Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
Many years ago…
Hikaru and Urara Ozu, the latter exhausted but still radiant after her long labor, looked down in wonder at the infant cradled in the latter's arms. Swaddled in blankets, the baby already had a faint fuzz of red hair dusting the top of her head and patches of white fur on her skin with a hint of red mystic sigils. Her face looked somewhat vulpine, with fox ears growing from the top of her head and a short fluffy tail poking out of her blanket. She was glowing faintly, with what looked like Stardust twinkling around her.
"I can't believe it…" Hikaru whispered in awe, tears running down his cheeks. "She's… She's perfect."
Urara smiled, a tired but fond smile on her beaming face. "We made this. You and I, together. The greatest magic you and I have ever performed."
Hikaru shook his head in wonder. "No spell either of us cast will ever match what we have produced today."
"Our daughter," Urara agreed. "Our precious Ariel."
"She is the greatest miracle I have seen since your defeat of N Ma."
Rather abruptly, the Arch Saint Magiel was in the room with them. The room did not get bigger to accommodate her, nor did she shrink to fit. She was still a giantess, and the room was still sized for regular folk, and yet she still fit perfectly. Such was her power.
Neither proud parent were particularly surprised by her appearance. After all, she'd been helping them every step of the way through the long and at times difficult pregnancy. Giving birth to a new Heavenly Saint wasn't easy.
"Would you give her your blessing, Mother?" Hikaru asked hopefully.
"But of course. May I?" Magiel asked gently, extending a hand.
Urara carefully handed over the newborn, and Magiel held her close to examine her. The baby yawned and blearily blinked open her eyes, her red irises gleaming like distant suns. She yawned, gurgled, and wrapped her tiny fingers around one of the Arch Saint's fingers, which was bigger than her entire body.
Magiel smiled down on her. "You are something truly special, dear one. The first new Heavenly Saint in quite some time, and the first to be born in even longer. I sense in you great potential, magic without limits, a power that, in time, will make you a greater sorceress than your parents, your relatives, myself, perhaps everyone in Magitopia, if not the greatest sorceress in history. Within you burns a spark of celestial starfire, a spark which may set the smoldering embers of magic ablaze and usher in a new golden age of magic for mankind. It is your destiny to dazzle and inspire like the stars above… And so, while your given name may be Ariel, that is why your true name shall be Stargel, Heavenly Saint of the Dazzling Stars, whose light will guide us into a new era."
She gently pressed the tip of a nail to Ariel's forehead, causing her to giggle as her entire body glowed brighter, and, in a flash of light, the four of them were suddenly transported to space, millions upon millions of stars and galaxies swirling around them.
Hikaru, Urara, and Magiel looked around in wonder. "Truly marvelous…" Hikaru murmured, wonderstruck.
"Our child… She's going to change the world…" Urara whispered, weeping in joy.
"Indeed she will," Magiel agreed, handing Ariel back to her mother as the cosmic vista dissipated, and they were back in the birthing room. "It's hard to believe just from looking at her that she will trigger the apocalypse."
Hikaru and Urara did a double take. "I'm sorry, what?!"
Many years later…
When Ariel Ozu woke up, she found herself where she wanted to be more than anywhere else: in her comfortable bed, nestled between two incredibly beautiful women whom she was madly in love with – well, madly in love with one of them, though she was starting to feel the same way about the second – and six other lovely ladies cuddled around them.
Yep, she thought happily as her mind was filled with greetings from her fans and friends in the Buzzing. It's good to be me.
Not wanting to wake up her lovers – but also not really feeling like getting up herself – she lazily gestured and murmured a brief cantrip under her breath so as not to disturb anyone, and her MagiPhone NX floated away from its docking station next to Lepidoptera, Coccinella, and Arachne, who were adorably cuddling together in their nest, and into her hand. After inputting the rune code to unlock her device, she quickly scrolled through her social media feed – packed with comments, as usual, the downside of being a world-famous celebrity superheroine – quickly composed replies to some of her most ardent fans, – the ones she knew genuinely believed in her and weren't in this just because they thought she was super hot, though that helped – scheduled a few appearances, composed a curriculum for her next magic class, agreed to go to her magic school reunion, declined to attend the weddings of some false friends, agreed to a televised interview, sent encouraging messages to fans who had been able to come to terms with their sexuality due to her being loud and proud about who and what she liked and considered her to be a role model, and agreed to perform at the birthday party of one of the little girls she had taken an interest in during her last big show before becoming a Bugranger.
(A little snooping on social media revealed that the second little girl she taken an interest in would also be attending the party, and that they had quickly become best friends and while of course they were too young to be dating Ariel was totally going to ship them and see to it that they were married and got to live happily ever after or so help her Magiel!)
She then composed a couple of emails to her agent and crew, and took a selfie of herself and her still sleeping-lovers – making sure not to capture anything naughty, she was a role model to children after all! – And tagged it #livingmybestlife, #beingpanrocks, #nocluewhatIdidtobethislucky, #Improbablygonnamarryoneofthesegirlssomedaycanyouguesswhichone, #yesIreallydolookthisgoodfirstthinginthemorning and a few other amusing hashtags before sending it off to the vastness of the web.
Within seconds she got a ridiculous number of likes, faves, comments, and the usual level of downvotes and vitriol she got from the (sometimes literal) trolls and moral guardians who, for some reason, thought she was a corrupting influence on children, a temptress, a witch (well, she was, but they made it sound terrible for some reason), a whore, going to hell, and all sorts of other unflattering things she'd more or less stopped listening to ages ago and barely ever cast hexes to punish people for anymore. Well. Not often, anyway.
She was just starting to feel like she should extricate herself from the pile of gorgeous women she was squished against so she could take a quick trip to the little sorceress's room when she got an email notification from her family. Intrigued, she opened the email.
Seconds later, her squeals of delight rather violently forced everyone into wakefulness – except for Pythia, who had, of course, known this was coming through her oracular talents and was wearing noise canceling headphones, which she had of course neglected to offer to anyone else, the snake. "NUSHI!" Ariel cried, violently shaking her incredibly groggy and confused girlfriend. "NUSHINUSHINUSHI!"
There were times, Nushi reflected, that she almost regretted falling in love with someone as energetic and exuberant as Ariel. Not often, or for very long, mind you, but there were still times. "Wha?" She slurred eloquently, head lolling as Ariel continued to throttle her.
"Look!"
Ariel shoved her phone in Nushi's face, far too close for her sleep-filled eyes to possibly make out what was on it.
Fortunately, Nushi simply reviewed the last couple of minutes of Ariel's memory through the Buzzing to find out what the big deal was. "They're holding the Ozu family reunion this weekend in Magitopia-"
"And you're invited!" Ariel cried giddily. "Everybody wants to meet you! Especially my parents!"
Nushi was immediately snapped into wakefulness, eyes shrinking in horror. "Your parents want to meet me."
Ariel nodded rapidly. "Yeah! I mean, okay, technically you met the fam in the first episode… Of our adventure together, but that was kind of a brief thing, while this will be a much more intimate affair!"
Nushi started shaking in horror. "Your parents want to meet me."
"Yes, that's right!" Ariel said excitedly. "Why are you repeating that?"
"Ariel," Nushi moaned, voice dripping with dread. "Whenever I've met a girlfriend's parents, it has never gone well. I always do or say something that makes them hate me, and then my girlfriend breaks up with me, and I spend the next month or so crying and eating ice cream."
"Don't be silly, that won't happen this time!" Ariel promised. "They already love you, I've told them so much about you! Look, see, it says right here, "Be sure to bring Nushi, that wonderful girl you've told us so much about, she sounds amazing and we'd really like to meet her in a more relaxed setting, we're sure we'll love her!""
"That's almost exactly what the parents of my last four girlfriends said!" Nushi wailed. "And every last one of them hated me before the evening was over! And they weren't legendary world saving superheroes as well as magical elite!"
"Hey."
Ariel placed a hand on Nushi's shoulder, sending wave after wave of calm, peace, and love into her mind, more than enough to drown out her growing anxiety and panic. "My parents are going to love you," she said seriously. "And even if they don't, that doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm not breaking up with you, lovebug. Not now, not ever. I'm sticking with you to the very end, okay?"
Although not all of her worries were gone, Nushi allowed herself to relax somewhat as Ariel hugged her. "Okay…"
Aranea coughed, drawing their attention. "I don't mean to presume, but… I don't suppose that invitation could be extended to me as well?"
Ariel frowned, perplexed. "That depends. Why?"
Aranea looked somewhat embarrassed. "Well, so far my attempts to find the pieces of the Loom of Fate have been less than fruitful. I'm worried there might be something wrong with my Wayfinder. I was hoping that perhaps a visit to Magitopia, the most magical place in the world, might help it properly align with your planet's ley lines as well as maybe find some clues as to where the pieces might be hiding. After all, if anyone would know where magical artifacts as powerful as the fragments of the Loom are, surely it would be the Magitopians."
Ariel raised an eyebrow. "Waaaaait… Are you saying that the only reason you've been sleeping with me is because you were hoping I could get you up to Magitopia?"
Aranea was aghast. "What? No, of course not! I've been sleeping with you because I like you, Ariel, you and Nushi both, and-"
"Ha! Just kidding, I know that," Ariel chuckled, typing into her phone. "Sure, I'll ask my folks, I doubt they'll have a problem with that."
"I'm coming too."
It was at that point everyone noticed that Princess Philia was in the room.
"… Hooow looong have yooou been there?" Gooop asked slowly.
"Not long."
"How did you get in here?" Asked an astonished Rose.
"I teleported," Philia replied. "Using magic."
Ariel blinked. "Teleporting is a fairly advanced spell. We haven't even covered it in class yet."
"I know," Philia replied.
"And… You figured it out just now, just so you could come and tell me you wanted to come to Magitopia with us?" Ariel asked slowly.
"Yes," Philia replied, unblinking. "Except that I don't want to come to Magitopia. I'm coming with you to Magitopia. End of discussion."
Ariel stared at her for a long moment. Then she burst into laughter. "Well, after an argument like that, how could I possibly refuse?" She teased, making an addendum to her email. "Sure, I doubt my family will mind if I bring my apprentice with me as well."
The burst of pure joy radiating from Philia woke up every bug in the city and also reinvigorated Hive troops on the other side of the universe, leaving an astounded Parasitica wondering how the hell she managed to lose close to a thousand planets in the space of a few hours.
Elsewhere…
"My Lord. The Ozu family reunion is in a few days."
"And… She will be there?"
"But of course. Ariel loves her family. She wouldn't miss it for the world."
"And once she is in Magitopia… You will speak with her?"
"I will try to convince her, yes. But if I fail… We may be forced to resort to drastic measures."
"Unfortunate, but unavoidable. We must do whatever it takes to avert disaster. The fate of the world hangs in the balance. No matter what… Ariel Ozu and Nushi Cheng must be separated forever."