Member
TheWendil
Kero
Ivar
SleepingSilence
Noctis
Majoraa
AtomicNut
Snowdrops
Foxy13
"I’m ready for my close up."
— Chloe Irving
Most magical girls had long forgotten what being an actual girl was like. Provided they were one to begin with. But it was something Chloe had never forgotten. You really couldn’t when you were the star of the show all the time. The world was a stage, and she was the lead character. Thus, she needed to look as good as she possibly could. Her magical girl outfit was the only thing she’d bother wearing, but she had her choice of accessories to adorn herself with. Or rather, her scarf would change into whatever it was that she desired. But now it was a hat, if only for a moment before becoming a collar. It would continue to change shape while she applied her makeup.
Her attention was fixed on a body length mirror on her apartment’s wall, but her phone was a short distance away. The Glimmr app was open, with Lily’s message taking up the majority of the phone’s screen. There was also enough room for an ad about banana scented shampoo. But who wanted that?
"Alright, lovelies." Chloe turned around to face Sonia, Viper, and Aurora. "Your brave, beautiful, and fearless leader’s plan is coming together swimmingly! I know we have a few things baking in the oven, but there’s no reason to concern ourselves with that now." She grinned. "Once everything runs its course, we’ll be that much closer to getting what your little heart desires."
"Boobs?" Aurora’s head perked up, but Chloe was quick to pinch her cheek between her fingers.
"I was talking to the other two."
"Awwww…"
"I have some muscle on reserve, so once Sonia drops Aurora and I off, she and Viper can do whatever they wish. Which I’m ready for, by the way." She snapped her fingers.
No sooner did Nykannis’s recording stopped playing did Chloe burst onto the scene. Sonia brought Chloe and Aurora to the location. The trap was holding a red carpet, which she rolled out immediately. Chloe strut across the carpet as souls rose up from either side of it.
"Hello Penrose! It is I, Chloe Irving, here to converse with the rest of the magical girl community. I don’t care who you serve, I think we all need to come together to fight our common enemy. And also…"
The ground behind Chloe moved aside as something burrowed out of the earth. It was a bony abomination, one with the head of an alligator and limbs from long extinct animals. Its torso was made up of at least five different ribcages, and was filled to the brim with glowing bones. If that wasn’t enough, the thing’s limbs were clad in plate armor and it’s main arms had runic scythes for hands.
"...Lily’s not the only one with a security detail. So let’s not try anything, eh?"
"I ruined everything.”
— Tonya “Mac” Murphy
Oliver was talking to Mac, but she was only half listening. She went through her morning routine, worked out, took a shower, if only to get her headspace right. But while a shower could wash away the grime of brisk exercise, it couldn’t clear her head.
Mac had done some horrible things, but was always able to justify her actions. It was a good cause, for the greater good, that was all it took to get her to deal with cutthroats, thieves, and everything else being an undercover cop entailed. But it never involved people she knew. Even if Mac hadn’t known the people at Cradle long, she hadn’t been this close to anyone since she arrived in Penrose ten or so years ago. And even if she wasn’t, Nothing she ever did was as deplorable as what Aria put him through. She knew Finn had a sister at some point, but didn’t know the details about her. It almost felt like Aria went above and beyond to psychologically torture him. And for what? Even if she knew more than Oliver, she didn’t know the full story. But she’d be okay. Unlike Finn, she didn’t deserve a rest.
"Um, yea. I get that.” Mac nodded. "We’ll just give him some space. And, um, I guess I need a persona for this.” With a snap of her fingers, she turned into a rodent monster girl. She looked like iron mouse, but dressed to go crash a mosh pit at a punk concert. Spiked pauldrons, skirt, torn socks. It’s not a phase, mom.
"You may have heard of Iron Mouse, but I’m ’Metal Rat’.” She hadn’t even bothered to change her voice. "I use gravity magic and, um, you know it’s probably not necessary to get too invested in this. Let’s get moving.”
"I may be dead, but my memory lives on!”
— Sakura
The one thing Sakura missed most about his old Yakuza life was the respect he used to get. His fellow yakuza treated him like a brother, his family loved him, and his enemies feared him. Even as he approached his senior years, he still “had it.” But then he became a magical girl and subsequently a laughing stock. He tried to change that sorry state of affairs every chance he got, but to no avail. It was that pursuit of greater respect – that rejection of her current reality – that made things end poorly.
But death was not the end for magical girls.
When you’re just a soul, your ability to perceive the physical realm is not that great. She couldn’t see tangible objects, only the neon glow of other spirits. They moved and swirled in the darkness. She noticed only a few at first, but as she looked around she could see hundreds and thousands of them. They were all different colors and swirling like galaxies. It was as mesmerizing as it was haunting; Each of those lights was a dead magical girl. Was this anything more than a dream?
Before long, Sakura was swept up by a current. Some invisible force was pushing her along, moving her closer to the collection of lights. She was a little unnerved by this, but it wasn’t like she could resist. Moreover, she found herself being comforted by it. Given how badly she had screwed things up, it was probably best that something else decided where she was going.
But Sakura was not alone. While most of the spirits were far away, one floated closer to her. As it got closer, Sakura could see a shape inside the light. It looked like a small person, wearing more clothing than most magical girls do. Come to think of it, she kind of looked like a captain. Maybe even a pirate captain.
“Ahoy, there!” The tiny pirate greeted Sakura. “You seem to be freshly released. You wouldn’t happen to be from Penrose, would you?”
“I am.” Sakura was shocked at how easy it was to speak. She must have had an incorporeal form like this pirate. “Did you want to know what was going on?”
“Nah, I can’t say I care about that now. I mean, we’re dead, right?” The pirate grinned, but it felt less happy and more smug. “Besides, it’s hard to remember much as a spirit. I can’t even remember the last ten people I talked to. I’m sure you noticed how dream-like everything feels?”
“This is real then?”
“Unfortunately.”
“F-” Sakura sighed. “A big Oppai maid angel told me some things, and I think I may end up in a bad underworld.”
“Bad underworld? Oppai?” The pirate raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what either of those things are, but we’re magical girls. Our patrons aren’t going to let us check out that easily. It may take a decade or so, but we’re going to get resurrected the second we acquire enough mana to do so. You probably noticed how hard it is to move. After a while, you’ll collect enough ambient mana to be able to fight the soul stream and collect even more mana. After a while, you’ll have enough mana to rebuild your physical body… I think.”
“You think?”
“You probably noticed they don’t give you a manual when you get here.”
“Fucking hell…” Sakura would sigh if she still had lungs. “How long have you been doing this?”
“I haven’t seen as much as a clock or calendar since I got here. But let’s not worry about that too much. The one nice thing about being here is that you get to meet all kinds of other souls.” The pirate pretended to clear her throat. “I’m Amber, but the magical girl community knows me as Shining Scale.”
“Sakura. But don’t let the name fool you. I was a man before turning into a magical girl.”
“A man, huh?” Amber barrel-rolled to the other side of Sakura. “What did you do for a living? I was a hardware store manager.”
“Yakuza.”
“Really?”
“I was one of the good ones.” Sakura was glad she didn’t have a form capable of blushing. “B-because I met a good woman! Our daughter is the greatest thing I’ve ever produced.”
“Oh, a family man.” She laughed. “I never met my mister right. But I bet that makes the magical life even harder, huh? Abstaining from making other connections like that.”
“Yea…” Sakura couldn’t keep Emily or that kiss he gave her out of his head. “Um, are those other souls ahead?”
“Oh yea! Looks like a few more recently deceased. I wonder if they’re from Penrose too.”
The next two souls looked like a mobster and an old, timely detective. They were holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. Sakura and Amber remained quiet until their forms vanished from view.
“You didn’t say anything to them?” Sakura inquired.
“No point spoiling their moment.” Amber chuckled. “It’s kind of a good thing that they both went together, you know? A decade or so is a long time to be away from the person you love. They’ll do alright regardless of how much the world changes. Can’t say you or I are going to have it as easy.”
“I don’t know. I think everyone I know is better off without me.”
Amber raised her pimp hand. “If we could physically interact with each other, I’d smack you!”
“Oh!” Sakura was a bit taken back by how quickly the pirate lady got angry. She was probably not too fun to work under. Then again, all the yakuza bosses were short tempered too. “I was just feeling sorry for myself.”
“Hey!” A sudden shout came from an absolutely massive soul. Clearly it belonged to a very old, very powerful magical girl. She had an unsettling grin on her face and wore a crown. “Don’t be sad, be mad! Get angry! Realize that someone sent you here, and while they may have bought themselves a decade or so to live, you’re going to go back there and absolutely crush whatever killed you!” The beastly magical girl withdrew into her own thoughts. “Next time, Connie, it’s just going to be you and me, and I won’t let anyone get in the way.. So don’t die before I can get to you, my perfect prey!” With a laugh that shook the underworld, the massive soul took off like a jet, throwing Sakura and Amber threw the soul stream.
“Fucking hell!”
“I’ll say!” Amber managed to stay near Sakura. “But that’s why you need to return as fast as you can. Because there’s always a few nutjobs like that waiting to come back.”
“I see that now!”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong.” Amber looked ahead. “Sometimes I wish death was a bit more permanent.”
Now it was Sakura who was ready to get annoyed. “Didn’t you say you’d smack me for talking like that?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She clarified. “We need to make the best of a bad situation, but it can feel a little pointless sometimes. We fight forever. Us, our enemies, all to be pawns in some sadistic game. With a finite lifespan at least we could see our friends in the appropriate afterlife. I’ll never see some of my friends again. And there’s the possibility that when I come back, the people I know as a magical girl will have moved on. Ten years is a long time, and if they didn’t die, they might have changed. Maybe ten years is all it takes for the world to forget about Shining Scale.”
This was one of those rare moments where Sakura stopped to think about what to say. “If you don’t think you’ll be remembered, or see your friends again, why continue?”
“Partially because we don’t have a choice. But also, well, it’s not my first rodeo.” Amber grinned. “It wasn’t a literal death, but getting turned into a magical girl hit the reset button on my life. Everything I knew about hardware was useless, everyone treated me like a kid again, and I had all of these new responsibilities and powers I knew nothing about. I was only able to keep up for a year or two, but by the time I died I rallied a bunch of magical girls together and initiated a raid. I built new connections and learned about my new life, and when I return I know I can do it all again.”
“Huh…”
“But I think I’ve drawn in enough mana from this area, so I’ll be going now.”
It took Sakura a moment, but she realized that the pirate… the woman… who was she talking to again?
