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Exam season had come to a close, and for getting through it all the Acapella Boyband had decided to reward themselves. With cake!
Lucille had come up with the idea, which was surprising since his ideas were never good, although Des suspected it was more about the cake than the celebration. Out of the three, Des had probably been the most stressed out of all of them. All those late nights studying, the hundreds of practice exams he had done to ensure his scores were the *best*. With the months and months of effort it had took before and during exams, it would be anticlimactic *not* to celebrate, regardless of what scores they had achieved. They were confident they had gotten at least 100% on the last one, but the faint unease in their stomach said otherwise. It was over anyways, so worrying about it wouldn't do anything to help. Like Saoirse told them, "if you have a stomach ache, it means you should eat some cake!" Which probably wasn't true, in fact it would probably make a stomach ache worse, but Des wasn't going to argue with desserts.
Saoirse had also worked hard, but they were less confident that their scores were so high. If their grades throughout the year were any indication, it was likely their efforts were in vain. It seemed no matter how hard they tried, they could never achieve anything higher than average. Except for music, which they always managed to get perfect grades in despite never studying for it.
And Lucille, only god knew what was happening with Lucille academically. It seemed he only showed up to school for the food. They had to stop inviting him to study sessions at the library after the third time he got kicked out for being too distracting and loud.
"What are you gonna get, Dezzy?" inquired Saoirse.
"Dezzy?"
"It's a nickname! I'm trying them out on everyone," they beamed.
"Nicknames are usually shorter than the actual name, I fear..." said Dezzy. It was endearing how obviously homeschooled his buddy was, it seemed that everyday they took advantage of the fact that they now had friends. Never a dull moment. Des leaned down to look at the display, the choices numerous and all so tempting. Should he get a slice of the one with sprinkles...? No, too sweet. What about the red velvet? Maybe they'd get sick. Vanilla might be good...
Then their eyes landed on the one in the corner, a crustless cheesecake topped with shiny glazed strawberries like glistening rubies atop an iceberg of cream.
"I think I'll get some of that one..."
"Oh, you would," Lucille teased, already knowing which cake they were talking about before they could even point to it.
"What's that even supposed to mean?"
"It's boooooring. Of course you'd pick it."
"Yeah? And what'd you get?" Des watched as one of the workers fit an entire triple-tier ganache-coated chocolate cake, topped with chocolate flakes and 20 other forms of chocolate, rimmed with cherries, into a tall box that they then handed to Lucille, who hid it behind his back in mild embarassment. A whole cake. "You would," Des said, narrowing their eyes.
"Shut up," Lucille muttered, looking the other direction.
Saoirse pondered hard. There were so many good options, it was a ferocious battle between their wallet and their mouth. All of the cakes they wanted to try were out of their price range. They were so focused on trying to decide that they didn't realise the others had already chosen 10 minutes ago.
"Having trouble, honey?" The mature-sounding clerk asked. Saoirse looked up from the display. She was a woman perhaps in her 60s, with caramel-coloured hair and glossy eyes the colour of warm syrup. She was totally unfamiliar, Saoirse had never seen her work at this bakery before. They pressed their fingertips to their temple. Something about her presence made her feel strange, but they brushed it off. Maybe they were just tired from deciding too long. The clerk could certainly tell, for she had been watching their eyes dart from cake-to-cake since they came in.
"I'm just struggling to decide, they're all so good..." Saoirse whined. The woman, "Melissa" from her name tag, thought for a moment, although it was brief like she had already decided a while ago.
"Tell you what, I'll give you a discount. You can get a slice of however many cakes you want, and it'll only cost you one," offered Melissa. Saoirse was stunned. Did she pity them that badly?
"Oh, no, really? I couldn't-"
"No, I insist," she said, the 's' sounds coming out more like 'z's. "It's the least I could do for a sweet little thing like you!"
Des watched from afar as she packaged up the cake slices Saoirse chose. He turned to Lucille. "Do you think something's off about her?"
"What, that smoking hot jaguar?" Des slapped him as hard as they could without anyone having to call the police on them. Lucille yelped. "That hurt!"
"It was meant to, idiot."
"Well, in that case... I wouldn't mind if you did it again~" Lucille held his arms in front of his face to block any further attacks.
"Get a room, you two!" Saoirse said, sneaking up on them from behind. "I'm done now, let's go." Des could've sworn he heard buzzing on the way out.
---
Lucille and Saoirse talked as they walked, trailing behind Des. He wasn't paying much attention to the conversation... the buzzing from before seemed to have returned.
"Is that bee... following us?"
The bee landed on the concrete in front of them, and began rapidly growing in size. Its head burst open, birthing the top half of a woman, a woman with eyes the colour of golden syrup.
"It's her!" Saoirse gasped in realisation. "She's a monster!"
"And she's ~sexy~," Lucille added, biting his finger keenly. Des grumbled.
"After we're done beating up this behemoth bug, I'm gonna beat you up too."
Des grounded their feet firmly, outstretching their arm into the air before shouting out, "APOLLO SHINING POWER! MAKE UP!"
In a blinding spark of light, ribbons of fabric burst from the brooch pinned to the collar of their vest. They wrapped around his body, clothing him in a white and green sailor uniform. The ribbons extended to their arms which were now dressed with white gloves, and their Docs which became green knee-high boots. They lowered their hands over the sides of their temple as if crowning themself, and a v-shaped tiara appeared over their forehead.
In succession, Saoirse held their arm out as well and shouted, "IRIS PRISM POWER! MAKE UP!"
A rainbow aureole consumed their body, and they too were enclosed in the fabric ribbons only this time the uniform was white with an orange colour. They donned white gloves and similarly orange boots, finishing the transformation with their own magic tiara.
Lucille was too busy admiring his current appearance in the reflection of his fingernails to notice that this was his cue to transform as well. Saoirse nudged him and coughed, gesturing towards Des and themself now adorned in the magic-given sailor uniforms. He realised what he had to do and languidly reached into the air as if to stretch.
"BACCHUS FRENZY POWER! MAKE UP!"
His transformation went similarly to the others, vines of ivy rapidly bursting from his own brooch and snaking around his body to form a sailor uniform of white and purple, his boots longer and more thigh-level.
"You stand no chance against us!" Des announced, looking up at the bee woman. She flinched neither at their magical transformations nor Des's declaration, seeming more amused than intimidated.
"You sweet little humans are so cute," she hummed. "It's a shame what I'll have to do to you!" The rapid beating of her wings shook the ground as she took flight, causing the group of highschoolers to lose their balance.