Second Arc – Chicago
10: You Never Did the Kenosha Kid
Sage Rhys inhabited a manor rarely graced by the spectral family whose corporate entanglements financed its existence. On the rare occasions Mrs. Rhys (father deceased) jetted back from the New York or Paris or Tokyo penthouses she more aptly called home, little attention fell to Sage or her assortment of friends, so overall Sage had free reign within the house. Its endless profusion of bedrooms permanently housed the city's magical denizens; when one really analyzed the situation, this excess of free housing formed the root of Denver's high Magical Girl quality of life. The girls Aurora, Collins, Arvada, Westminster, and so forth had few earthly concerns to trouble them, bankrolled as they were by Mrs. Rhys's endless, apathetic coffers.
Now, Sage Rhys no longer existed as a tangible entity. Aurora, in the sense of the short girl with curly blonde hair, never existed. And all others save one had been carefully incapacitated.
The one sat on her knees in Sage's office, awash in a sea of documents, sorting them rapidfire into ramshackle piles based on relevance. The locks on all the filing cabinets had been shimmied, the desk broken open, the computer "hacked" much the same way Murrieta-Temecula hacked Clownmuffle's MagNet account. Essential online files were already downloaded onto a USB, so only the physical stuff remained. And for some reason—maybe encoded into her by her mother the Fortune 500 executive—an exasperating quantity of data had been printed, labeled, filed, and stored.
Collins already had sixteen paper cuts on her fingertips. She licked them to stop the stinging and flipped through more. Tons of useless files about the nitty-gritty of MagNet site management, expenditures on the domain and server maintenance, that kind of bureaucratic crap, but lots were files on MagNet users, Magical Girls across the continent, their appearance, age, powers, et cetera, all leaked from the horse's mouth so to speak over the forums. If Sage used a system of organization even one ounce intuitive Collins could've been out of this city ten hours previous, but the way things worked in Sage's brain made sense only to her and even after two years her dedicated lackey Collins made neither heads nor butts of it.
Like, was she nuts? Wouldn't it be most obvious to put all the website management crap into one cabinet by itself, then all the Magical Girl info in another cabinet? Sort the website management files by date and the Magical Girl data alphabetically by city?
No.
Can't do that.
Let's instead—Denver the Sage speaking here, enthroned upon an allegorical mule named Wisdom—let's instead sort everything by date. Mix it all together by whenever it happened. Site traffic metrics from January 2009 right alongside the file on a Shreveport three years croaked. Insufferable. Did she ever even plan on using these files again ever? If Collins knew her less well she'd assume laziness, like Denver shoved files into the cabinet as she got them and put zero thought to their arrangement, but no, this whole setup must have been a conscious decision, to her one that made perfect sense, reached by a monologue of anxious, jittery thought where circuitous and specious logic ultimately conspired to conceive the worst solution imaginable and disguise it as the best.
Okay, okay, so to solve Collins's problem, because she had far too many files here to bring them all back with her, and needed to sort the important ones from the junk before she could leave, the thought would be to start from the most recent. Right? Because the Magical Girls who had files added most recently were the ones most likely to still be alive. But corollary—the most important Magical Girls on which to have intel were the strongest, and the strongest tended to live longer. Clownmuffle's file, for instance, devoid of real information as it was (no name listed, occupation contract killer), was in the folder for MagNet's first month of operation. So a thorough exhaustion of every file became paramount.
Sage. Collins loved her, but Sage. Why. Whyyyyy. She rubbed her throbbing eyes and got dust in them. She wanted another smoke but she no longer had time for breaks. A whole night passed, the storm cleared, not quite sun but gray phosphorescence filtered through the blinds. She still had half of 2009 to parse. She felt like she had nodded off in a seated position multiple times during the night but couldn't be sure. Everything mingled as a blur. She wanted out. She wanted—
A door opened.
Downstairs.
Imagined, yeah? A creak within the beams, a stupid rat under the floorboards. An auditory hallucination brought upon a brain not exactly stranger to them stressed by the mental and physical weight of its current situation.
Voices.
"Nice place."
"Clean."
"Knew she was rich."
"Nice TV."
Collins crept across the stacks of papers and leaned closer to her open second-story door. She did not recognize the voices. Were they friends of Mother Rhys? Business associates invited on some pretense? The voices had a rough, adult character, female but not feminine. If they were friends of the mother Collins could easily play off her presence there. If they were a pair of cat burglars things got even more hilarious.
After a few minutes wandering downstairs, the voices ascended the stairwell. Collins turned and tried to look natural, like she had not heard them coming, but realized a little late how suspicious she would look surrounded by documents that seemed official. Under normal circumstances she did deserve to be in the house, however.
Until the voices rounded the corner and two blank and identical faces stared her down from the hallway and Collins realized she made a mistake.
She lurched up. "Holy wow, it's uh, it's you two!"
The pair cocked their faces in opposite directions. "You're Aurora?"
"Collins, Collins." She extended a vigorous hand to shake each twin's in turn. "Long way from uh, from—Seattle."
"Yeah."
"Denver texted us."
"Weird message."
"Nice papers."
"Something about things going a little oof out in St. Louis."
"Nice papers." Twin 2, distinguished in long-sleeved flannel, stooped and scooped a handful.
"Say Collins." Twin 1 in a knitted Rudolph sweater with the red nose an actual light that shined periodically. "How come you never post your selfie? On the Selfie Board."
"Nice papers." Twin 2 leaned to show Twin 1 a couple.
Twin 1 nodded. "Nice papers."
"Ah yanno how it goes look at me—" (These two dangerous. What exactly did Denver tell them? What did Denver find out?) "—I ain't the uh, the prettiest thing on market, rather'd save myself the heartache of a Clownmuffle two outta—" (They asked if she was Aurora but they probably knew Aurora was in St. Louis too. Fishing for a lie?) "Outta ten yanno? And uh, and uh, yanno, lotsa papers to run the site. Gotta bookkeep or you lose track of it all. Say—" (These clowns wouldn't come if Denver asked for help. And even if they did, why come to Colorado, not St. Louis? The only thing in this manor of interest were the nice papers.) "Wanna bite to eat? Musta flown in right? Bet you're uh, hungry."
"Where are the other girls."
"Why are the cabinets broken open."
Collins swayed back and stroked the back of her head. Her ponytail swished as she laughed. "Lost the uh, lost the keys yanno?"
"Where are the other girls."
"Lose them too?"
A flash enveloped Collins as she transformed in the same motion she extended her arm thumb up forefinger aimed and then jerked the hand back sharply three times in rapid succession. Rudolph twin shoved herself and Flannel twin down as the wall behind where their heads had been opened with three smoking round holes. They both transformed in a similar flash by which time Collins held both her hands together as though she clutched an invisible tommy gun and brakka-brakka-brakka'd the imaginary barrel left and right and back left across the entire room. The walls ate away, the papers swirled and shredded, the sisters cleaved behind one's gigantic medieval shield until they darted together through the door and into the hall for cover.
Collins took one hand away from the pantomimed gun but kept the other extended, shaking it a little more wildly to simulate the reduced support and added strain. With the now free hand cupped around an unseen lemon-sized object she pressed the approximate location of said object's edge to her clenched teeth and tore her mouth away to pull the nonreal pin of a nonreal grenade she then lobbed into the hall.
She swept the stack of relevant papers plus two or three of the remaining unsorted manila folders under one arm and backflipped through the window as the grenade exploded and the walls bent and dissolving flecks of confetti buffeted her onto her way down into the snow.
Papers swirled out of her grasp as she hupped her legs up and down in of the knee-high powder toward the driveway. Glass and other debris rained from above. Two steps later she spotted one twin in the next window over, hips balanced upon the sill and she, below a coxcomb and behind a nine-foot scoped rifle, took aim at Collins's back.
Best as she could with one arm pinning so many papers to her side, Collins pressed her palms straight forward and slid them across a straight surface tall and broad enough to cover her completely as the rifle burst with a heavy pillar of smoke and a bullet big enough to kill a blue whale cracked against the invisible wall, bounced back, and exploded. The flames whipped around the sides of Collins's wall but by the time they would have curled to reach her she had bounded the remaining stretch to the driveway. She mimed clicking a key and then opening a door before she tossed her papers onto a passenger seat that despite not existing caused the papers to hover in a mostly solid stack two or three feet off the ground. By the time she climbed onto a seat herself, legs forward and bent at the knees, one hand held out to grip a wheel, one jittering as it scraped a key against an ignition before it finally slid in—by that time a juggernaut in full metal armor barreled out the front door and charged her.
Collins yanked an imaginary gearshift into drive and stomped her foot. She and the floating stack of papers beside her spurted forward as the armored twin leapt and slammed against the rear of the fake vehicle, its dimensions defined by the distance between driver and passenger seat, had Collins thrown her papers a little less far she might have formed a minicar instead of a pickup and the twin might have missed entirely. As it stood, though, with the thousand sharp implements across her armor, so studded with spikes and angles it seemed impossible to touch her without impalement, the knight twin had basically stuck herself to the rear of the car like a sea urchin and kept exactly five feet behind Collins as she plowed through the manor's front gate and onto the open road.
Her hands pumped the wheel back and forth and she swerved across the frosty road but no amount of reckless driving shook the twin from the rear. She tossed one hand behind her finger-pistol style and fired, but the bullets only rang off the armor and sprayed sparks while the knight hefted overhead a laser beam mace that flashed down with a tail of rainbow neon. Collins dove into the passenger seat, grabbed her papers, and rolled out the window. Before she hit the street she pedaled her legs in a cyclical motion and hit the pavement not with her shoes but the invisible wheel of an invisible unicycle. The car crumpled inward and the knight faceplanted at ninety miles per hour only to bounce twice with a spray of sparks, right herself, and hit the ground the third time at a run barely even behind Collins.
The unicycle was stupid, sure, slow too, but its distinct advantage lied in its hands-free nature. She swirled her free hand overhead, like twirling a lasso, and probably looked like a lasso to any non-gauchos out there, but what Collins actually lobbed were bolas that, despite the knight's attempt to defend herself with a lateral slice, skidded against the ground under the blade before wrapping around her ankles.
The knight dropped hard and Collins blitzed onward around a corner and left her long before she had a chance to rise again.
Holy wow. Holy wow indeed. Collins consulted the papers she managed to retain and estimated she'd lost at least a quarter, plus one of the folders that slipped out when she flung the bolas. Who cared so much about a coupla sheets and a folder? Well, her bosses of course. They'd give her—
Something infinitely distant cracked and she had only half a second to react to the cannonball bullet that rounded the corner and hurtled at her face. She reacted by kicking her unicycle out from under herself and nearly breaking her butt on the ground, but the bullet whizzed overhead and only stirred her ponytail. Sniper twin in the jester getup. Neither twin had powers too much like those they described on MagNet.
Since she was on the ground anyway, she undid imaginary latches on an imaginary briefcase, opened it, and placed her papers inside. With the latches closed again the papers jostled but did not escape the confines of the two by one foot rectangle her hands devised for them. She fastened the briefcase to her hip by a cable and mimed another vehicle. Practice made her fast and she managed the whole thing in a matter of five seconds, during which the knight did not round the corner and the sniper did not fire another bullet.
Collins rode in the direction of the Denver airport. Sound trouncing they'd give her. Two years undercover and what a welcoming committee. The crap she put up with, yanno? Devious.
Only after she reached the airport and got her ticket (had to carry her papers the old fashioned way then), only when she sat in the terminal and watched the planes descend and ascend through the white glow, with the mountain peaks a couple brush strokes in the distance, only then did she get a touch sentimental about the whole affair, the city, Denver the Sage herself. She knew all along what she was in for, so her own feelings had a feel of disingenuousness about them, or maybe the artificial part was the logic she used to decry herself, either way a dim melancholy settled and she wondered if Cook really wound up killing Sage, knowing Cook as both a good person but a loyal adjunct to the Empire—unless in two years, as things do, things changed—but on the plane itself she got lucky and sat between a couple of high school basketball players en route to a tournament, so she chatted absentmindedly the whole flight back to what she supposed she had to call home again.
—
Four hours physical preparation, from arm regeneration in Medical to stringent cleaning, cleansing, tailoring, brushing, combing, tweezing, plucking, powdering, and straightening with the Handmaiden, then two minutes inside the Empress's study Hegewisch had sweat pouring down her forehead. Not solely a product of anxiety, cut her some slack. Granted the memory of DuPage wondering whether the Empress wanted Hegewisch dead lingered, granted the Empress daunted even in optimal circumstances, but by now—almost a day after her rescue from St. Louis—Hegewisch imagined they wouldn't kill her. How much of that imagining was imagination, how much a rational assessment of the Empress's character, who knew. Either way, Hegewisch found it hard for a social setting to try her nerves more than the wraith wonder emporium in St. Louis.
No, she sweated because the study was a fucking sauna. Jesus dick. Holy fuck was it hot in this room, despite the room's cavernous size, despite the high roof that ought to have trapped all heat at its unseeable apex, despite the lack of an audible heater. A fireplace flickered with flames at the midpoint between Hegewisch and the Empress, nothing more. For starters, the fireplace made no sense. The study itself made no sense. It laid near the back of the Empress's private yacht, docked not far from the Administration and Medical buildings. And while the yacht was big, by Hegewisch's estimation the study had to be twice its height, and she also wondered how a fireplace operated on a yacht, since she saw no chimney or even a smokestack from the outside, only a sleek modern form from bowsprit to whatever you called the back of the boat, the rudder, hell she didn't know. She was willing to assume the size discrepancy stemmed from a trick of clever interior design or feng shui, but she defaulted to an assessment of the fireplace as "bullshit"—or would have if not for the tropical jungle heat. Magic, maybe? Several girls in Chicago had fire powers.
Hegewisch had time to ponder all this crap because, upon the Handmaiden ushering her inside, Her Munificence said: "We shall speak once we have completed this chapter." She sat, like in online correspondence, in a chair that faced away from Hegewisch, so all she saw was an arm in red silk and pages propped against the armrest.
Paintings, mingled between the bookshelves, glowered at her with Renaissance agony.
On a pedestal beside the Empress's chair sat DuPage's Soul Gem, a crystal ball that swirled with a feather of darkness.
The Empress shut her book.
"Thy safe return doth please us, Junior Administrator."
"I have God to thank for my safekeeping, Your Munificence." Head bowed, deference exuded.
"Yes. It dismayed us to learn of the grave danger that befell thee. Although Aurora possesses an otherwise inviolable record of service, her inability to defend you adequately doth manifest as a frightful blemish."
A spark of anger flashed in Hegewisch she suppressed instantly, although her thoughts raced—She diverted her anger toward the person she had full license, now at least, to denounce.
"The former Centurion DuPage interpreted your orders regarding me as an unspoken call for execution. She believed the only purpose of your sending me on that mission was so that I may die. It was her command that Lieutenant Aurora not use her power to protect me. The lieutenant only followed orders; by our code, I vouch for her innocence."
While Hegewisch figured her little bit of eloquence a clever self-positioning, and silently applauded herself for keeping under control when she had so much license to go apeshit, the Empress shot upright with a rigid singular movement.
"That vile, baseborn, sullied, insidious wretch. That DuPage! I was utterly correct to—Only she would interpret my orders in such a way. Poisoned as she was by odious notions, empathic only to evil, in her black mind she could only visualize betrayal, abuse, and murder. I, we, knew she had fallen far, but to think this far!"
Hegewisch wiped her forehead. She took a reflexive step backward although her posture, by protocol, needed to remain solid. She had never seen the Empress angry before, never, sure she assumed the Empress had real emotions, but she never thought she would reveal them, to Hegewisch no less, what would a person with the Empress's power do when pissed the fuck off? What would she take it out on.
"Y. Your Munificence. Clearly your decision to remove former Centurion DuPage from power was wise—justified..."
The Empress turned.
Her face was smooth, bright, almost glassy, like a doll's. Her hair a conservative but immaculately-coiffured bob with one eye framed by long bangs. Her makeup was noticeable but in a way that called attention to its modesty, like a clear accentuation of natural beauty rather than a total replacement of it. She was the prettiest fucking woman Hegewisch ever saw and she was one hundred percent certain the Handmaiden had a hand in it because 1) Duh and 2) The Empress's daughter, Centurion Joliet, wasn't half so attractive.
But the half-manic gaze lanced Hegewisch through the gut so hard she stifled a grunt audible despite the omnipresent tick of a grandfather clock (sorry, "chronometer" in Imperial parlance) from the study's corner. The Empress said:
"You believe so, Junior Administrator? That is your assessment? DuPage needed to be eliminated?"
"I—I—"
The Empress's demeanor calmed. She straightened her bowtie, expelled a sigh, and allowed her eyes to close. "We have sought an end to DuPage for a long time. When the fate of Chicago still hung in the balance, when many rival factions vied for power, DuPage's amazing strength—and controllable supply of energy—proved an invaluable asset. She and Cook served me with utter loyalty. But we always feared a devil inside DuPage's heart, a lack of faith and... a lack of rectitude."
And she went on. She listed DuPage's innumerable sins in excruciating detail. Sins that ranged from the venial to the blasphemous, culminating in the concept of Centurion DuPage at its core: a Magical Girl who created wraiths.
"And I. I betrayed her. Although she had shown me unflagging loyalty, although in truth I were indebted to her seventy times over. For her wickedness, for the despicable affront that was her very nature, I betrayed one who trusted and placed faith in me. I. I."
A hoarse sob cracked her throat. Hegewisch's mind reeled, who was this Empress? Go back to being an unmovable object of idiocy, a spouter of thee and thy, someone Hegewisch could ridicule to salvage a little sanity. Was she not supposed to look? Was it rude to see Her Divine Munificence cry? Hegewisch turned her head but the harsh cry rang out: "Do not avert your eyes. See me! Witness me!"
The Empress seized the back of her chair with both hands and leaned over it. Tears ran down her face.
"This sin, if it be sin, was one of the gravest, one for which Dante consigned souls to the deepest, iciest fringes of Hell. And I am also a hypocrite—yes, even so! Even so I am a hypocrite. Because for long, for many years I made use of the power I now repudiate, I used it for my own benefit, I used it to shape this very Empire, I murdered hundreds with it, and it was only in a position of security I could find the leisure to strike against it. Ha, ha! That's all empires, isn't it? Built on the backs of genocide only to turn, once established unto posterity, and condemn other incipient cultures for the selfsame offense."
Holy fuck, of all the conversations Hegewisch imagined in this room, the one she was now having was somehow the worst.
"Those deaths cannot be undone, I can repent of them but the only true contrition I can achieve is in wielding the Empire that annihilated them to do good for thousands, tens of thousands, millions more than the total crushed—the scales weighed, one half souls my Empire ruined, one half those it saved, with the rightmost side crashing against the ground with a tremendous, holy clamor...!"
"Yes. Yes. Your Munificence—"
"I know the fault in every life sacrificed. In Denver too, I pray for her soul even as I order its destruction. I do not need your comment on that. It is only this one element, this betrayal of DuPage, my friend, my servant, for which I demand your judgment, Junior Administrator."
"My judgment."
"Yours, Junior Administrator. You are the priestess of God, are you not? You know Her, have seen Her, understand Her thoughts. You are that perfect link, the translator via which we can decode the cipher of Her rectitude. Tell me now, use all your wisdom, all your knowledge of Her—Was my betrayal of DuPage justified? Did she need to be eliminated? Was there no way, none at all, by which to redeem her?"
Redeem.
The silence fell and the twenty thousand eyes that were the Empress's two eyes dropped upon her.
Hegewisch thought about Madoka Kaname.
Would Madoka Kaname believe that DuPage could not be redeemed?
The answer was obvious. Hegewisch barely had to consider it. In another world, a worse world, DuPage wasn't even a rarity. In that world, all Magical Girls created the evil they fought against. Not wraiths then, but witches.
And Madoka Kaname redeemed them all. Even the worst, most monstrous witches, even those that would consume the world. Would Madoka Kaname believe that DuPage could not be redeemed? To Her, DuPage would not even be worthy of exceptional thought. She, like all others, would be saved.
DuPage's Soul Gem glowed on its pedestal not far from the Empress.
"Former Centurion DuPage," said Hegewisch after a deep breath, "violated God's order. Her elimination was just."
The Empress sagged. Her forehead pressed against the back of her chair. "I know not whether to be relieved or disappointed. Much gratitude, Junior Administrator."
"I live to serve Your Munificence." She failed to muster the necessary inflection, the words came out hilariously hollow, although the Empress didn't notice.
"Now." The Empress stood again. "Now we pray thou understand the purpose of our order. It is of course of great necessity that Centurion DuPage be known among the citizenry as a martyr to our cause; a hero struck down in war not by treachery but by the machinations of Denver. Her memory shall be extolled and celebrated. The memories of those who know otherwise of the circumstances surrounding her elimination—excepting thyself—shall be altered. Especially at this time."
Yes. Hegewisch saw. A martyr before a long campaign, what boosted morale more. What did it matter to her, who sat behind a table and pushed pencils all day...
She remembered Denver and had to bite her lip.
"Thou art of utmost importance to us, Junior Administrator Hegewisch. Thy role is more vital than even our strongest soldiers. Thou provide the moral soul of this Empire. Thus, it was necessary for thee to witness both Centurion DuPage and my betrayal of her. Thy judgment means all to me. We forever seek thy counsel and thy honest heart. Thou art dismissed."
A power seen as blasphemous, but used anyway. A betrayal fretted over, but committed anyway. A priestess most vital, but flung headlong into a miasma of despair anyway.
And all that was why they sent her to St. Louis?
As the Handmaiden led Hegewisch off the yacht, Hegewisch reminded herself over and over that she didn't mean shit to the Empress. That the Empress didn't care whether she lived or died. Maybe, on some level, even preferred the latter. Hegewisch had to maintain that mentality. Otherwise she would let this deathtrap clamp around her throat. She should have flung Madoka Kaname in the Empress's face... But she knew she would never have the spine for that.
And anyway, she knew Madoka Kaname would even think the Empress could be redeemed...
—
— Three Alternative Meditations on the Death of DuPage —
1. Lieutenant Aurora: Reposed in wooden chair in her stark bedchamber, tilted and her head tilted too, blood slowly pooling in the inverted basin of her skull, forming for herself a migraine, lips congealed into a ceaseless mumble.
2. Third Centurion Cicero: Nothing much differently than normal, the same austere orders barked to her underlings, the same official pomp and circumstance for orders delegated, tasks undergone, but in the back of her mind a sheer frustration that after their shared history, after the abuse Cicero suffered as a new recruit under DuPage's iron wing, after the wanton disregard and seething hatred shared between superior and subordinate, at the point when Cicero had dragged herself up the ranks and come so close to usurpation of that withered, sickly wretch—the face went dim, the body disintegrated, and Cicero had no hand in it. They last spoke at the meeting when DuPage received her orders. Good riddance, Cicero wanted to say, and think no more on it. She could not.
3. Second Centurion Cook: The Handmaiden returned her to her original appearance. So first chance she got to slink away after debriefing, a dolled-up twenty-something with cocoa complexion sat cross-legged on a barstool, hem of her chiffon skirt draped carefully carelessly upon her mid-thigh, heeled gladiator sandal tap-tap-tapping against the counter as she nursed a fruity concoction. Some handsome man approached, asked her name, and she replied with a, "Uhhhhh, you can call me Valerie?" that lured him deeper with the promise of affable idiocy and she spent the night in someone else's bed.
—
As the Empress intimated, a grand funeral was held for Centurion DuPage. All citizens of Greater Chicago and Milwaukee attended. They gathered on the deck of the Empress's yacht, broad enough to fit them all, arranged by platoon. The three remaining Centurions stood foremost, behind them each lieutenant, with a fourth column arranged behind Aurora and a fifth column behind the Governor of Milwaukee. All very officious, all details hammered until the hammer dented the wood. Bureaucratic folk, including the Administrators Junior and Senior, the Handmaiden, and the Physician, were arranged below a massive mounted screen upon which was projected the painted propaganda image of the Empress in all her glory. Everyone wore, what the fuck else? White suits. White suits front to back.
In the center of the deck, between the projector screen and the five columns, a likewise white casket lay closed. No body was in it, of course, but it was all about the symbolism, the illusion of corporeality. Atop the casket was a painting of DuPage that flattered her far more than any speech in her memory, of which there were infinity. The ceremony lasted at least three hours in the midday murk of never-sunny Lake Michigan, abob on gentle waves that nonetheless had Hegewisch ill in minutes. First, of course, the Empress's portrait gave a speech, possibly prerecorded, which outlined DuPage's historical significance to the Empire, the tireless service she performed, et cetera. That shit done, Cook gave a speech that framed DuPage as a committed and concerned ally and equal, even a companion in the most Platonic sense, and afterward Cicero spoke of DuPage as a loving mentor and wise commander. All in all a tripartite construction of the creature known as DuPage (pronounced Duh-Pahj every single time, although Hegewisch hoped Cicero would slip a Due-Page somewhere): Servant, comrade, leader.
The yacht had by then sailed deep into the lake. The pall bearers—Cook, Cicero, Aurora, Fourth Centurion Joliet, the Handmaiden, and for some reason Hegewisch's boss the Senior Administrator—hefted the casket overboard and let it plop into the depths. A retinue of Magical Girls who used guns for weapons fired a salute. Somebody, possibly a plant, sobbed in stoic semi-silence.
Then the shit everyone cared about began.
First: promotions. The Empire had to have Four Centurions, duh. They were a generation of girls raised on Pokemon, they knew the number that proceeded "Elite." The official announcement let Hegewisch down: As everyone expected, DuPage's lieutenant, Aurora, assumed the position of Fourth Centurion, while the three existing Centurions all bumped up a number.
Tasteless, colorless yes-ma'am Aurora. The obvious choice, sure. As DuPage's lieutenant, she had de facto command over DuPage's platoon already. She had a long record of loyalty, had been with the Empire three years. And it continued the Empress's tradition of appointing sycophants devoid of emotion to the highest offices, a tradition begun with Cicero and Joliet.
Other promotions spiced the pot a little more. For starters, as the Empress explained, Minneapolis and St. Louis had fallen under Imperial dominion and required Governors. Cook's lieutenant gained Minneapolis; Cook's highest-ranked sergeant gained St. Louis.
If not for the stringent obedience beaten into every girl in Chicago, a murmur of genuine surprise might have swept the columns. Cook's lieutenant, sure. But to skip the chain of command, which would have placed Cicero's lieutenant as next in line, and go straight to Cook's sergeant—the snub was obvious. (Everyone knew why Joliet's lieutenant got skipped.) Nobody gasped, but at least every pair of eyes flicked toward Cicero's lieutenant, a loyal but by Chicago standards eccentric girl named Berwyn, to detect some palpable emotion on her face—she was smart enough to betray none, although it made the whole affair way more boring.
The whole thing was boring. Fuck. Politics of a made-up Empire full of made-up people. Who got promoted, who got snubbed, lieutenants and sergeants and Centurions, only someone with infinite time on their hands could even plunge into such a world. While the anticipation had sustained her, the result only jaded Hegewisch more. She barely noticed when the vacancy of Cook's lieutenant went to a girl with a long ponytail Hegewisch had never seen before, although the Empress explained she had spent several years undercover in Denver with the name Collins. Her new name was to be Kenosha.
Collins, Kenosha, God. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, who fucking cared, who cared about these stupid names and these stupid ranks and these stupid promotions and stupid DuPage. Smirking no longer satisfied. The names weren't funny anymore. People had fucking died. The death of DuPage didn't absolve shit, everyone could cry all they wanted about how she created wraiths and how that perverted the natural order, but if the Empress didn't order her otherwise all DuPage would have done that day was sleep like a koala.
These thoughts served the fanfare for the Empress's final announcement. Once the mandated buzz about the new promotions settled, her Delphic portrait spoke once more:
"Now. Centurion DuPage's death brings not an end to the dream for which she strove. The Empire she helped form thrives yet on and we as a united force turn our eyes outward. Our borders to the north. To the west. To the south are now secure. The center of this grand continent belongs to us. Now the trumpet of our benefactor Lord God hearkens us to grander heights—heights our destiny it is to attain. For Centurion DuPage's dying thrust cleaved quick to the heart of that intolerable Denver, and so the pernicious silvertongued voice that lured our fellow Puella Magi across this nation to deviant practices hath finally been silenced. Where that voice falls aquiver in the limp wind, our voice must bellow and cow all who hear.
"Thus, we shall sweep to the east. Our prior undue care shall cease; with Denver deposed, we fear no force that would stand against us. Our next campaign shall be a long one; many cities shall fall to us, many Puella Magi shall see our light and swell our ranks.
"Our war of conquest shall begin on the morrow. No further preparations are necessary; we have trained our entire lives as sisters of this Empire for this strife.
"Centurion Cook!"
"Your Munificence?" A stately bow.
"I task thee, our most illustrious Centurion, and thy renowned platoon, with a route most deserving of thy capabilities. Take Detroit. Cleveland. Pittsburgh. Philadelphia."
"And may I ask? If I be not too impudent? What shall I do about the smaller cities between those greater ones, ahhhhh?"
"Leave them. Our war shall not be one of historical convention, where even small patches of untaken territory serve as inviolable bulwarks against supply lines and proper movement. Once the stronger cities fall, we shall have full license to reap the littler."
"Ohhhhh, I understand. Your will be done."
"Centurion Cicero!"
"Your Munificence." A bow more rigid than her predecessor's.
"Although thy hot-blooded youth hath once strained against our spur, thy loyalty stands now resolute. Take Indianapolis. Cincinnati. Columbus. Baltimore."
"Your will be done."
"Centurion Aurora!"
"Your Munificence." Her bow mimicked Cicero's in every way.
"The days of thy newfound rank hath only now begun. But thou hast long-developed familiarity with the platoon over which thou were once lieutenant—We expect thy command to match your more veteran peers. Take Louisville. Nashville. Charlotte. Richmond."
"Your will be done, Your Munificence."
"Centurion Joliet."
"Hkk—Hh! Yes, Your Munificence!" No bow. She saluted, like in the army.
"Thou and thy platoon shall remain in Chicago and continue to harvest its energy to supply our soldiers abroad."
Joliet's body bent in the middle like someone pumped a shotgun into her. Her head twisted at a ninety-degree tilt and she emitted another "Hrrk" sound in her throat as her salute remained glued to her forehead. Shorter than everyone around her, dwarfed by the lieutenant that stood behind her, Joliet had the posture and mien of a fifty-year-old near-retiree, despite at fourteen being the youngest Magical Girl of any rank in the entire Empire (Hegewisch, fifteen, a close second). She looked far older than her mother, although to be fair the Empress cheated. The biggest thing was the hair, which had a salt-and-pepper hue with dark strands mixed with gray in a kind of pattern you might see on a dog. The main thing Joliet had in her favor was unstoppable acne, which at least reminded people she was not, in fact, a victim of menopause.
"Hkkk, hah..."
The lack of a prompt "Your will be done" turned all eyes toward her. The first true faux pas of the entire event, and it had proceeded so swimmingly until then. Unlike the other Centurions, Hegewisch never got happy to see Joliet stumble. Only secondhand embarrassment.
But before the Empress could respond in a way far more lax than she would have to anyone else, an unlikely source bailed Joliet out.
I would recommend you avoid this current course of action.
Everyone knew that voice, although nobody knew where it came from. Everyone's eyes jolted left and right until someone pointed to the gunwale left of the screen and shouted "There!"
Several girls transformed but the quickest was one of Cicero's soldiers, who lunged forward and cleaved Kyubey in twain from halfway across the deck with the help of a gigantic buster sword. All communication with Kyubey (mostly disposal of spent grief cubes) was done via specifically-appointed members of each platoon; if Kyubey ever approached unauthorized personnel, the doctrine went something like "shoot on sight."
Before the halves of Kyubey splashed overboard, another appeared on the right.
It's quite easy to see exactly what you're planning.
That Kyubey was wrecked as quickly. But the third appeared on the top of the giant screen that displayed the portrait of the Empress, balanced upon its narrow edge with his four paws. By the time someone with a ranged attack took aim, he had strolled down the side of the screen, gravity a nonfactor, and curled into a ball at exactly the location of the Empress's face. Because the portrait was a projection, it layered on top of his body and created a swirl of mingled features.
The cities you've ordered your subordinates to conquer all lead in the same direction. There's one place in particular you intend to encircle with your entire army. That's just basic geography, really. But knowing your predispositions, Miss Luce, I have no difficulty at all guessing why you'd target that city in particular.
Nobody knew what to do. Should they blast him? And in doing so assault the image of the Empress herself? It was severe punishment to maim a portrait of Her Munificence. Nobody displayed any leadership and the Empress herself remained silent.
It's unlikely you'll listen to me, but I'll give you my warning nonetheless. Stay out of Washington, Miss Luce. Right now I like the state of human affairs—it's the affairs of Magical Girls that have been so troublesome of late.
"Someone shut him up," said Centurion Cicero. "Does nobody have a precise weapon?"
Several did, but who wanted to take the risk? Meanwhile, Cook had more than enough skill to pluck Kyubey off the screen without a mote of damage, but she seemed a little amused by the events.
I find your "empire" useful. It's remarkably efficient, it extends the life expectancies of Magical Girls, and it collects several powerful specimens that have provided many important services to me. But if I find the detriments of your "empire" to outweigh its benefits, Miss Luce, I will not hesitate to terminate it. Try not to shake the status quo too much, alright?
Kyubey uncurled, dashed up the top of the screen, and disappeared behind it.
Cicero shot out a hand. "Find and destroy him!"
But before anyone made it far, the Empress finally spoke:
"Leave him. The Incubator means nothing to our Empire. We are stronger than him; in his foolish avarice he allowed us to prosper beyond his means to curtail us. Soon, we shall have no use for him at all; soon, no Puella Magi shall have use for him at all. We do not fear the Incubator. We do not fear the Incubator!"
Cook, always skilled at these sorts of things, caught on to a catchy bit of propagandistic rhetoric when she heard it. She raised her arms and mimicked: "We do not fear the Incubator! We do not fear the Incubator!"
Others joined in. Soon, all chanted it; they had to. Even Hegewisch had to, it would look bad if she was the only one who didn't.
"We do not fear the Incubator! We do not fear the Incubator!"
And so, even though nobody had thought too much about him before that moment anyway, nobody feared the Incubator.