Critical Miss

This story is more "story" than "smut" so, fair warning if you're looking for a quick lewd. It also features denial from a trans gal only for it to come crashing into her like a freight train so I wanna give some warning if you're not into reading some descriptions of dysphoria. Everyone's cool about it though, and she gets a hot bod at the end. Promise.

Enjoy!

*************************************************

"I am your God," the fire elemental bellowed, its breath like scalding desert wind, "And I demand your obedience!"

"Gods don't need to demand anything," quipped the rakishly handsome knight, shifting his weight in his blackened steel armour, "But I'll be glad to take it under advisement."

The creature roared, its colossal mouth opening like an immense castle gate, flaming teeth like the feet of a deadly portcullis. Flames belched forth, scorching the air where the knight had been standing moments before. He tucked and rolled, dodging the incendiary plume whilst unsheathing his sword and, with a single fluid motion, slicing at the creature in a wide arc. The glowing purple blade sliced through its leg, causing the limb to flicker and sputter out. The elemental stumbled behind the knight, who came to a graceful, balanced stance, magic sword gripped tight in both hands.

He blew a strand of hair from his vision and allowed himself a sly grin. "Time to blow out this candle."

From one side, a ramp of glittering ice manifested itself into existence below the feet of a woman in a billowing blue fur coat. Two freezing clouds emanate from her fingers, dropping the temperature so fast the water in the air frozen and provided a slick surface beneath her to slide down. The path rose to a slight ramp, sending her flying through the air. With her hands free, the woman threw them out in front of her and crafted a singular beam of cryonic power. It lanced out, impaling the gigantic creature made of elemental fire with a jagged icicle that was just as tall.

"Good work, Tilda!" the knight said, throwing her a thumbs up, "That'll keep him on ice."

The mage groaned. "Fates, Arther. Can you stop with the wordplay?"

"Cool it? With my PUNS?! When Hell freezes over! And now that it's distracted...That's your cue, Mork!"

The rocky alcove echoed with the sound of rolling thunder. But as the noise grew louder, the distinct rumbling in the ground made it clear that it was no mere meteorological phenomena. Coming in from the opposite side as the ice witch stormed a moving mountain of blue/green flesh, muscles on muscles utterly dwarfing the strongest human who had ever lived.

But, of course, Mork wasn't human.

"MORK!" Mork declared before slamming a fist the size of a boulder into the space the fire elemental used as a face. It buckled under the impact, the icicle in its body shattering into a thousand sublimating pieces as it fell backwards, hollering in outrage.

The trio met up for the first time since the battle had started. They looked over one another for battle damage, and, seeing only minor injuries so far, exchanged nods. They readied for Round 2: Arther with his magical blade, Tilda with her cryomancy, and Mork with his sheer brute strength.

But there was a fourth member of their group. Way, way in the back, out of sight of the exciting action, Colin cowered behind a rock. With his floppy wide-brimmed hat, simple white robes, slender build, and crooked staff, he wouldn't be out-of-place managing a sheep paddock. To be within earshot of these masters of magic and might made him feel horribly out of place. Like he was a villager who had gotten lost and stumbled into a bard's tale of heroic adventure. And that problem was only exacerbated by the nature of his powers.

He looked derisively at the staff in his hands. "Just one damage spell. Just one single lighting bolt attack is all I'm asking. C'mon, Goddess." Seething with repressed anger, he barely noticed the explosion and pillar of fire shoot into the sky. Another glorious victory, won without him.

"What the heck's the point of having power if I can't even use it to beat up monsters?" he asked, taking a swiping kick at a rock in front of him and stubbing his toe.

He cursed. There was no point in even trying to be violent. He knew of two dozen different ways to manifest his magical power, and not one of them could cause harm. He could heal, he could cure, he could buff, he could mend. But he couldn't do so much as a deleterious status effect. And, worse still, his powers came with a cost.

"COLIN!"

The little healer cringed. He knew what that meant. Not for the first time, he thought about running. Taking off somewhere and hiding in the woods, maybe becoming a bandit king, maybe going feral and joining a pack of wolves. But without a way to defend himself, he wouldn't last five minutes on his own. So he ambled out of cover toward the source of the voice, his shoulder slumped, ready to do his duty.

"Please state the nature of the magical emergency," he mumbled, pulsing power into the manawood of his staff.

"Mork's got burns all over his body, Tilda got knocked around a bit and might have a cracked rib, and I chipped a tooth. We could use some of that healing magic!"

Colin blanched, his slender fingers gripping the staff tight. "Any chance you can walk it off?"

The trio stared at him. Mork's gaze was the most imposing, not just because of his size but because his entire body was smouldering. Colin nodded and closed his eyes. For all his doubts and frustrations, the power came easily. Tremendous energies flowed through his body, tingling every cell until they reached his staff. There, he focused them into singular spells of healing energy. A general healing spell for Mork, pulsing light shooting through the staff and out to cover the large man's body in a glittering aura. His scorched flesh knitted together in moments, much to his great delight.

"THANKS," he said, and gently patted Colin's head. Gentle by Mork standards, of course. Colin pulled his head out of his hat and nodded. Next was Tilda. He held out his hand, using some light diagnostic scrying to search for the damage and, with a sweep of his staff, gently knitting the bone.

"The damage is light. Just stay off the ice slides for a few days, okay?" he said, knowing they'd ignore him.

"And what am I to do in battle, hmm? Ask the Serpentmen to politely avoid the woman throwing the icicles?" She rolled her eyes, and Colin sighed again. Nobody listened. He stepped over to Arther, who already had his mouth open and was pointing to the chipped tooth in question.

"I was rolling out of danger, like usual," the knight explained, dropping the hard consonants to avoid touching the injured tooth, "But out of nowhere, a fireblast caught me unprepared and WALLOP, I hit the ground hard! Bit down, felt something snap in my mouth. It's not bad, is it? You know how meticulous I am with my oral hygiene."

"I'm not great with teeth," Colin explained. Seeing Arther's crestfallen face made him reconsider the excuse, "Alright, let me...okay, yeah, it's not bad." He reached into Arther's mouth, pressed the injured tooth between his thumb and ring finger, and snapped. The tooth instantly fixed itself, courtesy of a spell Colin had learned from an Elven dentist friend of his.

Arther prodded around with his tongue, then flashed his pearly white teeth. "Excellent! You've saved my winning smile. Once again, you've proven you're a valued member of the team, Colin! Oh, and Tilda's rib, that too."

Colin nodded weakly. But he could feel the changes begin within his own body; payment for services rendered. The transformation this time was fairly minor. He felt the last of his body hair withered away from the top of his stomach, leaving him nearly hairless from the eyebrows down. In addition, his nipples suddenly couldn't tolerate the roughness of the wool of his garb. Like they'd gained a thousand more nerve endings in an instant. He'd have to find a way to muffle the sensations they gave him from just wearing clothes overtop. Perhaps-

The word 'brasserie' appeared in his mind and, just as quickly, vanished into the mental ether. His mind was like a steel trap for those kinds of thoughts, trained over the years in unceasing combat with any hint of weakness. The changes could be affecting his mind, making him tolerate them, maybe even wish for them! Anything that would give hint that he was relenting or giving in to the transformations was dispatched utterly. He was still himself, no matter how his Goddess decided to punish him.

It started shortly after leaving the Priory, when he went into the adventuring business. Any spell he cast would exact a toll on his masculinity, a commodity he did not have in great supply. His willowy height had completely vanished by this point, leaving him just short of Tilda's towering 5'4. The white robes of his vocation hid the extent of the changes and allowed him to play off his reduced weight as a change in diet. But the truth was that the fats in his body had been slowly but surely redistributed, ballooning out his hips and butt while sapping his waist and what little upper body strength he had once had. Little by little, his body had changed...and he had no idea what the endpoint would be.

The party claimed a few souvenirs of their battle: ashes from the elemental to prove the deed, and some trinkets that beasts of its type are prone to hoarding if left to their own devices for too long. Tilda picked through a chest of baubles til she found a ring with a sapphire in the centre. Mork liked the look of that, and rooted around in the box with noisy abandon until he found a bracelet he could wear around his middle finger. Arther himself poked around a pile of gear from some previous expedition and found a sword which, despite looking like it had gone through the better part of a gelatinous cube, he took a shine to.

"Feel the weight of it...the smoothness with which it cuts through the air," he said, swinging the chipped and rusted weapon, "I feel like it would be slightly easier to hit things with it. By fractions, perhaps. Say if one were to put the chance of hitting something as the roll of a twenty sided die, adding one's own skill and physical ability of course, this would DEFINITELY increase the striking chance by at least +1."

"Arther," Tilda said, her voice flat, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

The knight stared at the mage, clearly unaware he'd been speaking aloud the entire time. Noticing her expression, he slid the weapon into his pack and silently returned to gathering loot.

Colin approached, looking timidly like a window shopping beggar between piles. His order wasn't acetic, nor was it wasn't fond of ostentatious displays. Try as he might, he couldn't find anything he wanted or needed from the assembled plunder. As for his share of the payout, he had neither the need nor the inclination to spend them besides the essentials for travel and his tithes. They'd go into the chest of his personal effects back at their shared wagon, or given away to the needy the next time they were in town.

The stray questioning of why he even went out with adventurers in the first place resumed, and the rest of the world drifted away again. At least for the moment.

***

They camped for the night on the edge of a large freshwater lake. Some mermaids came by to investigate the light from their campfire, but after Arther hit them with a quick ballad (and Tilda conjured some exotic fish as payment), they left in a good mood without trying to kill anyone.

They each had their individual assignments, an informal process that had just seen the tasks delineated based on skill or just a general willingness to work in that particular area. The most important aspect of setting up camp only Tilda could perform. She used blue chalk to stitch out protective sigils to keep the camp safe from attack, giving them all a chance at a good night's rest. Arther got off lightly, merely needing to set up the tents. He had his own schedule to keep, being in possession of both arms and armour that needed constant, fastidious maintenance to keep in fighting shape. Mork did most of the offloading, carrying chests like they were parcels of fresh linens. Then he got to work on a fire, which he also made look easy. With his ham hock hands spinning a bow drill and lungs like an industrial bellows, they soon had a roaring fire in the centre of camp.

Colin performed his own camp tasking: getting together food and water. Water was easy, given where they chose to camp. Putting a large pot of lake water to boil and get the foul miasmas out, he went to work gutting, cleaning, and preparing the remaining fish that Tilda had made for grilling. Salt, pepper, a little dill, and just a touch of slimweed, and the fish would turn out great. He liked cooking, in fact. But...was it the manly thing to be doing?

"Arther?" Colin called out. The swordsman had been in the midst of doffing his armour. He came out of his tent with just his leggings on, the sheen and scent of sweat obvious on his skin. The healer tried not to notice, but there was a tiny flutter in his heart at the sight. Arther may have been a blowhard, but his physique was impressive. His abdomen muscles were unlike anything he'd ever seen before, and made Colin self-conscious about his own slight build. While not nearly as strong as Mork, Arther combined incredible grace and dexterity with his brawn, making him a powerful foe...and an extremely attractive man.

"Yes? Do you need a hand?" Arther asked.

"I...this is a bit weird to say," Colin admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, "But do you think it's a little too...girly, for me, to be camp cook and all?"

The larger man barked a laugh. "Would you rather Tilda? Her and fire don't play well together, if you'll recall this morning's events."

"No, it's not that I want her to take over. I was just wondering if it was, y'know, unmanly to do all the cooking?"

Arther's smile waned and he shook his head. "I don't know where you got the idea that cooking was only women's work, Colin, but I'll have you know that my father was a prodigious chef! I didn't inherit that aspect, unfortunately, I can barely cook an egg. But it's something I've deeply respected, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone needs to eat! Well, I suppose not skeletons. But a great many people need food for sustenance. Why by the grace of the fates would its assembly be a gendered process?"

Colin chewed that idea over in his mind. Obviously it made sense. But still...

"Do you think we could trade responsibilities next time we stop? I can oil weapons and polish armour just as well as cook a filet."

Arther's good humour returned. "Well, I could try. But I doubt my own handiwork in the culinary arena. And given our next mission, I don't think-"

"Wait wait, go back. We already have a new mission?"

Tilda appeared, wiping the chalk dust from her fingers. "You didn't tell him?"

"I thought you told him," Arther said sheepishly.

Colin's head snapped in between the pair, waiting for one of them to explain. When neither did, he looked to Mork. "Did they tell you?"

The big man nodded. "GOING AFTER THE LICH BOUNTY."

"The Lich?! But...but the wasting effects, the legion of skeletal warriors he can raise...I can't heal that much!"

"Well if everything goes according to plan, you won't need to!" Arther said cheerfully. Tilda folded her arms, giving a derisive glance to the group's ostensible leader.

Colin's heart hammered. They'd tried to go after the Lich before, but that was several bounties ago. They'd learned since then, of course, and Tilda had much stronger control over her abilities. But the last time they'd fought that undead tyrant, Colin had lost half his height and gained a pair of plump, squeezable thighs. And there would have been more had they not quit and run before the Lich had broken a proverbial sweat. To fight on through such a powerful opponent and keep his party alive would tax him terribly. What would he even look like afterward? Who would he even be?!

He was aware of a continuing conversation, but the healer's mind was elsewhere. An uncertain amount of time had passed before he snapped out of it, and by then the sun was close to the horizon, far on the opposite side of the lake. The other two more talkative members of his party were still in furious debate over whether taking on the Lich right now is a good idea. In all that time they hadn't noticed him staring into the middle distance. Either they'd ignored him, or they didn't care.

"I'm not doing it."

Their conversation ground to a halt. "Won't do what?" Tilda asked.

Colin wavered. He was unused to putting his foot down. After all: what firm ground did he have to stand on? His prowess in battle? But as he thought about transforming against his will in ways that would be impossible to hide, his resolve stiffened his spine. "I'm not doing it. If you go after the Lich, you'll be doing it without me."

"But...I don't understand!" Arther said, "You're a part of the team! We can't fight the Lich without a full team!"

Tilda shook her head. "If it's about the pay, we can talk about the loot split afterwards."

"I don't want the damn loot! I don't want anything!" Colin snapped. His blood was boiling, months of repressed feelings exploding to the surface. "What in all the hells am I going to spend the coin on? What am I even doing this for? Do you know what happens to me when I use my powers? Do you know what I've given up?!"

It a moment of unthinking rage, he tossed off his robe. In a single, flowing gesture, he revealed just what he looked like now. The generous curves, the nearly hairless skin, even slightest hints of mounding that looked like the start of breasts. He still wore his smallclothes, but even the miniscule bulge in those told another part of the story.

"Each time I use my power, I change. I don't know why. Maybe it's because my Goddess is punishing me for using my powers for personal gain. Maybe I've done something else to offend her. But..." He drifted off, running out of works. The others stared in shocked silence. Even Mork seemed taken aback by the outburst. A part of him wanted to crawl up into a ball. Showing off just how feminine his body had become had drained him, and he immediately regretted it. He covered his blossoming breasts with his arms, confused on what to do next.

"Do you hate this new look?" Tilda aske, breaking the silence.

"What do you mean?! I'm being transformed against my will, of course I hate it!" Colin said unthinkingly.

"Not the transformation itself," she clarified, moving her hand from his head to his toes. "The changes themselves. Do you hate them?"

He opened his mouth to say yes, again, of course he did. But the words wouldn't form. He never liked his body in particular, admittedly, so he hadn't put much stock in evaluating the overall desirability of the changes themselves, rather focusing on the lack of control over the way his body transformed and how it squared with his self-perception. Looking down, he wasn't repulsed by what he saw. It was just...a body.

"That's not the point! How would you like it if your powers altered you?"

She narrowed her eyes. "My powers aren't without cost either. You need to ask yourself whether you're willing to pay the price."

"Well maybe I'm not anymore!" He threw up his hands. His anger strained the boundaries of his training as a cleric, the virtue of temperance in all things. This wasn't him, but if it wasn't going to get angry about losing himself...who was he? He gathered up his clothes, shoving them back on his body. He didn't care if it hurt.

"It's...it's not going to be forever," Arther said, his voice uncharacteristically timid, "We genuinely had no idea you were going through this when we agreed to try and take on the Lich contract again. After the fight I swear to you that we'll do everything in our power to find a way to reverse these changes."