Summary: One of the cats Makoto runs during his morning runs turns out to be not-so-normal after all and he ends up stumbling face first into the crazy world of magical girls and fighting evil by moonlight...
Unfortunately (or fortunately) for him, the transformation he goes through to fight evil isn't purely cosmetic. Makoto actually gets turned into a girl when he assumes his evil-fighting persona!
It was a normal day. The most normal of days, really...for the most part.
He'd woken up in the morning, same as normal. Gotten ready and went out to meet Haruka, and drag him out of the bath if necessary, same as normal. On his way up the stairs, he'd stopped to play with the little white cat (a girl he'd named Yuki in his head even if it was unimaginative) same as normal. Although, she'd had a friend with her that day – a slightly bigger black cat with a funny mark on her head that had sat primly by the playful white kitten and looked at him contemplatively with piercing green eyes. It had been slightly unnerving, enough to make Makoto think again about petting her. She looked like she might scratch him and probably wasn't used to being touched by people.
Shaking his head to put it out of his mind, he'd carried on up the stairs to get Haru so they could be on their way to school. Haru had managed to get himself out of the bath and was plating up his mackerel when he got there, which was not unusual for a good day nowadays, since the mess with Rin had been solved, so it was sort of the same as normal. They walked to school, again as normal, though Makoto thought he saw a flash of black in the corner of his eyes now and then. Was that cat following him? But when he'd turn his head, there'd be nothing.
His day at school itself had been fairly middle of the road – a test in English that he'd studied hard for the previous night and barely passed (but a pass was a pass and he'd take what wins he could), but also a essay he'd written the previous week for Japanese Language returned to him with glowing comments and high marks. Though he could have sworn he'd seen that black cat, sitting in a tree and staring at him, when he'd looked out the window in the middle of a lesson. He'd looked at Haru to see if he'd noticed, but Haru had been busy doodling something in the margin of his notes at the time. When Makoto had nudged him so he could point it out, the cat was nowhere to be seen and Haru had raised his eyebrow at him in concern.
When they sat out on the roof for lunch, he could swear he'd seen those green eyes peering down at him from the roof over the stairs. It had started to freak him out a little, and no one else seemed to notice the cat, so he tried to carry on as normal. Though it meant he'd been distracted and twitchy at lunch and the others had looked at him in concern.
His lessons after lunch had been difficult and engrossing enough that there was no time to look out of the window because he had to be paying attention. A practical in Chemistry and then another in Physics where they'd had to work with lasers, so the windows had been shut and covered to make the room as dark as possible. By the time school had ended and it was time for swimming practice, he'd put the cat out of his mind.
But that hadn't lasted long either – there it was again, on the other side of the fence from the swimming pool, looking at him. His times were off and Gou was added to the list of people giving him looks of concern. She hadn't said anything too harsh though, letting him off with a, "I hope you're back to normal tomorrow, Makoto-senpai."
The walk home from school was much the same as the walk to school in the morning, except Makoto became slightly more aware of the flashes of black in the corner of his eye. He tried not to be too obvious about turning his head to try and catch the cat because Haru was with him, but it was making him twitchy. But even if Haru hadn't noticed the cat, he could see that something was up with Makoto, plain as day. When they stopped at his house, at the top of the stairs, Haru tugged him inside, sat him down in the kitchen and said, bluntly,
"What's wrong with you? You've been acting weird all day."
"Uh..." Makoto couldn't help but feel a little off guard at the question. I'm being followed by a cat. Even in his head that sounded stupid. Except that was exactly what came out of his mouth. It didn't help that Haru's eyebrows had risen into his hairline. He tried to explain himself further, but trailed off lamely, "It...It's been watching me..."
Haru's eyes flicked to the side, the way they usually did when Nagisa said something exceptionally absurd. "You should go to sleep. I think you were studying pretty hard last night."
It was pretty tactful of him, really. Haru could be kind like that. Makoto found himself nodding as he rose to his feet, groping around for his bag only to realise he had never taken it off his back. Sleep was probably a good solution, then. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll just go to sleep. Good idea, Haru-chan."
He'd walked out, oblivious to Haru's 'drop the –chan' and turned down the stairs to his house. Half way down, the bush beside him had rustled and he'd heard what he thought was a mew. Maybe it was the cat that had followed him the whole day...but maybe it was injured? After standing undecided for a moment, he'd taken out his phone and activated the light on it. He used it to peer into the darkness within the bush, only to be startled by a black shape jumping out at him, grabbing the phone right out of his hands and running off down the stairs.
"Hey, wha-? W-wait! Give it back! I need that!" He'd taken off after the cat, thankful for his long legs making short work of the stairs and allowing him to somewhat keep up with the cat as it led him on a (not so) merry chase, past his house and off down the road at the bottom of the stairs. Though he couldn't help the sneaking suspicion that it was allowing him to keep up – he'd read somewhere that a common housecat could easily outrun Usain Bolt, and Makoto wasn't someone who could even be compared on anything near that level.
When he finally stopped running, bent over and gasping for breath, the sun was low in the sky as the days were getting shorter. It turned out the cat had led him to his old elementary school, which Ren and Ran now went to and he'd had to climb over the gates to get inside. He was on the side of the school with the playground, around the corner from the entrance. There was no one else around but the two of them and the street lights were coming on. And there the little black devil was, sitting primly in the middle of the open space, his phone held in her mouth.
Once he'd regained his breath, he advanced on her slowly, cautiously. He wasn't sure he'd manage another run through the neighbourhood and if she bolted then, he'd have to give up on getting his phone back and tell his parents that he needed a new one. Just the thought of replacing all his contacts and photos was enough to make him cringe.
"Okay. Okay. Good kitty, good kitty. Just give me my phone back and I'll give you a treat, okay? I've got some really yummy nibbles in my bag that I usually give to Yuki and the others, but you have to give me my phone back first, okay? Who's a good kitty?"
The cat moved back and he froze, not wanting to give her a reason to bolt. She dropped his phone on the ground in front of her and then started hacking. Makoto's eyes widened in alarm – the cat was going to spit up a fur ball all over his phone! He'd looked around, unsure of what to do in such a situation. But instead the cat coughed up something shiny onto her paw and then proceeded to slap it onto the back of his phone. But that was nothing compared to what had happened next.
She'd started talking to him.
The cat. Was talking. To him.
The cat.
Was talking.
What the hell?
"Tachibana Makoto, I've finally found you."
Was anyone else seeing this? Makoto couldn't help but look around to see if some amazing ventriloquist was hiding in the bushes to play a trick on a poor, innocent high-schooler. Makoto didn't think he knew anyone who would play a trick like this on him, bar Nagisa, but this wasn't really Nagisa's style.
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Luna and I've been looking for you for quite a while now. You see, you are the chosen warrior. A force of darkness is moving in Iwatobi right now and you have been chosen, to use your powers and fight against it."
Makoto had convinced himself at this point that even if there was no one there, there must be something playing a voice recording. He wasn't sure how the pranksters had found out his name or why they'd targeted him in particular, but these sorts of pranks...well, he wasn't very fond of them. He'd started turning around to look at the space and figure out where whoever it was could have hidden such a thing.
"I have managed to gather information on my travels that may be of use to you in your mission. One of the agents of the dark force is going to make a move tonight, in this area. This will be your first fight – hey, listen to me! I'm trying to tell you some very important things!"
Makoto had started to wonder if there was a camera around somewhere for the pranksters to watch his reaction too. The cat had made a frustrated noise then and picked up his phone to run off again. Makoto had panicked, following the cat automatically. But this time it hadn't gone far and stopped at a corner where the entrance to the school was visible, dropping the phone by its feet again.
Makoto had darted forward to pick up his phone while the cat seemed distracted, but it used its paw to point at the gates. He couldn't help but turn his gaze towards them.
"Look over there, that man is breaking into the school! He is the agent I was telling you about."
There had indeed been a darkly dressed, hooded figure climbing over the gates at that very moment. Makoto had wondered if it was one of the pranksters, if it was part of the prank or if it was an actual break in. If it was an actual break-in then the right thing to do was call the police. He'd said so out loud.
"No, you can't call the police. That man is not really a man, he is just disguised as such. He's going to plant devices – "
"Devices?! Like bombs?! Then I'm definitely calling the police! This isn't something for a highschooler to handle!" He'd barely noticed he was talking back to the cat.
"No! He's going to plant devices that suck out a human's life force. And children have much brighter life forces, which is why he has targeted the elementary school. We have to follow him."
But Makoto had already been opening his phone to make the call and so the cat had leapt at him, taking the phone right out of his hands for the second time that day. It ran out further, making him follow and drew him right into the sight of the shady guy who had broken in. When the man turned and caught sight of him, Makoto could have sworn he heard him hiss. And his eyes seemed to be glowing under the hood.
"You!" The voice that emerged from the figure wasn't a human one. Makoto didn't know how he would have described it if someone had asked.
Makoto froze.
"My master has been looking for the chosen one who would fight him. He will reward me dearly if I get rid of you tonight!"
The cat had thrown his phone at him then and Makoto had caught it out of the air automatically. Across from him the figure had seemed to be growing, the clothes shredding away to reveal a monstrous and definitely inhuman figure. The cat, Luna – that had seemed like a good time to believe every word that had come out of her mouth – shouted to him,
"I've attached your transformative amulet to the back of your phone. Touch it, hold it aloft and shout: 'Moon Prism Power!'"
And that was how Makoto found himself in the playground of his elementary school, about to face off with some kind of alien monster straight out of some kind of sci-fi movie, or his nightmares (could be either), with a talking cat for a sidekick. What was going on with his life?
So...I wrote a thing...because what fandom doesn't need a magical girl fic, right? Unless this has already been done... I have no idea, if anyone even wants to see this, 'cos I'm not sure how popular genderbend fics are, so continuation of this is entirely subject to interest :/