Albus looked into the sky, shooting stars surprisingly visible despite the city's light pollution. He was taking a nighttime walk away from his apartment, avoiding the stoners always smoking on the porch. It was good to collect his thoughts and get away from the doom scrolling of the horrible state of the world. 

It was truly beautiful. Six streaks splitting off from each other, their bright lights almost looking like they were heading his way.

Wait. They were! They split off, clearly about to land in the city—and one was going right to him. He started running for his life, turning his back to the light.

Everything went black.

He woke up on the ground, but oddly not in pain. There was an object in his hand—it had a white handle leading up to a pitch black star at the end, like some sort of wand. He wasn't exactly sure where it came from—was it on the ground where he fell? But he did have a strange feeling as he stood up, like there was something he had to do.

"Cosmic Wand Power, Reveal!" A bright light shone around him, as he flew into the air. He could feel her body changing around herself, body lengthening, brown hair turning pitch black, glasses disappearing, old clothes getting replaced with long socks, a short skirt, and a tank top, skin impervious to the cold air. A bright ribbon, white with black outlines, topped it off in her hair.

Beautiful Cosmic Soldier Heliopause stood tall, doing one last twirl with a grin. She jumped, and went up, and up, and up, effortlessly landing on a five story building. People looked so small from here—she could see all the way to her apartment! Her neighbors were still smoking on the porch—she should say hi to them sometime, they seem nice. She wondered why she never had before. But that could be for later.

She ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, landing ten buildings away. It was just like a superhero story! Or a magical girl one. She laughed as she ran, jumping from building to building. The buildings and cars rushed past her, nothing able to keep up. Heliopause ran past the elevated train tracks, pausing her eyes on the train struggling to keep up with her. She sped up, leaving it far behind her.

She finally approached downtown, buildings towering over her. Without hesitation she made one final leap, jumping twenty, forty, eighty stories all the way to the top of a skyscraper. She held onto the metal roof, clearly not meant for walking, but with no more fear of falling off than she would have with a one foot drop. She looked at her reflection and saw someone tall, powerful, yet beautiful and with an angelic grace.

"Wow," Heliopause said to herself, giggling. "Is this real?"

It didn't feel like a dream. Was this what it felt like to be high? She had never even gotten drunk, but maybe she should try it if she could feel like this. Then again, why do that when she could simply be here? On top of this skyscraper, that she never bothered to learn the name of?

She peered through the clouds (well, through the normal clouds) below her at the ground, the nightlife of Cloud City alive and well. Drunk partiers wandered in and out of bars, beggars asked for coin or to sell snacks while huddling under all their clothes, essential workers shuffled through the snow to their jobs—the city in its full glory and pain was clear to her. Humanity was as beautiful as it was painful.

But perhaps that was too much philosophy. That was ice's job.

"Ice?" She said the word out-loud. How was ice going to think? It was like there was something at the tip of her tongue. Something she had forgotten. Whatever. It might be important, but that didn't matter to her right now.

She jumped off the skyscraper. Wind blew her long black hair past her face, staying perfectly out of her way. The ground approached—she landed in a crouch, slightly wincing at a crack she made in the sidewalk. A dozen people, each doing their own thing, all turned to face her. She winked, then leapt away.

She found the train tracks she usually took to and from her apartment, following them back to her neighborhood. She found an empty park, sunlight barely glimmering over the horizon. In a moment he was back to normal. He walked back to his apartment in a daze, collapsing into bed.

——

Albus woke up to his alarm the next day, sleepily rubbing his eyes. What a crazy dream last night. Still, there was something about it. He pulled up his phone.

"Magic girl jumping buildings" into the search engine—there. A video of a girl in a rainbow outfit similar to his dream's jumping from building to building, albeit far less impressively than he remembered in his dream—jumps of tens of feet instead of hundreds. Scrolling through, she had made quite a scene, with lots of online speculation about who she was. One site—blegh, wroddit—has a whole subforum dedicated to it. Oh, some new posts. New look-alikes had been spotted, now in specific colors like blue or red rather than rainbow. It was clearly different girls, their neon hair matching their outfits. One picture caught a tattoo on the back of the blue girl's neck, six stars in a circle grey, blue, red, yellow, white, and black, the blue one glowing the brightest.

And there was a girl in black. That was her. Er, him. The him from his dream where he dreamed he was a her. That there's a picture of.

He looked over at his end-table. There lies the star wand he used yesterday to transform. No no no. That wasn't a dream. That magical, powerful feeling was real. He had a powerful magical item. But why'd it have to make him a girl?

Whatever, that wasn't the most important issue. He could deal with being a girl, an easy tradeoff. It was like those memes that were like "win $2000 but you turn into a girl if you press a button", anyone would take it. The question was should he report it? This was clearly a powerful weapon—maybe some sort of secret government super-soldier program? Well, even if it was, maybe it would be best not to give it back to the government. They'd probably just kill people in some other country with it.

So he'd keep it close with him for now to be safe, the star wand easily fitting into his pockets. He got ready and went to work: a shift at a low wage job at a library's front desk.

The day drudged along, nothing special. Then he felt something in the back of his mind, like a spike of alertness. There was something he needed to see.

"I'm taking my break!" He sped-walked to the door, barely waiting for his supervisor's okay. He somehow found an empty alley and said the words: "Cosmic Wand Power, Reveal!"

Once again his body and clothes changed, her most powerful self brought to the forefront. She jumped from the alley onto the rooftops. She could sense a spike of magical energy not too far away—she had to see what it was.

It was a matter of a few quick strides to find a park emptied of people. An object was shining brightly in the center, too bright to see. She walked up to it, vaguely aware of people around the park videotaping her. She bent down and picked up the object.

It stopped glowing. It appeared to be some sort of umbrella? She activated it, the umbrella keeping her safe from the nonexistent rain. That… was disappointing. She moved to put it away in her pocket, but it was blasted out of her hand by a beam of light, crashing into the ground.

"Hey greedy! Before you take that for yourself, let's discuss some things. I'm the Beautiful Cosmic Soldier Ashen-glow, protector of love and light!" A girl with a white skirt and tanktop, similar outfit to her own, spoke out standing on top of a statue. Somehow she knew this was the rainbow outfitted girl from the videos weeks ago, despite the different outfit.

"I'm… the beautiful cosmic soldier Heliopause?"

"No!"

"I am!"

"Say it with meaning!"

"I'm the Beautiful Cosmic Soldier, Heliopause! Protector of Principles and Darkness!" She did a twirl.

"There you go!" She jumped down from the statue. "That right there? A piece of ancient magic technology. We, the cosmic soldiers, are to collect them."

"You shot it out of my hand!"

"I needed to make sure you'd stay to chat!" Ashen-glow smiled.

"So, I can grab it and keep talking?"

"Hmm." She smirked. "We're supposed to be a team, but that's no fun. It's not like the magical girl TV shows, we have no one to fight. So what's to say we fight each other for it?"

Normally she would shy away from conflict. She didn't care about the umbrella! But something got her blood pumping. "Let's do it!"

Ashen-glow pointed at her, a beam of light instantly coming out of her finger. Heliopause covered her eyes, only to not feel an impact. She peaked through her fingers. A shadowy shield of dust covered her, clearly having blocked the beam of light. It reacted to her thoughts, moving around as she thought. More laser shots came ringing out only to be entirely blocked by her shield.

"Good job!" Ashen-glow praised. Heliopause felt some blood rush to her face. This girl was clearly experienced, it was like she was teaching her how to fight. Ashen-glow leapt towards the umbrella, moving at impossible speeds. If she truly was weaker in that rainbow outfit before, she wasn't anymore. Heliopause ran after her even as she grabbed the umbrella.

She took her magic and formed it into a spear, throwing it ahead at Ashen-glow. The soldier of light almost dodged, the spear clipping her on the arm and making her drop the umbrella. Heliopause grabbed it. "Mine!"

"For now!" A whip of light rang out, wrapping around her waist and tripping her. She crashed into the ground, cracking the sidewalk as civilians ran away.

"Sorry!" The soldier of darkness apologized to the people she almost crashed into. She turned around to see the soldier of light once more hitting towards her with a whip made of light—this time she blocked it with a shield of darkness, shattering it.

"I am the Beautiful Cosmic Soldier Cool-flame!" Another one appeared, dressed in all red. "Protector of Passion and Fire! Now what's this fight all about?"

"Ah, another of us! It's a simple game. Whoever wins gets the piece of magical technology." Ashen-glow smiled.

"It's a fucking umbrella. I'm done." She put it in her pocket. She didn't usually swear, but… this was a lot.

"You're done but you took it anyways? Fuck you. Give me the umbrella." The fire soldier scowled at her. Heliopause dramatically frowned back and gave the middle finger. Cool-flame held her hands out and a tornado of fire flew out at her, she barely blocked it with her shield. As it disappeared she cringed at the buildings and people behind her, expecting them to be burnt. But amazingly—and by their wide eyes amazingly to them too—they were all undamaged.

"Be more careful! And no, I got here first!"

"I don't have to. My fire burns exactly what I want it to, and nothing more. I'm joining in on this fight."

"Ooh, a threesome? Don't mind if I do," Ashen-glow joked.

"I'm out of here." Heliopause leapt away, intently aware of the two girls chasing after her, keeping her shields of darkness up to protect herself. Ashen-glow and Cool-flame were less lucky—they had to dodge or get hit, and despite the soldier of light clearly having some experience, it wasn't that much experience, and the soldier of fire was as inexperienced as her.

Eventually she blew a cloud of smoke in all directions, blocking sight entirely. She took advantage to jump out and away, de-transforming and walking back to work—luckily, they weren't too far.

He wondered where the umbrella went. Her skirt didn't have pockets.

————

Albus avoided transforming for a few weeks, but kept a close tab on the others. A forum had sprung up, CosmicSoldierWatch, which kept close track on the soldiers. They had become like local celebrities, their fights spectacular and exciting.

Earthshine was the favorite, her healing power allowing her to fix damage done by their fights. Her and Amorphous-ice—and how did he know that name before hearing it?—were a team, but being both better as support for others, still didn't only won once. Ashen-glow won three times, a clear knowledge and skill gap surpassing everyone else. The last soldier was Whistler-wave, her strong figure (the only one taller than Albus) and lightning powers making her clearly the most destructive, but still only winning once, on par with Cool-flame. Finally, one was caught by a civilian before anyone showed up, turned into the government for a bounty. Apparently they were considered of archaeological interest?

Anyways, it was almost like a game—one Albus took no part in. He practiced with the umbrella some, and noticed it could block rain in a pretty large area as a weak but noticeable magic effect. It was nothing compared to Amorphous-ice's control over water—she could practically control a thunderstorm. Albus hoped to see that in person one day.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The best picture of their power was when a fight extended to one of the side-clouds of cloud city, three girls jumping hundreds of feet from one cloud to the other. But it was also scary—when people realized how strong they were, would they come after them?

Otherwise, Earthshine and Amorphous-ice were also a crimefighting duo, having been spotted stopping robberies on several occasions. He thought it was a little petty—they had only saved some insurance companies some money. Guess actual violent crime was harder to find.

All their identities were still secret despite not wearing masks. Made sense to him—no one else had reason to know, but he didn't look anything like his transformation.

He wasn't sure how much longer he could resist transforming, even if it meant fighting in the "games". It was simply… too amazing. In his day to day life he had no friends, no prospects. He supposed he should be using dating apps or going out to bars or something, but just couldn't bring himself to care. He spent his time on the forums, becoming a prolific poster amidst the speculations.

He wished he could be more like Heliopause. He knew it was ridiculous, they were the same person, but she was a confident and beautiful girl, while he was a lonely shut-in boy, even if he had been told was objectively attractive, it hadn't helped him any. Friendships just… faded away.

He sighed and logged off. Maybe a walk would help.

——

He found himself in Dark Matter Cafe, ordering a chocolate croissant and hot chocolate for himself. He liked to people-watch—they had such interesting conversations. Just the other day he heard a girl logic herself into identifying as a lesbian! Apparently she thought she was bi before but actually just liked tall women. Good for her, honestly, who wouldn't want to be a lesbian?

There walked in now, an oddly familiar light-skinned blonde girl and a dark skinned brunette. They ordered, then chatted as they waited for their drinks.

"I'm so glad you could come out with me today! We should go out to the arcade bar tonight," the blonde said.

"Well, I do have to study-"

"Aw, you said you have a full week! C'mon it's a Friday night, let's have fun!"

"Well… I suppose I could spare a day. I've only been to a bar a few times."

"We're gonna have sooo much fun. Hey, we may even meet some cute boys and girls there."

"Ah maybe. I don't know that I'll want to talk to anyone else myself."

"Oh that's okay! We'll have fun with the two of us."

"Jackie, cappuccino extra cream!" The blonde ran over to pick up her coffee.

"Oooh delicious."

Albus sighed. Sometimes he wished he could join in on conversations. Honestly an arcade bar sounded really fun. He'd never go out to one by himself though.

"Lana, iced tea extra caffeine." The two girls took their drinks and began walking towards the exit, Jackie giving Lana a quick kiss on the cheek as they left. Huh. He wondered if they were together.

He soon finished his hot chocolate and left to brave the snow himself. This did not make him feel much better. But he only got half-way home before almost tripping on the ground, hands in his pockets flying around to balance himself.

He stared at the glowing stick in front of him. Talk about deja vu. Though this clearly wasn't a star wand, it was one of the other pieces of technology appearing in the city. He picked it up, instinctively feeling for its powers. It's… a transformation wand?

He jerked his head up. That was a magical signal incoming, he needs to transform! "Cosmic Wand Power, Reveal!"

Legs lengthening, skin softening, breasts growing—she was much more aware of the physical changes as time went on, even as they stayed feeling perfectly natural. It was just part of being a magical girl, a Cosmic Soldier.

She twirled in her skirt, curtsying to the newcomer.

"Cool-flame. Hello."

"Oh, you're back." She scoffed. "Where have you been?"

"Maybe I have better things to do than fighting over trinkets."

Earthshine dropped from the side. "Wanna join team supports? I'm a better thing to do."

Was that an innuendo? She was probably imagining things, she wasn't used to interacting with so many pretty women. "Uh. I—no. I'm not joining your team. We haven't even met."

Earthshine pouted. "I'm the Beautiful Cosmic Soldier, Earthshine! Protector of Justice and Shadows."

"I'm the Beautiful Cosmic Soldier, Heliopause! Protector of Principles and Darkness!"

"We have kinda similar themes, don't you think?"

"No, shadows are like the interplay of light and dark. In the darkness, there can be no shadow."

"Poetic."

"My turn!" Cool-flame charged at her, entire body on fire. She brought up her shield, physically stopping her in place.

"You'll have to do better than that!"

Earthshine glowed, fire dragged from Cool-flame to her. She threw it at the both of them, bowling them over, then ran at her.

Heliopause scrambled up and jumped away, barely avoiding her. She blocked a beam of light from the side, Ashen-glow joining the fray. She continued running through the city with several cosmic soldiers on her tail, throwing around at each other and her, getting better and better at using her shield.

Her breath ran ragged as her foot was caught in ice. Amorphous-ice, that must be. It was the perfect timing to show up too, allowing Earthshine to tackle her. She patted around, clearly looking for the tech. "Where is it!"

"Just in my pocket, stop grabbing all over my body!"

"Aw, I like your body." Earthshine was then whipped off of her, Ashen-glow taking her place.

"What, is this a round-robin?" Heliopause joked. Wait, she can't believe she just said that.

"Only if you want it to be." Ashen-glow smirked. Heliopause twisted, forcing her off, and scrambled up to run again. She could see the others fighting still.

Up ahead, a cliff. The edge of the cloud. Falling is certain death—they've reached the fields at the edge of the city. She ran towards the edge.

"Watch out!" Cool-flame warned her.

"I know!" She jumped and hit her shield at the last moment jumping off of it the other way, way over the other cosmic soldiers. She soared miles around, landing and running back to the city far ahead of the rest, but still hot on her heals. She ducked behind a building and pulled out the transformation wand. "Turn me into a pretty but unassuming civilian!"

In a moment her outfit was gone, replaced by a sweater and jeans. The other cosmic soldiers ran past her, barely giving her a glance. She walked through a crowd, no one giving her a second glance. It was like she was invisible. She looked down at herself. Now this was a powerful piece of tech. That was… fun. Maybe she'd go to more of the fights.

——

More fights were not working out for her. She had her spear, but wasn't very good at aiming it, making her the weakest player by far when she didn't start with the tech item. It didn't help that Ashen-glow could still somehow take on any two of them and win, and Earthshine and Amorphous-ice had a permanent alliance.

Earthshine was still the media darling as well, putting herself out in several interviews—Ashen-glow also tried that, but people liked her much less. The interviews were not informative, mainly them preening themselves to the press as minor celebrities. CosmicSoldierWatch had divided itself into fans of each of the soldiers, like it was some sort of sports gane, Heliopause as the second least popular only above the caustic and scary Cool-flame.

Albus' own life continued as always, a shift at the library, videogames and forum watching at home. It was, in all honesty, nothing to talk about. Nothing he would want to think about.

As he felt sorry for himself on the way to work (which was admittedly quite pathetic), he accidentally stumbled into a short girl.

"Oh! Sorry."

"Watch where you're fucking going." Wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt, she appeared to be half-Yamatan. She had a name tag saying "Kaen". Despite her rude words, she felt oddly familiar, and he couldn't help but like her.

"Didn't mean it! I just didn't see you there."

She rolled her eyes and kept walking. Wow, some people were just rude. Once far away enough that there was no way he should have been able to hear, she whispered "fucking white men."

Wow. That hurt his feelings. Though it was odd he could hear it at all through the crowd—was his hearing getting better? Maybe his Cosmic Soldier form was leaking into his ordinary one, that was exciting.

He continued walking only to feel a sharp pressure behind him—another piece of technology just activated!

She quickly transformed and showed up, this time in a junkyard, just to see Cool-flame having already got it. Earthshine and Amorphous-ice weren't far behind—looks like it'd be a three way fight today.

"I don't think we need to fight, do we?" Earthshine walked right up to Cool-flame-and kissed her?

"Um." Heliopause stood there as they just… continued. "Are we fighting?"

"Don't worry about it," the cold warrior said. "New relationships, y'know?"

"Ah." So the three of them were probably a team now. That would change things. "Don't you think dating someone you don't even know the real name of is kinda problematic?"

"Why would it be problematic?"

"I… dunno. Feels weird."

"Besides, we do know each other's identities. Honestly, it's about time. It only makes sense to coordinate. We were meant to be teammates can't you feel it? This has been nice training but it's time to be over."

"I don't think so?"

"Shit. That's all I got. Earthshine! You're the people person!"

"That I am!" Earthshine stopped kissing for a moment and hopped over. "We were meant to be a team! I can tell. Heliopause, you're beautiful and powerful, a girl after my own heart. I know you didn't really want to fight in the first place. Let's just sit and talk."

"Okay." She sat cross legged on the ground. "Give me your pitch."

"We work together. Fight crime, keep the magic tech safe, prepare for any enemies coming our way. Like in comics! We had to have gotten these powers for a reason."

"Well, I don't particularly care about stopping small scale thievery. You caught someone sneaking out clothes from a store the other day. It wasn't even like an armed robbery, no one was getting hurt. I kinda don't care? If anything I feel bad for the woman you got put in jail."

Earthshine blinked. "I mean, you don't have to help us with that. I would never force someone to do something they did not want to do. Let's just do training instead of fights and work together."

She considered it. Honestly considered it.

"Lightning storm!" Whistler-wave shouted, electricity flooding the junkyard. The broken cars stayed electrified, terrain dangerous. She barely got a shield up in time, the others shocked on the ground. The tech item—some sort of phone? rolled away from Cool-flames.

Whistler-wave and Heliopause both ran for the item, Whistler-wave's additional height and mass—she was easily 10 feet—pushing her aside. But by then the trio had stood up again, recovered from the attack. They spread out, amorphous ice creating a fine mist making it impossible to see while Earthshine copied Cool-flame's powers—two whirlwinds of fire coming out of the fog into the other two girls. Heliopause protected herself and saw Whistler-wave managed a crackling lightning blast to disperse the attack aimed at her.

"The clique got bigger." Heliopause said.

"The clique?" Whistler-wave stared out into the fog, keeping a sharp eye on an attack from Heliopause.

"They feel like a clique. Dunno."

"We're literally the opposite of a clique! We are asking you to join us!" Cool-flame corrected. "Stop fucking spreading lies!"

"You wouldn't be if I wasn't a cosmic soldier though! A group with a maximum membership of 6 people and no one else is pretty cliquey if you ask me." Heliopause laughed, becoming sure of her decision. "And not something I'd ever join."

"Well fuck you too!"

"Not today!" Heliopause threw a spear of darkness at the voice. Quiet—must have missed. She turned around and Whistler-wave was gone. Huh, must have made her escape. Soon the fog cleared to reveal the clique gone as well, taking their prize with them.