Naughty Magic - Chapter 19 - Phone Service

Olivia

“I do have a lot of questions for you, though… And you’d better have some pretty good answers.”

I wanted to look away from Rachel, the moment she said that. I wanted to study the wall and pretend I had no clue what she meant… but… I’d promised her answers. Even if it had been under unusual circumstances - what with me mostly trying to get Chrys to take back the lust crest at the time.

Plus, I kinda looked like… well, myself. So unless I had a plausible excuse as to why the Violet Queen looked like a perfect purple copy of ‘Olivia’... Yeah, I wasn’t getting out of this.

“So, uh… what did you want to know?” I forced myself to ask, an awkward smile on my lips. 

“Let’s start with where you came from,” Rachel said. “You have… well, not really my…. But the same…. I did, right?”

I tilted my head a little. “The same what you did?”

“...Stupid magical non-disclosure agreements,” Rachel muttered. “Can’t even force the words out properly.”

“Magical what?” I asked.

“Oh, so that part I can say out loud,” she complained, shaking her head. “Ugh. Forget about it. Just tell me - Chrys is the same crystal that was partnered with Pink heart, right?”

“Uh… yeah,” I agreed, blinking in surprise. How did she know that?

Maybe because she is Pink?

‘No, seriously - was she friends with Pink or something?’

…

“So… does that mean you purposefully stole her crystal?” Rachel asked, snapping me out of my internal conversation.

“What? No! I was just… there when she got hit…”

“Really?” Rachel asked, arching an eyebrow. “Because the only other person I saw there looked like a guy.”

“That was… also me,” I admitted. It was almost a struggle to get the words out, for some reason. “My real form, I mean. Before all this happened…”

“Right…” Rachel said. “You know, just because it was your first form doesn’t make it any more or less ‘real’ than this one, right? I mean… assuming this is your new default form?”

“For a given definition of default, anyway,” I agreed, with a shrug. “It’s the easiest form to take, at least? And the one I woke up in. But it’s not like there’s anything forcing me to change back on the regular, or anything…” At least not so far as I was aware of. “A-anyways, I was there when Pink fell.”

“And Chrys offered to form a contract with you?” Rachel guessed.

“Yeah. Though I guess I should have noticed something was up - I mean, why would a crystal choose a guy? I think she must have been glitched, even then…”

Was not!

“Riiiiight,” Rachel said, drawing out the world long and slow. “Let’s go with that then. I assume something else happened to make you go all gooey, though?”

“Yeah - we got hit by a bit of ooze right when the contract was forming, I think. It kinda… gunked everything up. Next thing I knew, I looked like this.”

“Huh… And the whole being possessed thing - that was you acting, right?”

“Yeah. I can control slime in the area around me, so… yeah.” I confirmed. “I was in that form - I mean, my form - to attend classes, and Red Heart apparently managed to track me down from the magic I used to look that way. Like me, I mean.”

“...Uh-huh,” Rachel replied. “Right. That answers my next question. I guess. So… what now?”

“Uh…” I hesitated, unsure what  to say. I didn’t have a plan exactly. I mean, when in all this would I have had time to form one?

I have a plan.

‘Of course you do… But before that. I think my phone’s vibrating?’

“...Where were you even keeping that?” Rachel asked, when I pulled out my phone.

“Uh… somewhere around here?” I gestured to my stomach. “I guess? I didn’t even really register moving it from my pocket, to be honest, but like… it’s all goo, I guess? So… Yeah. I guess I must have absorbed it at some point.”

“I think I would have noticed a phone floating around in that goopy mess,” Rachel argued, frowning. “I mean, your phone’s not that thin.”

“I mean, where else could it have been? I kinda absorbed my pants, so it’s not like I could have left it behind anywhere.”

“No, but… maybe you have some sort of slimy dimensional storage type deal?” Rachel suggested. 

“What? You think I have some sort of spatial nonsense going on?” I asked. Then I frowned. “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure my house keys are in here, too, somewhere…” Was that new? Was it something I was only sensing now?

Don’t look at me. A magical goo girl like you is completely outside my area of expertise! Are you sure you didn’t just replicate it out of goo? Also, do you mind me talking aloud again? Kinda need access to your magic for that, remember?

‘...Right.’

“I’m pretty sure it’s not a goo replica,” I said out loud. “I mean, would a replica even get texts? I’m pretty sure that would go to my actual phone, right?”

“Unsure,” Rachel replied. 

“Pretty sure it would, actually,” Chrys said. “You might wanna check if you left your original somewhere… assuming you didn’t accidentally eat it up.”

“Chrys?” Rachel asked.

“That’s right!” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted. “You think I made it and then remade it? Is that even possible with something as complex as a phone? I’m pretty sure some of the parts were entirely man-made!”

“You do realize that ooze is basically produced by the defense system of magic itself, right? That you’ve basically taken a force of nature and made it your own? Frankly, I’m surprised this sort of thing is even allowed… Maybe it’s because magic expects you to take down the magical girls?”

“Like hell I’m going to do that!”

“Excuse me?” Rachel interrupted, holding up a hand. “Can you say that part about magic’s defense system, again? Why would magic want Olivia to take us down?”

“Well, not Olivia in particular,” Chrys clarified. “It’s more like she’s the most fitting tool available, at the moment, I suspect. Magic can’t act on its own, you see - I’m not even entirely convinced it has a will of its own. Not really. But it certainly behaves like a living thing, at the very least - how else do you explain the ooze?”

“What about the ooze?” Rachel asked. “I thought it came from space?”

“Ha!” Chrys laughed - I thought I detected an edge of bitterness to it, as well, though it might have been my imagination. “No. That’s just another lie we told you all, to make you feel like heroes. No. Ooze is the byproduct of our cheating magic - an antibody of sorts, meant to track us down and take us out. Except we crystals are shielded, and capable of running off non-magical tech besides. So when the ooze catches up to one of you, you get everything sucked out while we just flee away to another magical girl, who will create more ooze, in a never ending cycle.”

“That…”

I winced, waiting for Rachel to explode, to tell Chrys that it couldn’t be true, but instead…

“...sorta makes sense. I mean, I did always wonder why someone like… Pink was picked - there had to be better candidates, right? But now I know. She was just easy to trick… right?”

“You were also very repressed,” Chrys said.

“Why are you using you?” I asked, but neither replied. Maybe this was all some sort of metaphor for Rachel’s personal problems, or something?

“We crystals look for repression, you know. Sexual, mostly - you were very much in denial about who you were, at the time - but it’s not just that. We look for people with a reason to accept us. To not look too deeply into things. Take Red for example - her crystal probably promised she could be ‘normal.’ That she could fit in with everyone else, and that the urges she was having could be made to just… go away. That sort of promise is very appealing to some girls.”

“...Yeah,” Rachel whispered. “I know.”

It was at that extremely awkward moment that my phone vibrated again.

“Uh… sorry,” I muttered, unlocking the phone and glancing at it. “It’s from Clarissa. I should let her know I’m okay.”

“Oh, so you can answer your texts, then?” Rachel asked, her tone icy enough to make my ooze freeze.

“Uh… well… That’s…”

“Not the time, I know,” Rachel muttered, rolling her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been busy, alright? I mean, I don’t even know how to approach you. I’m ooze and you’re… just a normal person. I didn’t want to get you wrapped up in that shit without reason…” Not to mention the fact that my head was a bit too full to even think about her, over the last couple days. I had enough tact not to say that though.

Barely.

Rachel glared at me for another moment, before huffing. “Fine. But now I am involved, alright? And I want to hear more about this whole… magical girls going against magic thing, okay? Not to mention the fact that if you want to take down the magical girls-”

“I am not taking down anyone!” I interrupted

“I’m just saying, I might know a trick or two that might work. I bet Chrys does, too.”

“When she bothers to reveal what she knows,” I grumbled.

“What? You want me to ramble on for an hour about every insight I have?” Chrys asked.

“Yes!”

“...Boring.”

My phone chirped again.

“Right, uh… looks like Clarissa’s really worried. Like, half a second from reporting a kidnapping and posting flyers worried. I should, uh… probably answer her.”

“Probably,” Rachel replied.

Was it just me, or was her voice sort of chilly?

***

Red Heart

***

“I did it again,” I whispered. “Didn’t I?”

…I’m afraid I’m blanking on about an hour’s worth of information. I’m sorry, Red - I wasn’t able to do anything to help you, when you needed me most.

“Don’t say that?” I chided, concern laced through my tone. The same urge to mother everyone as I always had, the urge to protect everyone and keep people safe, tamed and tapered down from what it used to do to me. “It’s only because of you that I’m this functional… you saw what I was like without you.”

She must have done something to worsen your condition! You were never that bad!

“You say that, but…” I blushed, looking away - away from what, I wasn’t sure, just away. As if that would somehow keep her from noticing the blush spreading across my cheeks as I whispered, “She took my first kiss…”

She is a vile villain who needs to be taken down as soon as possible. You know what she did to you, Red!

“R-right… Taken down…” I agreed, fidgeting a little. “Do you think she’s still in the box? Or has she escaped?”

I think she’s made of ooze. I’m surprised your magic worked as well as it did, capturing her at all… I need more information…

“Sorry. Everything about it’s sorta… blurry. I remembered it real well for a bit, but as the urges started to fade it got all… fuzzy? Is that normal?”

Perfectly normal, dear. It’s just that  your urges were a little too strong for your conscious mind to handle. You’re likely suppressing it as a self-defense mechanism.

“Oh… Alright, then. I guess I should alert the others to what happened… Violet’s going to be furious with me. White won’t be particularly happy, either… maybe I should make them some muffins in advance? By way of apology.”

That sounds like a lovely idea.

“And wouldn’t it be super funny if I added some sort of sleeping powder to their drinks?”

…

“Kidding! I’m kidding, of course…” I giggled to myself.

It was sort of funny to imagine the looks on everyone’s faces when they woke up in my basement, though.

~~~

Author's Notes

Site Link

So, is Patreon stripping my formatting a new thing, or has it been going on for a while? I managed to find a work around - have to copy paste the story into another program, then copy paste it from there onto Patreon - but... Ugh.

Anyway, that's Rachel up to date! Now to bring Clarissa into the loop, and maybe get back to the action...