In the depths of the women's dorms, lesson four in Magna's personal Hell was well underway: Dressing like a Nobleman.He'd been dreading this stage most, terrified of any changes to his 'perfect', masculine style. Despite all his fears, the nascent nobleman couldn't have known just how reprehensible this was going to be.
"Vanessa, I— hurgh!! I don't think corsets are for men!" The spitfire whined as his alcoholic friend tightened the laces even harder; digging a heel into him for extra yanking leverage, even while he wheezed.
She'd sobered up the second she heard about a makeover—even if(or maybe especially since)it was for a guy—and rushed over to give it her all. Now she just had to justify her choices in dress to her toy- er, um… something besides toy. Vanessa would have to figure that out later. "Nonsense, I know cute nobles who wear fashionable shit like this all the time."
As Magna looked over his profile by peering down at his tight new breeches and pinched waist, he asked Vanessa a question very important to himself, "Were any of those nobles men?"
"Ahem." She coughed, suddenly incapable of looking in his direction, "At least some were."
"Were any of them manly men?" The fire mage presses further.
Vanessa at that point rolled her eyes, tacitly defeated by his inane questioning, "Ugh, why is it so important that you look all 'masculine' or whatever?"
"Aw c'mon! It should go without saying!" Magna said like it almost hurt, "The tough guy thing is kinda my whole image."
"You mean your image isn't supposed to be 'delinquent virgin'?"
"Nuh-uh! I ain't no delinquent!" He said, rebutting only half of the witch's teasing with a slight blush, "And I ain't wearing no corsets! Not even in some snotty loser disguise!"
Vanessa chuckled at her friend's refusal to ever deny his virginity; she tied his corset laces together with the words, "But it makes you look cute."
"I am not cute." The scar-faced boy pouted cutely.
"Are you kidding?" She asked with an arched eyebrow, "You look like a begging puppy right now."
"What— no way! I'm not even the slightest bit cute!"
"Oh yeah? Then explain this." Vanessa said as she pulled a mirror in front Magna to prove her point.
The instant the spitfire saw his reflection pouting and blushing in a tight corset, he smashed the glass into a thousand shimmering splinters. Breathing as if he'd just waken from a nightmare, this thought crossed Magna's mind:
God dammit… I do look cute.
"Now come on, let's see how much cuter you can get!" Vanessa said to him, approaching with two fistfuls of gaudy accessories and a malevolent smile, "I've got bows, and ribbons, and—"
"Wait! Get back! Die!!" Magna shouted like a cornered rat, flaming bat summoned to his hand as he tripped backwards over miscellaneous trash hanging around the women's' quarters. The adorable man took a spill, landed on his rump but kept scrambling away, setting things aflame as he fled the pretty ribbons and flowers that encroached.
With a glint in her eye, Vanessa made chase.
Soon enough, the whole room caught fire.
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Several minutes of dousing a conflagration later, Finral had joined the witchy woman in dressing their resident punk up like an upstanding nobleman (although his presence was mostly to keep the property damage to a minimum).
With his assistance, Magna had been successfully wrestled into three-quarters of an ambassador's regalia. Shockingly enough, a pink flower rested in the manly man's hair, the only cutesy accessory he would accept from the duo's extensive collections.
At the moment, the self-professed lover boy was adjusting Magna's ascot, but deep in thought regarding the whole 'face' part of the ensemble. When Finral looked at his friend's forehead scar and serial killer smile paired with those punk-ass sunglasses, he knew which would be the easiest thing to fix.
"Yup, the sunglasses gotta go."
These horrifying words broke Magna's poise in an instant; the younger knight scurrying away from his friends to shout, "Nuh-uh! No way pal! These babies are like my baby! No touchy-touchy!"
"But they make you look like a delinquent." Vanessa said to make their case against his 'babies'. "Listen, I've snuck into like, a dozen upscale soirées and I've never seen someone wearing shades. Hand 'em over already."
"I will do no such thing!" Magna shouted, arms crossed and nose pointed skyward.
"And why not?"
"Because!"
"That's not a reason, and you know it. Now tell us why."
Suddenly unable to meet his squad mates' eyes, the masculine corset-wearer mumbled out, "It's because… they're… mumble…"
"Huh?" Both fashionistas asked, Magna's words well beneath hearing.
"I said, uh… they're… hmmbmmle…"
"What was that?" Finral asked, leaning in closer, "I couldn't quite hea—"
"I SAID THEY'RE PRESCRIPTION!!" He screamed, scream-ily.
After cleaning the ringing out of their ears, the two biggest fashion geeks Magna knew shouted in perfect stereo, "Whaaaaat?!!" causing him to shrink back in embarrassment.
"So that means—?" Finral asked with that look on his face, making his punkish friend regret speaking at all.
"That means—!" The string mage gasped, fingers splayed in front of her agape mouth. Magna's legs turned into pudding; whatever these two were about to say was going to suck.
Vanessa and Finral locked hands with enormous smiles decorating both their faces, and in unison they shouted, "Fashion glasses!!!"
"Wait, you're not gunna make fun of me?" Magna asked with one eye open, cowering the way Grey taught him to. "Not even a little?"
Totally ignoring the diffidence her friend was displaying, the witch shrieked, "Oh my God! This is so exciting! Just imagine the possibilities!"
With a dead serious expression, Finral nodded along. "That's it. We need to leave this second."
The two grabbed their much, much stronger squad mate and effortfully yanked him through a portal into the unknown.
Only a fragment of a second after they'd wrassled him into a fissure in spacetime, the three Black Bulls fell into the capital's main shopping district. Bustling crowds of well-to-do folks bumped them from all angles, sending the yankee into a bewildered stupor while he was dragged to God-knows-where.
Magna fiddled with the buttons of his jacket to ensure his corset was well hidden, since he couldn't tell what or where anything or anyone was. The Clover capital was like a rave in a sardine can, packed with live jellyfish and a few too many overzealous pickpockets.
Long before he could get his wits about him, Magna found himself face to face with the storefront of an upscale eyeglass boutique. "Whuzza?" He said intelligently.
Grinning like thieves at their dazed friend, Vanessa and Finral patted him on the back; the pink-haired woman saying, "Go on in, I think you'll like it~"
"Ugh, okay."
Magna passed through the threshold at Vanessa's behest, thinking this would be as dumb, painful, or embarrassing as everything else he'd been subjected to this last week. Instead, he wound up dumbfounded while he gawked at the enormous selection of frames and lenses.
As he took in the endless glittering shelves, the street punk couldn't help but be awestruck. "Whoa… it's like a candy store where anything you eat would make you die… because it's made of glass…"
"Pretty nice, huh?" Finral asked with a smirk, "They just need to know your magnification, and we'll be able to pick the glasses up in a couple hours."
"Yeah, just tell us what needs correcting, and we'll help you decide."
"Well…" the street punk began, "It's hard to see things close up without 'em, and they're reallysensitive to light too. It's awful." His gray eyes squinting as he removed the shades from his face, Magna lamented his prescription, "It's not manly at all to have eyes that don't even work right…"
Gangsters shouldn't be half this cute, Finral and Vanessa thought as their fashion protege fluttered his lashes.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of, plenty of people need glasses!"
"And even if it were, we're the Black Bulls! We've got worse!"
"Aw shucks, fellas… way to make a guy feel loved."
Trying not to squeal at his cuteness, the pair helped Magna pick out the perfect new frames. The younger knight was on cloud nine when they gave him pair after pair to model, but something at the end of their purchase made a certain firecracker's blood boil.
"And we'll need them with the light dimming enchantment." Finral said to the clerk.
"Mm-hmm. Big spenders I see."
The space boy nodded, "And if you could make that out to Magna Swing."
"Heyheyhey! Am I paying for this?" The man in question barked as he was handed the receipt. "Oh God, that's a zero more than I was expecting… I don't have that kinda money!"
"What? You're gonna have an ambassador's salary soon— you can afford your own glasses and tailoring!"
"I'm gonna rip y— Wait, tailoring!?" Magna gasped, now paralyzed by the thought of his meager fortune going 'bye-bye'.
"Of course." Vanessa deadpanned, "That suit'll look like a sack of tatoes if you don't get it fitted, or re-padded… or fix the holes."
"And lucky us, there's an upscale outfitters just across the marketplace~"
As Magna was bodily dragged across the bazaar again, he stated to the incorrigible duo, "I've decided again that I hate you two."
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"Aw come on— plenty of guys are wearing them these days!" Finral whined through the fitting room wall, vexed by his gangster friend's lack of adventurous spirit.
"N-n-no, there's no way I'm trying this crap on. And the tailor might be coming back soon…" Magna replied in a tone that sounded a little too much like Grey. The garment his two fashionable friends handed him to try out looked a little too much like lingerie, and a blush crept across his cheeks as he regarded the mesh and lace boxer-briefs.
"Consider it a gift, and besides, it's more tasteful than what you usually wear!" Finral was practically begging at this point.
"We don't need to see it, but maybe if you meet somebody cute on your mission~"
"I'm not trying on some crappy, fancy pants, sexy underwear!" The fire mage shouted at the inveterate 'thrill seekers' before falling silent for a good, long while.
Long enough for the young man helping the trio to return.
"How's the fit on that outfit, Sir Magna? We'd love to make any further adjustments neede—" the attendant cracked the door ajar to address any comments or complaints regarding the suit's fit, but instead saw his client wearing… not much at all, and posing like an underwear model in the mirror.
Blood shot out the attendant's nose at the sight, and he desperately tried to slam the fitting room's door shut in the midst of apologizing, but only hit himself in the face with it as it rebounded off its hinges. Falling over backwards as the changing room fell open, the helper accidentally gave Magna's whole group a view of the street punk trying to look seductive for his own reflection.
Everyone froze for a moment, wordlessly gawking while the fire mage pulled his breeches back on. Finral, Vanessa, and the store clerk stood three in a row, unsure of what to make of what they just saw while the man they'd caught with his pants down just smiled.
Before any of them could get a single peep in, Magna switched from his personable grin to his shark-toothed rictus, and cracked his knuckles. "Listen up." He demanded affably, "Any of you ever speak a word of this to anyone, and you'll just have to kiss your kneecaps goodbye. Capiche?"
"C-cross our hearts." Finral wheezed.
"Oh, and steward, the fit on the suit is perfect; I just need someone to lace me back up, and we'll be on our way."
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The once-punkish knight was dressed to the nines in breeches, tailcoat, ascot, and finest spectacles, and was standing up perfectly postured with his chest puffed out proud; with that glorious orange lighting behind him, Magna Swing had been molded into a proper dignitary.
In looks at least: The scene was backlit by the flaming, razed remains of the path back to base when he'd found out he still had etiquette, dance, and writing lessons to attend that evening.