Stanton moved even before the blow started. It had been hard to persuade the Guard to let him train there, but after an official (if humoring) letter from himself—as himself—they had agreed to let him train as Louise Silverclaw.

Both were similarly dressed. Stanton was in trousers, a shirt, and a tight-fitting chest garment that his wardrobe had produced that seemed perfect for doing intense physical activity in. Opposite him, though, was a six and a half foot tall giant of a man. With pale green-gray skin revealed by his sleeveless shirt, the Guard revealed his half-orcish heritage only barely. His face, teeth, and eyes were all those of a human.

When the punch struck, it was already at the full extension of the swing and had no actual force to it. Stanton, meanwhile, had one hand already on their wrist and was pulling toward himself and over his shoulder.

The guard stared at him in shock as they were jerked off their feet and over his shoulder. The padded floor stopped any serious damage to anything but their pride.

"Alright," Stanton said, "can we try it at normal speed?"

Stanton's opponent regained his feet and brought one fist into the palm of the other before him. "Very well. Are you sure this new technique isn't one that can be taught?"

About to tell him no, again, Stanton had to wonder about that. "The model I'm using relies on a supernatural trait to be able to sense danger before it's coming at me. Then we build up the right reaction to guide the opponent to overcommit to it and be ready to take advantage of it."

"Why couldn't that be adapted?"

"Come to think of it, it probably could. I'll try running the numbers for next time, and we can see if your reflexes let you work with thi—" Stanton moved quickly, but it was barely fast enough. He had no chance to work the counter and instead just had to content himself with not being hit in the face. "That wasn't normal speed."

"And you still predicted it. Is this the best you can do?"

Holding up both hands and stepping back, Stanton said, "Well, there is more. This next bit is going to seem really weird, but I promise you it's an incantation." With no more reaction than his sparring partner stepping back and raising an eyebrow, Stanton sighed.

"By the shining light of goodness,

And with the power of virtue;

By the purity of my feminine charms,

I call on my wand of power to protect the world!"

The change was drastic. No longer was the young woman in pants and a shirt standing there, looking sensibly dressed for a bit of combat. No. Now she was a cute, slightly shorter, werewolf girl in a pink dress with pink frills and holding what looked like an oversized novelty wand. The light show that had barely managed to hide Stanton's modesty while his clothes transformed had been somewhat dazzling, too.

"Don't laugh!" Stanton hadn't spent much time as Super Lupine Girl. It was mostly the skirt that put him off. "Okay, now try me on. Go as fast as you want."

This time, when the blows started coming, Stanton could feel them far more easily. He wove around them a few times, just getting a feel for the speed, then he prepared himself for a statistical evasion. This time it was a kick. His sense picked up that it was coming low and from his right side. Shifting the weight on his feet, he started to move a moment before the leg was coming at him.

When his kick was robbed of its momentum and he was dragged to the floor, the guardsman found himself staring at Stanton's fist just an inch before his eyes. "Uh, that worked?"

"Yeah. Yeah it worked! Wow! I got a great feel for the attack this time and all the speed boost my wolf form gives really lets it work right." Unclenching his fist, Stanton stood back and offered his hand to the Guard. "Not that you're not quick too, Jaelith."

"But I'm not a werewolf." It was far too easy, or so he thought, for the little werewolf woman to just haul him to his feet.

"You're not, but you do have exceptional speed and strength." The pain from the few hits he'd taken, though, had already mostly faded. Particularly in his magicked-up form, Stanton felt unstoppable. "I need to work on my reactions a little, tighten up my math, but I think this can really work."

Clenching his fists and squeezing the light leather gloves over them tightly, Jaelith nodded. "If you need more practice, I've been authorized to provide several hours a week. If you can teach me this method in a usable manner, I could maybe secure more."

"I guess we have my snooty cousin to thank for that. He's a bit of a fop, but he knows how to get what he wants." Stanton now had to keep his new persona separated from his normal self, and there was no easier way of doing that than to make her more outwardly the antithesis of himself. She was far more physical and outspoken, to say nothing of her being a her. "Still, he has his uses. He helped come up with all this."

"The outfit?"

Stanton laughed and shook his head. "No, this reaction-probability style of fighting. He's the brains behind it, and says he's only doing it so I don't get hurt. He's actually kinda sweet, for an egghead." The hardest part Stanton had found in his new persona was the way she just presented herself as female. He knew for a fact that if he saw a young woman like Louise Silverclaw, he'd be interested in her. "Excuse me a second."

Jaelith got to see the whole process undo. The swirling pink lights, the fluffy dress, even the ribbons that he hadn't quite noticed in Stanton's hair seemed to fade and leave just the young woman in pants, light shoes, and a shirt standing there. He would have even tried flirting if he hadn't realized that despite her looking like just another working woman, she was still a member of the aristocracy. "You really think that thing was a dragon?"

There it was, Stanton thought. He'd been hoping the indifference among the Guard would have a few cracks. "I'm not a hundred percent sure. A dragon should have beaten me to a pulp, destroyed me with magic, and just bitten me in half. If it is a dragon, it's a very young or isolated one that doesn't know what it can do. But even then, even if I was mostly sure it wasn't—should we take that risk?"

"Some would say that raising a panic when it's likely not a problem is a greater threat." Jaelith hoped that his implied but not me got through to Stanton. "Thank you for the workout, and for not laying me out too hard."

Shaking his hand, Stanton gave his best rolling-eyed laugh. "If you had any idea how hard it is to find someone who doesn't run when I ask, 'Can I just beat you up a little?'…"

"Hey, when the Guard needs someone that can take a hit, they get me. If something's really bad, they give me armor."

Stanton could only imagine how tough the big half-orc would be with actual armor on.

----------------------------------------

It was a decidedly different Stanton that sat beside Cassandra on the train to the capital. Done up with makeup, wearing an incredible dress, he hid not a skerrick of the female body he'd been saddled with. The dress' upper part hugged his curves, pushed up his chest, and provided the perfect grip to his waist so that the skirts could spill from his hips with artistic abandon.

"You really went to town, huh?" Cassandra couldn't stop herself from asking. As far as she knew, he'd had a sex-change enchantment wrought on him and had let his new familiar go to town. "What's with the fingernails?"

"The newest fashion. Well, they will be when I show them off. This whole thing will be. You're welcome, by the way." Stanton flicked his chin to the side, which sent the cascade of his hair swishing with it.

It was getting to the point where Cassandra considered just turning into her dragon form and ripping the train apart. "Is this more crap that I don't care about but, for some reason, is vitally important to nobles?"

"They're trapped, Cass. Bound by society's need for them to wear the latest fashion—despite every single one of them knowing how horrid it is. The worst bit is whenever one of them makes a mistake and wears something worse—everyone pretends it's the newest trend and that must be the newest step in the ongoing crime against aesthetics." Stanton could see that Cassandra wasn't interested in the topic, but he did get her to smile at some of his jokes. "Put simply, they need a hero who can stomp this horrid spiral out of existence."

"Do you want me to say it?" Cassandra asked.

"Very much."

"I've already told you. Twice, even."

"Still, more is always better."

"Stanton Raveel-Sharptooth, you look pretty." Ignoring the huge grin on Stanton's face, Cassandra slumped back on her chair. "How much longer?"

"It will be another hour at most. You're not getting bored are you?"

Rolling her head back, Cassandra groaned. "No. Kinda. I didn't expect it to take this long."

"You were the one that insisted we couldn't use the teleporter. What was up with that, anyway?" It had seemed mildly suspicious at the time, but Stanton had just figured she'd want to spend more time with him.

Cassandra knew that such magics had a tendency to strip away glamours. She definitely didn't want to go through a teleporter and find herself as a dragon on the other side. "Well, I figured we could spend some time chatting about stuff, you know?"

"Like what familiar you actually got?" Avoiding the topic, Stanton had noticed, had become Cassandra's standard procedure lately for several topics.

"Err—" It was annoying how many topics Cassandra couldn't talk to her best friend about. On reflection, though, she realized it was only a few topics but they always seemed to come up when Stanton was talking with her. "About that. I don't actually know what I summoned. I think it was some kind of electrical elemental."

"Figures. You've always been a bit of a bright spark. So, where is it?" After asking Stanton watched Cassandra point to her chest. "Wait, inside you?"

"Y-Yeah." While she sat there, blushing, Cassandra's mind raced and she expended a fraction of her energy to make a blue scar appear just above her left breast. It had suitably jagged edges with a single burn mark in the middle of it. "It was weird. Here, take a look."

Stanton hadn't had any time to get to know Cassandra's body in a less than fully clothed state, so when she reached up to her top and started easing the fabric down, he did what every honest gentleman would do—he gawped. "Oh—OH! So it's really inside-inside you? That's weird, but at the same time awesome. Uh, you can cover up."

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Grinning in surprise, Cassandra couldn't believe how well her little trick had worked. And that was another topic she couldn't broach with Stanton—shapechanging. "Huh? Oh, right!" She rearranged her dress and got herself back within it fully. "Sorry, I've been a little scatterbrained lately. Hey, I wonder if it has anything to do with the familiar?"

"I'm no expert on electricity magic, but you might want to get that checked out, Cass." Sometimes it felt like ticking problems off a list for Stanton. Now he knew where and what her familiar was, his attention turned more toward Cassandra's wellbeing. "I don't think I can remember any hostile electricity elementals taking someone over and dancing their body around like a meat-puppet, but you might want to look into the downsides."

Not worried at all about having her brain taken over by an elemental with no concept of personal space—mostly because in this case it was fiction—Cassandra nonetheless nods. "Okay, Mom."

". . ." Stanton was going to deliver some comment about how he was a guy, then realized how he was dressed. "Fair."

Cassandra let out a laugh and was thankful when the rest of their chatter was about magic theory and not so much about herself.

----------------------------------------

The train arrived in the capital with little fanfare. Stanton walked with Cassandra to the door and disembarked their conveyance only for him to recognize his uncle (on his father's side) waiting for them. The man was actually a year younger than Stanton, but due to previous births in the family they were uncle and nephew.

While Stanton recognized his uncle Frederick, it was clear that he was not recognized in return. "Cass, can I ask a huge favor from you?"

"Tell me what it is first."

"The guy over there—blonde hair, blue eyes, nose bent out of shape, a smile that he thinks could charm the pants off any woman?"

"Yeah."

"He's here to pick us up and take us to the ball. He hasn't recognized me."

"You'll owe me for this, but okay, what are we doing?"

Explaining his plan, Stanton waited for Cassandra to nod to it before approaching his cousin. "Excuse me, sir?"

Ceasing his search for Stanton, Frederick Raveel-Shootingstar looked at the woman who'd approached him and forgot all about his nephew. "My lady, what can I help you with?"

Stanton did his best fluttering eyelashes, but feared he wasn't the best at it. "I've been trying to find my wife. You see, we're here to find a virile—Oh! There she is! Tess! Tess! Over here!"

Doing her best to mock rushing over to Stanton, Cassandra froze as she looked at Frederick up close. "This is the one? Are you sure? I know you said you wanted a child badly, but we could find better—I'm sure of it."

Eyes widening a little, Frederick looked between the two well-dressed women as his brain tried to piece together their conversation. "L-Ladies, what are you talking abou—!"

Stanton squeezed his uncle's rear. "Definitely, Tess. This one will make a fine stud. Oh, won't you, dear? It's just that we've wanted to have children but—"

"… but being as we are, that's impossible. Neither of us has the heart to go through with one of those spells, and we don't need anything long-term." Cassandra actually enjoyed watching her friend's relative slowly go insane from looking between them rapidly. But, it was time for the finale. "I'll get the collar."

"I'll get the rope and glove," Stanton said—before finally losing it as his uncle's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. "Fred, it's me, Stanton."

Frederick's rising confusion stalled somewhere in the stratosphere. "Stanton?" His voice betrayed his confusion. "Stanton Raveel-Sharptooth?"

"I'm attending the ball in protest of women's fashion." Stanton reached down to his full dress and carefully pinched the edges to curtsy to his uncle.

"He's also going a bit far with it, in my opinion," Cassandra said. "But if you know Stanton, you'd know he doesn't do anything by half."

"This is why you didn't teleport? You used an illusion sp—Wait, this isn't an illusion!" Gawping now, Frederick reached out toward his uncle but was stopped by a delicate hand. "You used a sex-swapping spell for this?!"

"I couldn't exactly model a formal dress as a guy—I wouldn't have had the hips for it." Stanton planted his hands on the mentioned anatomy and shook his hips from one side to the other. "Also, my chest was too small."

"You are a maniac, Stanton, you know that?" Dragging his eyes away from Stanton's chest (he had looked since his nephew had invited it), Frederick shook his head. "You're going to drive your parents crazy, you know that?"

"Probably. That's part and parcel of producing me. Besides, it's not like they'll both be here." After saying it, Stanton felt a sinking feeling as Frederick's face broke into a grin. "No…" He turned and looked at Cassandra. "Cass, come on, we're getting back on the train and going back to—"

"It's all the news, Stanton. Your parents—the arranged marriage of the last two decades—have fallen in love with each other. I'm surprised they didn't tell you." Frederick reached out to his nephew and carefully folded their arms together like he was escorting a high-court lady. "Now, not to be upsetting or anything, but if I don't get you to the party—someone will be putting a mark on me."

"Is he right?" Cassandra asked, slipping up to Stanton's other side.

"What?" Shaking his head (something that set his hair swaying behind him), Stanton added, "Of course not. They wouldn't do anything that left a mark on him."

"They'd make sure to leave me alive and with an expensive healing potion," Frederick said with a nod of his head.

Cassandra could see why Stanton and Frederick got on so well—what with having the same personality—but she was interested to know how his little stunt would affect both him and her. The worst possible outcome, she decided, was if things got bad, she would turn into a dragon and run away with him. He'd figure out it was still her and they could be together forever! No, she didn't believe it all, but her heart wanted it to be true. "So, where are we going?"

"Not where, we already know that," Stanton said, looking at his uncle. "What is more important right now is how are we going?"

Frederick could accept that Stanton had used a shocking amount of magic to pull off his little stunt, but what he wanted to know was more about Cassandra—only in part because he'd been ordered to. "I brought a carriage, of course. You think either Raveel or Sharptooths would dare to have the chosen one walk about the city like a commoner?" The wince on Stanton's face that he saw was matched by a flash of fury on Cassandra's. Pieces started to connect. "Please, this way."

Ready to put Plan Rip Everyone To Shreds and Escape With Stanton into effect, Cassandra tried to pull her arm free from Stanton's grip, but only managed to get a apologetic look that calmed her again. His whole face seemed so alien like this—except for his eyes. In Stanton's eyes she could see a kindred spirit. He wasn't doing this whole elaborate thing just to be the brightest canary at the show—he was actually trying to help people.

Watching the look of fury fade from Cassandra's gaze earned her a sigh of relief from Stanton. Her squeezing his arm and looking back—deep into his own eyes—made him shiver with possibilities. "He didn't mean it like that. He's been around nobles all his life."

"Huh?" Frederick asked.

"Yeah, I get that, it was just how casually he can dismiss the majority of the population that irks me." Cassandra looked past Stanton at Frederick. "Did you know that if I said something similar about nobles, and a member of the city guard heard me, they could lock me up?"

"Well, that's because…" There was a lot to be said for Frederick's survival instinct—he noticed when the fire started returning to Cassandra's eyes and stopped talking. "Sorry, madam, I didn't know that."

Stanton laughed at him—he couldn't help it. "Goooood save. Cass, can we save the class warfare fights for the people who actually deserve it and leave the ignorant to continue eating their shoes?"

"Can I at least apologize now for any slip-ups I might make during the night? As Stanton said, I have got a habit of putting my foot in my mouth. It's why my parents are seen as being extremely wise when they had my marriage arranged at birth." He spared one last slightly longing look at the pair of women hanging off his arm. "Because they knew, somehow, that I would never be able to find a woman who would put up with my social gaffs."

"I can believe th—Wait, your marriage was arranged for you? What if you don't like her?" The prospect of such an arrangement caused Cassandra to actually feel sorry for him. "Or if she doesn't like you?"

"Cass," Stanton began, "there are worse things than an arranged marriage where neither loves the other. Such things are common enough. Generally, each family just wants to see children from the couple—how they spend their leisure time, so long as it's discrete, is of no concern to anyone."

"What—What would be worse than neither person in a marriage loving each other?" Cassandra asked.

Wincing at such naivete, Frederick said, "One of them devoutly loving the other, completely unrequited."

It halted Cassandra's line of thinking completely. There was actual pain in Frederick's voice. "You know someone like that?"

"Cass, every noble knows someone like that. It's horrific and terrible and people still agree to marry their children off to someone they've never met because it didn't happen to them." Stanton didn't mean to give a lecture, but Cassandra had been on an anti-noble quest all afternoon and it had started to get to him. "Sure, nobles get a lot of privilege, and I know that's unfair, but there are hazards even at the top."

Wanting to distract himself, Frederick cleared his throat and gestured to the horse-drawn carriage waiting for them. His mouth, however, had a mind of its own. "Tiffany is a nice woman. We—We meet twice a week for supper and tea. She's not exactly gifted in magic, though her family has the blood for it."

"Will she be here tonight?" Stanton asked. When his uncle nodded, he continued, "Then show her an amazing time. People will be watching, so you can't get up to anything untoward. Just be honest."

"I'm not that inexperienced, Stanton. We get on okay, but I don't know if we can take that step from friendship to love." He jerked a little and looked around as if waking up and finding himself in a new place. "I guess I was asking for advice after all."

"I didn't realize it was this horrible." It was quite the revelation for Cassandra to see this side of nobility. Even as she still despised the system of nobility, she found herself hating the actual people a little less. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Shaking his head, Frederick let out a sigh. "Trust me, the two of you wearing traditional dresses will be plenty of help. No one will notice us off on our own."

"Is fashion really that bad?" Cassandra asked, looking at Stanton. When both her companions nodded, she groaned aloud. "So I'm going to have nobles gawking at me and muttering stuff? Can I punch them?"

"Yes," Stanton said.

"No," Frederick said.

Both looked at each other and shrugged.

"Good. So I can. Just tell me who I shouldn't punch and I'll try to remember not to." Their ride continued in relative silence until the carriage slowed and the footman opened the door on the side of it. Stepping out first, Cassandra could already feel the shock of several people who'd glanced at her dress. "Them?" she asked Stanton.

"I don't know who they are, so add them to the 'maybe' pile. If they throw-down first, you are welcome to do whatever it takes." Stanton put on his best smile and reached his arm out to twine it with Cassandra's.

"Stanton Raveel-Sharptooth, what are you doing?"

There is something about hearing your mother enunciate your full name with cold fury that sends sharp talons of fear into every vertebrae. Of course, thanks to their both being werewolves, Stanton had actually felt her talons tickle his vertebrae—and was a little more resistant to the effect. He also had a lovely woman at his side as well as righteous fury backing him up in the form of his battle with women's fashion. "Sorry, Mom."

Finding the tone not sufficiently obedient enough for her, Clarissa Sharptooth-Raveel-Brightfang narrowed her eyes. "Is this an attempt at blackmailing me, Stanton? If it is, you should know I—"

"Mom, I'm doing this for a very good reason." Stanton struck a pose, one Angel had taught him that he'd never seen used anywhere before. His hip was out in an exaggerated manner that made his rear look larger than it was. "I am doing this for them." He pointed at the young noble ladies who'd been muttering about Cassandra. "Look at what's happened to women's fashion! It's a joke—a game of one-upwomanship where the stakes are social standing and the only coin is how stupid you can encourage others to dress. Mother, we—Cassandra and I—are bringing back dresses!"

Reaching one gloved hand up to her nose, Clarissa closed her eyes for a moment and used her palm to hide the little smile on her lips. While she stood there, she heard footsteps approaching from her right—ones she recognized.

"Stanton? Looking good, son. Nice dress. Hello, Miss Cassandra, you are looking lovely too, and if I didn't have this amazing werewolf beside me—ready to rip my throat out at the first hint of extra-marital activity—I would spill further compliments upon you." Carefully bringing one hand up to Clarissa's jaw, Rufus Raveel-Sharptooth-Shootingstar tilted his wife's jaw toward his and kissed her with abandon.

Stanton, ever the loyal son, hid his absolute shock that his parents were getting along this well. Tilting sideways a little, he whispered to Frederick, "See? If there's hope for them, there's hope for you and Tiffany."

Stanton was, not for the first time in his life, relieved his uncle was merely human. "Shall we go inside and be announced?"

"Frederick?" Walking over, her own outfit the height of courtly fashion, Tiffany Forestlight blushed as she neared him. "You have some friends I've not seen before."

"You've seen Stanton here, he's currently crusading against women's fashion, though I don't think you've met his plus one." Clearing his throat, Frederick dipped his head in deference. "This is madam Cassandra."

It didn't take a gifted socialite to recognize the distinct lack of family name. Tiffany, though, smiled at Cassandra. "Any friend of Frederick's is a friend of mine. Where did you both find those dresses?"

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.