An Unusual First Day

“Please make sure to make Miss Ria here feel right at home!” From the front of my second period homeroom classroom, I studied the faces of my classmates. The guys looked overjoyed to have a girl join their class, while most of the girls studied me with curiosity and apprehension.

And to think these were the people who turned their backs on me not even 24 hours previously. I had to stop myself from laughing bitterly. Who knew that a complete makeover was all I needed to be seen as a person by everyone?

I belatedly realized that the homeroom teacher was waiting for me to say something, so I did a small curtsy. “Thanks for having me. I look forward to getting to know everyone here.” I inwardly cringed as soon as the words escaped. I couldn't be any more corny if I tried.

Thankfully, the teacher was happy and allowed me to sit down. Without thinking, I walked over to where I used to sit and set my bag onto the desk.

No one seemed to notice anything was amiss.

Cuddles was truly amazing (and terrifying).

I sat down and tuned out the teacher as she droned on. My mind kept replaying yesterday's fight with Gary. As angry as I'd been, I couldn't deny just how cathartic it had been to have finally been able to release my anger on him. My hands tingled from the sensation of hitting, punching, clawing. If I'd known that I would only get one shot at getting back at him, I would have done way more damage to him.

Still holding a grudge, are we?  Cuddles' voice startled me out of my thoughts.

You didn't spend two years dealing with his non-stop bullying, I argued back silently. Cuddles remained quiet after that, seeming to have nothing to say to that. Which was fine with me. I wasn't going to start my day arguing with a sentient rabbit doll.

At some point, the bell rang. Having had kept everything in my bag, I simply slung it over my shoulder before getting up. Someone might have tried to stop me to engage in conversation, but I was not all there and simply left the room. Thankfully, my schedule was the same as it had been since yesterday, so auto pilot was able to direct me to the next class.

But upon walking into the math classroom next, my blood ran cold.

Chatting as if nothing had happened was Gary and his goons. There wasn't a trace of the bruises and cuts I'd inflicted. Nothing I had done had stuck around.

It'd be too hard to explain away. Cuddles seemed prepared for my reaction. I'd advise against starting something.

But.... I wanted to protest, but nothing came to mind. I knew they were right.

It didn't mean I had to like it. I huffed and made my way to my old desk before plopping myself into the chair. I shuffled through my bag, pushing Cuddles out of the way to pull out my math textbook.

“...Why...?”

At the sound of a small, fragile voice, I looked up from my textbook and turned to look at my deskmate. His normally dead eyes were wide, most likely shock. Dark brown hair hung loosely from his head, as if he hadn't bothered to comb it out.

I wracked my brain to associate a name to him, but nothing was coming to mind.

Did I really spend a decent chunk of my semester sitting next to him without even bothering to learn his name?

Actually, now that I thought about it, did I really know anyone outside of Gary and the Goons?

While my brain raced at a hundred miles a second, that same broken sounding voice half muttered, “Why are you sitting there?”

“Huh?” I froze.

Why? Because it was my spot?

Though I suppose it wasn't supposed to be anymore. Perhaps in his rewritten memory, a friend sat in this seat. But it wasn't like anyone else was sitting there right now. I forced a laugh. “Sorry, it was an open seat. Does someone else sit here?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He looked confused. After a moment, he shook his head. “I suppose not.” He seemed to have regained his composure and sounded more level. “Sorry, don't know what came over me...”

“It's all good!” I smiled at him. “It's nice to meet you! The name's Ria! What's yours?”

I was only answered with silence.

Well, so much for trying to get to know my classmates for once.

I turned back round to face the front of the room and focused my attention to the lesson. Well, I focused as much as one could when they could hear the shuffling of a rabbit inside of their bag. Weird. Cuddles muttered to themselves. But when I tried to pry for information, they kept their mouth sewn shut for once.

“Hey there.” A new voice came from above me. But when I looked up, I immediately wished that I hadn't. Gary towered above me, wearing his signature cocky grin. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

Those eyes looked more of a predator checking out their next meal.

I swallowed the lump that had somehow formed and forced a smile. “H-Hello there!”

My hand formed into a fist instinctively.

“What's a pretty thing like you doing in a washed up place like this?” The goons laughed at this from a distance.

Keep the anger inside, I reminded myself. I'm not Ryan right now.

“Doing math. Could you leave me to it?” Yeah, the words came out more scathing than they had any right to be. As far as anyone knew, this was supposed to be our first meeting. But that was exactly why I wanted to set the tone right.

I wanted to let him know from the start to leave me be.

But this idiot didn't catch on and just laughed at me. “A feisty one, aren't we?” He leaned down to level his face to mine. “Just how I like 'em.”

Gross, I shivered. I didn't think there was a feeling worse than being bullied by the school's most notorious villain, but yet I was proven wrong. I never thought I'd see the day where I would wish he'd just push me into a locker.

“Um, can't you leave the new girl alone?” My savior appeared in the form of what I could only describe as a textbook image of a nerd, with over sized glasses and a bowl cut. But at this point, he was a knight in shining armor to me. “Not everyone wants to end up with a future minimum-wage slave like you.”

“Excuse me?” Gary's attention was now completely off me and honed in on the nerdy kid, who tried to look brave despite shrinking down a bit. “Where do you find the cajones, Benson?”

Cool. Now I knew one other name besides Gary's.

Mutters broke through the silence that followed. Someone wondered aloud if a fight was about to break out. At the teacher's not so subtle throat clearing, Gary backed down and stormed back to his desk, huffing all the way.

I let out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. Benson was still standing behind my desk, lost in thought. After a moment of silence, he started to turn around to walk back to his own desk.

“Hey.” He paused. “Thanks for helping me. I appreciate it.”

“Oh... Of course!” He turned red and practically ran back to his desk. That was definitely a different reaction. I chuckled to myself and finally returned my attention to my math textbook again.

---

After that encounter, I managed to survive the rest of my first day to school as a girl. Everyone was mostly nice to me, and a girl even complimented the fluffy cat charm hanging from the zipper of my bag. If this was what life had in mind for me from now on, I thought that I would be okay with that.

Naturally, Cuddles had to shatter that fleeting sense of happiness.

There's a monster lurking nearby. We should probably take care of that quickly.

I groaned inwardly. The last thing on my mind right now was fighting monsters. Looking around the school yard and seeing no one nearby, I allowed myself to speak in a whisper. “Can it wait until... I dunno, next week or something?”

Cuddles chuckled at my attempts to divert. No can do, princess. We don't want these nasty things to take hold of the real world.

I allowed my feet to walk past the bus stop, taking the long way back home. This would at least allow me to speak to Cuddles without appearing to be too much of a crazy person. I unzipped the top of my bag to allow the plushie to poke their head out. “Yeah, you mentioned something about that. But what exactly do they do?”

“Like I said, terrible things! Their very presence causes a disruption in the natural order of things.” Cuddles looked up to the sky, probably trying to think of examples. “Like that earthquake last year!”

“Which one?” I was starting to get a little tired of how vague they were being. I needed something concrete to associate these “monsters” with. To make sure that there was even a point to having some inexperienced kid like me take care of them.

“Well... let's see...” Cuddles continued to falter, as did my confidence in them. “Hold on, they're closing in! Let's continue this later!”

How convenient.

The world around us began to fade into a dark blue hue, similar to the last time. The street we were walking along was devoid of life. A shiver ran up my spine as a low growl pierced my ears.

“More weremen?” I tried to laugh it off. “Come on. Can't we be more original?”I took in my surroundings, looking for any signs of incoming man-beast abominations. I found nothing, but that did nothing to soothe my growing sense of unease.

Cuddles hopped out of the bag and looked around as well. “Come out, come out, wherever you aaaare~! We just wanna play for a while~!”

My heart seized at their yelling. “Shut up! They're gonna hear you!”

“That's kind of the point. We want to deal with the issue, not run away.” They didn't have a care in the world and kept hopping about. “Well, it's not a wereman. But whatever it is, it's fine. You just need to hop into the magical girl outfit!”

Oh, come on! The last thing I wanted to do was wear that weird bunny suit getup again! I scanned the neighborhood and didn't find anything as useful as the pipe from the alleyway. Cuddles knew what I was looking for and scoffed. “Don't think you're going to be able to get away with that again. You got one lucky shot in. The powers are absolutely necessary to defeat these monsters!”

With reluctance, I resigned myself to my fate and lifted my hand to the sky. “Transform!”

A second passed. Then two. Then ten.

Seriously?!

“Cuddles, your transformation spell is broken!” I grabbed the plushie in a choke hold. “What am I supposed to do now?!”

“Relax, you're already transformed. You just need to put on the outfit!”

“Isn't that the point of the spell?!”

“Usually, yes. But since you can't really switch back and forth, you just have to assemble the pieces back together to make it work again.” Cuddles wriggled out of my grip and landed back on the ground. They faced their bead eye up to look at me. “Obviously, you have the pieces we need, right?”

The world faded away as I processed their words. Did I... have the pieces?

Like, did I have the outfit on hand?

My eyes drifted down to my white shirt and baggy jean ensemble. I wasn't crazy enough to wear the damn outfit underneath it. Now that I thought about it, that outfit was probably still in the SuperMart bag I'd stashed under my bed after coming home that night.

“Ria? Do you have the outfit?”

It really couldn't boil down to wearing a bunny suit, right?

“Ria? Answer me!” Even Cuddles was beginning to sound a little panicked.

Through my tightening throat, I managed to answer, “No. I left it at home.”

The monster chose that very moment to slink out from behind a house and hobble over to stand under the glow of a streetlight. This creature lacked any humanoid features and looked like a cross between a boar and a bear. Black blood was streaked though its brown fur, but it didn't appear to come from injuries. Its beady red eyes were trained on me and Cuddles.

“A Berog?! That's too advanced for us right now! And what do you mean you left your outfit at home?!”

“How was I supposed to know that I had to carry the damn thing everywhere?!” Hearing them call the Berog too “advanced” was not doing my fraying nerves any good.

“Damn it! We need to retreat!” Cuddles hopped into my bag. “Let's go! We'll talk about this later!”

As I made a move to grab the bag, the Berog growled and began to charge at me. I was able to grab the bag and begin running, but I didn't make it more than a few steps before it caught up and rammed into me. I found myself being flung a good few feet and crashed into someone's front door. Thankfully, I didn't go through the hard wood of the door itself, but there was still a dent where I'm sure my head made contact.

My muscles screamed at me as I brought myself back to my feet. So running wasn't going to be an option now. My eyes scanned the area again, determined to find anything. They landed on a shovel leaning against the house.

“Don't tell me you plan to take that thing on head on!” I ignored Cuddles and grabbed for the shovel. The monster was stomping its hoofs, gearing up for another charge. “Ria... No, Ryan! Just stop and focus on surviving!”

Sweat dripped down my forehead. “But don't things like this need to be dealt with right away?” I relished in throwing their words right back at them. “Besides, I don't think ugly here is going to let us go without a fight.”

As if to prove my point, the Berog began its next charge.

I raised the shovel like a sword, prepared to strike as soon as it got close enough.

But I never got the chance to make my attack.

A gunshot rang throughout the air, drowning out everything around us. The Berog appeared suspended in midair, then flopped unceremoniously to the ground. A pool of black blood began to grow underneath it. My eyes then moved from the dead monster to the source of the kill.

A woman stood a bit away, the barrel of her handgun still trained on the animal. Her green eyes glittered in the light. Dark red hair was pinned back with some floral pins. But the most striking thing about her wasn't her looks, but rather how she had appeared.

How did she manage to enter this space with with the monster?

“Excuse me, but...” Her voice was monotone. When I looked back at her, I found myself staring into the barrel of that handgun.

“Could I ask you what you're doing?”