Magically induced racial transformation, complete with weight gain, muscle growth, and age progression.
A celebrity is used in this work of pure fiction.
—————-
A minute remained on the scoreboard.
Jordan Alexander was quickly advancing up the field, but a flock of vigorously trained defenders lay ahead of her. Their sticks lowered, their bodies displayed a wall of insurmountablity.
Yet her head was clear and focused on a design repeatedly run through her coach's practice. Her eyes darted, her mouth was dry, the edges of her vision blurred through the intensity – at this adrenaline fueled moment Jordan only cared about specific placements on the field.
She'd been a whirl the past few minutes, dazzling fans as a player that stood out on her state championship finalist team. There was a brilliancy to her talent, distancing herself from her peers. And teams were undefeated. The two programs shone above the pack in her field hockey rich state. And while her ability lead her past these others – her determination was going to make damn sure she went home a winner.
Now there was less than a minute remaining, and her stick's control of the ball remained masterful. Her legs were aching, her breath still rapid, but she nonetheless was in her best element. A teammate of hers had just made a movement to separate on one of the defenders. Jordan, hunched over in her run, flicked both wrists and shot the ball toward her teammate.
She received it, controlled it, continuing a running effort to locate a clearance from the blockade ahead of her.
The defense clamped down. The teammate rocketed the ball backwards toward another teammate, setting up another plan.
Jordan sprang sideways. The ball had made it back safely and the forwards had reset themselves, but Jordan's movements were both technically superior and quicker. The girl who received the ball saw Jordan's break and sent the ball whizzing forward in the direction she anticipated Jordan to get to. Just as practiced.
Jordan's break was clear, not offsides - the separation was perfect. The ball arrived where the midfielder wanted it to be, and Jordan's arms did the rest. A mighty swing of her stick sent the ball on a rope right at the goal. A loud thwack gave proof to the point Jordan had just scored.
The point lifted them above their opponent, 2 to 1. And after hardening their defense, Jordan's team held on for the remaining 40 plus seconds. Exhaustion turned to elation, and Jordan celebrated with her teammates a well-deserved state championship.
…............
(A little over a year later)
Jordan awoke in her dorm room, dreamed memories of her championship beginning to fade.
She got up from her bed a tad groggy, slowly heading toward the bathroom for a quick morning shower before class. In there she set the water on warm, then softly removed her night shirt and panties. Her nude form stepped into the shower. Jordan shut her eyes, allowing the water to saturate her short, blonde hair. She only really kept it around shoulder length, and most of the time it was in a tight pony tail.
Thoughts of her dream flowed back into her head. Though only a little while ago, the dominance of her senior year of high school seemed all too far away. She was more than just a championship game star. Throughout her high school career she logged some 60 goals and 34 assists. She was named to numerous “All” teams, notably All-City, All-Region, and All-State. No slouch in the school room either, she was named to a national academic team. Jordan Alexander was an all-star.
Shampoo cleansed her hair while she reflected on the “was” part. Her lathered loofah moved gently over her modest breasts, and she recalled how her redshirt freshman year was nothing like high school. She was very highly recruited, and luckily the program she chose had a national powerhouse reputation in Division 1. Or at least was once considered a powerhouse, it had fallen off a bit in the past decade. Though in its history it won over 5 national championships, and still routinely made the NCAAs. It was also luckily right near her high school, only about a 20-minute drive over to the neighboring city.
But unlike high school she was no longer a big fish in a small pond.
She wasn't even a big fish in a big pond.
Right now Jordan was a small fish in a large pond. And “small” was more literal than she would have liked.
Jordan was tiny compared to the rest of her team. The university's field hockey squad's two tallest women were 5'11,” they were sisters from the other side of the state who played Midfield/Back and Keeper, respectively. They were the Robinson sisters, good friends of hers but each at least a year ahead of her. The team average for height was 5'6”, and unfortunately Jordan was one of the reasons it was even that low.
At 5'1” she was the shortest on the team. She barely eclipsed 100 pounds, and even though her arms and legs were solidly built to handle the rigors of college athletics – she still looked noticeably smaller than her friends.
Her small fishness was still here on a full ride, though. And she knew she was going to be seeing some playing time this year after her redshirt had ended. But her competitive nature was quite fierce, she was not only unaccustomed to being a reserve, she was unaccustomed to never playing.
A little sore from yesterday's practice, Jordan took care to somewhat gingerly move the loofah over her thighs and quads. On this late August day she'd take it a little easy, tomorrow was the first game of the season after all; but today also happened to be the first day of classes.
A few more minutes of careful showering passed, then the slightly built yet beautiful blonde finished. She shut off the water and reached her arm out of the gap between the shower wall and the curtain, reaching for her towel. Grabbing it, Jordan stepped out and began to dry.
….................
Dressed in a snug, white short sleeve tee she made her way from her first class; a 200-level reading course that fell under her English major. Not participating in a college “money” sport made the prospect of playing after her college career largely fruitless. She could go into coaching however and she chose English as a way to break into teaching. She'd probably go back to her high school, or one in the district, to teach and coach young women.
Walking out of the building, Jordan began heading toward the school's bookstore.
The bookstore, large and bright, assuredly had the supplies she'd need for this semester. The glass doors opened at her presence, and Jordan stepped inside getting ready to browse for the last remaining books she needed. Up front there was a new releases section with plenty of current events titles.
Massive selections of university shirts, sweats, and bags adorned the bottom level. Jordan moved past the clothing and headed toward the escalator. The pertinent school book selection at the bookstore was on the second level. There she went through the sciences section, picking out a required text on biology for her minor. Then she moved to the English section, and after a minute or so of focused searching she found her reading text.
It was on the edge of a shelf in the corner at the end of the bookstore. It seemed darker over here. She placed her hand on the top of the book, and pulled. It didn’t budge.
Jordan then put her other hand on it too, and yanked. It hesitated but jolted out at her increased pressure. It had been wedged tightly between other books, and it rocked the whole shelf at its release. A “thud” marked the sound of another book hitting the hard floor. That one had fallen behind the shelf. Reaching around behind the shelf she wanted to see what had fallen. It felt dusty, but it definitely had a book's shape.
It was darker and smaller than her class's reading text. She couldn’t make out the wording on the cover so she opened the inside. That wasn't much help as the words, at least some of them, were only slightly more able to be read. One of them looked like the word “heart’s.” Did she also see “desire”? She couldn’t be sure, but she looked the book back over, there was no bar code sticker. She slipped the book into her bag. The bad had her team number and logo stitched on it, and Jordan always had with her.
Then Jordan paid for her reading and biology books, and walked out of the bookstore toward her next class.
……………….
Two more classes came and went that day, followed by a team meeting afterwards.
Jordan left the meeting dejected. Coach had told her all summer that she’d be featured more. She was told that now that her redshirt freshman season ended she’d be able to see action. Maybe even start. But she wasn’t starting tomorrow against State college.
She arrived at her dorm, shutting the door in frustration. The sound made her frown, she didn’t realize till then just how upset her emotions really were.
After tossing her bag on the bed, the dark book skirted out and slid near her pillow. She furrowed her brow, then walked over to the bed and picked the book back up. Sitting down she started thumbing through the pages. Around ten pages in Jordan found something she could begin to make out. This appeared to be a chapter on self-improvement.
“I guess whatever it's called is a self-help book,” she muttered.
Placing her index finger on the page she skimmed until she found a paragraph that looked interesting.
It began “Improvement of self can be as easy as imagination. Life is always influenced by the human mind, its thoughts rippling the great ocean of reality.”
She thought this sounded like that quack “The Secret,” though this work was seemingly much older.
“What you want, visualize it. Repeat “Ego animadverto is, cogito ergo sum.””
She somewhat recognized that as Latin, remembering ergo. She quickly opened Safari on her phone and typed in that phrase. While it was Latin she recognized it as sounding something similar to I think, therefor I am. Something about seeing it first.
She rolled her eyes but muttered the phrase once to try it out.
She turned on her chair, away from the bed and over to her desk (small dorm). She then opened her laptop, and the tabs from the previous evening flashing. She eyed one tab she had clicked as it was noting a story on Serena Williams and the latest on her pregnancy.
Not exactly a tennis fan, Jordan nonetheless had the entire world’s worth of respect for Serena. She won a major while pregnant! She admired her over twenty titles, and she just knew she had more in the tank and would come back to win more.
That’s exactly the type of champion Jordan wished she was. Dominant as a prodigy all the way up to 35. Statuesque, she physically was better than her opponents and her tenacity just dug her opponents in over and over again.
She thought back to earlier today, how she was left off the starting roster. Frustration filled her mind again. I can be that good for this team! She knew she was talented, she knew she was a winner. She wanted to help her team win a national championship. While her imagination was firing away at that, Jordan quickly brought up and looked through a bit of Serena’s best years. She eyed Serena's 2012’s Wimbledon and US Open titles. There was an Olympic gold she won that year too. What a stretch of dominance. Jordan even read the story from CNN out of Cincinnati where Serena had won a match as her crazy hair kept distracting her. Jordan's hand reflexively went through her short, straight blonde hair just imagining playing that well with such a mane in her face.
Jordan's swell of imagination overtook her, seeing Serena’s success in 2012 and thinking how much she wanted something like that.
“Ego animadverto is, cogito ergo sum.”
She imagined holding up trophies the way Serena did that year at the Olympics, Wimbledon, at the US Open.
“Ego animadverto is, cogito ergo sum.”
Jordan even began muttering the phrase to herself now.
Then she remembered dinner. She picked up her little travel back once again, remembering that the nearby quad cafeteria had only about an hour’s left of food before they closed for the night.
Jordan quickly left her dorm, heading toward the cafeteria.