Relevant: Chuuni = Chuunibiyou = 8th grade syndrome. It's the condition where you wear a cape and an eye-patch to school in a d̶e̶s̶p̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶y̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ attempt to be different. You keep a journal of dark secrets, cast flame from your palm... yeah.
Also, I hate this chapter. I just can't get it to work properly. So here it is, in all it's stupid. This fic was supposed to be stress relief, and this chapter... isn't.
I was visited by the Fixer again.
This time, it didn't involve a Paksis, the security detail, and lots of pain. This time, I found myself in the infinite white space after closing my eyes to go to sleep.
There, the gray man calling himself the Fixer smiles at me.
"Ah." I cough into my fist. "Did I screw up again?"
He shakes his head, smile never wavering. "No, my boy, you are well on your way to fixing things! Congratulations!"
Just to be sure, I twist of bit of skin on my wrist behind my back. It hurts, and I'm still here. "That's good news." I scratch behind my head. "I hope Dita starts feeling better soon."
"It's only been a day. Give it time." He turns and starts walking. I move to keep pace with him at what seems like a quick pace, though it's hard to tell with the blank white expanse just how far or fast we're moving.
He finally stops and pokes open a hole in the ground. Below, I can see...
It looks like a normal school. Er, a normal Japanese school. I wonder why he's showing this to me. "Where is this?"
"It's U-90236. I believe in your world, you call it "When Super Natural battles Become Commonplace" or somesuch."
It takes me a few seconds to place it. It's a story about a chuuni and his four friends (all female) who suddenly get superpowers. I liked it, my favorite scene was where the ditsy one of the group goes off on the protagonist because she doesn't understand.
"Oh, yeah. I remember that show. What about it?"
"I'm sure you've seen a lot of universe travel shows, correct?"
"Uh-huh." I affirm slowly, still attempting to guess his end goal and coming up with nothing.
"Most of them have a greater being that gives them a special power, right?"
"Eh... most? I know some do."
"Well, it's our policy to grant a boon to anyone who we call from another universe to aid in another."
I look at him owlishly. "Do I get superpowers?"
His grin somehow grows broader. "The one who sent you to U-39728 didn't grant you a boon, and given how long you were in there, the normal method can't be used. So, I'm going to give you a power from this universe."
"Awesome." I look back down, and i realize that the view has shifted slightly to show the main five characters squabbling in their club room as usual. "DO I get to choose?"
The Fixer shakes his head. "No, but this universe brings out your desires and turns them into powers. What you desire within yourself, that is what you will get."
"O.. Kay." I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
"Anyway, I've already started the process. You should see results in a week." The Fixer closes the portal and turns away.
"Wh- Hey! Wait! How will I know what I get? How will I use it?"
The Fixer turns back. "Don't worry, you'll know."
And with that, the lights go out and I wake up in my bed.
A quick examination of my wrist shows that I did indeed twist my skin hard enough to leave a tear. It hurts, too.
How can I shake off broken bones, but not paper cuts and scratches? It's so stupid. Anyway, it's late, so I should probably try to go back to sleep.
A week later, I find myself working in the kitchens, baking brownies and cupcakes for the upcoming holiday. Not Christmas, as I expected, but Halloween. Seems there's a quite a few time-skips unaccounted for in the anime. It worries me a bit, because I'm not sure exactly how long I'm going to be here.
Still, it shouldn't be more than a year. And with my new powers-
Ha. Ha. Ha.
I should have know it was a dream. It's been a week, and I don't feel any different. I have had no sudden revelations about superpowers, or anything of the sort. Honestly, I can't believe I got my hopes up. I guess it's just due to how real that particular dream felt.
I continue mixing the batter and thinking about what superpower I could have gotten. Probably rape tentacles, given my luck.
"Hi, John."
I look over to find Meia standing there, some glitter in her hair and on her nose. I decide not to ask. "Hi, Meia. What are you doing here?" As far as I know, Meia never steps foot in the kitchen.
"I went to see if Dita needed help with decorating the bridge, but they had it all under control." Meia turns to face the rest of the kitchen and sits on the counter, knocking over a bag of flour. I'll have to clean that up. "She suggested coming here to see if the kitchens needed any help."
"I don't have any work for you, so I guess you'd have to talk to the head chef." I comment after a brief pause. I mean, it's not like I could teach her to make brownies. It's not like they're dead simple or anything.
Meia shakes her head. "Last time I made food she told me that she'd rather let the ship blow up than let me cook again."
I roll my eyes. "You can't possibly be that bad."
"I managed to destroy two stoves." Meia says ruefully.
Don't laugh. Do not laugh. "Okay, maybe a bit worse than I th-"
"I was attempting to make eggs."
It take me a second to reset the fault that had occurred. Surely anime tropes don't extend that far, especially into this universe?
What am I talking about? This show is full of cliches. "That's... impressive."
"One way to put it." Meia agrees. "Do you have your costume ready for the masquerade?"
No, not really. I have a costume, but it's not really identity concealing. I nod and say, "How about you? Manage to pull something together?"
"Of course." Meia licks her lips, blushes slightly, and turns away. "So, how about a bet?"
"How's that?"
"Whoever recognizes the other first gets to command one thing the other person must obey." I glance back to see Meia has started blushing. It looks like anime tropes are out in full force tonight.
"I can only see this ending badly. I'm assuming there's limits on what can be asked?"
Her eyes narrow. "What, are you afraid of what I'll ask?"
"No, but aren't you afraid of what I'll ask?" I repeat her words back at her. I mean, sure, she can kick my ass, they don't really have the same ingrained societal norms that tell her how bad an idea it is to let a guy have that much power over her... Okay, maybe I can see why she's alright with it.
"No." Meia says flippantly, confirming my thoughts.
"Hah. Okay, just don't regret it later."
"I won't be in a position to regret anything." Meia says confidently. "Anyway, I'll take my leave now. See you at the party."
"Mmhmm." I continue working, and she disappears out the door.
Damn, I shouldn't have agreed to that. With my current costume, just a quickly thrown together low quality Kirito costume, I'll be found out immediately. I need to come up with something else...
I notice that my hand currently has a glove on it. A black, fingerless glove. Why...? I'm cooking! I don't wear gloves while cooking!
Before my eyes, the glove disappears.
Strange. Maybe I need more sleep.
I turn to scoop up the flour-
The sword strapped around behind my back catches on the corner of the counter and yanks me back.
I look down to realize despite having been wearing an apron over a sweatshirt before, I was now in full, highly detailed cosplay of Kirito.
...Of all the powers in all of the universes, I got change wardrobe?!
Meia continues to scan her eyes over the crowd. Well, eye. One of them is closed to avoid being poked by a flower.
The party has officially started, and for whatever reason, she can't seem to find John.
The lower section has had a large stage set up to dance on, and Meia is currently eyeing those that chose to dance, watching to see if John had disguised himself as a woman. She supposed it could be possible, and it would be the best way to stay disguised given the crown. After all, if he showed up looking like a man, he'd stick out like Bart and Duelo.
Before long Dita appears at her side. "Enjoying the party?"
Dita's dressed up robes that conceal the form of her body completely, yet strangely leaves her face and arms exposed. in her hands she carries a metal tube.
"Hi, Dita. Are you aware this is supposed to be masquerade? It's really easy to see who you are."
She knocks her fist against her skull and sticks out her tongue. "Well, I just got so excited to dress up as Rey I couldn't pass up the chance!"
Meia tunes the excitable girl out as she continues to scan the crowd. She vaguely realizes the younger girl is talking about aliens again, and almost lets her eyes glaze over.
Almost.
The song has just changed, and the dancers rotate. Three new people take the stage, spotlights shining down.
All three are wearing belly dancing costumes, which she supposed wasn't totally crazy. She's seen worse while hanging with these pirates, that's for sure. What's odd is who is wearing them. Jura, as usual, pulls the look off completely. Barnette, looking like she had been suckered into something yet again, yet resigned to go through with it. And lastly...
Lastly...
Meia turns to find Dita had disappeared from her side, and had somehow changed costumes in mere seconds.
A chill runs down her spine. No, that can't be it. One of those Dita's must be John- Er, given how the one on stage is moving, that limits it to the one she was talking to.
Did he recognize her? If he did, he didn't say anything.
...How did ha manage to make his face look perfectly like Dita's?
Meia continues scanning the crowd, now looking for the mop of red hair instead of a guy. At least, she was until BC interrupts her.
"Searching for something?" BC says. She's in her normal clothes, somewhat surprisingly.
"Yes, I think John showed up dressed like Dita." Meia says.
BC blinks. "Dressed up as...?"
"Dita. He's holding a metal tube and dressed in rags." Meia scans the crowd again, but the only Dita she can see is getting down off the stage.
"Well, I suppose it's as good a costume as any." BC mutters. "Have you seen Cel? I heard her costume was supposed to be impressive."
Meia stops scanning the crowd and looks at BC. "I thought Cel asked for your help getting into costume?"
BC suddenly looks nervous. "Ah, yes. I was just wondering-"
"John?" Meia hisses.
"Damn. you already figured it out." Hearing John's voice from BC's throat is more than a little disturbing. "And here I was going to do Bart and Bel before I let you catch me."
"Let?"
BC's face splits into a grin, one very out of place on the serious woman's face. "I'll explain later. In the meantime, I'm going to slip away and change. Be right back."
John fades into the crowd, and Meia shakes her head. Disguises? Really? Well... at least it's more effort than Bel made. She put on a dress, and that's it.
Meia grabs a glass of punch off the table and downs it, privately hoping the drink is spiked.
I make it three quarters of the way out the door when an alien grabs my arm. Not just any alien, the, uh, xenomorph or whatever. The one Ripley fights. Anyway, a claw reaches over and grabs my arm.
"Er, can I help you?" I ask in BC's voice. I just realized how bad this would be if BC was inside that suit.
The xeno makes a decent attempt at a nod, the smaller mouth jumping out and retracting with the head. She (it has to be a she, I know what Bart and Duelo are dressed as) leads me to the women's bathroom, and then pokes at her back with one claw.
I look over my shoulder, expecting the real BC to show up and any second, but resign myself to undoing the zipper the claw had poked. I slowly draw down the zipper, making sure it doesn't catch on anything underneath.
Turns out, I needn't of worried. Cel breathes a sigh of relief, the sweat practically steaming out of the suit. Given how airtight the suit seems to be, I guess I can forgive the blue haired woman's decision not to wear anything on her torso.
You know, I got this power three hours ago, and I'm already doing things that would get me spaced if anyone finds out. If Cel herself finds out, given her acute androphobia, I might as well just kill myself right this second.
"Whew! So glad to be out of that."
I busy myself with washing my hands and face in the sink.
"I'd say this Halloween was a success, wouldn't you? I mean, a lot less fire than last year, but..."
"I'd hardly consider fire a measure of success." I say, carefully keeping my words generic.
"Yeah, I've heard your hazard spiel before. No need to go over it again." Cel grumbles. "Hey, can you get me some water?"
I look around carefully. "There's no cups."
"Duh. Just put some in your hands and I'll drink that."
...So, this is when BC bursts in, right? I look at the doorway for a second, but nothing happens. I reluctantly cup some water in my hands and turn to face Cel. I keep my eyes on her nose as she brushes the hair out of her way and gulps down the water.
I hear footsteps approach from the hallway, and I silently wish that Cel would hurry up.
Cel finishes drinking right as Jura rounds the corner, already pulling a makeup kit out of the bag dangling on her arm. She's no longer dressed like a belly dancer, instead she's dressed, close as I can tell, as Cruella DeVille. Not sure WHY she would dress up as a puppy skinner. Maybe Barnette is dressed like a dalmation? Peel the fur off and-
I need to get out of here before I cause an incident. "Jura, do me a favor and zip Cel back up when she's done resting?"
Jura looks at me askance. "Of course."
I get the feeling that I almost blew it, but I use that as my excuse to leave. Once in the hallway, I check that nobody is coming, and change.
Not just my clothes, but my body as well. BC's body mods sink back into my chest, now flat as usual. I feel bones melt and regrow in waves, and finally a fresh set of clothes forms on top of my skin.
Somehow, I had become a changeling. Maybe the Fixer did do something to me. Probably. from the past hour and a half of experimentation, I found I can create clothes and change my body to any shape I had thought up. To be fair, I hadn't tried many things yet, mostly costumes and a few familiar faces.
Now, under most circumstances, I would consider this gift to a really powerful superpower. However, we fight in spaceships. Face to face encounters are exceedingly rare. My superpower is a joke power... Much like the main character of the story I got the power from.
Whee.
I head back to the party, my shiny new costume encircling me and keeping my body in shadow.
In the end, I left the party early. They stop being fun when everyone's drunk and you're the only sober one. I retired to my room, let my disguise fall, returning to my normal looks. I went to bed, shut my eyes, and went to sleep.
Not that it lasted long.
Unlike those post-battle nights where everyone passes out in the mess hall, the bridge is critical to the operation of the Nirvana. That means leaving over one hundred unconscious bodies lying all over isn't actually a good idea. Thus, BC wakes me up to get help hauling unconscious people back to their rooms.
Carrying unconscious people is a major pain. Since they're not awake to hold their center of balance or grab on to you, they feel twice as heavy. Not to mention a few of them puked when I picked them up, I guess because the sudden motions. It took the better part of five hours, just ferrying bodies back to their rooms. BC had to direct me to each room and punch in the door code herself which slowed down the process some. She offered to tell me the codes, but I declined
Maybe on this ship nobody would think anything was wrong, but I would.
Near the end of the cleanup, once all the obvious bodies have been removed and only the ones that ended up in the bushes or under tables are left. Ones that aren't immediately obvious, in other words.
So when I tipped over a plastic table to fold it away, it was to my dull surprise that I found a girl with long white hair and a flower over her eye.
Come to think of it, she did disappear after drinking a lot of the punch. I thought she had retired to her room, but... well, here she is.
BC comes up behind me, another girl draped over her shoulder. "Found another one?"
"Yeah. Look's like Meia had a bit too much." I comment. Now, how do I carry her? My usual attitude is just to sling the unconscious person over my shoulder, but it just seems... wrong to do that to Meia.
BC leans in closer. "That's Meia? I never thought she was the type. Alright, you get Meia to her room."
I glare at BC. She sighs and taps her foot. "Her room is in hall B. It has her nameplate next to the door."
"But I don't know-"
"8926" BC says before I can object. "I get that you're trying to keep their privacy and all that, but I'm heading in the opposite direction. Meia won't mind, I'm sure."
Uh-huh. And when she finds out I had to carry her to her room and that I learned her door combo, she'll probably get creeped out and will... lose... interest... in me.
I scoop her up and toss her back over my shoulder. Hey, when given a win-win situation, you take it, right?
When Meia comes to, it's with the fierce headache common to hangovers. It's not the first time she passed out drunk, but it's the first time since she's joined up with the Nirvana. The wig and the flower have been removed, along with the ridiculous heels and the metal gauntlet.
On her bed stand is a glass of water, which she greedily gulps down.
The door to her bathroom opens, and a bedraggled John come out. His clothes are drenched, and he has large bags under his eyes. When he notices Meia, his eyes flicker to her face for a second before locking onto the corner of her bed. "You're up?" he calls quietly.
Meia nods. "Yes." She looks around again. It's definitely her room, and John is here... "Why are you here?"
He sighs. "I found you passed out under a table. I spent all night hauling passed-out crew members back to their rooms." The end of his sentence is punctuated by a yawn.
"Ah. Well, thank you. Why are you wet?"
"Because several people puked on me." He looks down at himself. "I was going to go back to my room first, but I figured you wouldn't mind if I drenched myself here to get the worst of it off."
"Sure." Meia looks him over. His pajamas cling to his body the way wet cotton tends to, giving her a nice outline to ogle at.
"Well, I'll be going now. I want a nap." John waves and turns for the door.
"Wait."
He freezes in place, heaves a sigh and turns back with a wide smile on his face. It looks genuine enough, but Meia knows better by now. "What do you need?"
Meia scoots over on her bed, making some space. "If you're that tired, why not take a rest right here?"
He starts rubbing his eyes. "Uhg. I didn't sign up for- Okay." He looks up and back at her face for a second. "I'll take a rest, but do me a favor and go change into... something... er." He seems to be at a loss for words.
"What, less revealing?" Meia says, with a hint of amusement creeping into her voice despite herself.
"That's what I was going to say, but then I remembered you were skin tight clothing 90% of the time anyway."
Meia stands off of her bed and heads for the attached bathroom. "That doesn't count as revealing."
"Anything that looks more like paint than clothing is revealing in my book." John says, before stepping towards the bed and grabbing at his wet clothes. "What do-"
"Just take them off. I'll wash them later. You just go get some sleep."
He doffs the shirt, and Meia manages to head back into the bathroom before he catches her staring.
After her shower, Meia puts on her usual uniform and looks back at the sleeping occupant of her room.
...He's not sleeping peacefully. In fact, it looks rather like he's having a nightmare. She gently grabs his shoulder and gives him a shake.
His eyes snap open and his hand leaps up to grab her wrist. They both sit perfectly still for a second, as John gets his bearings and finally releases his grip. "Oh, sorry."
"Not a problem. You looked like you were having a nightmare."
"Was I?" He scratches his head. "I don't remember my dreams that well."
"Must be nice." Meia sits down on the edge of the bed.
"I take it your dreams aren't that pleasant."
She shakes her head. "Not particularly. Ever since we got teleported by the Paksis, it's always been nightmares of being chased."
John remains silent.
"Most of the time it's the harvesters after me." She continues. "Other times, it's my Ohma telling me she's disappointed and is going to take me back to Mejare. It doesn't matter if I run or take my Dread, I can't get away from them. Occasionally it's the captain or you, telling me I can't leave and have to stay and fight. Of course, if I try that my guns won't fire and I get torn to shreds."
John opens his mouth, the wet sound audible in the silent room, then closes it again without saying anything.
"What do you think?" She asks.
"I don't know." He says. "I'm not a psychoanalyst. Maybe don't pressure yourself so hard?"
"If I don't push myself, we're not going to make it back to Mejare."
"Eh." He rolls over. "We've got lots of pilots. You can give yourself a break now and again."
Meia thinks on this for a minute. "Maybe." She kicks her legs against the bed a few times. "It's nice just hanging out like this."
"I know what you're thinking." John grumbles. "If you say it out loud, I'm gonna disown you."
Meia smirks. "You can't disown me, you don't own me in the first place." She doesn't exactly what she's not supposed to say, as She's clearly just as much of a mind reader as John is. Which isn't much of one.
"Don't worry, I'll find a way." He sniffs.
"Ha." Meia and John fall silent. She enjoys the simple silence, the lack of tension between each other. She holds the moment to herself in an effort to save it, keep it from fleeing away with the movements of a clock.
She murmurs to herself. "It would be great if this peace lasts."
John lets out a strangled noise. Meia looks to see him put his head in his hands. "What?"
"I thought I said not to say it out-"
The alarm klaxons sound, aggravating Meia's headache. "Enemy forces approaching!" BC's voice booms through the ship.
"...Oops?"
As school has started, updates will be when I finish them, not every Sunday. I'll still aim for at least 2-3 chapters a month.