((Hey guys, I'm not dead, just incredibly lazy, next chapter will finally actually have magical girl stuff I swear))
August 10th, 2015
“So how was your first day of school?” Major Takakawa asked Tatsuko as she was changing. They were alone in a female locker room, the same one attached to the military hospital where Tatsuko had woken up and gone through physical therapy. Before, Major Takakawa would have teased Tatsuko but, by this point, Tatsuko was already used to being naked with her.
“Nothing special, people kept asking me questions though,” Tatsuko replied, tying up her hair in a ponytail again.
“They’re interested in you, Ms. Mysterious Transfer Student,” Major Takakawa said, explaining.
“Yea, well, I’m more interested right now in my future teammates. Do I meet them today?” Tatsuko asked curtly. She left the locker room and out to the outdoor training grounds with the major following close by.
“Yea, about that, we’ve run into some trouble with our recruitment process so you’ll be operating solo for a while,” Major Takakawa looked apologetic, though Tatsuko was kind of expecting this to begin with. It had only been two weeks since she had woken up, and a mere two weeks to find suitable teammates was too ambitious to begin with. The kabuto corp selection process Kurogane Tetsuo went through before took a few months just to pick candidates. That being said, a part of her was still a little unhappy. As cold and impersonal as Hiro thought his brother was, Tasuko knew that it was always better having someone or two at your back than to be alone in the field.
“I’m still learning magic today though, right?” Tatsuko asked, changing topics. Major Takakawa grinned and tossed a thin, red block to Tatsuko who easily caught it. It was a smartphone, a black screen on front and a red metallic body with blue four-pointed stars streaking across the back.
“I’m sure you’ve seen more than a few of those these last few days. Cellphones, like that tablet you enjoyed so much, only smaller and able to make calls. This one has a special feature though, crack open the back,” Major Takakawa said. Tatsuko obliged and popped off the phone case and peeled off the back as the Major instructed her to.
“This is a henshin device,” Tatsuko said flatly. It had the same basic design as the one she had used thirty years ago as Akakabuto. A central core connected to three modules, the recognition scrambler to prevent anyone from recognizing them while transformed, the weapons module that pulled their weapons from hammerspace, and the armor module that contained their supersuit. At the very least, it was nice to see that some things stayed the same. However this one had an additional fourth module.
“It would be a henshin device if you were still a super sentai, we call them Transformation Sequencers for magical girls. Just as a general rule-of-thumb naming convention, Sentai and Sentai-related equipment and names are in Japanese, as I’m sure you’re used to, but Magic Girl-related things are in English,” Major Takakawa explained. Tatsuko nodded and kept staring at the fourth module.
“And that is a magic control module, it lets you channel your magic when you don’t have the innate ability to do so,” Major Takakawa continued to explain.
“What do you mean by that? Doesn’t everybody with magic have that ability?” Tatsuko asked, remembering that she was able to use passive physical enhancement without such a device.
“No, those who possess both an innate pool of magic and the ability to utilize it without additional equipment are considered Indigo children. Few people have a useable amount of magic power, probably about one in a hundred thousand have enough magic to be of any use. Of those that remain, only about one in a thousand have the innate ability to control it, most people, myself included, require a magic module.”
“Indigo children?” Tatsuko asked. Yet again, there was a new term she had not heard before.
“Kids who are naturally born with the ability to use supernatural powers. They’re incredibly rare, though they occurred at a higher rate near Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and from other people who were descendants of those exposed to large amounts of radiation. Most of them have psychic abilities, like your pyrokinesis, though they were born with it and didn’t have to have surgery or take experimental drug cocktails like you did. The definition was expanded to include natural-born magic users. Now that I think about it, you might actually be the only person in the world who would be considered an indigo child in regards to both magic and psychic abilities.”
“Well considering my body was designed and not naturally occurring, I don’t think it counts,” Tatsuko said, almost feeling bad for being given a top-spec body.
“Speaking of, how are you feeling? Any body dysmorphia? It must be really strange being a male in a female body, especially one so drastically different from your old one,” Major Takakawa asked. Tatsuko frowned internally, feeling that if they cared enough about how he felt, they would not have stuck him in a female body to begin with.
“Honestly, it was incredibly uncomfortable at first, like I was being crammed in an amusement park mascot suit that was far too small for me, but I feel pretty natural now. First major gripe is that I’d like to be taller, it’s hard to reach high places,” Tatsuko said, doing stretches with the Major so limber up.
“That’s good to hear. I’m sure you’ll start to get taller too, as soon as you get your first period,” she said, making Tatsuko choke on her own spit.
“What?” She said between sputters and coughs. Tatsuko had not even considered other aspects of being a woman until this point. Mostly, she had been preoccupied with not peeing on herself on squat toilets, wearing skirts, wearing tights because bare legs were cold, and waking up with an untamed bush of hair on her head.
“What, did you think you wouldn’t have to deal with the same problems every other woman does?” The look Major Takakawa gave Tatsuko might have actually been considered harsh.
“If you could engineer a superhuman body, why couldn’t you have engineered one that didn’t have the problems that come with it?”
“I don’t know the details but genetics isn’t like legos, you can’t just pick and choose what aspects you want and slap them together hoping it’ll work out. If we took out your monthly cycle, you probably wouldn’t be able to get pregnant and, probably more important to you, you might not ever go through puberty, meaning you’ll be a midget for the rest of your life. And finally, most important to us as a military, you would not be able to reach your full magic potential.”
“Well fine, if it’s just once a month, I’ll just endure it. What’s so funny?” Tatsuko declared before Major Takakawa started giggling.
“Nothing, it’s just unusual seeing someone who fought giant monsters in a giant metal deathtrap worried about things every woman deals with each month,” she said, between giggles. Tatsuko was feeling a little embarrassed about her over-reaction though.
“Alright, alright, let’s move on. First magic lesson, performing your transformation sequence,” Major Takakawa said, straightening herself up and pulling out what looked like a silvery makeup compact with a snowflash design. With a flick of her wrist and a twirl of her body, she transformed. An elegant, silvery-blue, open-back dress with a ribbon twisted behind her neck and around her arms replaced the MMA-style outfit she was wearing. Long gloves appeared on her arms, going just past the elbow. Her platinum blonde-hair turned pure white, as did her eyebrows and eyelashes, and snowflakes started falling around her. A longe, silver lance with a ribbon tied near the head finished it off, giving her a look befitting of her title as the Frozen Empress.
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“Wow, uh, let’s give this a shot then,” Tatsuko was at a loss for words for a moment, watching the major, but she snapped herself back to reality and fiddled with her smartphone. She hit the transformation module and sparkles filled her vision for a split second.
“How do I look?” Tatsuko asked. It was kind of poofy, frills everywhere, but it was hard to get a good look at herself without a mirror. She looked at the major and saw her trying to stifle a laugh. Not a good sign.
“Here, have a mirror,” the major lifted her spear up slightly and hit the ground with the butt. A thick slab of ice formed next to Tatsuko and she turned to look.
Her wavy black hair had turned bright red and her previously red eyes had turned bright blue. She was dressed in what resembled princess-lolita style fashion with a primarily white and blue color scheme. White gloves on her hand with blue ribbons, white high-lace boots with blue cross lacing, white poofy dress with blue frills, and a long blue ribbon tied neatly into a bow behind her back.
“What is... this?” Tatsuko said, leaning in towards the mirror and giving herself a funny look.
“Oh, aren’t you adorable, it’s your new combat gear, I had some design input myself you know?” Major Takakawa grabbed Tatsuko from behind by the waist and lifted her up in a hug. Tatsuko did not even try to struggle this time and let the major have her enjoyment.
“Why did we even change first if we were going to henshin anyways?” she asked. Major Takakawa Tatsuko down before opening her mouth to say something, but a look of realization swept across her face as she thought about it. There really was no need to change into their training gear.
“Well, moving on, your suit provides basic defensive protections, much like your older Akakabuto suit, but it also gives you passive strength and speed boosts powered by your magic. You also have access to your modules on that brooch,” Major Takakawa brushed aside the previous topic as she pointed out the functionality of Tatsuko’s new equipment. Tatsuko looked at her chest and saw a four pointed blue star brooch.
“Top is the transformation sequencer, left is armament, right is recognition scrambler, and the bottom is the magic control module, which you don’t need to fiddle with. Try seeing what weapons the higher ups decided to outfit you with,” Tatsuko nodded to the major’s instructions, touching the left point of the brooch. As she pulled her hand away, sparkles came out and formed into a white parasol with blue lacing around the edges.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Tatsuko said, twirling the parasol around like a western longsword and opening and closing it. Akakabuto was at least equipped with a blaster, what was a glorified umbrella supposed to do? There was not even a trigger to shoot anything or even a hidden sword in the handle.
“It channels your magic and has the same endurance as your outfit. Bulletproof, fireproof, electrically insulating, etc,” Major Takakawa explained, reading off a list.
“That’s great and all but this design seems terribly unnecessary,” Tatsuko said, complaining.
“I don’t want to hear that from a man who used to wear a bodysuit. At least now you’ll look cute in combat instead of like a pervert,” Major Takakawa shot back.
“Fine then, what’s today’s lesson?” Tatsuko asked, frowning at what the major said about her previous outfit. Major Takakawa gave her a mischievous grin and Tatsuko could already tell she was not going to life what happened next. The major grabbed Tatsuko by the ribbon around her waist using the tip of her spear and then proceeded to launch her into the air. Tatsuko stopped ascending at about fifty feet and then plummeted to the ground. She spread herself eagle until the last moment and handed on her feet. A crack could be heard as her shins fractured. Tatsuko let out a grunt as she rolled over, her legs throbbing in pain.
“First lesson, master rapid-recovery magic and higher level physical enhancement. Second, learn to fly,” Major Takakawa said, a gleeful smile on her face. Tatsuko wanted to say something but, between the pain and her focusing on learning the self-healing spell, she could not spit out the words.
For the next three hours, she was tossed into the air by the major and told to slow her descent using her magic as much as possible. By the end of that time, Tatsuko had managed to at least grasp basic control of flight magic and self-healing, mostly from receiving minor injuries upon landing. She might not be able to overtake a fighter jet, but at the very least, she could reasonably jump to the fifth story of the hospital under her own power and jump back down without getting injured. Full self-powered flight was nothing but a pipe dream for Akakabuto but for Yomohiro Tatsuko? It looked like it was not going to be much longer before she could do it.
“I think I got this,” Tatsuko said. She had been trying to propel herself with magic rather than merely slowing her descent, with mixed results, but now she felt like she could pull it off from the ground. Standing still, Tatsuko surrounded herself in magic and ‘pulled’ upwards, starting to float slightly above the ground. Her arms and legs were spread out a bit as she instinctively tried to maintain her balance, though in all honestly it was pointless. Tatsuko hung there for a few minutes before she suddenly fell backwards and felt a sharp pain in the back of her head.
“Gah,” Tatsuko snapped upright, nearly hitting the major in the face with her forehead. She blinked and looked around, realizing that she was in the women’s changing room again and had previously been laying down on one of the benches.
“What happened?” She asked, looking at Major Takakawa.
“Your magic power ran out, then you landed badly and hit your head on a rock,” Major Takakawa answered.
“I see,. How long was I out?” Tatsuko reached behind her skull and winced as she tenderly touched a bump. A quick self-healing spell fixed it right up. It appeared that enough time had passed that at least some magic power had returned.
“About ten minutes, I was afraid you might have brain damage, though rapid-healing should prevent that,” Major Takakawa answered. Tatsuko looked at the wall clock, it was seven in the evening. She had contacted her ‘guardian’, Chie, earlier about her ‘extended hospital checkup’ so at least there was no worrying about that. A low rumbling sound could be heard as Tatsuko’s stomach decided it was hungry. When was the last time she ate? Noon?
“Let’s end this for today, clean yourself up and I’ll get you some dinner before I send you home. Unfortunately, that probably just means Yoshinoya,” the major said. Tatsuko nodded nodded somewhat lazily before getting up to get changed.