This plot idea was holding me hostage for a while now, so, to give myself some peace, here's the very beginning of it, which is what you'll see for a while until I manage to get time to work on this story.
Anyway, the main idea behind this story was giving the Sadie Hawkins dates their shot at being magical girls, since "L-UMA" gave several characters BUT THEM a chance.
And don't worry, this won't become a grimdark deconstruction of the genre. "L-UMA" was my Madoka, so this will have to be something different.
P.S.: "L-UMA" stands for "Lux-Umbra Magna Auguratricis."
Anyhow, let's see how this goes!
The Sadie Hawkins Dance was over, and everybody was heading home after spending some time dancing like they had ants in their pants.
Among the people leaving this dance was a peculiar quartet of girls: a tomboy on roller skates, a rockstar with quite the spiky hair, a gothic girl who looked like a ghost, and a clown that was somehow the normal one.
These were Polly Pain, Tabby, Haiku, and Giggles, the friends of some of the Loud sisters.
"Man, that dance was so much fun!" Polly remarked as she placed her arms behind her head. "Rusty's such a good dancer."
"Yeah, and Liam sure has some wicked taste in music," Tabby remarked.
"And it was also nice to finally find somebody to share the pain of impossible love with Clyde," Haiku said, clasping her hands together."
"I'm just happy I finally found someone small enough to look me in the eye while on top of my shoes," Giggles snickered. "I mean, don't get me wrong, Zach's a great guy, but his smallness made him a winner."
It was at that point that the quartet noticed something that made them stop: they had spend the last few seconds talking about how great the night was, like they were old friends or something.
But this was literally the first, and potentially only time, they've met.
"Well, this is a little awkward," Polly remarked, scratching her head.
"Yeah, aren't we being a little too friendly for strangers?" Tabby raised an eyebrow.
"Eh, on a scale of one to ten, I'd say this is about four or three," Giggles shrugged. "There's a whole lot more awkward stuff at clown school."
"Clown school?" Tabby tilted her head. "You mean, you don't go to a normal school?"
"Kind of? I mean, it's pretty similar to a normal school, but with clowns."
Haiku flinched and covered her mouth, blushing as she avoided eye contact with the other girls. This allowed her to see a peculiar sight: a redhaired girl, dressed in all blue, looking at the sky.
"Hey," Haiku remarked, quickly regaining her composure. "How long has that girl been there?"
"I don't know, we just noticed her," Polly remarked, folding her arms. "But we should leave her alone. Maybe she's in the middle of something important?"
"She looks like she's lost in her thoughts, though," Giggles remarked.
Nodding in agreement, Haiku stared at the girl for a moment before Tabby straight up walked to the redhead and asked:
"Hey, are you doing anything important right now?"
She's so direct... the other girls thought.
"Not really, no, just admiring the night sky," the redhead answered before turning to face the moon. "The shower of stars, coupled with the glowing moon, gives it a beautiful, ethereal atmosphere, don't you think?"
"That's a... pretty wordy way to put it," Tabby shrugged and looked at the moon as well. "But I get what you mean: the night looks really pretty."
It wasn't long before Polly Pain, Giggles, and Haiku joined the moonwatching with Tabby and the redhead, the quintet simply staring at the moon for a while... until the redhead spoke again:
"I wish the stars could help me discover who will be next."
Haiku raised an eyebrow. "The next... what?"
The redhead turned to Haiku, and her expression saddened.
"The next to create a Frustration."
The Sadie Hawkins quartet fell silent, and exchanged looks with each other, trying to figure out what to reply with as the redhead stepped away, and squinted her eyes.
"Turn this way and you'll see what I mean."
The quartet obliged, and to their absolute shock, they saw a girl clenching her fists and teeth as a black aura emanated from her, eventually growing and splitting apart from her, the girl falling unconscious as the aura copied her form.
"What just happened?!" Polly exclaimed.
"That, my friends, was the birth of a Frustration," the redhead explained. "That girl was feeling so frustrated about something that those negative feelings split from her and took a form of their own."
"Okay, but, she's not dead, right?" Giggles asked as she and the girls took a step back.
The redhead shook her head. "The split only renders the girl unconscious: but she'll stay that way until the Frustration has been taken care of."
"Right, that makes sense, I guess," Polly clicked her fingers. "I know, if we're fast enough, we might be able to call the police!"
Just as the quartet began running, however, the redhead suddenly appeared in front of them.
"The one that needs to take care of it is you."
"What?!" Tabby exclaimed as the other girls tried to make sense of what just happened. "Why?!"
"You're the only girls that I've met this night, and if we waste time calling the police and finding another girl, the Frustration will have escaped by then."
Haiku grimaced. "Is there no way out of this?"
Suddenly, the girls heard someone growling, and they turned around to see the black aura girl looking at them with golden, glowing eyes, and a murderous expression.
"You!"
"Us?!" the quartet replied, jumping back.
"You took it away!" the Frustration, as the redhead called it, growled as she turned her fingernails into claws. "My one chance to ask Lincoln out and turn him cool, and you took it away from me!"
The girl tried lunging at the girls, but the redhead stood in front of them and swung her arms forward, sending her flying back.
"In case you need clarification, that was a blatant no. And if you don't want things to get any worse, I suggest you accept to help me put this Frustration down."
Haiku took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. "This was just supposed to be a normal night, why have the last few seconds been so weird?"
"Well, there's no time to question this," Polly pounded her fists. "We'll just have to finish this the right way."
"Running away and acting like this was just a crazy dream?" Giggles shrugged.
"We can do the latter once the monster's been taken care of, but no," Tabby turned to the redhead and smiled. "Alright, Red, if you can help us defeat that thing, we're all ears."
The redhead smiled, and aimed her palms forward, revealing pink glowing heart-shaped symbols on her palms. A pink barrier enveloped the quartet, and the same symbols appeared on their palms shortly after, something they only noticed after the barrier was gone.
"I've given you enough energy to unleash a shot from each palm, eight in total. Just half of those shots should be enough to put it down."
"Cool!" Tabby chirped. "So, how do we release the shots?"
"Reel your arm back and swing it forward."
Tabby performed the motions with her right arm, releasing a pink blast that grazed the Frustration as it lunged forward again.
"Three more and its done, right?!"
"No, that's just with full shots!"
The girls jumped away as the monster swung her claws, Polly, Giggles, and Haiku releasing shots that similarly just grazed her.
At this point, the redhead jumped forward and locked the Frustration in a stalemate, allowing the quartet to position themselves and get a better shot at the monster.
Once they got a clear shot, they each shot their blast, the redhead jumping away before they impacted the monster.
The end result was holes opening in her eye, stomach, and leg, with white cracks spreading across it before engulfing her completely, shattering as she let out a final scream.
Shortly after, the quartet turned back to normal, and the girl woke up again as the redhead reunited with the group.
"You got a lot of explaining to do," Haiku stated, the other girls nodding in agreement.
The redhead simply nodded back, giggling as she scratched the back of her head with a sheepish smile.
The quartet and the redhead sat at Gus' Games and Grub, the latter moaning as she drank a smoothie while the former looked at her.
"This drink is so delicious!" she chirped. "Are you sure you don't want some?"
"No, thanks, I'll get something similar when I get home," Giggles politely declined. "We'd rather get some answers."
"Oh, right," she took one last sip of her smoothie before putting it on the table. "Okay, what would you like explained?"
"Everything, duh." Tabby stated.
"Right. Well, for starters, I'm Cristina. I'm a Xenia, a princess Xenia to be exact, from the distant planet of Hospitality, who came here to Earth in order to determine whether to assimilate my world with yours."
The quartet fell silent, only blinking or exchanging looks afterwards.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"I mean, you just empowered us with heart tattoos in our palms to fight a supernatural, humanoid monster literally born from frustration," Polly replied with a shrug. "What you said was weird, don't get me wrong, but after what we just went through, It's not that outta place."
"Speaking of what we went through," Haiku folded her arms. "How do you explain that?"
"Frustrations are the manifestation of someone's... well, take a guess. Once they grow strong enough, they split apart and take the consciousness of their origin with them, leaving their source catatonic until they're taken care of. Xenia Royalty are capable of empowering other species with a little bit of their power, bit It's never more than what I bestowed you."
"Okay, then the only question left, for now at least, is what are we gonna do if one of those monsters show up again," Tabby said. "I mean, we needed your help to beat the one we fought, and even then we just barely beat it."
Cristina smiled. "That's where I want to make you an offer."
"One we can't refuse if we wanna survive the next Frustration?" Haiku asked.
"It's not as bad as you think, I promise," Cristina clasped her hands together. "Taking a simple look at you, I can see traits from all the clans of my people: the loyalty of agape, the friendlyness of philia, the familiarity of storge, and the love of Eros."
Polly tilted her head. "Were you present at the Sadie Hawkins dance?"
"Let's discuss one thing at a time, okay?" Cristina twiddled her fingers. "Anyway, with those traits, I think you may be compatible enough to create warriors capable of fighting the Frustration."
"But not forever, right?" Haiku asked. "I mean, fighting an enemy that never really goes away sounds a bit-"
"Frustratng," Giggles giggled.
"Yeah."
"I assure you, the fight with the Frustrations won't last forever." Cristina gave the girls a thumbs up. "'l'll find a way to stop it."
Tabby smiled. "We'll find a way to stop it."
"Yeah! We'll help people vent and bring them to a better mood!" Giggles added. "That's kinda my job as a clown, anyway, so I'm an enemy of the Frustration anyway!"
"I've never really done anything like this before, but if I can help everybody, It's worth a shot," Polly flashed a peace sign. "Count me in."
"This isn't the supernatural nonsense I'm used to..." Haiku sighed. "But It's too late to back out."
"I'm glad you accept the proposal," Cristina stood up. "I'm gonna go back to Hospitality to find other Xenia willing to help us out."
"Wait! What about my question?!" Polly asked.
Cristina stared for a moment before shrugging and leaving the arcade, followed by her literally teleporting out of the planet.
"Well... this took a turn for the weird," Polly said.
"No need to tell me twice," Haiku sighed wearily. "Once I get home, I'm gonna go on a deep sleep and pray this all turns out to be just a dream when I wake up."
"I'll try that too, I guess," Tabby hummed. "Although, I might have a harder time falling asleep."
Giggles raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"You heard what the monster said? She blamed us for "taking away" her chance to date Lincoln."
"So, you think he has something to do with all of this?"
"Well, if there's one thing I know from reading all sorts of books," Haiku spoke. "Is that there's always somebody behind the schemes, hiding in the shadows."
That was the thought with which the quartet left Gus' Games and Grub, marking the end of their most interesting night so far.
And the first of many more to come.