Magical Boy Bella & the Seven Sparkpires
A/N: Crackfic, not meant to be taken serious as I wrote this on sugar high while listening to hyper Jap anime music.
Warning: Yaoi (aka boy on boy action in later chapters), OOC, gender bender, some crossover aspects with certain anime you may or may not recognize (coughRanmacough)
Chapter One: Forks, meet Magical Boy
Not so long ago, somewhere in the north coast of Washington State, lives a petite, brunette named Isabella Swan, daughter of the Chief Police of this sparsely populated rainy town where our story begins.
"Dad! How many times have I told you not to use up all the hot water in the morning?" An angry teenage boy shouted from the doorway of a cozy kitchen of a two-bedroom house that the two Swans live in.
"Sorry Bells, I forgot," Charlie Swan put down the cup of coffee he was drinking at the dining table and scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Argh! Now I've got to boil enough hot water for a bath in order to turn back into a girl!" The irate boy, our protagonist of this story, stomped around the kitchen, clanging and banging around while getting the direly needed hot water ready.
Charlie sighed quietly and recalled the memory of how Bella, his teenage daughter/son came to live with him less than 24 hours ago.
"Charlie, I'm sorry, but I can't deal with Bella anymore. She's been simply impossible ever since we vacationed in China and got back with…ah… a little souvenir she's not feeling too hot about. I think a little time in a quiet town like Forks would be just the thing to make her feel better." Renee, his ex-wife who ran out on him with their daughter more than a decade ago rang him up a fortnight ago with this suggestion.
Charlie was more than happy to have his daughter live with him, and made the necessary arrangements for the relocation to happen ASAP. However, to say that he wasn't too pleased with Renee, the harebrained woman, was an understatement.
When he found out why Bella was 'simply impossible' after they came back from their trip to some remote areas in China, he almost popped a blood vessel. Apparently, Renee heard about this hot spring in the foreign country that was rumored to make those who soaked in it at least ten years younger, and immediately booked tickets for herself and Bella to this miraculous place.
Looking youthful has been a main concern for the middle-aged woman when she started dating a minor leaguer who was about a decade younger than her. It was to her great disappointment, upon arrival to the hot springs, that the rumor was simply a money-making scheme of a pair of old, eccentric couple. Renee decided the least she could do was to give a piece of her mind (not that there was much of it in the first place) to the swindlers and try to get a refund on her vacation. Bored with the whole fiasco, Bella wandered off and came across a hot spring that was roped off from the others. There was a wooden board nearby that stated "Danger, Cursed Youthful Boy Spring".
Unfortunately for the curious and clumsy teenager, she tripped and fell into the cursed hot spring. Sputtering, she quickly made her way out of the hot water and grumbled about getting wet, not knowing that it was the least of her worries. It was when she got to the nearby public toilet that she realized that technically speaking, she wasn't exactly a 'she' anymore. In the mirror, with wide blue eyes, long light brown hair, was a lithe young boy who looked nothing like how Bella should look like.
After screaming in shock, a brief check in the pants found something that shouldn't be there, Bella fainted. A kindly granny found her…er…him…and took Bella home. The granny, fortunately, know enough English to explain to a flabbergasted Bella about the cursed hot spring when our gender confused teenager woke up.
According to legends in the small rural village, long, long time ago, a young boy who desperately wanted to have been born as a girl so that he could be married with his lover, who was a male warrior, and bear the warrior heir to continue his line and noble profession. His grandmother, the village shaman, has taught the young boy her trade and yet no amount of magical knowledge he had could grant him his wish.
One day, his warrior lover, who had been in the frontlines of a battle, sent a letter to him. In the letter he apologized that although he loved the young boy, he had a duty to his family, and so agreed to an arranged marriage to the neighboring clan's head daughter upon his return from the battle.
Devastated with sorrow and betrayal, the young boy shaman drowned himself in the hot spring that Bella fell into, cursing all females, who are eligible to marry his lover, to become young boys like himself and suffer a fruitless love.
Through the years, there have been unfortunate accidents where people have fell into the cursed hot springs, and after some experiments, it was found that only females who come into contact with the cursed spring water will be turned into a male. Further discoveries found that hot water reverse this cursed effect, and cold water enhances the curse.
In other words, Bella can now turn back into a normal teenage girl by soaking his male body in hot water; however when her female form touches cold water, the curse comes into play and she's turned into a young boy.
Fortunately for Bella, her male persona was cute to look at, and despite being shorter than other teenagers; the cursed form gives Bella certain desirable traits such as agility, (she could now run as fast as a cheetah without tripping, ever) and strength (someone who had tried to mess with her ended up indented on a stone wall).
The nice granny who explained about the curse to Bella also told her that the other girls who fell into the spring ended up with strange magical ability. There was one who had the power to freeze any liquid, and one of the things she did in the village was to freeze the water in the cursed hot spring, which state lasted for nearly twenty years, preventing the same misfortune to befall other innocent young females.
Every now and then, the ice magic user would come back to freeze the hot spring, though her visits has lessened as years passed. The strange thing was that no matter how many years have passed, the magic user's appearance never seemed to age. Speculations were made that perhaps the curse made it so that the females were doomed to remain young boys like the shaman forever, to suffer in eternity.
It was just bad luck for Bella to come to this hot spring village and fall into the cursed spring when it was back to its original liquid state. Further misfortune was heaped upon Bella when Renee refused to assume responsibility for her daughter's cursed form, and claimed that turning into a boy and back to a girl was too weird even for her to deal with. (And the most irresponsible mother of the year award goes to….)
The sound of the chair next to Charlie dragging brought the Chief police out of his memories.
"You know what, forget it, I'm just gonna remain as a boy all the time when I'm not at home." A resigned Bella, still in her cursed form, slumped down into the chair and faced her father glumly.
"I don't know what Renee was thinking, sending me into a town that rains 90% of the time. With my luck, the cold rain water is going to turn me into a boy when I'm in the school's parking lot, with the entire school population staring at the freak."
"Bells, you're not a freak, don't call yourself that!"
"Anyway…seriously, I think that it's safer to just assume the identity of a boy for now. And…I've kind of gotten used to this form, it's all that bad you know. I'm not clumsy anymore and I'm kinda strong now too. I mean, it's a little strange getting a boner in the morning when I wake up…"
"Bells!"
"Haha, relax Dad, aren't you happy you're getting a two-for-one kind of deal here? You get to have a son, and a daughter all at the same time. I wonder how sex would be like as a boy…not that I've had any, ever…"
"Do you need the 'birds and bees' talk, Bella?"
"Ah…thanks but how about another day? Don't you have to go to work?"
"Yes, but since you're saying you prefer to stay in the form of a boy for school and stuff, well, I've already registered you for school as Isabella Swan, my daughter."
"Hmm…how about telling the school that Isabella Swan isn't coming to Forks, but Bailey Swan, your son is here instead?"
"But the whole town knows that Renee left me with a baby girl!"
"Bah, just tell them Renee was pregnant with your son when she left and never told you."
Charlie stared at his teenage daughter…son...for a minute in silence.
"That…could actually work."
With that, Bella Swan became Bailey Swan and his life as a teenage boy in Forks began.