Gourmet Deviled Egg

Chapter 5 - Magenta’s Clues

After transforming into my demon girl self, something I appreciated as I was starting to feel nauseous in human form, I got dressed and braced myself. There was something I had been avoiding up until that point, that I had to get over with. Something I’d tried doing the first time I changed, but all that led to was me having a panic attack on the bathroom floor, worried over my future. Once I entered the bathroom and took a deep breath, I turned to the mirror and properly looked myself over, head to toe. The brown hair I was used to had turned black as coal and softer than clouds in my succubus form. My horns were kind of short, poking out of my forehead with the tiniest curve, kind of thick, like a small potato, and stubby, ending in a rounded bullet point instead of a sharp spike. My eyes looked the same, but with more life to them. They also felt decidedly more feminine, and had an odd yellow ring around the outside of the pupil. A small button nose, my chin still pointy but definitely rounded out enough to be girly, and lips I honestly wanted to kiss. And, from what I’d seen in old family pictures, I looked like Mom when she was my age. Just with scarlet skin and horns. 

Body wise? I had lost nearly a foot in height, going from 5’9” to 5’, feeling very tiny. It was weird to see stuff from this angle. Even weirder when I didn’t feel like I’d lost strength, but instead gained it. My arms got ever so slightly toned, still feminine but with the muscle apparent upon closer inspection. My tum had a small amount of chub to it, compared to how skinny it looked in my guy form. And god call me a grandma, but I can only describe my hips and thighs as thicc. Two C’s minimum. 

It was weird. Having this body felt weird. I didn’t hate it, I wasn’t disgusted by it. Hell, it felt more right than my guy form, even without the weird discomfort when I was in guy form that I was sure came from the same place as my cravings. But there was still something missing about my demonic form, as if the printer had run out of ink while printing my description. A girl body shouldn’t feel right for a guy, though, right? Especially not while wearing an outfit as feminine as I was now wearing. A peach pleated plaid skirt, black stockings, light brown rocker shoes, and a top that mostly matched the skirt in color, but it was two toned and the colors changed just above the bust, the rest of the top being black, the sleeves puffy and ending in white ruffles. I looked cute. 

I felt cute. I looked like an incredibly adorable, preppy devil girl. And that had me overcome with a primal need. I had to spin in place. I had to make the skirt go spinny.

And I did.  The swish of it around my legs was fun, and freeing, and had me laughing. I was laughing! I hadn’t genuinely laughed from joy in years! And here I was, giggling like a schoolgirl because I looked like one. After years of trying to have a poker face to appease my dad, here I was no longer repressing emotions. All it had taken was femininity. Something I wasn’t allowed. Dad had made that clear the day I started living with him.

I mean, I was supposed to be a guy, right?

I didn’t bother knocking on Leonard’s door when I came down again. I just opened the door and went in. Which in fact did surprise me that I was able to do that. But in my defense, my brain was too full of ‘skirt go spinny’ endorphins to run. I couldn’t see Leonard as I entered, not right away. Rustling between the piles caught my attention, and he popped out of them, like a dog who’d just heard their owner come home. He looked me over. “Oh. Huh. That’s new. Cute outfit. It suits you.” I wasn’t expecting any sort of compliment about my appearance. All I got from Dad was that I looked proper. Being called cute was new. I grabbed my wrist awkwardly, feeling a blush creep on my face.

“Uhm, thanks.” I rubbed my cheeks in a futile attempt to get the blush off. It didn’t feel like it was working. So I quickly stepped over to Leonard and helped him off the floor. “So how do we look for your mistakes?” 

“I can follow this pendulum of mine to sources of magic, while you run around on rooftops and look for them.” Leonard had an odd-looking pendant tied to his hand, which was currently floating in the air, pointing in my general direction. He tapped me with it and uttered a word, and it fell into his palm.

“Why should I take the rooftops?” I crossed my arms and huffed, trying to look intimidating but definitely failing. 

“Because you’re the one with superpowers? The only things that can physically harm you are magic and stuff not from this realm. Unless somebody’s got an angel’s sword to throw at you, you’ll be fine. Hell, you can do superhero landings without f*****g your knees up.” Leonard started making his way outside as I awkwardly followed him to the elevators. 

“Oh. So, no broken bones?” I summoned one to take me to the roof. No broken bones sounded good. Not that I had broken a bone since I was eight, but still. I kept finding more and more reasons to not go back. 

“Well, you’re a succubus. Your body is built to survive stuff kink artists draw… Not… Not that I look at those pictures.” Leonard turned his gaze away, coughed, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Dude, I saw your fursona wallpaper, and you handed me a f*****g vibrator. You’re as subtle about being a kinky f**k as trans authors had to be about their characters back in the day.” The elevator pinged, and I got in before he had a chance to reply, sticking my tongue out at him as the doors closed. When I reached the roof, my phone pinged with a text from Leonard that just read ‘Shut!’ It made me snort. Looking over the city, I got choice paralysis. There were so many directions I could start searching in. And what’s more, this was my first time outside in this form. I felt I had to make it special somehow. That this was an occasion I wasn’t going to get to repeat. I had fully intended to wait for Leonard to text me, to see if he got any clues for me to follow. Which was when it struck me, that I could just go snoop for clues at the scene of the crime.

The ride down to the missing person’s apartment wasn’t awkward. It really couldn’t be. Unless you’re claustrophobic, elevator rides can’t really be awkward if you’re alone in them. What was awkward was when I stepped out of the elevator and saw a guy standing in front of A-401. Light brown skin, average height, hair cut in a blue fauxhawk. The moment our gazes met, I started pivoting on my heel to skip the elevator and just throw myself down the stairs like a ragdoll. I was certain I could survive it, and I figured it would be an amazingly hilarious visual. But of course, the guy spoke up. 

“Hey, wait, you went through the same thing Amy did?” I was tensed up and holding my breath when he asked me, but I loosened and faced him, awkwardly nodding. 

“Uhm, yeah, A-101 was doing something stupid and we all got hit by it. He’s currently running around looking for folks.” I scratched the back of my head. 

“f*****g i***t. What a dumbass.” The guy sighed and rubbed his face in frustration. 

“How do you know A-401?” Maybe he’d have some clue as to where the occupant went. I think he had called her Amy?

“I’m Amy’s boyfriend, Diego.” He extended his hand towards me to shake it. “And you?” Oh f**k. Oh s**t. He wanted a name. I couldn’t give him Peter as a name, it would be weird, and I didn’t want people associating Peter with succubus form. s**t. What could I do? I shook his hand. 

“I’m… Lily.” Of course that was the name that popped into my head. I’d asked Mom what she’d have named me had I been born a girl when I was very young and she was still around. I never thought I’d actually get to use the name in real life. Mostly I used it when I played girls in games. Which was always. They still got better customization options and looked far cuter, so sue me!

“You hesitated about your name there. How come?” Oh dammit, Diego noticed. Well, of course he’d noticed that pause was longer than the line to see the dictator executed back in 2035. 

“I don’t usually look like this so… trying to do a secret identity thing, I guess?” I shrugged and gave an awkward smile.

“Huh, I mean, I figure you don’t look much different from your regular self. Cute succubus, cute human girl, the association would be easy to make.” Okay, on one level sure his logic made sense, but I didn’t want to tell him the details of my situation. I was enjoying the positive response to my appearance too much. I just hoped he wasn’t accidentally flirting. First of all, the guy had a girlfriend, so that’d be gross. Second of all, I’m not into guys at all. I can’t say I had many opportunities to experiment, considering my dad, but this year pretty much cemented it for me that I wasn’t into  dudes. Plenty of people I was into, just not dudes.

“Not in my case. Anyways, uhm, any ideas where… Amy, was it?” Diego nodded to confirm. “Where Amy could have gone?” I could see the gears in his head turning as he scratched his chin. 

“I really don’t know. I just showed up here the day before yesterday, knocked on the door, got a weird text from Amy and haven’t seen her since.” Now it was my turn to think, to figure out where she could have gone. Fortunately for everyone involved, I didn’t have to think too hard. Leonard sent me a text. ‘Found a Blue Oni lady behind the cinema, feeding on the unsold snacks. Might be A-401.’

“Huh. Looks like our local dumbass wizard has found someone. A Blue Oni lady behind the cinema. I should probably rush over there.” I called the elevator for the roof once again, before I heard Diego clear his throat.

“Do you need a ride? I could drive you over.” He pulled out some keys out of his pocket and jangled them. Wow, his own car in this day and age?

“How the heck do you have your own car?”

“I’m an EMT, and I also work in nursing homes. Helps to have emergency transportation.” Diego shrugged, I nodded.

“Alright, cool, thanks for the offer, but I think I should try using the superpowers I got according to the Wizard of Loss. See you there?” The elevator pinged and I got in, as Diego gave me a thumbs up and ran down the stairs. 

I hadn’t expected that running and jumping around on rooftops could be this fun. The air whizzed past my slightly pointed ears as I soared in between buildings. The joy of unbound movement filling me up. Again, I was laughing, like I hadn’t laughed since I was ten, as I leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Was it smart of me to wear a skirt for it? Hell no. I should have gotten shorts. But I didn’t care at that moment. I was having fun. This felt like an extreme version of skirt go spinny. 

As I launched myself forward once more, just one road away from the cinema, something struck me hard. Like getting hit with a dodgeball. Except this time around, the impact sent me flying off to the side, to land on one of the many, many rooftops around. I quickly collected myself and sat up. Which was when the UFO landed in front of me. Let me rephrase that; it was not an unidentified flying object, but an unidentified flying asshole. 

His arms had the pinkie and ring fingers extending further than they should at a weird angle, skin stretched between them and the asshole’s torso, almost like a bat, but not using legs as extra flight muscles. He was bald, his eyes sunken and sickly yellow, almost like a chameleon’s in how they constantly moved around in different directions. Nose nearly gone, nostrils stretching up weirdly, like he was cosplaying Voldemort or something. His mouth was filled with sharp nail like teeth, narrow and numerous. There was no doubt in my mind that he was a demon. And a very scary demon at that. 

“Well, well, well. 201. Gone out to perv on all the little girls in bathrooms? To trick straight guys like me into f*****g a tranny like you? I do have to say, you look remarkably like the real thing.” I didn’t recognise the voice, but he knew me. Which was scarier than how he looked. Especially considering his choices of words. “Surprised you had the balls to go out; you freaks usually stay inside and rot, pretending to be real girls to f**k with me.” He stepped forward further, putting one of his feet down on me, leaning forward. “You know, I do have to thank your greasy fag of a boyfriend in 101 for this. Seventy years of my life back, and wings? What more could I want? You, though, you got the rough end of the stick.” He kicked my face with his other leg, before flying back. “Now man up, you sissy, and face me!”