"So...you were a Pretty Cure?" Sofía asked as the trio walked to Bing's house with their morale as faded as the sunlight that sank behind the horizon. The bat fairy floated ahead of them with concentration wrinkling her face.
"I think so, boo. Fighting that monster...and seeing it disappear...I don't know something just clicked for me, boo." She looked back at the girls who all stared at her intently. "I think I can remember more if I try to tell the story. But we should wait until we are inside safe, boo."
"Oh good," Fay chimed, "That'll give us time to get snacks!"
Snacks in hand and pajamas on, the three girls all piled onto Bing's bed while the solemn fairy floated down to the foot of the mattress, seemingly lost in thought. The pink bat caught the expectant gaze of her team, bringing her back to attention once more.
"I don't really know where to start, boo," she admitted, looking down at her little feet.
"Start from as far back as you can remember?" Bing suggested, dunking her hand into the bowl of popcorn in her lap. "Maybe start with when you became a Pretty Cure?"
Boo nodded, scrunching up her nose as she attempted to recall the earliest of these remembered memories. "Well...my name was Cure Countess…"
Milena had what she considered to be an entirely ordinary life for a 18 year old girl. She went to school, she took care of the house and made dinner while her father worked, and spent her evenings with him in front of the tv, or working on homework. Her grades were average, she was simple looking but pretty, she had a couple friends, and lived comfortably. Everything was wholly unremarkable until one late autumn day when the dark haired girl took a shortcut to get out of the cold sooner rather than later.
Trudging through shrubbery, Milena trained her eyes cautiously on the ground before her to avoid any missteps. Instead of spotting a gopher hole, or some other similarly benign obstacle, her black eyes fell upon what she initially assumed was a skunk, black and white and furry.
The girl squealed and stumbled backwards through the greenery, frantically clawing at a tree branch to help her up as she desperately attempted to avoid being sprayed. That would absolutely ruin her uniform, not to mention her day. Clearing the bushes and plopping down in the grass to catch her breath, Milena rested a hand on her chest to feel her heart as the rapid beating began to slow back to a normal pace.
The rest was short-lived however, as rustling ahead of her signaled the foul creature's advances. An awkward crab crawl backwards was all the girl could manage in her panic, and even then her arms became trapped too far underneath her and she fell back onto her shoulders. What emerged from the bushes however, was unexpected. It was indeed black and white and furry, but it wasn't like anything she had seen before.
This thing looked like a puppy in most respects with a fluffy tail and four little paws, but there was one major difference. Or rather, there were three. The puppy bore three heads. The one on the right was black with red eyes and seemed to be dozing off, slumped slightly to one side. The one on the left was white, with blue eyes and perked ears, cocking its head at the sight of Milena who's head tilted similarly in confusion. The head in the center was grey, with purple eyes that immediately focused on the girl.
"Hello there, we are Cerberus!" the grey head quipped light-heartedly. Milena leapt to her feet, feeling as though ants were crawling over her skin as fear shook her, sending her backing frantically into a tree.
"Y-you what?" she stammered, staring down her nose at the little dog as it took a few steps towards her.
"We are Cerberus!" the white head repeated in a bright, friendly voice. "I'm Cera, that is Berry, and on the end there is Russ." At the mention of his name, the black head lifted suddenly, red eyes alert and looking around.
"Wuh? Huh? Is this the girl?"
"I don't know but surely she can give us a place to stay," Berry, the middle head, responded curtly. "Do you have a dwelling nearby?"
Milena blinked. "Uh, I have a house?" she offered uncertainly. "Why?"
"We would like to request accommodation somewhere in this area," Cera explained. "We have just made a very long journey to this planet and need to rest."
The girl's lips pressed into a thin line, raising a brow in disbelief. "This...planet?"
"Yes, Earth," Russ barked. "We just got here and we're tired. Take us home, human. And feed us."
"I...don't think so," Milena mumbled, beginning to skirt her way around the tree.
"But we are here to help save your planet! Surely you have enough space for us to stay the evening. All of the dwellings we have seen here have been quite spacious," Berry added quickly.
"If you let us stay, we will assist you with your physics homework!" Cera chimed in.
Milena clutched her backpack. "What? How-"
"Cera can sense things. And three heads are better than one, surely a little human level physics won't be hard for us to figure out for you," Berry replied sweetly.
The girl looked down at the ground, bewildered. This dog was offering to do her homework...that was new. But her grade in the class was beginning to suffer...and besides they were small, it couldn't be that bad. With a sigh she knelt down and shook her head, offering her opened backpack to the dog.
"Okay fine, get in and don't make any noise! You'll freak my dad out."
The menu for the evening had breakfast for dinner, and after enjoying pancakes and scrumptious bacon with her father Milena curtly excused herself from the table, claiming not fictitiously that she had homework to do. She heaved her bag off the floor and carried it upstairs, dumping the three headed dog out onto her bed.
"You are a lot heavier than you look," she mumbled, collapsing into a beanbag chair on the floor beside her bed.
"We are actually quite light, we aren't even full grown," Cera responded indignantly.
"When we're grown up we will be big enough to eat humans," Russ barked.
"You eat people?!"
"No, there aren't even humans where we live. But Russ is right when we are full grown we could," Berry mused. "And we will be much heavier."
Milena crossed her arms and bounced her feet impatiently. "Well what is all this about saving the earth anyway? Where are you from?"
"Frightooooon!" Russ howled, earning a glare and a hush from his body-mates.
"Don't be so loud. The father might hear you," Cera barked, turning up her nose.
"We are from another world called Frighton," Berry explained, ignoring the heads on either side of her. "It is a world that helps to manage and regulate the fear in the universe."
Milena blinked slowly, subtly pinching her arm to ensure this really was real. Sure enough, it looked like she had taken in a three headed horror puppy refugee. "Okay...why are you here?"
All three faces fell, each side-eyeing the other without so much as a whisper.
"Something...has gone wrong."
Sitting in still silence, the girl didn't dare ask for an elaboration herself. She wasn't so sure she wanted to hear the answer, let alone bring it upon herself.
"We have come here looking for a Pretty Cure. They are legendary warriors that can help us regain control over the situation," Cera elaborated. "That's why we're on earth."
"But we weren't fully prepared to come," Berry continued, "So that's why we need you to let us stay here...since finding lodgings out in nature has proved...difficult."
"We got chased by a raccoon!" Russ interjected.
"So many thanks for giving us such a lovely room and a large bed to stay in."
Cera dipped her head in thanks, but Milena bristled, "Hey wait a minute you don't get to stay in my bed! You can sleep on the floor!"
The subsequent days went by without much irregularity. Besides the magical alien living in her bedroom, and the sudden, drastic improvement in her grades, not much had changed in Milena's notably mundane life.
It took weeks until something strange began to occur.
Milena sat at the table with her chin in her hand and bouncing her legs hard enough to shake the entire table. Dinner for two sat untouched, and her dark eyes were trained on the clock on the wall, each tick tensing her muscles tighter as though her tendons were wound up like guitar strings with the rhythm of time until she threatened to snap.
"Isn't your father usually home by this time?"
Berry's voice carried quietly down the steps as the cerberus poked its heads around the corner.
"Yes." Milena stood finally, pulling the phone off the wall and dialing his work, "He calls when he's going to be late. I can't believe he would just leave me here like this."
Cerberus frowned threefold.
"Maybe he got caught up in something?" Cera offered hesitantly.
As the answering machine picked up at her dad's office, Milena hung up abruptly and trudged to the front door, pulling on her shoes.
"Are you going?" Russ asked as they walked swiftly down the stairs.
"Stay upstairs. If he comes home he can't see you," Milena ordered, the three folding their ears back in worry.
"We want to help," the trio murmured in unison.
"You can't help with this."
She was out the door without another word, and the heads exchanged worried glances.
"Do we…?"
"Follow? I don't…"
"Know, but she…"
"Needs help."
The cerberus crept outside, catching sight of the girl in their mind's eye and following the pull of her heart. When they finally spotted Milena she was sitting on a bench outside a rundown looking pub, head in her hands.
Careful to avoid detection, the black and white creature darted quickly under the bench, hiding in the shadow it cast and peering up at the girl through the slats of the seat.
"Did you find him?" Berry asked quietly.
Milena didn't move, not even to remove her hands from her face, muttering "No" against her skin. "He was here but he left half an hour ago."
"It's hard to be scared, I-"
"I'm not scared!" Milena growled, finally pulling her hands away. "I'm angry!"
"Sometimes anger comes from fear," the creature murmured softly. "And that's okay-"
"I'm not afraid! Leave me alone," the girl shouted, standing quickly and taking off across the street. With a sigh the creature gave chase, though their little paws could not carry them as fast as Milena's long legs.
Catching up to her they also spotted a man in the distance, curled up on a grassy boulevard with his face covered. Milena loomed over him with tears barely clinging together at the edge of her eyes.
"Dad, get up! You need to get home this is embarrassing," she urged in a hushed voice, though the anger was palpable despite the quiet tones. The man didn't move.
"Is he injured?" Cera asked as they approached the girl, and she shook her head furiously.
"No. Come on dad," she knelt down and grabbed his hand, prying it from his face and attempting to tug him to his feet by sheer force. Milena fell back as she let his hand slip, though instead of scolding once again her eyes widened at what she saw.
Her father's eyes were completely white and glazed over, and he took trembling breaths with what looked like black smoke seeping from his mouth on exhale. As she stared on in horror the smoke became more opaque, taking on the appearance of a black smokey snake crawling from his mouth on the tide of his breaths.
"Milena! Stand back!" the cerberus cried in unison, leaping between her and her father.
"What is wrong with him?!" she cried, tears finally skating across her cheeks.
"He's infected," Russ began.
"This is what we came here to stop," Cera continued.
"But we haven't found the Pretty Cure," Berry finished.
"I-infected with what?"
"Fear. There are some on Frighton who are angry about the stigma we face as regulators of fear…"
"They wish to make Frighton more prestigious, and to do so they will infect the universe with fear..."
"And then make the worlds pay for them to regulate it again."
Milena stared ahead in terror, watching as the black snake of smoke gained substance and began to slither towards her and the cerberus.
"Many worlds have retaliated with force; they all have fallen but they did much damage."
"Frighton is nearly uninhabitable now. Our people cannot thrive there anymore."
"We managed to escape to find help...but many have not been so lucky."
The girl stood to her feet again finally, backing up against a tree to stabilize herself as her knees shook. "You want someone to fight for Frighton? It's all your fault this is happening!"
"No! We are not all bad. We want those responsible to face consequences just as you do!"
"But we need someone to bring peace to all the worlds. No one will listen to us!"
"For the sake of our innocent, and those that have been victimized by our tyrants!"
Suddenly the snake lunged, opening a mouth bearing long black fangs. Milena ducked, her legs giving underneath her as she braced her arms in front of her head. With a clang, the snake's fangs lodged into a bright pink shield that appeared around the girl.
"A-are you doing this?" Milena asked as sweat began to trickle down her back, the smoke snake struggling to get its fangs free.
"No, you are!" Cera cried joyously.
"You are the Pretty Cure!" Russ barked.
"Take this, quickly! Say 'Nightmares nevermore, trick-or-treat transformation'!"
All three heads of the cerberus barked in unison, summoning a shimmering wrapped sweet that appeared before Milena. Though her fingers shook, she wasted no time reciting the incantation. The candy suddenly exploded and surrounded the girl with smoke, and when she reappeared everything about her seemed to have changed. She wore a full black skirt with a pink bustle, pink gloves, and a grey corset. A spiderweb print leotard covered her top half, as well as a hot pink ascot that poked out from her high black collar. Her hair had become pink as well, her bangs swooping over one eye and the rest of her hair in a side ponytail that resembled a bat wing. She touched down to the ground with a clack of her grey thigh high boots, and instinctively her arms swung out to the side like wings, her fingers hooked like claws.
"A flutter of wings on a hallowed night, Cure Countess!"
There was no time to think as the snake lunged immediately for the girl, but she blocked the strike deftly with both forearms in front of her. The monster continued its attempts to catch her off balance, but with each snap of its jaws the pink haired warrior defended herself swiftly. Catching it by surprise, she managed a quick jab of her own, followed by a kick that sent the serpent crumpling to the ground.
"How am I supposed to get rid of this?" she asked, catching a breath and looking back at Cerberus, each head seeming equally enamored with the warrior.
"You need to combat the fear with courage!"
"Let your courage manifest itself!
"Find the strength in your heart!"
The smoke snake reared again, but Countess dodged its lunge, grabbing its body as it sailed past her and whipping the monster in aggressive circles above her head.
"Or you can do that," Russ muttered.
Cure Countess brought her hand down to her side, still spinning the snake rapidly until she released it into the air, hurling it through the sky. With unprecedented power she too kicked off from the earth and sailed after it. She felt a tingling of potential in her fingertips like tiny firecrackers that radiated their shimmer through her hands. Following her instinct she bent over to touch her toes, tracing her fingers up along her body until they extended above her head where a white handle appeared.
Grasping it firmly she pulled the rest into being, a long white staff like a bone, topped with bat's wings. Grabbing hold with both hands she finally approached the altitude of the monster she hurled into the sky with the weapon at the ready.
"The Vampire Staff!" Cerberus' heads cried in unison from below, all heads craned up to the sky after their magenta warrior.
She swung the staff at the snake, though instead of being knocked back it wrapped its long body tightly around the end, locking eyes with the Cure at the other end. Taken aback, Countess twisted herself in the air, aiming the staff down towards the ground as words were pulled effortlessly from her throat.
"Pretty Cure Ghastly Guillotine!"
Immediately a blade of pink light shot from the end of her staff towards the ground, carrying the monster along with it. Cerberus darted out of the way as it neared impact, and as soon as the blade of light struck the ground the serpent was sliced in half. There was a brief pause as Countess landed back on earth as well, but soon the foe dissipated into smoke with a hollow puff, the tendrils carried away quickly on the breeze.
"Our savior has come!" Cera cried in excitement as Cerberus trotted back out into the open.
"Wonderfully executed!" Berry commented.
"Great job!" Russ howled enthusiastically.
There was a soft groan that brought the newly fledged warrior back to reality, her pink eyes falling on her father who began to sit up, rubbing his head. Hastily Milena detransformed and ran to his side, dropping to her knees and helping him sit up.
"M-Milena?"
"Yeah dad, it's me," she whispered softly. Now that her Pretty Cure facade was gone it seemed that so too was all her courage, and she had to fight to keep her hands from trembling against her father's back.
"Where...am I?"
"In the woods...I came looking for you and found you passed out here."
"Oh Millie I'm so sorry…" Suddenly he wrapped her in a tight embrace, and it was he who shook against her as he cried silently. "I don't know what came over me...I know I shouldn't have but I just had to-"
"Dad."
He pulled away, his brow furrowed in concern as his dark eyes clouded with years. The man said nothing with his mouth, but spoke volumes with his expression.
Seeing this look on the man who raised her was enough to instigate tears from her own eyes, and Milena threw her arms tightly around her father as she began to cry, smiling slightly at the ridiculousness as she choked out her words.
"We need to go home and reheat the salmon, or it'll taste like shit."