“Deep breaths,” Vivi told herself as she walked down the street. “In. Out. In. Out.”
“You’re really nervous, huh, Viv?” Leah frowned. “It must be a lot going back to school after everything. I wish I could help you some more.”
“N-no,” Vivi objected. “You’ve been super supportive sis, you’ve done so much already. You even helped me apply my make up this morning,” she said pointing to her sparkly eye shadow. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
“You’ll get it eventually. Still though…” Leah frowned. “I’m just worried. You got picked on so much before. I know you’ve changed a lot since then, but what if you start getting bullied again? And boys your age can start getting super creepy, and...”
“I’ll be okay,” Vivi said, cutting her off. “I-I’m going to be fine.”
“I don’t know. I’m just worried.”
“H-hey, you and Chi are in some classes together, right?” Vivi interrupted her, desperately trying to change subjects. She worried her big sister enough, she didn’t want to be an even bigger burden, especially on the first day of school.
“Chi? Yeah. Why?” she asked. As Vivi tried to answer, her eyes lit up. “Oooh, you’re worried she might feel lonely, don’t you?” she grinned.
“Yeah. She’s really strong, and she seems a lot better now than when we first met, but I’m afraid what being away from us will do,” she frowned. “At least I have Carmen by my side. Bianca’s nice, but I don’t know if she’d be able to protect her given everything.”
“Alright, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her,” she smiled. “You do good out there too, okay sis?”
“Yeah,” Vivi smiled giddily. Goodness, it felt incredible being called ‘sis’ like that out in the open.
“By the way. I forgot to mention.” Leah smirked. “Cute backpack.”
“Right!” Vivi smiled and giggled. “I started rewatching it after we kicked Zeus’s butt, and gosh! It’s so much fun!”
“You always did love that show, even if you didn’t always show it.”
“Yeah...” Vivi gave a bittersweet smile. “Back then, I really wanted to watch it and enjoy it, but I felt like I couldn’t. It wasn’t my show to watch, y’know? Like, I was supposed to be a boy, and it was a show so clearly meant for girls. I mean, all those cute outfits her girlfriend puts her in and the way they get super emotional about everything… I just didn’t think I was really allowed to enjoy that kind of stuff. But now, I just love it all so much!”
“I’m glad,” Leach chuckled. “But I’m pretty sure those two weren’t dating. In fact, if I remember correctly she actually had a crush on her brother’s best friend.”
“They definitely wound up together!” Vivi protested. “Even if the show didn’t really… realize that.”
“Whatever you say, sis. I’m sure your girlfriend will like it though.” Vivi stopped and blinked. What did she mean by that? What girlfriend? Sure, there were some of her friends who’d totally love it, especially Erika, but… She started blushing.
“S-sis!”
* * *
After some more playful banter, the two sisters eventually arrived at school, and went their separate ways to get to class. The school, surprisingly enough, had changed very little, at least for everyone else. The school had been shut down for the most part ever since the Magical Mist made its way across the globe. Few others aside from Vivi and her friends had even stepped on campus, much less entered the other rooms aside from janitorial staff.
However, so much had changed for Vivi since then. The last time she’d been to Salt Mountain High was when she helped Ichika come to terms with herself, the same night she and the others welcomed her as the fourth member of the Prism Girls, and the same night she really let her true self out for a bit. Before that, on every other occasion she’d been within these walls, she had been deep in the closet. She wasn’t herself back then, mentally or physically, and she’d changed a lot on both fronts.
She rested her right hand on her chest and took a breath, feeling her chest rise and fall as she inhaled and exhaled. Such a simple mannerism, which she’d become so acquainted with over the last few months, was only a vague fantasy to her when she last attended classes. She looked down the halls, feeling every inch she’d shrunk acting as an amplifier for the hall’s power of intimidation. She felt so much smaller and insignificant than before, and back then she felt microscopic. All she could do was breathe and ground herself with the simple comforts of her body.
Fortunately, she didn’t need to think too much on her way to class. She was lucky enough for her first period to be in a room she’d had classes in last year with a teacher she had fond memories of. She let herself go into auto-pilot as she desperately tried to ignore the people around her, in the hallway. She tried to keep her eyes bound to the floor, with the few times she raised her head being met by countless stares digging into her, promptly sinking her gaze back to the floor.
Finally, she came to the door of her English class. It had been several months since she last stepped into this classroom, and this would be the first time she’d enter it as Vivi. She gulped as she prepared herself for the challenges within. As she reached to open the door, she felt her stomach flutter and twist. She looked like Prism Magenta now, but she didn’t have any of her power. While she didn’t want to use it, at this moment she desperately desired it, if only to give her a comfortable cushion around herself. She swallowed and opened the door.
The first thing she saw was Mrs. Brier. She knew her as a kind and welcoming older woman, but there was no such older woman here. Instead, there was what looked to be a young elven woman with long violet hair, and long pointed ears poking out as she read at the desk, a name tag being the only indicator that she was the once elderly woman. She still seemed warm and kind, perhaps even more so, as she wore a comforting youthful smile. At least she did for the moment. “Wow, she got really hot,” Vivi heard a familiar voice jeer as Mrs. Brier’s smile immediately turned into a frown as if remembering something sickening. Vivi imagined she had been getting a lot of that since she changed, and hearing a student of all things, a group that if Annie and her revulsion at the idea was any indicator about the topic, was likely rather frustrating. She quietly hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with it too, though it seemed unlikely at this point.
As for the boy who said it, it was Todd Habernaker, the boy who gave her so much grief for so many years. The last time she’d seen him was the last day they had classes, but unfortunately he found his way into her thoughts on several occasions over the past several months. It was hard not to since she’d fought his father, the police captain, back in May. His father’s arrest didn’t seem to impact his attitude. If anything, it seemed to make him even more insufferable now.
He had seemingly changed into a half dragon, still mostly human like his father, but with a very draconic appearance. Sharp claws, long horns, fiery breath, talon-like scaled feet, and a tail his red hair and scaled seemed to glow slightly, as if stuffed with embers. He wore his shirt with most of his buttons undone to show off his new musculature as he licked his lips before making an arrogant grin. He stood in stark contrast to his twin sister in the back, who also bore the draconic attributes, only with pink hair and scales, but sat in her seat seeming to groan at his pomp before trying to bury herself into the book.
“Oh, hey? Who’s that cutie?” one of Todd’s friends eyed Vivi, which sent a shiver down her spine. She recognized him as Todd’s close lackey, George, who was now clearly a satyr, two curling horns standing atop his thick brown hair, as his bottom half was replaced by that of a horse with two legs. “What you think, boss?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s hot,” Todd said before whistling. Vivi gripped the straps of her backpack as another stronger shiver descended her spine.
“Seems familiar though,” a short goblin of a boy stood next to them. She assumed it was Donald, the last of the immediate trio of pals. It seemed both unsettling and normal that they’d still be this chummy now. “Have we seen her before?”
“No idea,” George grunted.
She did her best to quickly run around them, which was quite difficult since they were so close to her seat. A task she unfortunately failed, even though she thought she made it far enough, a swift smack to her bum made her realize she wasn’t. She turned, noticing the flash of Todd’s red tail as she turned to face her would-be-assailant. She huffed as she tried her best to leave it behind her. Different year, same Todd, she hated it. Even though he didn’t recognize her, he was still the gross boy that bullied boys he didn’t like and harassed the girls he did. She chose to make her way to her seat and simmer in silence.
As the rest of the class filled in, it seemed full of more chatter than usual, although that seemed natural enough since they had such an abrupt and long vacation. Still, some of the topics seemed strange to her, not that she could be bothered to keep track of them. Vivi had instead chosen to quietly keep to herself, trying her best to tame the boiling stress within her as she witnessed Todd’s gross behavior toward other girls. She did however manage to catch a few whispers. Stuff to the effect of “is that who I think it is…?” and “is she…?” but she decided to ignore them.
“Alright class, it’s time to get started,” Mrs. Brier stated, getting up from her desk. She wasn’t sure what was stranger, the fact that her elderly teacher now looked to be Annie’s age complete with a peppy and kind voice to match, or her still prominent tendency to try and shift her now nonexistent glasses. Though her more comfortable and modern speech was rather surprising; fortunately that detail was more comforting than distracting. “As you all know, we will be resuming from where we were back in March. It may be a new school year, but we still have some stuff from last year to go over. So, please bear with us as we all try to adjust…please?” She gave a sympathetic wink to the class, hoping that that would win some of them over, which by the giggling in the classroom seemed successful. “Because so many of us have changed, I’ll have to be more thorough on attendance today. So, please answer when I call your name.”
“Uh oh,” Vivi whispered to herself. She was dreading this possibility. It was true, she wasn’t the only one who looked different now, and some were even more severe, lacking a human face altogether. She just had to hope her mom managed to change her name in time. Mary, her mother, had been plenty irate about how infuriating the process was to get everything changed. She even complained about it during dinner last week, complaining how even with her constant pestering nothing would change.
“Erika?” Mrs. Brier’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Wait, Erika? Did that mean…
“Here!” A dryad girl answered, her melodious soprano voice immediately sweeping away Vivi’s other thoughts. They were sharing first period!? She never mentioned that when they were talking about schedules last week. And gosh, she was even cuter than all of her selfies made her look. Her deep dark green hair had the most elegant blue highlights in it. It was like catching a glistening stream through thick forested leaves. And she hadn't mentioned that she could have green skin, which contrasted nicely with her hair. She managed to send a couple pictures of herself with her more fleshy looking human skin tone, but there was something about the plump smoothness of her green body that made her heart quicken.
“Ivana?” Mrs. Brier called out as she went down the list alphabetically by first name.
“Here,” a blue semi-transparent slime girl answered. That name snapped her back to reality. Not because of the girl herself, although Ivana had been one of Erika’s closest friends for years, to the point she’d been jealous of her at times. Although, she had always been nice to Vivi too. But more importantly...
“Okay. Next…” Vivi took a deep breath and prepared herself for the worst-case scenario. “Jaden?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, here!” a boy, more dog than man, answered, Vivi sighing in relief.
“Huh? Did you hear that? She skipped that loser Jackie,” she heard one of her classmates gossip. She frowned as she heard them describe her like that. Sure, she shouldn’t let what they said get to her, and she didn’t feel much connection to who she was before anymore, but it still hurt to be described that way.
She looked back up to see Erika smiling at her and giving her a thumbs up. She couldn’t help but blush. Immediately, all of their shared flirting flooded her head. Gosh, she wanted to talk to her so badly. She wanted nothing more than to talk to her in person for a change. They never did get to meet up over break after all. In her excitement, a part of her mind imagined herself and Erika together. An image of her hovering over Erika, a pinkish-red hue filling her seductive gaze as she beheld her love. Her form bore a striking similarity to her mother’s own demonic charms. A tingle filled her gaze as a pleasant warmth filled her mind as it played at the idea of Erika teasing her only to be met by Vivi’s own flirts back, and then... Her mind hit a snag.
Her gaze snapped away, briefly catching her reflection in the window, an odd flash of red entering her vision before vanishing as she blinked, losing sight of its source. What was that? Why did her mind go there? Her cheeks practically caught on fire with such a thought. It was so embarrassing, yet something about that fantasy was so… enticing. She took a breath, trying to recenter herself. Those kinds of thoughts weren’t very ladylike. No, they were something else. Something a girl like her shouldn’t entertain, or at least that’s what she tried to convince herself. A pit began to form in her stomach as they reminded her of someone else.
“There’s Todd. Next is Vivi? Vivi?” Mrs. Brier repeated, slightly confused, as Vivi failed to notice her call, Todd's name and treatment of the other girls and even herself so many minutes ago swirled in her mind..
“Vivi? Who’s that?” one of her classmates called out.
“Um, is there a Vivi Tailor here?” which finally caught her attention.
“H-here!” she jumped in her seat, raising her hand high, doing her best to stifle the bright blush on her cheeks.
“Okay, that looks like everyone then,” Mrs Brier said.
“Wait, teach, what did you say?” grumbled Todd.
“What’s the matter Todd?” Mrs. Brier sighed before suddenly becoming alarmed at his clearly enraged glare. “T-Todd?”
“You said Tailor, right!?” he snarled. Vivi felt a deep dark pit form within her as suddenly felt very small. If only she responded sooner maybe she could’ve slid by unnoticed. She looked on upon the dragon boy with fear as he turned to glare at her. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he growled as he rose from his seat.
“Todd, sit down or I’ll…!” Mrs. Brier shouted.
“Shut it bitch!” he barked, startling her. “You! You’re HIM! That fuckass loser! Jackie!” he bellowed. The class's eyes all seemed to turn to her. Her stomach churned with disgust. Normally this kind of stuff had her feeling afraid and devastated, and maybe she was feeling that now. But even more so at this moment, she felt something else. She froze. “You… How dare you! Think you can trick me into thinking you’re a girl!? Fuck off you gross ass loser freak! Why don’t you just…!” he reached out towards her.
“SHUT UP!” his arm was grabbed by a flurry of vines, but they weren’t hers. They belonged to someone else. No not someone else, they belonged to several people. First and foremost was Todd’s twin sister, Irina, the one who yelled, vines emerging from one of her scaly arms. Second was Erika, naturally calling vines from her body. Finally the teacher herself, Mrs. Brier, conjured some stern vines with a wand she had in her desk.
“THE FUCK!?” he shouted glaring at the four.
“Todd Habernaker! You will not threaten anyone in this classroom. Understood!?” Mrs. Brier asked, as he only grumbled back. “Now go to the Principal’s Office, at once!”
“Make me, bitch!” he smugly glared.
The teacher merely sighed. “Fine,” with a single nod, the others let go of him as her vines grew to replace them. He grumbled in protest, but it didn’t take much time or effort before he was dragged out of the classroom, leaving Vivi to sigh out of relief. “Class, behave while I’m gone, and review Chapter 7,” she said as she escorted him out of the room.
“Vivi, are you okay?” Erika asked as she ran up to her desk with Ivana, the slime girl, right behind her.
“Y-yeah,” Vivi said blushing. “Thanks, you two,” she smiled turning her head to greet Irina too.
“Sorry about my shithead brother,” Irina sighed as she approached.
“Todd’s even worse than before now,” Ivana groaned. “I can’t believe he did that. You’re sure you’re okay…er, Vivi, was it?”
“Y-yeah.” she nodded.
“Ugh, what the hell are you all doing?” George groaned. “You’re pissed at Todd, while you coddle the little perv?”
“Yeah, what the hell?” one of the other boys complained.
“How gross can you get?” a girl added.
“W-what?” Erika stood in place from shock. “How can you...”
“Yeah, that loser thinks he can just come in here and pretend he’s a girl?” Donald sneered. “Why the hell are you defending him!?”
“Back off!” Irina snapped.
“Or what!?” another one of the boys yelled back. In seconds several of the boys stood up, intimidatingly staring down the four. “Got anything to say for yourself freak?”
“I…” Vivi shook in her seat. All of these cruel stares, they were unbearable. It reminded her of when the police assaulted her and her friends, of Captain Habernaker’s malicious glare. But neither her friends nor her mom were anywhere nearby to help. “I…”
“Leave her alone!” One of the other girls, one with a wolf’s tail and ears, stood up barking at the miscreants.
“Yeah! She’s been running around helping others, and you call her a freak and a pervert!? What is wrong with you!?” A larger girl stood, her prominent ogre horns coming close to the ceiling as she quaked.
“Show some respect, that’s Prism Magenta you’re yelling at!” another yelled, this one a boy with feline ears and whiskers. As quickly as the collection of students stood to intimidate her, so too did a number of the others rise to oppose them. It almost felt like the room was divided in two.
“You mean the terrorist who attacked the police?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention to the news? The police were the bad guys!”
“Yeah, they were helping that creepy god guy!”
“You’re seriously defending a criminal!?”
“Yeah, and what about what he did to Todd’s dad!?”
On and on, her classmates argued. She trembled and shook, only able to cry. She didn’t want this. She just wanted to go to school like any other girl. Why did everything have to turn out like this? If only she’d responded a few seconds sooner, then maybe none of this would’ve happened. If only she…
“It’s not your fault,” a gentle voice whispered to her. Vivi blinked. It was strange. It was as if all the yelling had been hushed. She glanced around, seeing the others still arguing, but their voices were muffled. “Vivi. Over here.” She looked to her side to see Erika smiling at her.
“Erika, how…?” Erika slowly reached out towards Vivi’s ear, Vivi mimicking her action. There was something on her ear. Erika then moved her hand to her own pointy ear, gently touching a white flower on top of it. Vivi looked at it and her with understanding. “Your flowers are...”
“It’s okay. I’m not going to let you get subjected to this kind of argument. And none of this is your fault, okay?”
“B-but...”
“You didn’t lash out, Todd did. You didn’t ask him to bring up your past and out you. None of it is your fault, okay?”
“E-Eri...” Vivi whimpered as Erika began hugging her. “Thank you.”
“I’ll always be here to support you.” Erika smiled, prompting Vivi to do the same. However, her smile faltered upon seeing Ivana grab at Erika’s shoulder. The two looked up at her as she motioned towards the front of the class, directing them towards Mrs. Brier.
“O-oh!” Erika yelped as her flowers retracted and settled around her neck. “M-mrs. Brier. I...”
Mrs. Brier held her hand up, instructing her to stop. “Now class. Allow me to make something clear. I am not going to tolerate anyone mistreating others in my class room. That includes misgendering your fellow classmates or harassing them about events outside of school. You are here to learn. Understood?” The classroom gave an awkward half answer. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Brier!” the class answered.
“Good, now back to your seats.” Erika immediately raised her hand. “Yes, Erika?” she asked with a sigh.
“Could I sit next to Vivi for now? Just so I can help calm her down?”
“Very well. I’ll allow it.” Mrs. Brier nodded. “Now before we begin...”
Erika quickly moved her stuff to an empty desk next to Vivi and sat down. She smiled at her and offered her hand. Vivi gave a slow nod and took her hand into her own.
A smile began to find its way onto Vivi’s face, her cheeks beginning to suck up color once again as her heart began to race. Before, back when Vivi didn’t understand herself, she was embarrassed over her attraction to Erika. For one, she was an outspoken lesbian, for two, liking her felt strangely inappropriate, something she’d learned many trans people experienced. It was as if it was wrong for her to, as the boy she believed herself to be, to see a girl in such an objectifying manner. It was only now that she understood she realized her discomfort came from how boys viewed girls like them, and the revulsion of seeming like them. But a girl seeing another girl as cute? That felt... right.
And now with those issues resolved her heart was free to flutter its way into countless fantasies. Mostly anyway. Fantasies of dating and cuddling seemed fine enough, but ones like she had earlier were... scarier. Her mind snagged again on how the ways people like Todd talked about girls, and daydreams like that filled her with a sense of dread. And yet, just thinking about Erika earlier got Vivi’s heart going. But now… Whatever those twisted ideas were, she wouldn't let them ruin this. She looked at Erika again and smiled. There was no more debating it, she was really falling in love with her.
“Hey, Vivi?” Erika spoke up, bringing Vivi back to reality.
“Y-yes’m?”
“If it’s okay, could we… maybe go over to your place today?” Erika asked. Vivi looked at her, seeing the now pale dryad’s face blushing, having changed her skin tone. She couldn’t help but smile.
“I’d love to.”