pen and paper RPGs, that kind of thing. And apparently Tina's also in his group that meets every other weekend, which I guess means Tim was before. There's a lot more stuff I found out about his interests and all, but I don't want to go into too much detail about all that stuff.

So. This afternoon. Aden offered to buy me some ice cream at a local-run shop, he said it was really good stuff, and it was. We got the ice cream, and we were on our way to his house because he wanted to show me some stuff. He had barely started his cone, he finished a story he was telling from one of his games, and then he said something. He said, "You know, Kael, sometimes I really wish I could do magic. I mean, I know it's not real and all, but it would be so cool to be able to throw around fireballs or make crazy elaborate illusions. What about you?"

"I kind of like magic not being real," I said. I was being perfectly honest about that.

"Aw, c'mon, I'm sure there's some power you'd love to have, just to play around with for a little while," he said, and gave one of those friendly fake punches to my arm with his free hand. "Huh?"

I looked at him, and I noticed it at the same time he did. Well, he noticed some kind of black material wrapping itself over his knuckles, and starting to grow. I noticed that all of a sudden my sense was telling him he would turn into a girl if he touched me. Oh man, was all I could think. Now what?

The material quickly wrapped itself around his hand and up his wrist a little bit, ignoring the outer half of his fingers. "Well, this feels weird," he said, and I saw the material squeezing his hand and fingers into a much smaller, skinnier shape, and even the exposed parts of his fingers shrank. Two things that looked like miniature belts appeared on top of the wrist of the, gloves I guess, and then from the wrist up his whole arm started shrinking, the hair on it disappearing. His t-shirt's sleeve pulled in until his shoulder was exposed.

"Scratch that. This is weird," he said, looking at his arm and turning it around. "Whoa.." Then he started to lose height, and his shirt started to get tighter and longer at the bottom. I could see the middle of the shirt separating, buttons appearing to hold it together, and the collar growing and folding itself over. And then his other sleeve pulled in to match the first one, and his arm started shrinking too. For some reason he put the ice cream cone in the already-changed hand, and watched the one that was changing as the same black material as before showed up at the edge of his wrist and grew down the hand into a matching glove.

"Huh..wow," he said. I could hear his voice starting to change now. He looked down at his lower body, moving his head back and forth to try and get a better look at what was going on. Thanks to the tight shirt I could see his stomach shrinking in and his hips growing, and now his pants split at the thighs, the top part turning white all at once while the bottom turned black. The top part shrank up a few inches and started getting vertical creases on it, and some kind of straps made their way up from the leggings, which were now squeezing his legs into a very slim shape. "So I'm gonna..?" he started, in a voice that still sounded like a guy's, but barely, and paused, getting a weird look on his face. "Oh. Yes, apparently." His, or I guess her, voice rose into the girl range now.

"Whoa," she said, and I looked up to see Aden's face quickly shrinking and shifting, his hair suddenly turning from dark brown to bright blond and growing out, covering his forehead in the front, framing his face on the sides, and reaching as far as his waist in the back. He blinked once, and suddenly his eyes had turned this bright yellow color. Then a red tie appeared in the middle of his shirt's collar and grew down to about the middle of his stomach, and the motion drew my attention to two small bumps now on her chest, still growing and stretching the tight shirt farther out. Or, I dunno, maybe the shirt was growing there.

"Oh? Wow," she said. Her voice was really high now, even for a girl, almost at risk of being squeaky and annoying..but not exactly that high. And then I noticed her ears. They were getting big, and growing fur, like Rhia's had, but not in exactly the same shape. The fur was the same color as her hair, except for a white tip on each. There was some motion in my peripheral vision, and I looked down to see a big, bushy tail in the same color, with the same kind of white tip. I have no idea when that appeared. And by the time I looked up again there was some kind of blue hat on her head, sitting awkwardly behind the big triangular ears, and her boobs looked pretty much full.

"Phew, is it over?" she said, looking over herself again, taking the tail in one hand and looking at it for a second or two. She got an excited look in her eyes. "Man, that was crazy! Look at me, I'm a fox-girl! Huh?" She paused a couple of seconds, and I'm pretty sure I knew why. I could feel another copy-of-memory thing happening, and suddenly I knew she was Adena, knew I had met her under the same conditions and all but as a girl, with the same animal ears and tail. Since I'd only really met her this week, my memories weren't all that effected, but I knew it was a pretty big deal for her.

Finally, she said, "...Okay, wow. All of my wow. Did you do this?" She seemed mostly amazed about it still, but kind of happy.

"..Err, sort of. Not on purpose. I can explain somewhere more private."

"Okay, c'mon!" She grabbed my hand and started half-running in the direction of her house. I was glad to find out she wasn't super strong like Lue, but I followed her anyway, and in a couple of minutes we came to her house and she led the way inside.

"Okay..I'm pretty sure my parents aren't here, so this should be private enough," she said, closing the front door and moving to the middle of the living room. "So, I have powers now. Like, awesome powers. Check this out!" She put her right hand out, palm-up, and a yellow-colored fireball appeared hovering over it for a few seconds.

"Uh..maybe don't do that around flammable stuff."

"I know, I know! It's just so cool. But--so you said you did this somehow?"

"..Yeah. About, a month ago was my eighteenth birthday, and since waking up that morning I sometimes turn guys into girls when I touch them. I don't really understand how or why it works, but I thought I'd at least learned to sense whether that would happen or not..."

"I was about to say. You've touched me plenty of times, what makes this one special?"
"I don't know. When I first met you it didn't 'feel' like anything like that was going to happen. And for some reason it seems like everyone it happens to is just really happy about it. I don't get that, either. I mean, I can use the power on myself to go back and forth, but as far as I can tell it's just..weird switching genders."

"Hm..yeah, you're right. It is weird. But the reason I'm happy with this doesn't have anything to do with being a girl. It's because it came with awesome powers. Like, watch this." She made a tossing motion off to her left, and suddenly she was standing over there. I did a double take to see that there were apparently two of her. The original went over to the 'new' one and waved her hand around inside it, and it shimmered like some kind of movie hologram. Then the copy disappeared. "Actually..hey. I think I get it!"
"You do?"

"Yeah. Your power grants wishes!"

"Uh.."
"No no, hear me out. Just before you changed me into what I looked like now I was talking about how I'd like to be able to do magic. Specifically fire and illusions. Right?"
"Yeah.."
"And when I turned from Aden to Adena, what kind of powers did I get?"
"..Oh."

I sat down and sighed, hand on my forehead. She came up in front of me and leaned forward a little. "What? What's wrong with that?"

"Okay, look. The other thing I've noticed about my power, other than what I've already told you, is that every time I've turned a guy into a girl they..act kind of attracted to me. Especially at first. Meaning if you're right about my power granting wishes..the trade-off for granting someone's wish is supposed to be getting turned into an attractive girl, and..ugh, I don't even want to think about it."

She sat on the couch next to me, but not uncomfortably close. "Well, I didn't feel especially attracted to you. I mean, you're pretty good-looking but I still don't really feel like we need to be more than friends, you know? What if it was just a rush of hormones or something?"

"Okay..but if you were coming up with powers, and made up a power that could grant other people's wishes while making them girls, why else would you do that?"

"Well obviously nobody came up with your powers. You sure didn't, right?"

"Yeah, but for something as specific as this I get the impression somebody must have made up all the rules."

"Eh, maybe." She got back up again. "I think you need to relax a little, take your mind off that stuff for a while. C'mon, I have some old cards to show you."

So, long story short: I tried to make a new male friend, I ended up turning him into a girl, too, and finding out more terrible things about my powers. I just hope I can get them under control soon so this kind of thing won't happen anymore.

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Alright, so. Here's the deal. This is a story that I've never had any particularly solid long-term ideas for. I think it up, and write it, in a one-scenario-at-a-time kind of format. And I'd really like to have some more scenario ideas to work with. So, as of this entry, I am taking suggestions for what should happen next in Midas Journal. If you have a suggestion, please post it in a comment to the most recent one (which of course is this one as of this writing). There is no guarantee that suggestions will be used, but if I do use yours I'll be sure to credit you up top for the idea.