#ghost rider magical girl au | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rokhal · 10 months ago

Text

ANGR Magical Girl AU: Wrong Universe

The Robbie I usually write wakes up in the Ghost Rider Magical Girl AU.

I figured that in Magical Girl AU, Robbie is likely to go to Lisa to ask for help walking in heels (assuming Johnny's tips are less than useful) and Lisa gets so excited at the prospect of Robbie participating in drag and he denies that's what he's doing but refuses to explain so in her desire to be supportive she ends up stalking him so she can cheer for him at his show and ends up finding out that he's a magical girl which somehow makes a lot more sense. She becomes a valuable member of the team because she has social skills. Of a sort.

If anything here contradicts any other ideas anyone else has in the works, MULTIVERSE BAYBEE it's noncanon :) The Sharpie thing is purely a case of Great Minds Think Alike though. I saw that in Moose's fic and was like, twins!

This is way too long 😭

As Robbie scrubbed the brake cleaner off his hands, the axle grease wiped away and so did the black Sharpie he’d hastily scribbled onto his fingernails that morning. His bright pink fingernails. If it was nail polish, the brake cleaner should be taking that off, too; he scrubbed hopefully at his thumbnail but this was as useless as the acetone he’d tried before resorting to Sharpie.

He’d woken up feeling more normal than he had in a long time. The pleasant sensation of a full night’s rest had faded as he’d gotten dressed and made Gabe breakfast. His bad eye was mysteriously back to normal and the scar on his forehead was completely gone, but his goatee was shaved off, he had some kind of jewel embedded in his chest, his fingernails were pink, and. And Gabe wasn’t his Gabe. It was Gabe’s face, and Gabe’s smile, but instead of cartoon and comic book heroes filling his shelves and plastered all over his door, it was sparkly anime girls and Japanese motorcycle riders; he was happier, stronger legs and steadier hands, and he didn’t second-guess Robbie’s every expression and movement or double-check his identity after every time Robbie left his sight. Robbie spent half an hour tossing the bathroom looking for his epilepsy meds before he checked the app on his phone where he tracked expenses and found that this Gabe had been off them for an entire year.

The apartment was mostly the same; same view across Hillrock Lane out the apartment window, same pile of automotive magazines on the coffee table—now with manga mixed in—same thrifted art on the walls. Robbie had wondered if he was still asleep, and dreaming, or better, if the last two years had been a long and vivid nightmare, until he noticed the time and realized that he’d missed Gabe’s bus and was about to be late to work. He’d stuffed a stale tortilla in his mouth and gnawed on it while grabbing a pair of coveralls and helping Gabe into the Charger to get to school. He’d dropped Gabe off and made it all the way to Canelo’s before he realized that he hadn’t heard from Eli all morning.

He stood now under a half-disassembled Chevy Tahoe, scrubbing desperately at his glossy pink fingernails as though with enough solvent and friction he could wipe himself from this world and return to his own body, his own curse, his own Hillrock Heights, his own brother. He simply had no better ideas.

“Reyes!” Canelo barked from across the shop, and he jumped, dropped the can of brake cleaner. “Quit daydreaming!”

Eli would have had a snide comment about how Canelo ought to mind his own fucking business or risk getting disemboweled. Robbie checked the time and added up the hours he was due by the end of the day, for future reference in case Canelo rounded his pay down when it was due next week. If he was still here next week. He couldn’t be stuck here until next week but he didn’t know to do anything but work. Did his other self know anybody here who dealt with interdimensional travel and too-pleasant dreams? He wasn’t a Ghost Rider here, Johnny Blaze wouldn’t have any reason to have met him…

...But he was a something.

What the hell was he now?

He was on the clock, that’s what. He had a job he knew how to do, to provide for a brother he loved, even though neither of them were his, and he would reinstall this truck’s axles and wheel bearings and not get his alternate self fired and then he would, somehow, figure out how to get home. (Dread filled him.) (He hadn’t fantasized about murdering anyone all morning.) (The world felt brighter, his senses more vivid, his flesh and skin snug over his bones, and he could believe for the first time in a long time that he might be safe for others to be around.)

“You alright, son?” Canelo asked from two feet behind him, and Robbie hit his head on the Tahoe’s subframe. It didn’t hurt as much as it probably should have. Canelo was just standing there, frowning a little. “Take five, I’ll get you some ice.”

What the hell, Robbie thought, and no one answered.

Canelo did, indeed, return from the break room with an ice pack. No one else at the shop seemed to think this was unusual. Marty winced at Robbie and patted his own head, mouthing, You okay? and even Ramon grunted sympathetically at him. Robbie retreated to the bathroom where he pressed the ice pack to the starting bruise and stared himself down in the mirror. Without his beard, he looked young and delicate—that’s why he’d grown it. But it wasn’t just the beard; his eyes were brighter, his skin was smoother, the scar through his eyebrow had faded—all the scars on his hands were gone, too, the bashed knuckles and burns and scrapes that were inevitable if you worked with cars all day. He looked tender and undamaged. He looked like someone worth protecting.

He had a terrible thought and whispered, “Talk to me. I’m not doing this on purpose but if I know you’re in here I think I can give you your body back.” He stared uncomfortably into his own eyes, but the back of his mind was silent.

He got out his phone—same PIN as usual—and checked his contacts list. Johnny Blaze was on there, but Johnny Blaze had almost killed him and Eli the first time they’d met; how would Johnny react to some strange, murderous version of Robbie wearing the skin of the Robbie he knew? He couldn’t beat Johnny in a fight in the real world. He didn’t know how to explain himself. There was nothing to do but finish the Tahoe.

The day rolled on, he returned the Tahoe to drivable condition and did a couple tune-ups and oil changes, and he snagged a moment to Sharpie his nails black again. He wasn’t afraid of nail polish—he had black nail polish at home somewhere, eyeliner too—but pink was not his style and was liable to attract the wrong kind of attention, especially with how...how he looked, in this world. (What was he? Was he something that could fight, defend itself? There was no fire waiting under his skin to consume his human weakness.)

He was puzzling over a set of trouble codes from a fifteen-year-old Nissan Maxima when his phone buzzed. If this version of himself worked on the same logic, he’d set it up to mute unknown numbers but programmed in all Gabe’s teachers and therapists. He dug into his pocket under his coveralls and checked it. It was Lisa, saved in his contacts list with a photo he didn’t remember taking: familiar bright hair and smile, raising two fingers in a V in front of one eye while her other hand displayed a river rock with a large hole worn through the center, dangling from a pink ribbon.

This was not a conversation he was ready to have. He ended the call. A minute later, she called again. Robbie walked to the time clock and punched out as he answered. “Uh, what’s up.”

Screeching and howling and buzzing in the background. “Omigod where are you?” Lisa demanded. She sounded out of breath.

“Work,” Robbie said, baffled. “What’s going on, are you okay?”

“What do you mean what’s—” Banging, panting. “Where’s Eli?”

A chill unfurled under his skin, his hand grew numb as he gripped his phone case. “What are you talking about.”

“Did you lock him in the freezer again?” Lisa demanded. What. “I know he’s annoying—”

“That’s one word for it,” Robbie muttered, swallowing bile.

“—but he’s an essential member of the team!”

“What team?”

Lisa paused. “The, the team,” she said hesitantly. “The Guardians of Hillrock Heights. Robbie, you. You know what you do helps people, right?”

He was disappointing her somehow—no, worse, letting her down. “Yeah, of course, I, uh.” Eli existed here, but this Lisa knew about him; obviously this version of Robbie had trusted her more. Or she’d just stalked him and figured it out. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get to the Cecil Hotel,” Lisa panted. “Bring Eli. And stay and talk to me after you transform back.”

Transform. Robbie rubbed the hard pink jewel embedded in his sternum. “Right. Okay.”

He left the time clock and approached Canelo’s office, racking his brain for some excuse—a lie about Gabe? A medical appointment? When he opened the door, Canelo met his eyes and sighed. “Again? Well, go on.” Robbie stared at him. He wasn’t even scowling. “What do you want, a hug? Go do your thing.”

He ran out of the shop and threw himself into the Charger. As he sped out of the parking lot, he almost clipped off one of its mirrors against the security gate. He grabbed his phone and started to search for the Cecil Hotel while making a left turn onto Atlantic Boulevard and almost crashed head-on into an F-250; he couldn’t drive and use his phone at the same time anymore. The phone dropped to the floorboards and he pulled hastily to the side of the road, cursing.

His connection to the Charger was different here, too. Still there, but weaker. Possibly just in his head. He tried to stretch out into it anyway, feeling its vibrations, listening to the loping chug of its idle and the continuous hiss of its supercharger, but his consciousness stayed firmly in his human body.

He heard something clank in the trunk.

Atlantic Boulevard was not a good place for a street fight. Robbie found his phone, pulled up a route to the Cecil, took a detour in an alley behind a warehouse. He hit the gas and slammed the brakes a couple times before shutting down the car and sprinting around the back to pop the trunk, confront this alternate version of his uncle, slam the trunk on his neck while he was still dazed, kill him like this alternate Robbie wasn’t yet sullied enough to do.

There was no washed-up mob henchman wriggling in the Charger’s trunk. Robbie found a couple bags of school supplies, a tool box, and a big first-aid kit, nothing sinister, and then in the shadows, oddly, something pink and shiny—one of this Gabe’s collectibles? A Beanie Baby?

“FUCK,” the pink thing bellowed, and then it unspooled and slipped up over the edge of the trunk, hit the ground with a slap, and slithered away, S-curves glittering in the sun as it struggled against the smooth pavement. Robbie gaped, then chased after it. Him. Eli was making slow progress and Robbie caught up quickly, but he turned on a dime; Robbie headed him off away from a nearby dumpster and danced around him for almost a minute before he had the idea to shrug off his jacket and throw it on Eli’s head. Eli backed out from under it but by this time Robbie had him by the neck. “Look. Revenge is, you don’t got the mindset for it? There’s healing in forgiveness. It makes you more stable. Less prone to violent, emotional outbursts. Kid. Kid! We had our differences, but it was the situation, the close quarters, you know? You’d do the same in my position, I just wanted to live, I had unfinished business! And now, heh, you got a body, I got a body, we can go our separate ways. Kid? Hey?”

Eli was a shimmery pink snake about half-again as long as Robbie’s arm. He had round shining eyes in a hundred shades of rose, and the large scale between them was shaped like a heart. His forked tongue sparkled as it scented the air. His voice was exactly the same.

“You, uh. Look different.”

Robbie had a sinking feeling that stomping the snake’s head under his boot wouldn’t be doing this world’s Robbie any favors. He dangled Eli in one fist at arm’s length—an essential member of the team. “You don’t know what’s going on, either.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the cause of everything that goes wrong in your life.”

“Lisa wants us at the Cecil Hotel,” Robbie said, returning to the Charger and dumping Eli on the passenger seat. “She requested you by name. We’re gonna take care of whatever’s going on and figure it out from there.”

“The Cecil, huh? Good times.”

“Don’t tell me you killed people there.”

“I won’t.” Eli awkwardly pressed his long narrow body against the door, slowly lifting his head toward the window. Robbie took a hard left and Eli slipped sideways between the seat and the side pillar. “Fuck.”

“Apparently you’re important for some reason.”

“Can you not act like my existence is an imposition for two seconds.”

Robbie slammed his fist into the steering wheel. “You exist because you committed human sacrifice.” Eli slithered out of view behind the passenger seat. Robbie took a breath. “You’re a talking pink snake here. You probably have magic powers.”

“Pink?”

“You color-blind, too?”

Eli was silent for the rest of the drive. Robbie hoped he was figuring out what magic powers he had, otherwise they’d just have to wing it.

Hotel Cecil was a trio of brick buildings spanning half a city block and joined by skywalks. The complex had probably been impressive before the invention of reinforced concrete. No longer a failing hotel for people falling down the ladder of society, it was being converted to affordable housing for people crawling back up. Robbie parked across the street and squinted up at it. He was pretty sure the walls weren’t supposed to be covered in gray goo, but there was a ghost tour or something right there on the sidewalk and none of the tourists were taking pictures. Maybe it was a maintenance thing? An art installation?

“Huh,” Eli said, finally squirming his way up onto the dashboard to take a look.

Robbie texted Lisa: Here.

Her reply was immediate. Fourth floor front building room 73

No emojis. That couldn’t be good. “Any ideas on how to get inside?” Robbie asked.

“Put on your spare coveralls and act pissy.”

Robbie could have thought of that himself, but he had no better ideas. He stomped through the graffitoed doors of the unassuming entryway and through the unexpectedly grand marble halls of the lobby floor, scowling like he’d been called in on his day off to fix a plumbing catastrophe that could have been prevented by routine maintenance the previous week, and glancing up now and again at the pulsing tangle of veins the color of neglected differential fluid that wormed between the ceiling lights and which no one else seemed to notice. Eli wrapped himself around Robbie’s neck like a scarf; uncomfortably close, but better, at least logically, than having him ride along in his thoughts like usual.

“Art nouveau,” Eli commented, peering up an angular gold-and-green wall sconce beside a statue in an alcove whose opening was carved to look like palm leaves and Egyptian columns. “Classy place full of staff who don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Shut up,” Robbie hissed. They reached the pair of elevators that served this part of the complex: just two, and one was out of order. A big brass dial on the top indicated that the elevator was on the eighth floor, and going up. Robbie stabbed the button irritably, then gave up and ran for the stairs.

On the fourth floor, the gray veins were so thick that the ceiling looked a foot lower than it should have been, and the light sconces were mostly covered. Somehow, the light escaped anyway, leaving the carpet brightly lit and the air at shoulder-height and above dim like twilight. Robbie watched a tall man in a business suit strolling down the hall, his entire head vanishing into the pulsing fleshy mass. “Keep your head down, there’s gray magical crap on the ceiling,” Eli informed him.

Robbie felt a moment of glee that Eli couldn’t just look out through his eyes anymore. “I noticed.”

“Try touching it. Left hand.”

Robbie poked one of the ceiling tentacles with his left pinkie finger as he advanced down the hall toward room 73, and cringed as the rock in his chest seemed to shudder in protest. The gray flesh was clammy and yielding, leaving his finger numb as he pulled away. Even if it was invisible, how did anyone walk around with their whole head swimming in this stuff without noticing? What was it doing to the people it enveloped?

He passed room fifty, and noticed that the higher the numbers progressed, the thicker the veins overhead pulsed and the lower they sagged, growing to fill more of the narrow space even as he watched. He crouched low and broke into a run. Room 73 was nearly overtaken; limbs as thick as ventilation ducts sprouted through the walls, heaving and pulsing and moaning, ozone and rot thick in the air. He had to kneel beside the door as he knocked. “Lisa! It’s Robbie. I’m outside.”

“Get in here!” Lisa yelled from within.

“They ain’t changed this lock since ‘98. You can shim it with a credit card.”

Robbie bypassed the latch and shoved the door inward against the mass of shifting tendrils packed against the ceiling. There was barely room to crouch inside; the rust-red carpet shone in the light of fixtures completely swallowed by the strange rot overtaking the hotel. He ducked as a gray coil twisted past his face.“Can you get to the door?”

“Kinda busy!” Lisa grunted. Someone else screamed, inhumanly long and somehow muted, the volume too soft for the cracks of agony in the voice. Robbie leaned down and spotted what looked like a clear space around the hotel bed. He army-crawled toward it. There was something wet and sticky on the floor—not blood, it smelled like solvent. White spray-paint, circling the bed. He dragged himself over the painted lines and got his first look at what Lisa was busy with.

There was a body on top of the blankets, a middle-aged white woman with hollow cheeks and loose skin rising in narrow folds where gray tendrils sank into her from above. Lisa had a broken bottle in one hand and was sawing at the thickest of the tendrils just above where it sank between the motionless woman’s eyes. With another, she held a flat rock with a hole in the center, scowling through it like a lens. From the nest of gray veins on the ceiling, a human figure sagged down, joined to the woman joint by joint with those tendrils. Its mouth was a formless hole, its eyes cold wet pits, its flesh the same sludgy substance as the rest of the hotel’s infestation. Robbie swallowed. “Is she alive?”

“For now,” Lisa said, scraping furiously at the tendril. Robbie noticed with horror that two other tendrils had descended from the ceiling to sink into Lisa’s shoulders; he lunged forward and ripped them away. The rock in his chest shuddered as his hand went numb. “Was it on me?” She turned around and looked at him for the first time. “Omigod, why aren’t you changed?”

Robbie took a deep breath and stared up at the vacant eyes of the abomination on the ceiling. He pulled out the blade on his multitool and joined in cutting the woman free; the gray stuff yielded like flesh to expose a tough stringy black core. “We can wrap her in the blanket and drag her out.” The human shape began to drag one of its hands down toward them, struggling against an unseen force.

Lisa grabbed his wrist. “Robbie, she needs an exorcism. You have to change.” He stared at the river rock that dangled from a long pink ribbon on her neck as she tried to meet his eyes. “She’s got kids who miss her, she’s turning her life around, you gotta help! Come on!”

“I don’t remember what you’re talking about,” Robbie blurted.

“Omigod are you cursed or something?”

The horror on the ceiling reached closer, closer, as black claws unsheathed from half-molded fingers. Then it drew back and tension shuddered through its body; the woman on the bed shuddered in synchrony. Its eyes fixed on the back of Lisa’s neck. It lunged, but Robbie was faster, slicing its wet palm with his knife as he pushed Lisa aside. As it swiped back to retaliate, he instinctively leaned into its path—baiting it with the Rider’s leather skin filled with the Charger’s fire ready to erupt the moment those claws released it to burn his enemy—and screamed as the talons sank into his human shoulder. He could barely feel the wounds through the hollow ache the creature’s touch carried, but the worst pain was the furious hum from the stone in his sternum, rocking and jerking like an engine that had snapped its mounts; he thought his chest would crack open from the force. His hand went limp and the knife dropped and stabbed blade-first into the bed. He punched ineffectually with his good hand as the creature lifted him. New tendrils sprouted from its body, seeking to plug into his own. He was as frightened and angry and frustrated as he’d ever been in his life, and though he was suppressing none of it since this Lisa was already enmeshed in his supernatural bullshit, the transformation wasn’t happening.

Eli slithered down his coveralls and escaped out his pant leg as he struggled. Lisa stared in horror through her river rock. “Eli! Help him!”

“Eh, sure,” Eli said, watching Robbie from the bedcovers while Robbie’s leg went cold and dead. “Rake its eyes! Behind your left shoulder!” Robbie flailed blindly with his working arm, hoping Eli hadn’t gotten his left and right confused.

Lisa stood up and grabbed Robbie by the waist, trying to pull him down. Blood from his shoulder soaked her hair. “What’s wrong with you two? Say the words!”

“What words?”

Lisa groped his chest until her palm pressed against his pink troll-doll gem. “Oh, thank God. Say it: Tie cloth nee, ya toys or chalk!”

“What?!”

“Say it! Tie cloth—”

“Ty glavny, ya tvoy suchok,” Eli interrupted. “Five words, you can do it.”

“Die glovny, a twoy sujock,” Robbie gritted out just before the ceiling monster’s limbs closed around his throat. For an instant, all he knew was aching cold and darkness. Then the stone in his chest sparked and a shockwave erupted through his body, driving away the clammy gray tentacles in a blast of warm pink light. It doesn’t hurt, he thought, shocked. Changing into the Rider in his own world was a cathartic blast of agony as his body cremated itself from within, but this, this was nice. He was weightless in a void of dancing blue-green lights. The pain of talons crushing his shoulder was gone, and so were the low-grade headache he always got about halfway through the work day and the tension in his spine and the knot on his head from banging it into the Tahoe that morning; he tingled all over with the contentment of an hour-long hot shower where he wouldn’t have to pay the heating bill. He stretched out, luxuriating in the feeling, and realized with horror that his body wasn’t there.

I’m hallucinating, he told himself. It was hard to think through the nice bubbly feeling, but he remembered that Lisa was right there trying to stop him from getting eaten, and there was a woman on the bed below who was dying, and he couldn’t see or feel anything but the bright pink gem illuminating the hollow space where his body was supposed to be. He thrashed, but it was like trying to fight the wind with a puff of smoke. He was nothing but thought, and he couldn’t even panic properly.

Solidity returned in jolts and starts: cool fabric twisting around his body and snugging him into shape. Protective gloves, leather boots long enough to save his knees from road rash, body armor, something to guard his forehead. The familiar handles of a pair of body hammers filled his palms, and the world snapped back into place. No time at all seemed to have passed; he was still suspended above the bed by the ceiling monster.

He was not the Rider, but he knew what the Rider would do. He jammed one hand into the mouth of the humanoid sludge stalactite and stabbed the spike of a body hammer through its skull. It moaned, and he stabbed again, flipped himself around, gripped its leg between his knees to anchor himself, and struck for the heart, the throat, all the vital targets that he’d trained himself to avoid whenever he gave in to the urge to beat down local thugs in Hillrock Heights. Black blood spattered into his eyes and trickled up his nose, reeking of mold. Its touch no longer chilled him; his touch seemed to burn it. He beat the creature until it melted away and retreated back into the ceiling, all the veins and coils and tree-root limbs draining away after it. Robbie landed hard on the edge of the bed, bounced, and rolled to his feet. His feet—

“Point your toes!” Lisa yelled, too late. He tripped over his own ankles and crashed face-first into the bedside table.

Whenever the Rider ate shit like this, he’d sink through his own shadow and reappear in the car like he’d meant to do it—not that he was embarrassed, just that he preferred not to take the time to pick himself up. Robbie pried himself up off the floor when he realized that his powers in this world did not include the ability to dissolve into the room’s nicotine-stained carpet. He was wet, disappointingly fleshy, and entirely alone in his head. His protective gloves were doing a poor job, already soaked through with disgustingly organic black slime, and his feet—

He looked down at himself for the first time. He wasn’t wearing protective gloves or work boots or body armor. He had the kind of delicate white cotton gloves that women wore with ballgowns in old movies, and thigh-high go-go boots over tights, and what looked like a women’s ice-dancing costume. The ankles of the high-heeled boots were decorated with pink rhinestones, and so were his white-painted hammers. The worst part was that under the pink satin bow where the gem from his chest had migrated, the black leotard bore the same staple-shaped white stripe as his favorite jacket. This was his ice-dancing costume.

He tried to get his feet under him to stand, but the heels were in the way. Whatever force had undressed him seemed to have a grudge against the stock geometry of the human foot; the boots were so stiff he could barely bend his ankles. When he yanked at them, they didn’t budge. He couldn’t find any fasteners. He was about to grab one of his spiked hammers and try ripping through the leather when he noticed Lisa looking down at him from the bed, holding Eli twined around her forearms like a pet corn snake.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Robbie snarled, lunging on his knees.

Lisa jerked back, carrying Eli with her. “Okay, what is your deal today? I thought you had amnesia, but the way you bashed up that genius loci—are you, like, possessed by your alternate universe evil twin with a goatee?”

“Basically,” Robbie said, retrieving one hammer from under the bed. “Put him down.”

“Hey, looks like we’re friends in this universe, too.” Eli rested his head in the crook of Lisa’s elbow and flicked his tongue at Robbie.

“Rrrrrrrr,” Robbie growled. It sounded ridiculous without the rumble of the Charger’s engine filtering through his throat. He could tackle Lisa and rip Eli away from her, bash his head into the wall—but she’d never trust him after that. “He’s not safe, he used to be a—”

“I know you are, but what am I?” Eli interrupted, and Robbie wavered.

Lisa passed him the box of tissues from the bedside table. “Wipe your face and exorcise Mrs. Sanchez so we can get her out of here.”

Robbie hated that this “change” had left him with a human face to wipe. He struggled to his feet, gripping the mattress for balance. The woman on the bed hadn’t moved; she stared vacantly at the ceiling, black veins spreading from the points on her body where the ceiling-monster’s roots had anchored. She was breathing, at least. Her lips were an unhealthy gray-purple. “Any idea how I do that?” he asked, glaring at Eli.

“Search me, I dunno what trigger words alternate-me picked.”

“You make a cross with your hammers,” Lisa said, demonstrating with her empty fists, “and say something like, eej an owie, sucker?”

“Idi na hui, suka,” Eli corrected her.

Robbie had a bad feeling that all his powers were activated by Russian vulgarities. He took careful crouching steps as he retrieved his other hammer, keeping one hand on the bed or on the wall as much as possible, then crossed his hammers like a priest in a vampire movie and did his best to parrot Eli’s words. There was a rush of wind that set his hair fluttering along with the skirt and pink bows of his leotard, and a fountain of pink sparks erupted from the hammers, right at the comatose woman’s bare face and the flammable-looking bedclothes. He had to separate the hammers, to turn off the power or at least point it in a safer direction, but his body wouldn’t obey him: his spine straightened and his shoulders drew back and his legs stepped wide into a power-stance despite the boots pinning his feet at an unnatural angle; he was spraying hot sparks at a defenseless innocent person and he was posing like he was proud of himself.

The seizure ended and he dropped the hammers and stumbled to the edge of the bed, ready to smother fires with his thin cotton gloves, brush off any burning embers from the woman’s hair. Lisa caught him by the shoulder. “Hey! Hey, look, you did it,” she said, examining the woman through her river rock.

There were no fires or burns. The infected gray-black marks were retreating up from her skin and trickling away into inert slime. “What did I do,” Robbie panted.

“You saved the day!” Lisa said brightly. She lifted her rock to check the ceiling; fresh veins had begun to ripple over the paint in a human outline that mirrored Mrs. Sanchez. “You saved...two thirds of the day. Eli, so your thing.”

Robbie hated that he knew Eli well enough to read from the tension in his sigmoid posture that he was taken aback. “My thing.”

“Bite her!” Lisa said impatiently, watching the ceiling.

“What?”

“His bites heal people.”

“Puta madre.” Eli stared at the woman in...probably disgust. “This is…” He cut himself off, looking up at Lisa. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”

“You are so full of shit,” Robbie hissed. Lisa glared at him, and Robbie glared back. “He is!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Lisa said to Eli, making a strange gripping gesture beside his head. “Hurry up or I’ll do it for you. Manually.”

Eli grudgingly fit his mouth around Mrs. Sanchez’ wrist and wriggled his lips and teeth around with disturbingly more mobility than Robbie had expected a snake to be capable of. Robbie clenched his fists as translucent pink fangs flicked into view before sinking into her wasted skin. Eli’s body glowed, and pink sparks shimmered along her veins, circled over her heart, and flashed twice before vanishing. Mrs. Sanchez opened her eyes and sat bolt upright, staring at Robbie.

“Uh,” Robbie said.

“Oh thank God you’re okay!” Lisa squealed, throwing herself between them and gripping Mrs. Sanchez by the torso. “Ma’am, you just survived a carbon monoxide leak, it’s absolutely imperative that we get you to fresh air, you may still be experiencing visual disturbances, first responders have been called, come on, let’s get you out, don’t worry about your belongings, let’s go. Go. Go.” She half-led, half-wrestled the confused woman out the door. Robbie took two steps after them before his ankles did a death-wobble and dumped him to his knees. “We’ll figure out your amnesia-whatever when I get back,” Lisa assured him. “If the hotel wakes up again…” She mimed bashing something with a hammer. “You got this!”

“I got this,” Robbie whispered to himself, stumbling to the nearest wall for balance.

“He can’t even walk!”

#ghost rider magical girl au #magical girl au #ghost rider #robbie reyes #lisa (ghost rider)#eli morrow #fanfic #my fanfic #Lisa is using a hag stone to view the ghost through and a magician's circle to create a defensive perimeter #Familiar!Eli made Robbie say 'You're the boss. I'm your bitch' as his transformation trigger #and 'Go sit on a dick' as the exorcism spell. Headcanon that Eli knows very little Russian that's not cursing #The Cecil Hotel has an unfortunate reputation as an incredibly haunted murder hotspot

35 notes · View notes

existingtm · 10 months ago

Text

Ghost Rider magical girl AU plus my limited experience with magical girl cartoons/anime reminded me that there is an actual magical girl Mephisto

I don't think I actually finished the series but I'm kinda surprised they did what they did with him in the last episode lol

and Praxina's transformation at the end goes hard as hell

rip- I can't believe they canceled Lolirock

#should i rewatch lolirock in its entirety #anyway #ghost rider magical girl au #lolirock

17 notes · View notes

the-kr8tor · 3 months ago

Text

Thank you for voting for the name Octobie! Now for the themes! I've combed through every single suggestion you gave me and categorised all of them into 12 themes.

So what I'm gonna do is post the 12 (right here) and from that 12 the 5 most top voted will move up for another poll until the top 3 wins! (Reasons/ and where I got the themes from your suggestions are listed below the poll/cut. W/ brief descriptions also)

Note: Theme names aren't finalized but the meanings will still be the same. (They'll have a cooler name once they get picked!)

Wondering why there will only be three themes? Well the third week theme is called wild card where anything goes! So if your chosen theme doesn't win you can always wait for the third week of octobie to come around and you can do whatever you want in that week as long as Hobie's in it!

Fantasy— fairy! Hobie, Dragon tamer! Hobie/Dragon rider! Hobie, Mythical creature, Sailor/Pirate! Hobie x deity! R, Time-looped historian! Hobie, fae, Mermaid. (Literally anything to do with the fantasy genre)

Halloween- Cloak Hobie, Witch R & familiar! Hobie, Witch! R and demon! Hobie, accidental summoning, pumpkin, Demon! Hobie and angel! R, death reaper! Hobie and target! R, vampire! R and human Hobie, serial killer! Hobie and detective! R, zombie! Hobie, pirates, thriller! Hobie, (anything spooky or scary!)

Eras swap/ through the decades- Modern! Hobie x 1970s! r, modern au, 1800s, different au Hobies meet and different au readers meet, aged up meet cute (they meet in their 60s), decades, (time is the main gist of it, whether it's hobie through the years or some decade specific scenario)

Music- guitar, record play, music lessons, backstage, concerts, rival bands/musicians, band practice, battle of the bands, (anything that has to do with music!)

Comfort- stray cats, nicknames, arts and crafts, london tings, hate the am (mornings), flowers, cats, snow, cozy/chilling at home, library, favourite au/trope, cottage core, (anything that wakes the butterflies in your stomach or makes you feel the ooeygoeey feeling fluff!)

Anarchy- ACAB, battle vests, protest, punk. (Anything that Hobie would be proud of doing)

Slice of life/ family life- swing date, the twins, first dance, just cozy things, cozy/chilling at home, morning/nighy routine, handsy, date day/night, meet cute, sick day, childhood friends. (Cozy or family related!)

Crossover- villains and/Vs heroes, magical girl! Hobie, tokyo ghoul au, DC Crossover, Hobie meeting batman, android! Hobie and human r, baldur's gate 3 au, hobie and mutant x-men! R, hobie and deadpool!, deadpool! Hobie, gambit! Hobie, ghost rider! hobie, spy family au, nightcrawler! Hobie (whether it's a video game, anime or a different genre of comic, that goes here!)

Medieval- royalty, royal! R and rebel! Hobie, (anything that makes you sing the game of thrones opening lol)

Villain au- black cat! Hobie, deadpool! Hobie, mystique! Hobie, prowler! Hobie x villain! r (evil! Hobie? Evil! Hobie! Or any au pertaining to villainy!)

Movie mashup- scream killer! Hobie and caller! R, freaky friday/body swap, rom-com, will they/won't they?, swan lake au, mad hatter! Hobie, phantom of the opera au, the greatest showman au, avatar au, (general movie au or theatre au)

Runway ready- patches, runway, hair, piercings, braids, dress up/ fashion show, draw in your style. (Fashun!)

#katy mumbles #octobie #themes #poll #hobie brown x reader #okay to reblog for more votes!#hobie brown #spider punk #hobie october event

74 notes · View notes

cicada-candy · 10 months ago

Text

God poscas r so fun idk why I don't use them more often

#hyper-hellfire #my art #ghost rider magical girl au

43 notes · View notes

wazzappp · 1 month ago

Text

Some cute fluffy nonsense

#5 PAGES OF THE RE AU!! FINISHED INKING. NOW JUST NEEDS COLOR >:)#this is my reward for finally finishing that lmao #my art #ghost rider magical girl au #robbie reyes #lisa (ghost rider)#have consumed so much angst. have worked on so much angst. needed a fluffy palette cleanser

23 notes · View notes

wazzappp · 10 months ago

Text

AKALLDKGKG HELFIRE GALA LOOK

Doris Night 【-Peacork's Plume-】 Series is Available To Preorder Again

◆ Shopping Link >>> https://lolitawardrobe.com/search/?Keyword=Peacork%27s+Plume

#DECKED OUT MAGICAL GIRL GHOST RIDERS YES YES ITS A MUST DRAW #ghost rider magical girl au

13K notes · View notes

benzoslayer · 8 months ago

Text

Ghost Rider Magical girl AU, but it's my OC

@wazzappp

!BROTP!

Doomguy and Robbie in Pizza Tower style

#ghost rider #all new ghost rider #ghost rider magical girl au #robbie reyes #oc #doom #doomslayer #otty batyr #doomguy #art #sketches #pizza tower style

19 notes · View notes

pristmaticrosevein · 7 months ago

Text

Prismatic Rose AU (RWBY)

The poll chain is getting a little long and convoluted, so I created a new blog to hold everything.

The polls won't be a single answer. Instead I'll try to work all of the answers together, based off the number of votes each answer gets. If I can, of course.

Aura is present, but is more like DBZ power levels than how it functions in RWBY. A shot to the heart will be as fatal to a Human Huntsman as it would be to anyone else.

Firearms are regular firearms. Dust is instead used to craft weapons, like is alluded to by Ironwood, but never actually seen in the story.

Conclusions:

Jaune Arc

Humble Everydude

Jaune picks up a Broken Sword, his power repairs his sword, can generate a shield, and armour.

When depressed or in a deep fury his sword stays broken, and his armour is rusted. He is nearly invincible, but lacks any real control.

When happy, he literally glows from the light he emits.

Later learns to use and even combine both.

Attacked by Grimm, saved by Ruby. The Grimm was a Gryphon and a number of Beowulves.

Genre: Dark Souls

Ruby Rose

Werewolf: She learns to control her Human / Wolf forms.

Eventually unlocks a middle Wolfen form.

Silver Eyes: Her silver eyes are part of her Werewolf curse, from her connection to the moon. Eventually allows her to dispel darkness and inflict Lunacy.

Strongly dislikes bright sunlight, finding it oppressive. Will hide under her red hood in bright daylight.

Dislikes sitting around and doing nothing. As she learns to open up to her friends, hanging with them counts as doing something.

Dame Sister of the Order of the Sanguine Rose. Still a Novice, (no oath), but she was a Squire, and got her Accolade because of being a natural when fighting the forces of darkness.

Werewolves are normally turned over to the Church. Faith in God is the best way to gain control of their powers. Others can do so by living with wolf packs in the wilds, though they are rarely trusted.

Regeneration: Turned off with Silver, Fire, and direct sunlight. Indirect sunlight dims it. She's mostly fine in her cloak and hood, but better a night.

Extremely high metabolism. She can get blood thirsty if she doesn't eat, but sugar works extremely well. I.e. cookies are MANDATORY.

Pain causes her rage to ignite.

Shield of Faith and Miracle Die: 40K SoB reference. I'll explain if anyone asks.

Powered armour powered by prismatic energies. Summoned with transformation sequence. The catalyst for the transformation is a crescent moon broach with a deep red ruby.

Any equipment she holds while transforming gets turned into a magical girl version of it, like Ghost Rider.

Her scythe, Lunamaria, is made with a steel edge, and an iron blade inlaid with mythril and quicksilver. This allows her to defeat most dark foes without calling upon her moonfallen abilities.

Her Bolt Pistol, Lunalapina, uses custom made rounds, (made a lot easier with Dust forging equipment). She owns rounds customized to fight most dark things. Once converted, her mag changes use her prismatic energy to refill them. Think similar to Dante, but she still has to reload.

She can do something similar to Petal Burst while transformed, except more prismatic.

She can do a less conspicuous long-range teleportation that is guided by her faith, i.e. it cannot be used arbitrarily.

Pyrrha Nikos

A literal angel.

Angels are forbidden from most direct interventions. The exception is for the Creatures of Grimm, or other nefarious beings.

Angels can only whisper into your ear. Devils have the same restriction, but are not known for being good at following rules.

Often the intervention of angels will be perceived, (by the imperceptive), as luck. Others might see them in dreams.

Angels can only directly interact with people who have enough spiritual strength to fully perceive them.

She brought Ruby to save Jaune.

Weiss Schnee

Boreal Elf

Went to Thule University.

Major in Spellcrafting, the most difficult discipline that actually crafts new spells.

Magic affinities are Water, Wind, and Light.

Equipped with the mystical rapier Myrtenaster.

Can summon a Auroran Horse or a Kelpie. Auroran Horses work like Ruin from Darksiders, but made from light that blends into the darkness. Kelpies are water fey horses that are known for their... ill temperament. Will often act out against those that Weiss is irate with. Thoroughly enjoys chewing on Jaune's hair.

Minors in Fey summoning and economics.

Her main Fey summons are a Pixie, Will'o'Wisp, Banshee, and female Dullahan.

Her pixie is mischievous, much to Weiss' vexation. But, she'll only have fun with those Weiss holds dear. Otherwise, they might simply get lost in the woods.

Will'o'Wisps are incorporeal, and bear the water, wind, and light elements that Weiss is so wonderful with.

For those that don't know their Fey, Banshees are actually extremely loyal to their households. They are washer maids, and the wail is because their beloved family member is going to die. Her powers are water-based, along with a wail that can be modified to work in a wide variety of ways. He touch can chill, and her voice carries the wind.

Her Dullahan carries a great sword with a fluted tip in one hand, and can summon an Auroran horse to ride.

Her Dullahan is Nora, whom largely represents Weiss' desire to not have impulse control and selfishness. Naturally, they clash quite a big.

Her Pixie is Leanan Ren, a Leanan Sidhe. She largely represents Weiss's exceptionalism and selflessness. Her mistress, and her mistress' friends call her "Leeann."

When Leeann and Nora agree, and can convince Weiss, typically leads to epic bouts of violence.

Blake Belladonna

Nekomata (cat Youkai that can take Human form; known for being especially amorous).

Has Changeling blood, but must soon return to her original form.

The only form she is truly comfortable in is that of a black cat, or a black catgirl.

Can become amorphous, and crawl through the shadows, or strike out from them as tendrils. Learns to master greater abilities, think Shadow from DMC.

Class is Ninja, which is basically a Rogue with low-level magic.

Her Youkai blood provides basic shapeshifting. Her distant Changeling blood provides more advanced, though less stable shape shifting. Her Ninja abilities allow her to blend into shadow, briefly become intangible, or leave behind figments of her presence.

Yang Xiao Long

Dragon-blooded, from a Storm Dragon. Got it from Tai's side.

Appears Human.

Can learn to summon dragon features, such as claws, wings, scales, or a tail.

Can eventually learn to transform into a Storm Dragon, though she normally needs a LOT of rage to do so.

Her rage allows her to basically turn Super Saiyan. Which is basically just Yang's regular Semblance, but attached to someone as powerful as Vegeta.

Class is Stormclash Monk. Combines Monk with Bloodrager, with Storm-based spellcaster.

Weapons: Gauntlets, a stone sling, and an Iron Club. She can use all three as a catalyst for her lightning powers, and all count as monk weapons.

Ilia Amitola

Rainbow slime.

Before anyone, including her, knew that she was a sentient lifeform, Jaune finds her on the street and takes care of her.

After watching Jaune fail to flirt with Weiss, she realized she could adopt a Human-like form.

Despite attempts by Blake to convince her otherwise, she sees nothing wrong with being Jaune's pet. He has always taken such good care of her.

She is vexed that she is no longer allowed to sleep with her master. However, he hasn't shown any problem about napping with him if she does so in blob form.

Once Jaune unlocks his grandfather's broken sword, she quite insistently goes with him. He will comply if she does so in blob form, sitting on his shoulder, (and refusing to leave).

Ilia's main abilities are physical transformations, (think Kirby). This means she tends to transform into Jaune's weapons, particularily a rainbow wrecking ball.

She can also extend spikes are enemies trying to strike Jaune from outside his field of vision. He gets used to it to the point if she barely does something similar, he knows he needs to look in that direction.

A third main form is turning into a boulder that Jaune throws (rolls) at enemies.

She has low-level elemental abilities. Not as suitable for combat, but allows her to turn into a bbq.

Transforms into Jaune's left pauldron during combat.

Penny Polendina

Golem with the soul of Pietro's daughter attached. He was legitimately trying to save his daughter, though the means are not exactly generally accepted. Only Dwarves know how to do this, and most of them would completely refuse to do so.

All mana channels and ley chambres are internal.

Penny is an Artificer with a minor in Battle Augur. She can create animated combatants. She has a small host of magic abilities, but only learns attack spells through observation. Other than Magic Missile, but since Battle Augurs are basically Megaman, it's through an arm cannon.

Creates an army of myrmidons, (magic robots), along with tiny, fairy versions of them.

General James Ironwood

Known as the "King of Mantle" by Humans in almost seriousness, and affectionately by Dwarves as the "Mantle Piece".

As a General, he was given leave to seek out the Dwarves of Mountain Mantle. He succeeded, and this close relationship is what created modernity. Along with the Schnee Dust Company, (managed by Elves, with the mining done by Dwarves).

The bulk of his forces are Atlasian Dampjager, steam Dwarves. They are smaller and lighter, but fantastically stronger and more robust than adult Humans.

These are augmented by Atlasian Dampdragens, carbinemen riding Steam Destriers, Damp'hest Also known as D-tross. They are as strong as as a truck, and can cover terrain like a horse.

Avoided Soul-Bound Golems because of the inherent ethics, until the creation of Penny Polendina. Now, it is offered to soldiers who are dying or otherwise crippled. Kind of like Dreadnoughts from 40k.

Army uses D-tross-towed artillery.

Has two primary chicken walkers, the Cockatrix and Basilix. The Basilix isn't larger, but is more robust and heavily armoured. The Cockatrix is lighter, more mobile, and has limited hover capabilities.

Dwarves

Because you voted for my Dwarves from Ingir, so, how they work with the Prismatic Rose AU, and the technological development of the world. Need to do a poll on tech first.

Dwarves worked through the early steam era and went onto nuclear, which is still technically steam power. It was Humans, specifically Ironwood that developed the steam generator technology that made it actually useful.

They largely live underground now, not because they especially like it underground, but because their holds were always dug into cliff faces, and like everyone else, they spend most of their time in \doors, nowadays.

Dwarves don't view necromancy as inherently evil, but instead view it through the voluntary/involuntary lens.

This means that they have no problem with soul-bound golems, as long as the volunteer is willing.

Necromancy is also used to bring an ancestor's ghost for ongoing legal disputes. Ironwood earned the respect of all of the Dwarven tribes of Mountain Mantle because he manages to stay impartial for these disputes. He simply had to put aside his squeamishness about necromancy.

Moonfallen

Creatures that have fallen to darkness in the shadow of the moon. The moon reflects light from the sun, and as such is both the basis of the power of the dark creatures, and their bane. The shattered moon remnant of the disaster that created them.

Angel, Fallen

Fey, Unseelie (also Fallen)

Liches

Necromancers

Skeletons

Succubus/Incubus

Vampire

Werewolf

Witch, Black

Creatures of Grimm

Creatures of shadow and enmity.

As enmity builds in an area, a Grimm Fragment is created. This is not visible to those without Shadowsight.

If enough enmity is unleashed at the same time, a Grimm Fragment can be boosted into a full-fledged Grimm.

More commonly, nefarious beings use the Fragments to create Creatures of Grimm to do their bidding, (hopefully).

Some less than ethnical magic users can try to use this as a power source. It can work, or it can create a Creature of Grimm.

When a Creature of Grimm is spotted, it triggers an investigation.

Huntsmen and Huntresses

Those licensed to hunt Creatures of Grimm and/or Moonfallen.

Some are lone vagabonds, others join fraternities or orders-militant.

While fraternities and orders normally have their own rules of conduct, without them Huntsmen are defacto, and often dejure, immune to all by the most heinous of laws.

This is both out of privilege, and out of practicality. On one hand, you want the Huntsman hunting. On the other, trying to bring a Huntsman to trial, unwillingly, is a harrowing ordeal for everyone involved. The Church's Inquisition typically handles rogue Huntsmen.

Because of this, disreputable Huntsmen will often be shunned by most of society.

(CLOSED)

#rwby #modern fantasy au #prismatic rose au #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #pyrrha nikos #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #penny polendina #james ironwood

24 notes · View notes

rokhal · 8 months ago

Text

ANGR Magical Girl AU: MenSynarche

In reference to this post which is both required reading and also has awesome hilarious art.

Robbie gets his first monthly snaketime. Frank Castle explains.

“Ssomething’s happening,” Eli announced from where he’d nestled his pink serpentine coils atop the engine block of a 2001 Escalade. Robbie grunted. He had to stand on a bucket to reach its fusebox comfortably, and the stupid luxury SUV had every fuse filled. He squinted at the wiring diagram on his phone and tilted it sideways, hoping it would make more sense. The phone auto-compensated and straightened the diagram for him, so he had to tilt his head instead. “Now problem or later problem?” he murmured. Normal people couldn’t see Eli, so Robbie often brought him to work as incentive to be less of an asshole. He was okay to talk to on his good days, and knew a lot more about cars than he did about rodents. Which was odd for a snake, and which Eli had never satisfactorily explained.

“Not a problem per se,” Eli mused. “But it’s definitely now. Take a bathroom break unless you want an awkward convo with the boss.”

“You wanna explain?” Robbie tried, and Eli deflected, “That’d take all day.” Yeah, sure.

Robbie glanced down into the fuse box one more time and noticed the pink of his unnatural fingernails glittering through the black polish he’d touched up just two days ago, a strange holographic effect that made his head hurt. He grabbed Eli, his glossy scales smooth and dry and currently warm from the engine block, and headed for the time clock to punch out for a break. Canelo was surprisingly easy-going about his breaks—probably out of consideration for his family responsibilities—but Robbie couldn’t know when his patience would run out. Then he ducked out the back door into the garbage alley and almost tripped over Lenny, seated on the ground with a lighter and some bits of trash and staring furtively up at him and honestly Robbie didn’t want to know. Lenny scrambled to his knees to gather up his paraphernalia and Eli went suddenly limp in Robbie’s hand and the warm bright fuzz of their magic erupted from the stone in his chest and no, not here, I didn’t even say the words what the fuck, the world went soft and distant as his body unraveled.

He waited, just a glittering nebula of himself, for his uniform to give him solidity. The transformation was like his own personal time dilation field; sure it was hard to think, but it didn’t last nearly as long in the real world as it felt like to him. He just had to wait until the magic decided it was ready to re-make him, dress him back up like a paper doll—come on, did it always take this long? He could almost see the pink stone in his mind’s eye this time, an empty channel for power to flow through, but nothing was happening. Why could he see it? Should he push?

A hesitant nudge, and then a flood. Robbie held two roles at once, the source and the vessel, draining and filling himself at the same time, and then with relief he felt the leotard and the skirt and the bows popping into place on his chest and shoulders, the tiara coming to rest on his forehead, and his body condensed and sense returned and he predictably crashed to his face on the cracked pavement behind Canelo’s. He started to push himself up, cursing his stupid gogo boots, but couldn’t get his knees under him. He was pressing up on his hands, but he still felt grit digging into his whole chest and belly. He tried to roll over, but he felt trapped, heavy, and as he twisted sideways to look at how he had fallen, he kept twisting and twisting and—

Eli was massive. His glossy pink body filled the alley, great swoops and coils as thick around as Robbie’s waist. Shit. Eli was normally harmless, but he clearly didn’t like it. Eli at this size would not be so harmless, magical healing venom or not. “Eli,” Robbie said cautiously, searching for his head. He spotted his tail by the dumpster, and unless he’d folded completely in half, his head should be closer to Robbie and he was actually swallowing Robbie Jesus fuck. Robbie summoned his pick-hammers and swung at the pink reptile skin that had overtaken his legs, stupid, that’s what you get for trusting him, and then stabbing pain high in his chest, teeth, must be, so Robbie wriggled desperately from side to side looking for the monster’s eyes—where were his eyes? The lashing pink coils that had swallowed up his legs ended blindly under his flared miniskirt. The wounds in the snake’s body that bled glimmering fuschia ichor stung as his hands passed over them. Eli had nothing to say, because Eli didn’t have a head. Just Robbie, sticking out of his neck like a hood ornament.

“I gotta get sober,” Lenny croaked from the doorway.

Robbie had to undo this, and he had to get out of here. He figured he had one good jump in him; he pictured his bedroom as hard as he could, shut his eyes against the horrible nothingness, and concentrated: get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here...until he unmade himself with a Pop!

Transforming was bad, but at least Robbie could see the logic as to how all the bits of himself stayed roughly in place: conservation of momentum. Jumping was like starting a transformation, pausing, and then being blown to his destination by a great wind. It was chaotic and error-prone and he hated it. This time, though, he could see the wind, a swirling vortex that picked up the glittery mist that was Robbie and carried him—mostly—across twenty blocks to his apartment. He could also see pink glitter that escaped the vortex, bits of his magical essence drifting over the tight clusters of homes built in multigenerational backyards, the alleys, the tiendas, the neglected streets that made up Hillrock Heights. He’d had worse jumps that left him shaking and exhausted; this one felt normal. He wondered how much of himself he’d bled all over the city on magical errands.

The magic reconstructed him in his bedroom, pink anaconda body and all. Robbie felt his ribs pressing against every wall, part of his belly draped over the bed and the rest curved about itself on the floor, scales rubbing against smooth scales. He couldn’t even keep track of himself. As he tried to straighten his snake body to push his human torso toward the door to lock it, some part of his massive body moved, but only to rattle the dresser against the wall. This would certainly put a damper on ghost-fighting.

Robbie facepalmed and spoke the words to return to his mundane form, then punched the floor when nothing happened.

At least he still had hammerspace. He reached up for an imaginary shelf over his head and retrieved his cell phone, which he’d left in his mundane pants, and called Canelo’s. Lee picked up after about ten rings, and Robbie explained that he had to take a personal sick day.

“Mierda,” Lee breathed, horrified. “You...you think you gonna pull through?”

“I’m not dying,” Robbie said.

“Okay, guey. You, uh...you rest up now. We’ll keep an eye on your car.”

“Appreciate it.” Robbie let him go, then tried and failed again to roll over onto his back. He collapsed face down onto the floor, then propped himself up on his elbows and messaged Frank Castle.

Mr. Castle was...scary, and he had little patience for Robbie’s safety concerns. Johnny was supportive, and Danny was talented, but neither of them had the advanced Magical Girl know-how that Robbie needed right now, and right now Robbie needed legs so he could pick up Gabe from middle school, cook dinner, and make it back in to work tomorrow. He stared anxiously at his phone, texted three more times, and then tossed his phone back up onto its imaginary shelf and buried his head under his arms to hyperventilate.

With his eyes shut, there was nothing to distract himself from the press of battered hardwood floor and dirty laundry and walls and furniture against his endless, naked lower torso. He scrunched and tugged and slid and dragged and folded his body until he managed to fit his snake body into the bare space between his bed and his dresser, coils stacking on top of each-other and engulfing his relatively small human self in strangely soothing pressure and darkness.

He sensed his phone ringing from hammerspace and struggled to unspool enough to free his head and one arm to retrieve it. Frank. Okay. He cleared his throat and accepted the call. “Thanks for getting back to me, Mr. Castle.”

“Mnh,” Mr. Castle grunted, then yawned loudly. “You’re lucky you caught me before the sun hit my recliner.” That was an uncharacteristic overshare. “The whole point of using Signal is to include all relevant details in your messages.”

“Okay, sir,” Robbie said, though he was not in the mood for a lecture on instant messaging etiquette from a Vietnam veteran.

“But I can guess your Familiar is missing and there’s snakey bits where some of your human bits used to be.”

“Yess!” Robbie gasped as his coils reflexively squeezed the air out of his human lungs, which was a lot less uncomfortable than it probably should be. He relaxed and took a breath. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I wasn’t even trying to transform. How do I fix it?”

“Punisher log,” Mr. Castle muttered. “New mission: half-kill Johnny Blaze for not explaining shit to the newbie. ...It’s your synarche, kid. You’re a grown Magical Girl now.” Mr. Castle proceeded to explain that on every new moon, a mature Magical Girl would temporarily merge with their Familiar from moonrise to moonset, for unavoidable and annoying magical-biological maintenance purposes. Nothing was wrong, so there was nothing to fix.

“Fuck.” Robbie pressed at one of his coils with his hand; he couldn’t even tell where the pressure was coming from, just that his hand felt very small. “I’d rather turn into an actual girl than deal with this shit.”

“And I’d rather be talking my actual daughter through her first period, but here we are,” Mr. Castle growled.

“Ssorry, sir.”

“Shit happens. You gotta deal. You’re a Magical Girl, you get Magical Monthlies. The upside is, in this state, you get to peek behind the curtain at processes that your familiar normally handles for you. It’s a good time to refine your skills. Like teleporting.”

Robbie winced.

“Or, if you’re still not ready to practice that extremely useful and potentially life-saving ability, go do some crimefighting.”

“I don’t think I can do that right now.”

“What, embarrassed of the forked tongue?”

Robbie hadn’t even noticed he had a forked tongue; he stuck it out and crossed his eyes as it just kept coming, vibrant red-purple and as long as his hand. “Augh!” He pulled it back in and was walloped by the taste of dust and motor oil and the residual masculine funk that persisted despite his magicalgirlitis. “No,” he said, suddenly hyperaware of the bizarre movements his tongue was making to compensate for its new shape. “It’sss. It’s. My. Uh.” He raised his phone overhead and sent a selfie.

“Huh,” Mr. Castle said after a minute. “That’s a new one.” Robbie waited miserably as though he might change his mind and divulge a secret advanced Magical Girl technique to cut short this stupid syn-whatever, but all he had for him was, “Well, you got about twelve hours to kill. If you do nothing else, meditate.”

Great. Robbie sank back into the dark of his own coils and screamed in frustration.

#all-new ghost rider #ghost rider magical girl au #robbie reyes #frank castle #my fanfic #fanfiction #magical girl au

25 notes · View notes