Albus looked into the sky, shooting stars surprisingly visible despite the city’s light pollution. He was taking a nighttime walk away from his apartment, avoiding the stoners always smoking on the porch. It was good to collect his thoughts a away from the doom scrolling of the horrible state of the world.

  It was truly beautiful. Six streaks splitting off from each other, their bright lights almost looking like they were heading his way.

  Wait. They were! They split off, clearly about to nd iy—and one was going right to him. He started running for his life, turning his back to the light.

  Everythi bbsp;

  He woke up on the ground, but oddly not in pain. There was an obje his hand—it had a white handle leading up to a pitch bck star at the end, like some sort of wand. He wasly sure where it came from—was it on the ground where he fell? But he did have a strange feeling as he stood up, like there was something he had to do.

  “id Power, Reveal!” A bright light shone around him, as he flew into the air. He could feel her body ging around herself, body lengthening, brown hair turning pitch bck, gsses disappearing, old clothes getting repced with long socks, a short skirt, and a tank top, skin impervious to the cold air. A bright ribbon, white with bck outliopped it off in her hair.

  Beautiful ic Soldier Heliopause stood tall, doing o twirl with a grin. She jumped, a up, and up, and up, effortlessly nding on a five story building. People looked so small from here—she could see all the way to her apartment! Her neighbors were still smoking on the porch—she should say hi to them sometime, they seem nice. She wondered why she never had before. But that could be for ter.

  She ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, nding ten buildings away. It was just like a superhero story! Or a magical girl one. She ughed as she ran, jumping from building to building. The buildings and cars rushed past her, nothing able to keep up. Heliopause ran past the elevated train tracks, pausing her eyes orain struggling to keep up with her. She sped up, leaving it far behind her.

  She finally approached downtown, buildings t over her. Without hesitation she made one final leap, jumping twenty, forty, eighty stories all the way to the top of a skyscraper. She held onto the metal roof, clearly not meant for walking, but with no more fear of falling off than she would have with a one foot drop. She looked at her refle and saw someoall, powerful, yet beautiful and with an angelic grabsp;

  “Wow,” Heliopause said to herself, giggling. “Is this real?”

  It didn’t feel like a dream. Was this what it felt like to be high? She had never even gotten drunk, but maybe she should try it if she could feel like this. Then again, why do that when she could simply be here? On top of this skyscraper, that she never bothered to learn the name of?

  She peered through the clouds (well, through the normal clouds) below her at the ground, the nightlife of Cloud City alive and well. Drunk partiers wandered in and out of bars, beggars asked for or to sell snacks while huddling under all their clothes, essential workers shuffled through the snow to their jobs—the city in its full glory and pain was clear to her. Humanity was as beautiful as it ainful.

  But perhaps that was too much philosophy. That was ice’s job.

  “Ice?” She said the word out-loud. How was ice going to think? It was like there was something at the tip of her tongue. Something she had fotten. Whatever. It might be important, but that didn’t matter tht now.

  She jumped off the skyscraper. Wind blew her long bck hair past her face, staying perfectly out of her way. The ground approached—she nded in a crouch, slightly wing at a crack she made in the sidewalk. A dozen people, each doing their own thing, all turo face her. She wihe away.

  She found the train tracks she usually took to and from her apartment, following them back to her neighborhood. She found ay park, sunlight barely glimmering over the horizon. In a moment he was back to normal. He walked back to his apartment in a daze, colpsing into bed.

  ——

  Albus woke up to his arm the day, sleepily rubbing his eyes. What a crazy dream st night. Still, there was something about it. He pulled up his phone.

  “Magic girl jumping buildings” into the seargihere. A video of a girl in a rainbow outfit simir to his dream’s jumping from building to building, albeit far less impressively than he remembered in his dream—jumps of tens of feet instead of hundreds. Scrolling through, she had made quite a se, with lots of online specution about who she was. Oe—blegh, wroddit—has a whole subforum dedicated to it. Oh, some new posts. New look-alikes had been spotted, now in specific colors like blue or red rather than rainbow. It was clearly different girls, their neon hair matg their outfits. One picture caught a tattoo on the back of the blue girl’s neck, six stars in a circle grey, blue, red, yellow, white, and bck, the blue one glowing the brightest.

  And there was a girl in bck. That was her. Er, him. The him from his dream where he dreamed he was a her. That there’s a picture of.

  He looked over at his end-table. There lies the star wand he used yesterday to transform. No no no. That wasn’t a dream. That magical, powerful feeling was real. He had a powerful magical item. But why’d it have to make him a girl?

  Whatever, that wasn’t the most important issue. He could deal with being a girl, an easy tradeoff. It was like those memes that were like “win 2000 but you turn into a girl if you press a button”, anyone would take it. The question was should he report it? This was clearly a powerful on—maybe some sort of secret gover super-soldier program? Well, even if it was, maybe it would be best not to give it back to the gover. They’d probably just kill people in some other try with it.

  So he’d keep it close with him for now to be safe, the star wand easily fitting into his pockets. He got ready ao work: a shift at a low wage job at a library’s front desk.

  The day drudged along, nothing special. Then he felt something in the back of his mind, like a spike of alertness. There was something he o see.

  “I’m taking my break!” He sped-walked to the door, barely waiting for his supervisor’s okay. He somehow found ay alley and said the words: “id Power, Reveal!”

  Once again his body and clothes ged, her most powerful self brought to the forefront. She jumped from the alley onto the rooftops. She could sense a spike of magical energy not too far away—she had to see what it was.

  It was a matter of a few quick strides to find a park emptied of people. An object was shining brightly in the ter, tht to see. She walked up to it, vaguely aware of people around the park videotaping her. She bent doicked up the objebsp;

  It stopped glowing. It appeared to be some sort of umbrel? She activated it, the umbrel keeping her safe from the ent rain. That… was disappointing. She moved to put it away in her pocket, but it was bsted out of her hand by a beam of light, crashing into the ground.

  “Hey greedy! Before you take that for yourself, let’s discuss some things. I’m the Beautiful ic Soldier Ashen-glow, protector of love and light!” A girl with a white skirt and tanktop, simir outfit to her own, spoke out standing on top of a statue. Somehow she khis was the rainbow outfitted girl from the videos weeks ago, despite the different outfit.

  “I’m… the beautiful ic soldier Heliopause?”

  “No!”

  “I am!”

  “Say it with meaning!”

  “I’m the Beautiful ic Soldier, Heliopause! Protector of Principles and Darkness!” She did a twirl.

  “There you go!” She jumped down from the statue. “That right there? A piece of a magic teology. We, the ic soldiers, are to collect them.”

  “You shot it out of my hand!”

  “I o make sure you’d stay to chat!” Ashen-glow smiled.

  “So, I grab it aalking?”

  “Hmm.” She smirked. “We’re supposed to be a team, but that’s no fun. It’s not like the magical girl TV shows, we have no oo fight. So what’s to say we fight each other for it?”

  Normally she would shy away from flict. She didn’t care about the umbrel! But something got her blood pumping. “Let’s do it!”

  Ashen-glow poi her, a beam of light instantly ing out of her finger. Heliopause covered her eyes, only to not feel an impact. She peaked through her fingers. A shadowy shield of dust covered her, clearly having blocked the beam of light. It reacted to her thoughts, moving around as she thought. More ser shots came ringing out only to be entirely blocked by her shield.

  “Good job!” Ashen-glow praised. Heliopause felt some blood rush to her face. This girl was clearly experienced, it was like she was teag her how to fight. Ashen-glot towards the umbrel, moving at impossible speeds. If she truly was weaker in that rainbow outfit before, she wasn’t anymore. Heliopause ran after her even as she grabbed the umbrel.

  She took her magid formed it into a spear, throwing it ahead at Ashen-glow. The soldier of light almost dodged, the spear clipping her on the arm and making her drop the umbrel. Heliopause grabbed it. “Mine!”

  “For now!” A whip of light rang out, ing around her waist and tripping her. She crashed into the ground, crag the sidewalk as civilians ran away.

  “Sorry!” The soldier of darkness apologized to the people she almost crashed into. She turned around to see the soldier of light once more hitting towards her with a whip made of light—this time she blocked it with a shield of darkness, shattering it.

  “I am the Beautiful ic Soldier e!” Another one appeared, dressed in all red. “Protector of Passion and Fire! Now what’s this fight all about?”

  “Ah, another of us! It’s a simple game. Whoever wihe pieagical teology.” Ashen-glow smiled.

  “It’s a fug umbrel. I’m done.” She put it in her pocket. She didn’t usually swear, but… this was a lot.

  “You’re do you took it anyways? Fuck you. Give me the umbrel.” The fire soldier scowled at her. Heliopause dramatically frowned bad gave the middle finger. e held her hands out and a tornado of fire flew out at her, she barely blocked it with her shield. As it disappeared she ged at the buildings and people behind her, expeg them to be burnt. But amazingly—and by their wide eyes amazingly to them too—they were all undamaged.

  “Be more careful! And no, I got here first!”

  “I don’t have to. My fire burly what I want it to, and nothing more. I’m joining in on this fight.”

  “Ooh, a threesome? Don’t mind if I do,” Ashen-glow joked.

  “I’m out of here.” Heliopause leapt away, ily aware of the two girls chasing after her, keeping her shields of darkness up to protect herself. Ashen-glow and e were less lucky—they had to dodge et hit, ae the soldier of light clearly having some experie wasn’t that much experience, and the soldier of fire was as inexperienced as her.

  Eventually she blew a cloud of smoke in all dires, blog sight entirely. She took advao jump out and away, de-transf and walking back to work—luckily, they weren’t too far.

  He wondered where the umbrel went. Her skirt didn’t have pockets.

  ————

  Albus avoided transf for a few weeks, but kept a close tab ohers. A forum had sprung up, icSoldierWatch, which kept close tra the soldiers. They had bee like local celebrities, their fights spectacur aing.

  Earthshine was the favorite, her healing power allowio fix damage done by their fights. Her and Amorphous-id how did he know that name before hearing it?—were a team, but being both better as support for others, still didn’t only won once. Ashen-glow won three times, a clear knowledge and skill gap surpassing everyone else. The st soldier was Whistler-wave, her strong figure (the only oaller than Albus) and lightning powers making her clearly the most destructive, but still only winning once, on par with e. Finally, one was caught by a civilian before anyone showed up, turned into the gover for a bounty. Apparently they were sidered of archaeological i?

  Anyways, it was almost like a game—one Albus took no part in. He practiced with the umbrel some, and noticed it could block rain in a pretty rge area as a weak but noticeable magic effect. It was nothing pared to Amorphous-ice’s trol over water—she could practically trol a thuorm. Albus hoped to see that in person one day.

  The best picture of their pohen a fight exteo one of the side-clouds of cloud city, three girls jumping hundreds of feet from one cloud to the other. But it was also scary—when people realized how strong they were, would they e after them?

  Otherwise, Earthshine and Amorphous-ice were also a crimefighting duo, having been spotted stopping robberies on several occasions. He thought it was a little petty—they had only saved some insuranpanies some money. Guess actual violent crime was harder to find.

  All their identities were still secret despite not wearing masks. Made seo him—no one else had reason to know, but he didn’t look anything like his transformation.

  He wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist transf, even if it meant fighting in the “games”. It was simply… too amazing. In his day to day life he had no friends, no prospects. He supposed he should be using dating apps oing out to bars or something, but just couldn’t bring himself to care. He spent his time on the forums, being a prolific poster amidst the specutions.

  He wished he could be more like Heliopause. He k was ridiculous, they were the same person, but she was a fident aiful girl, while he was a lonely shut-in boy, even if he had been told was objectively attractive, it hadn’t helped him any. Friendships just… faded away.

  He sighed and logged off. Maybe a walk would help.

  ——

  He found himself in Dark Matter Cafe, a chocote croissant and hot chocote for himself. He liked to people-watch—they had suteresting versations. Just the other day he heard a girl logic herself into identifying as a lesbian! Apparently she thought she was bi before but actually just liked tall women. Good for her, holy, who wouldn’t want to be a lesbian?

  There walked in now, an oddly familiar light-skinned blonde girl and a dark skinned bruhey ordered, then chatted as they waited for their drinks.

  “I’m so gd you could e out with me today! We should go out to the arcade bar tonight,” the blonde said.

  “Well, I do have to study-”

  “Aw, you said you have a full week! it’s a Friday night, let’s have fun!”

  “Well… I suppose I could spare a day. I’ve only been to a bar a few times.”

  “We’re gonna have sooo much fun. Hey, we may eve some cute boys and girls there.”

  “Ah maybe. I don’t know that I’ll want to talk to anyone else myself.”

  “Oh that’s okay! We’ll have fun with the two of us.”

  “Jackie, cappuo extra cream!” The blonde rao pick up her coffee.

  “Oooh delicious.”

  Albus sighed. Sometimes he wished he could join in on versations. Holy an arcade bar sounded really fun. He’d never go out to one by himself though.

  “Lana, iced tea extra caffeihe two girls took their drinks and began walking towards the exit, Jackie giving Lana a quick kiss on the cheek as they left. Huh. He wondered if they were together.

  He soon finished his hot chocote ao brave the snow himself. This did not make him feel much better. But he only got half-way home before almost tripping on the ground, hands in his pockets flying around to bance himself.

  He stared at the glowing sti front of him. Talk about deja vu. Though this clearly wasn’t a star wand, it was one of the other pieces of teology appearing iy. He picked it up, instinctively feeling for its powers. It’s… a transformation wand?

  He jerked his head up. That was a magical signal ining, he o transform! “id Power, Reveal!”

  Legs lengthening, skin softening, breasts growing—she was much more aware of the physical ges as time went on, even as they stayed feeling perfectly natural. It was just part of being a magical girl, a ic Soldier.

  She twirled in her skirt, curtsying to the newer.

  “e. Hello.”

  “Oh, you’re back.” She scoffed. “Where have you been?”

  “Maybe I have better things to do than fighting over tris.”

  Earthshine dropped from the side. “Wanna join team supports? I’m a better thing to do.”

  Was that an innuendo? She robably imagining things, she wasn't used to iing with so many pretty women. “Uh. I—no. I’m not joining your team. We haven’t eve.”

  Earthshine pouted. “I’m the Beautiful ic Soldier, Earthshine! Protector of Justid Shadows.”

  “I’m the Beautiful ic Soldier, Heliopause! Protector of Principles and Darkness!”

  “We have kinda simir themes, don’t you think?”

  “No, shadows are like the interpy of light and dark. In the darkness, there be no shadow.”

  “Poetic.”

  “My turn!” e charged at her, entire body on fire. She brought up her shield, physically stopping her in pbsp;

  “You’ll have to do better than that!”

  Earthshine glowed, fire dragged from e to her. She threw it at the both of them, bowling them over, then ran at her.

  Heliopause scrambled up and jumped away, barely avoiding her. She blocked a beam of light from the side, Ashen-glow joining the fray. She tinued running through the city with several ic soldiers oail, throwing around at each other and her, gettier aer at using her shield.

  Her breath ran ragged as her foot was caught in ice. Amorphous-ice, that must be. It was the perfect timing to show up too, allowihshio tackle her. She patted around, clearly looking for the tech. “Where is it!”

  “Just in my pocket, stop grabbing all over my body!”

  “Aw, I like your body.” Earthshine was then whipped off of her, Ashen-glow taking her pbsp;

  “What, is this a round-robin?” Heliopause joked. Wait, she ’t believe she just said that.

  “Only if you want it to be.” Ashen-glow smirked. Heliopause twisted, f her off, and scrambled up to run again. She could see the others fighting still.

  Up ahead, a cliff. The edge of the cloud. Falling is certaih—they’ve reached the fields at the edge of the city. She ran towards the edge.

  “Watch out!” e warned her.

  “I know!” She jumped and hit her shield at the st moment jumping off of it the other way, way over the other ic soldiers. She soared miles around, nding and running back to the city far ahead of the rest, but still hot on her heals. She ducked behind a building and pulled out the transformation wand. “Turo a pretty but unassuming civilian!”

  In a moment her outfit was gone, repced by a sweater and jeans. The other ic soldiers ran past her, barely giving her a gnce. She walked through a crowd, no one giving her a sed g was like she was invisible. She looked down at herself. Now this owerful piece of tech. That was… fun. Maybe she’d go to more of the fights.

  ——

  More fights were not w out for her. She had her spear, but wasn’t very good at aiming it, makihe weakest pyer by far when she didn’t start with the tech item. It didn’t help that Ashen-glow could still somehow take on any two of them and win, ahshine and Amorphous-ice had a perma allianbsp;

  Earthshine was still the media darling as well, putting herself out in several interviews—Ashen-glow also tried that, but people liked her much less. The interviews were not informative, mainly them preening themselves to the press as minor celebrities. icSoldierWatch had divided itself into fans of each of the soldiers, like it was some sort of spane, Heliopause as the sed least popur only above the caustid scary e.

  Albus’ own life tinued as always, a shift at the library, videogames and forum watg at home. It was, in all hoy, nothing to talk about. Nothing he would want to think about.

  As he felt sorry for himself on the way to work (which was admittedly quite pathetic), he actally stumbled into a shirl.

  “Oh! Sorry.”

  “Watch where you’re fug going.” Wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt, she appeared to be half-Yamatan. She had a ag saying “Kaen”. Despite her rude words, she felt oddly familiar, and he couldn’t help but like her.

  “Didn’t mean it! I just didn’t see you there.”

  She rolled her eyes a walking. Wow, some people were just rude. Once far away enough that there was no way he should have been able to hear, she whispered “fug white men.”

  Wow. That hurt his feelings. Though it was odd he could hear it at all through the crowd—was his heariier? Maybe his ic Soldier form was leaking into his ordinary ohat was exg.

  He tinued walking only to feel a sharp pressure behind him—another piece of teology just activated!

  She quickly transformed and showed up, this time in a junkyard, just to see e having already got it. Earthshine and Amorphous-ice weren’t far behind—looks like it’d be a three way fight today.

  “I don’t think we o fight, do we?” Earthshine walked right up to e-and kissed her?

  “Um.” Heliopause stood there as they just… tinued. “Are we fighting?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the cold warrior said. “New retionships, y’know?”

  “Ah.” So the three of them were probably a team now. That would ge things. “Don’t you think dating someone you don’t even know the real name of is kinda problematic?”

  “Why would it be problematic?”

  “I… dunno. Feels weird.”

  “Besides, we do know each other’s identities. Holy, it’s about time. It only makes seo coordinate. We were meant to be teammates ’t you feel it? This has been raining but it’s time to be over.”

  “I don’t think so?”

  “Shit. That’s all I got. Earthshine! You’re the people person!”

  “That I am!” Earthshiopped kissing for a moment and hopped over. “We were meant to be a team! I tell. Heliopause, you’re beautiful and powerful, a girl after my ow. I know you didn’t really want to fight in the first pce. Let’s just sit and talk.”

  “Okay.” She sat cross legged on the ground. “Give me your pitch.”

  “We work together. Fight crime, keep the magic tech safe, prepare for any enemies ing our way. Like in ics! We had to have gotten these powers for a reason.”

  “Well, I don’t particurly care about stopping small scale thievery. You caught someone sneaking out clothes from a store the other day. It wasn’t even like an armed robbery, no one was getting hurt. I kinda don’t care? If anything I feel bad for the woman you got put in jail.”

  Earthshine blinked. “I mean, you don’t have to help us with that. I would never foreoo do something they did not want to do. Let’s just do training instead of fights and work together.”

  She sidered it. Holy sidered it.

  “Lightning storm!” Whistler-wave shouted, electricity flooding the junkyard. The broken cars stayed electrified, terrain dangerous. She barely got a shield up in time, the others shocked on the ground. The tech item—some sort of phone? rolled away from es.

  Whistler-wave and Heliopause both ran for the item, Whistler-wave’s additional height and mass—she was easily 10 feet—pushing her aside. But by therio had stood up again, recovered from the attack. They spread out, amorphous ice creating a fine mist making it impossible to see while Earthshine copied e’s powers—two whirlwinds of fire ing out of the fog into the other two girls. Heliopause protected herself and saw Whistler-wave managed a crag lightning bst to disperse the attack aimed at her.

  “The clique got bigger.” Heliopause said.

  “The clique?” Whistler-wave stared out into the fog, keeping a sharp eye on an attack from Heliopause.

  “They feel like a clique. Dunno.”

  “We’re literally the opposite of a clique! We are asking you to join us!” e corrected. “Stop fug spreading lies!”

  “You wouldn’t be if I wasn’t a ic soldier though! A group with a maximum membership of 6 people and no one else is pretty cliquey if you ask me.” Heliopause ughed, being sure of her decision. “And not something I’d ever join.”

  “Well fuck you too!”

  “Not today!” Heliopause threear of darkness at the voice. Quiet—must have missed. She turned around and Whistler-wave was gone. Huh, must have made her escape. Soon the fog cleared to reveal the clique gone as well, taking their prize with them.