Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Make a Contract with Me

Rory wasn’t able to focus at all during school. At home was a pixie who had been sent to him but was looking for a girl. He was supposed to help her figure out what went wrong. How was he supposed to focus on school when there was something supernatural in his life?

On their way back home from the bus stop, Keaton told Rory, “Something is clearly eating you. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Is everything alright?”

What was Rory supposed to say? Could he even trust Keaton with this? Maybe it would be better if nobody knew what was going on. They got in the elevator and he pressed the button for his floor. Rory should just ask Keaton to just head home for the day.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said. “It’s just… Something happened last night.”

Keaton didn’t seem to know how to respond, but followed Rory to the the apartment. Rory let them in and took a deep breath. One last chance to turn back.

“I’ll show you,” he said, leading the way to his room.

When he opened the door, Rory blinked in surprise. All the dirty clothes were gone, piled into a hamper. Books had been placed on their shelves. Spread across the bed was several neat piles of papers. A duster was laying on the desk. Carina was in the open desk drawer, shuffling about its contents, but looked up when Rory stepped in.

“Who’s this?” she asked, buzzing her wings.

“What… What have you been doing to my stuff?” Rory asked.

“I’ve been cleaning,” she replied, floating over and glancing at Keaton. “Why did you bring someone else here?”

“He’s my best friend,” he explained.

“You met a pixie?” Keaton asked, eyes twinkling. “That’s so cool.”

“Pixies are only supposed to interact with their partners,” Carina said. “We’re already skirting the rules a little bit. He can’t be here.”

“He’s not going to mess anything up.”

Keaton nodded, adding, “I promise that I won’t be a problem. I’d just like to get to know you better. What are you doing here, of all places?”

Carina sighed and folded her arms, explaining, “There was some kind of mix up at the bureau and I was mistakenly assigned to Rory here instead of the girl who is actually supposed to make a magical girl contract with me.”

“Tomorrow, me and her are going to find the… What did you call her? The liaison? The liaison who lives in Cadence so that she can figure out who her real partner is.”

“Wow. How did that happen? How big is the bureau for that kind of mistake to be possible?”

“It’s a big operation,” Carina admitted. “But somebody should have laid eyes on Rory at some point to verify that he was eligible. This kind of oversight just isn’t allowed to happen. Somebody is probably going to get in trouble.”

“It’s kind of a shame, though,” Keaton told Rory. “Imagine getting to be the first magical boy.”

Rory shrugged, saying, “It doesn’t work that way, though. The magic only allows girls to become magical girls.”

“Well…” Carina rubbed the back of her neck. “Not exactly. It’s a hard rule that we only offer contracts to girls in need, but there’s nothing stopping a boy from accepting the contract. Obviously, we can’t do that. Imagine the paperwork.” Her expression fell. “I was looking forward to getting a magical girl of my own so much. What if this isn’t a simple correction? What if there isn’t really someone else who I was supposed to be assigned to?”

Keaton assured her, “Even if that happens, you’ll find someone else.”

“I doubt that,” Carina mumbled. “There are a lot of applicants to be a pixie companion and only so many magical girls are approved per year. I might be bumped off the list entirely!”

“That… probably won’t happen,” Keaton said a little more hesitantly.

Rory was stunned. He could accept the contract if he wanted to? He could become a magical boy? What would that mean?

“I could be famous,” he realized. Keaton and Carina turned to look at him, and Rory blushed. “I mean, no. Of course we can’t do that. But it would be pretty cool if we could.”

Keaton said, “I can’t lie; I am a little jealous. Although, I’m not really into the idea of being all frilly and feminine. But if you want it, this might actually be your only chance.”

“It’s a moot point,” Carina insisted. “Tomorrow, we’ll meet the liaison and get to the bottom of this.”

Rory nodded. It was probably for the best. Breaking the rules like that would probably just get him in trouble. Still, a boy could dream.

It was a Friday, but Keaton didn’t want to intrude any longer than was necessary. Rory was disappointed, and even more so when Carina insisted that they get to bed as soon as possible to be up early the next morning. At least this was almost over.

The next morning, Rory woke up to someone pulling his hair.

“Come on,” Carina said, fluttering away. “Eat and get in the shower. We’ve got some ground to cover and I want to get there as early as possible.”

Rory kept his grumbling to himself and spent the entire shower trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was still yawning as he and Carina stepped out of the lobby and into the street. They had to walk a bit to get to the closest public bus stop. Carina watched Rory’s phone while he took a nap, jostling him when it was time to get off.

A bit more walking and they found themselves in a small neighborhood of closely built single-story houses. Carina scanned the doors looking for the right address. Her posture shifted when she found it and she took off. Rory had to run to keep up with her.

The woman who opened the door looked to be in her late twenties. Seeing Carina, she grabbed Rory and pulled him inside, slamming the door once everyone was in. She ran her fingers through her hair and narrowed her eyes at Rory.

“Who are you?”

Before he could respond, Carina floated between them and asked, “You’re the liaison, right?”

The other woman nodded and replied, “I’m Marisol Miller. I’m the magical girl liaison for Cadence. Come into the kitchen and explain what’s going on.”

There was a small table in the small kitchen. As Rory sat down and Carina landed on the table, another pixie entered the room. This one was a pale green and had curled horns that indicated he was male, though he still wore what looked like a dress.

“Visitors?” he chirped, landing on the desk. “I’m Wolf.”

“Nice to meet you,” Carina said, before turning to Marisol and explaining the situation. Marisol appeared skeptical, but over time her expression shifted and she started to look very tired. When Carina was done, Marisol sighed.

You are reading story Manic Pixie Magical Girl at novel35.com

“We won’t be able to get a direct answer from the bureau right away,” she said. “But I’ll put in a request for a meeting. Wait here.”

She stood up and walked out of the room.

Rory asked Wolf, “Are you her pixie partner, then?”

Wolf shook his head and explained, “I’m here working as her assistant on behalf of the bureau. It’s the first step to working my way up to a higher position.” His eyes started to sparkle and he told Carina, “You’re so lucky. I’m honestly really jealous that you have the opportunity to partner with a real magical boy.”

“It’s really not what I wanted,” Carina replied, folding her arms and buzzing her wings briefly.

“Still,” Wolf continued, “I hope that one day I can work with a magical boy of my very own. That would be amazing.”

Marisol returned after a few minutes and sat down across from Rory.

“First off, whatever you do, don’t make a contract with her.”

Rory asked, “Why aren’t guys allowed to make contracts for magical powers?” After a moment, he hastily added, “Not that I want to be a magical defender anyway.”

Carina explained, “The bureau wants to empower vulnerable girls who need support to reach their full potential. Giving out contracts to boys too would limit how effective we are at our goal.”

“Take it from me,” Marisol continued, “you don’t want this life. I used to be a magical girl and it completely derailed all the plans I had for myself. Nobody else should have to go through what I did. Besides, it’s all a scam. These girls aren’t being empowered, they’re being exploited in the name of preserving the status quo.”

“That’s not really fair,” Wolf said. “Magical girls benefit a lot from the publicity they get. That’s the power of visibility. It helps to normalize the communities that they’re a part of in the public eye. And a lot of young girls look up to them as symbols of what they can achieve in their own lives with the support that they deserve.”

Marisol shook her head, replying, “I don’t buy it. Giving people magical powers only separates them further from the general public. It just makes them look even more exotic, not less. This isn’t the best way to help girls in need.”

This all sounded way over Rory’s head. He cleared his throat and both of them snapped their attention to him. Rory gulped and slid a little further down in his chair.

“If that’s everything, can we go for now?”

“Yes, you can go,” Marisol said. “Give me a way to contact you when I hear a response from the bureau.”

Rory took the bus back to his neighborhood, but stopped on the way home at the central plaza. It acted as a de facto middle point. In addition to benches and a few trees scattered about, there was a metal hexagonal tower in the center where a large TV was embedded. The news was on.

He sat down on one of the benches and sighed. Carina fluttered in front of him, frowning with her brows knit. A few people were glancing their way; pixies weren’t exactly common.

“Why did they mean by ‘vulnerable’ girls?” Rory asked.

“Girls from vulnerable communities,” Carina replied, shrugging. “Poor girls, girls of color, girls from religious minorities. Stuff like that. Girls who would otherwise struggle more than others.”

“Ah. I’m none of those things.”

“You’re not even a girl.”

Rory nodded, chewing on his tongue.

Slowly, he asked, “Would you even let me make a contract with you if I wanted it?”

Carina didn’t respond immediately. Rory watched as her expression shifted and contorted. She didn’t seem to have an answer.

Rory’s attention started to drift. He turned to look at the TV screen. There was no sound but subtitles ran across the bottom. Apparently the video was of a girl named Cynthia Peterson, the heir to the powerful Peterson family. She’d just returned home from abroad.

Finally, Carina said, “It would probably be a while before I got another assignment. Years, at least. I just want to be someone’s partner. It’s not even about how it’ll benefit my career.”

“Was Marisol right?” Rory asked. “Do magical girls end up regretting the job as much as she does?”

It took a while for Carina to reply.

“I don’t know.”

The TV screen shifted and Rory looked over again. It was live footage of a battle. Amira Zaman, in her flower outfit, was staring down some kind of boulder lizard in the east side of the city. Its joints looked like lava. Rory’s heart leapt up to his throat and he stared, transfixed.

Amira raised her hand and a rose appeared. She grabbed the stem and pulled, causing it to lengthen into a long thorny rope. With a flick of her wrist, the vine shot out and wrapped itself around the head of the beast. Amira pulled, dragging it’s head away from the storefronts that it was facing and toward the middle of the street. But the rope was burning, and after a moment it snapped from the heat.

She had the creature’s attention now. Rory’s breathing was ragged. What was she going to do? Amira was at such a disadvantage!

His heart paused for a moment when she ran forward, swinging her arms wide and releasing a cloud of spores. Most of them hit the creature’s body and fizzled, but some of them made it into its mouth. It started hacking and writhing, its weight crushing the pavement.

Amira stopped, dangerously close to the monster. It opened its mouth and a jet of fire emerged. With a dazzling speed, Amira jumped ten feet in the air and the stream hit a fire hydrant, melting it in a flash. Water burst from the ground, but Amira crossed her arms a large daisy appeared in front of her. Water bounced off the flower shield and came raining down on the boulder lizard. It screeched and started flailing, but the glowing joints started to grow dull and dark. With a heavy thump, it collapsed to the ground.

The entire plaza erupted in applause, causing Rory to jump. He hadn’t realized everyone else had been just as invested. Looking around, he felt a pang in his heart. This was the kind of attention that he wanted.

“Carina,” he said slowly. “I want to make a contract with you.”

Carina bit her lip, but nodded.

“Alright,” she said, holding out her hand. A glowing circle of rune appeared in the air between them. “Let’s make history.”

There was a bright flash of rainbow light. He felt his clothes unravel until he was naked, and then the light surrounded Rory and bound itself tightly to him. A speck of white light sat suspended in front of him. Rory reached out and wrapped his hand around the speck and it grew into a long staff with a rainbow ring perched on top.

All of a sudden, the light was gone. Rory was standing, holding a staff, in the middle of the plaza. Everyone’s eyes were on him. Carina blinked in surprise and Rory looked down. He was wearing a multi-colored bubble dress that was decorated in rainbow tassels, as well as tights, gloves, and heels.

And everyone was still staring at him.

“We should go,” he said.