Sorry that this took so long to come out! But anyways, I hope that you like this chapter, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions, then please leave a review, they really help.
With that, please enjoy this chapter!
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Chapter 3 - Legendary Warriors, Precure
She opened the door with a slow creak, eyes darting around wildly. She then walked inside, soundlessly closing the door behind her, before taking one last look around to make sure it was safe.
She visibly relaxed when she found that no one was around, but before she could say anything three small creatures jumped out of her bag.
"What are you doing? I never said it was safe to come out!" Alison scolded them, visibly frustrated.
Biee smiled back at her, "Well, nobody's here to see us, are they? No harm, no foul." she sat down on the kitchen counter, "And besides, it was getting really stuffy in there. I mean, have you ever been stuffed into a school bag?"
"Yeah!" Alan said, stretching his wings, "And didn't you say neither of your parents would be home until tonight anyways?"
Alison sighed. She supposed they were right, and that she was just being a little paranoid. It felt justified though.
It had been a couple days since the election, and remarkably, her school life hadn't changed at all, but her home life had changed dramatically, with the edition of the three freeloading familiars, whom she both had to take care of and keep secret from her parents.
Other than that however, nothing major had happened, so Alison was on edge, expecting something nefarious to pop out at any second.
"Hey," Clin said, startling her out of her thoughts, "do you have any more of those puffy cheesy things? They were good."
"No, we don't. You ate them all." She scowled.
"Oh, then get more." Clin replied while balancing a bowl out of the cupboard, "I'm hungry."
Alison plopped down onto the couch, "Well if you're that hungry, then we have plenty of other things you can eat." she closed her eyes, "Honestly, if I didn't know any better, I'd say my duties as a precure were to take care of you guys."
She thought about it for a couple seconds. What were her duties as a precure? Ever since that first attack, she really hadn't been doing anything too out of the ordinary, generally speaking, and she couldn't imagine that that one fight would be it.
"Hey, could I ask you a question?" she turned back to the familiars, who were pouring a whole sleeve of crackers into Clin's bowl.
Alan brightened, "Ask away!"
"Alright then. Well, I was just wondering, what are my duties as a precure, exactly?"
Alan put a paw underneath his chin. "Well-"
"The precures harbor a sacred power, first recorded to have appeared in an ancient war!" Biee interrupted, "However, much information about it has been lost to time, and thus there aren't many things we know for sure. However, it is known that they retrieve power from the 'pen cases' when combined with the 'wings charms.'" she took a breath, before smiling smugly.
Alan pushed her to the side, before speaking, "Basically, Ath-," his face suddenly changed to bleak recognition, which he quickly tried to hide, "um, someone, tasked us with coming to this world and reviving the precure, since Fairyre, our home, was invaded."
"By the ghosts…" Alison recited, remembering what they'd told her before.
"Yeah." Alan said, "They're a really formidable enemy. I mean, they can fly, teleport, avert the gaze of non-magical beings, and some even have special abilities beyond that!"
Alison thought about it. "Wait, if I can see them, then am I a magical being?"
"Of course!" Biee interjected, "the power of the precures is a very ancient and powerful magic, It would be a disgrace to think otherwise!"
"So, basically, I'm supposed to beat the ghosts, save your kingdom, and take care of you guys in the meantime. Boy that sounds like a lot…" Alison summarized.
"Well, it's a little more complicated than that," Biee pondered, "we can't make any moves until we have more information about the enemy's movements, or a way to go back to our world, and you won't be doing it alone. The other 3 precures will be there to help you!"
"Wait, there are 4 precures?" Alison was surprised. The way they'd been talking, it was like she'd have to do everything herself!, "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier!?"
"It never really came up, But did you honestly think you'd be the only one? That's ridiculous!" Alan began giggling.
It did seem kinda silly now that she thought about it. One person, much less a 14 year old girl, could never fight an entire army all by themselves. "Well, shouldn't we start looking for them? Having more comrades would make the fighting much easier."
Biee shot a lazy glance towards the microwave's clock, which read 4:37 pm. "Eh, it's really late. I don't think i'll be up for it."
"Me neither." Alan commented, while slumping down beside Clin's cracker bowl.
"Me neither neither." Clin said, fidgeting with the remote.
"It's not even dinnertime, let alone time to call it a day." Alison mumbled, before walking upstairs. "I guess we'll just have to look for them tomorrow. Thank god it's a weekend."
A second precure. The idea was both wondrous and frightening. On one hand, the battles would be much easier, she wouldn't have complained about having a partner during the previous fight, but on the other hand, it could be literally anyone, and who's to say they wouldn't hate her?
She shook her head. She shouldn't worry about that. For now, she just had to focus on getting a partner. She could stress about the ins and outs of it later.
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Bang… bang….. bang…
She turned over in bed. Don'tthinkaboutit don'tthinkaboutit don'tthinkaboutit…
Bang… bang… clatter…
She couldn't take it anymore. Alison flung off the covers and slammed her feet on the floor as loudly as possible, "Could you please shut up?!" she yelled, "It's Saturday and I'm tired!"
The familiars had been staying in her room, since it was the only room in the house where she could guarantee that her parents wouldn't find out about them.
But they were so loud! It seemed like they never slowed down, and that had made it very hard for her to fall asleep last night. She didn't deserve this.
"SHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh!" Biee flew up to her, paw on her lips, "Could you please be quiet?"
"Why should I?" Alison asked, testy from lack of sleep. She also eyed Clin, who seemed to have no problem zipping around her room and flying into things.
"Because you'll disturb Alan, and your parents could wake up and find out about us!"
Alison reluctantly closed her mouth, and looked at said familiar. He was currently sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs in her room, the four-point start on his forehead glowing. "What's he doing?"
"He's using his powers, which he obtained through his connection with the royal family, to look for the precures. This takes a lot of focus, so we absolutely cannot disturb him!"
Suddenly, a small clink sounded, and they looked over to see Clin looking sheepishly at a ceramic that had fallen on the carpet. Biee sighed, looking back at Alison as Clin once again began flying around. "Could I ask you a favor?"
"Oh, um, sure. What is it?"
"Could you watch after Clin for the day? They're restless and I can't play right now. I'm sending my magic to Alan to help him, so I can't go too far away from him or the connection will break."
"Of course, I don't mind watching them. Should we keep an eye out for the second cure while we're out?"
"If you want to you can, but it won't make a difference, since the only way to tell if someone's a precure or not is by looking at thier soul."
Alison nodded, before walking up to her closet, "Well, I'm going to start getting ready."
"Hey, Alison?" she looked over to see Alan had opened his eyes and was looking at her. Was something wrong? "Could you get some more of those cheesy things while you're out?"
She let out an exasperated sigh. Of course that's what he was worried about.
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Awhile later, Alison had made her way to the city park, carrying Clin in one of her mother's flowery purses. She was wearing casual clothes, a flowy dress with leggings and a Cardigan, something she didn't do too often, making this outing a nice change of pace for her.
"So, what do you want to do?" she asked Clin, who was looking up at her.
Clin put a paw to thier chin, and made a "hmm" sound, before thier nose started twitching. Looking around, Clin locked eyes with something, before looking back up at Alison. "Could I have some of that?"
Alison looked over at the food truck Clin was pointing towards. "Ugh, that place is really expensive. And I didn't bring that much money."
Clin looked up at her with eyes as wide as plates. "B-but-"
"I'm sorry Clin, I just don't think was can go there today. I'll try to make it up to you, alright?"
Clin pouted, before mumbling "Okay."
Alison walked a little ways before going over to a park bench and sat down, positioning her purse so Clin could comfortably look out of it. It was a nice spot, away from the main bustle of the park.
They sat there for a while, taking in the late winter sun as it streamed through branches where leaves were just starting to appear.
Another precure, I wonder what they'll be like. Alison pondered, Will they be a friend, or will they be someone more like Katie? I sure hope it's someone nice.
"Hey, Clin?" she asked the familiar.
"What?"
"Well, when we find the next precure, what do you think they'll be like?"
Clin crossed their paws, "Um, I think, that they're gonna be… uh," they thought hard, before slumping back, "I don't know. I hope they're nice, but Biee said that every precure is different."
"Different how?"
"I mean, each one is a different kind of fairy, I think, and they all have different powers, and different colors!"
Alison straightened up, curious, "Different kinds of fairies? What do you mean?"
Clin brightened up, "I know this! There are four- no, five- four." they finally said resolutely, "four kinds of fairies. There's the Nature Fairies, which're like Gnomes and Trolls and Nymphs and stuff, then there's Witches and Wizards, Ghosts and Spirits, though they're kinda different,"
They then pointed up at Alison, "and then there's Royal Fairies, which is you!"
"Royal Fairies? What..?" she'd heard of all the others, but what on earth was a 'Royal Fairy'?
"They're like, pretty and royal, and you have a crown, so of course you're that one!" they smiled proudly at their knowledge. Alison had forgotten about it, but now that she was thinking, her precure costume did include a crown.
She leaned back, and stared into the trees. She had only thought of fairies as small sprites with wings, but if it was a whole world, then it would probably be a lot more complex than that.
"Um, excuse me?" someone asked, startling Alison out of her thoughts.
"Huh?" she looked down to see a girl who had long blond hair that was tied back into a low ponytail, with hazel eyes that had bags under them so big she probably could've fit her whole closet in them. "A-are you okay? You look really tired."
"I-I'm fine." she said, stifling a yawn, "I was just wondering if you'd seen a picture frame around here, it's about this size," she motioned her hands, "I lost it and I was looking for it."
Alison took a quick look around, "No, I haven't seen anything like that, I'm sorry."
"Oh, ok." the girl said, "Thank you anyways." With a slightly forced smile, she began to walk off.
Alison felt bad for her. She had looked so worried, Maybe she could try and help her. It wasn't like she had much to do anyways!
She grabbed her bag- Clin had hidden inside it when the girl had approached- and walked over to her, "Would it be okay if I helped you look for the frame?"
She looked startled, "Oh, I suppose if you want to. You don't have to though, so-"
Alison let out a worried smile, "Don't sweat it, I'm happy to help!"
The girl looked down with a small smile, "Thank you! My name's Hannah, by the way."
"I'm Alison." it was a bit nerve-wracking to talk to a complete stranger like this, but Hannah had just looked so worried, she had to do something to help. And something about her just made her feel so, approachable.
They walked alongside each other for a while, both scanning the park for her picture frame.
"So, what's so special about this picture frame? I-I don't want to be rude of course, I'm just curious!"
"It's no problem!" Hannah stopped, "I just moved here yesterday, actually, and the frame was a gift from my friends back home. It just means a lot to me, and I don't want to lose something that precious."
Alison's face softened, "I understand, I'll do whatever I can to help you."
"Thanks again. Could you maybe look over there? I can handle this area." Hannah said, yawning.
Alison nodded, before walking over to go search. She shuffled through some bushes, before hearing a "Psssst!" coming from her bag
"Shhh!" she put a finger to her lip, "I can't let her know about you!"
"I know, but aren't we gonna get food?" Clin begged.
"Not right now. Could you just wait a little longer? I really want to help her."
"Ok…" Clin said, not entirely convinced.
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"Hmm, I didn't expect you to come back so, empty handed." Manganese gestured to his co-worker, "I take it you were beaten?"
Selenium glared at him from across the room, before turning away. "There's just a minor setback. I'm already going back out, So you can just go back to your stupid drawings, Okay?"
Manganese let out a wry smile, "I wonder what would happen if Yttrium, or better yet, The Queen, knew that you allowed them to summon a precure."
She froze, "If you don't tell them, then you won't have to be demoted."
"Beat her now, and you won't be either." he responded, leaning back.
Selenium huffed, before walked over to the coat rack and hastily putting on her jacket, then grabbing a portal stone and dissipating away.
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After half an hour of searching, Hannah had given up. "It's not here."
"I-I'm sure we can find it!" Alison reassured her. "There's got to be bunch of other places where it could be, right?"
"I guess." She said with slightly lifted spirits.
"Great! Then, where did you go besides the park?"
"Um, well, before we went to the park, me and my mom got dinner at this small diner, and before that we had ridden into town on the subway. I don't quite remember where we ate though, I'm a bit sleepy…"
Alison pulled out her phone, and began to type into it, "there aren't too many diners around here, I'm sure we can find it."
Hannah rubbed her arm, "I- Okay then." before yawning again.
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A few minutes later, Alison and Hannah found themselves in front of a small diner called 'El's place'
"Are you sure this is it?" Alison said, double-checking her phone.
"Yeah, pretty sure, I think." Hannah responded, looking up at the sign.
Alison nodded, before walking inside. It was a quaint place, dolled up to look like it was from the 50's, with sharp red seats and checkerboard floors, with elephants, the diner's mascot, being sprinkled in wherever possible.
As they walked in a man at the counter turned to them with a smile, "Hello, would you like a menu?"
"N-no thanks, we're just looking." Alison said, gaining a slightly suspicious look from him, before he returned to serving customers.
Hannah led Alison over to one of the booths. "This is where we sat."
They looked around the booth, but there were no picture frames in sight.
Hannah sat down with a sigh. "Um, Alison?" she looked up. "Thank you for helping me and all, but you should probably get going. I doubt we'll actually find it."
Alison shook her head. She would feel really bad if she wasn't able to help her. "Well, we haven't checked the subway yet, it's probably there!"
"No, I probably left it on the airplane."
"Well, it can't hurt to look, can it? I'm sure it'll be there." Alison said. She wasn't super confident that it was there herself, but more negativity wouldn't do anything right now, and there was always the chance that they would find it there.
"Ok…" came Hannah's unsure response as she stood up.
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They walked down the cold stairs into the musty subway, which Hannah and her mother had used to get into the city.
There were very few people around, and while wondering why, Alison spotted a large sign just a little ways away, words written in bright red lettering.
"Huh, 'Rail closed for repairs?' I wonder if something happened."
Hannah started scanning the area, "Does it matter? At least now there are less people around, so it'll be easier to look."
"Alright then. I'll look over here and you can look over there, alright?" Alison said, receiving a nod from Hannah before they walked off in separate directions.
The main area near the rails was closed, so they could only look around in the areas where it didn't pass through, like near the snack machines and the ticket counters.
She began searching, looking around the floor, under benches, and even peered into trash cans, but found no traces of the frame.
"It's not here." Clin said out of the blue, as Alison was searching around a bench.
"I can see that." she grumbled.
Clin looked around, before pointing over towards a snack machine. "Maybe it's over there!"
Alison looked at it. She hadn't looked over there yet, but she couldn't think of too many ways to lose something near a snack machine without it being in plain sight. Clin was just a kid after all, and probably didn't understand that. Still though, she decided to look, if only just to humor them.
She walked up to the machine, and started searching around it. She looked off to the side, and saw that a small rectangular item had fallen down. It was too dark to see it properly, but she took a chance and grabbed it, bringing it into the light.
Sure enough, it was a homemade picture frame, slightly dirty, but otherwise completely okay.
She smiled, preparing to thank Clin, when a hand with long fingernails suddenly grabbed the picture. Alison looked up, her brown eyes meeting orange ones, filled with spite.
She jumped back, Clin flying out of her bag "You!"
Selenium smirked, "I'd have figured you'd at least remember my name, but oh well." she examined the picture frame. "Yes, this will do nicely."
"No, that's not yours!" Alison yelled, going forward to grab it, only to be pushed back.
"And who are you to tell me what is and isn't mine, Cure Heiress?" She retorted.
"I-" Alison started, but was interrupted up heavy breathing, which was coming closer.
She looked back to see Hannah jogging towards her, looking more tired than ever. "I couldn't find it, and I was wondering if you-" she then noticed Selenium and Clin, both floating off the ground. "A-am I hallucinating? Oh gosh, I didn't realize that I was this tired…"
Selenium's grin widened. Oh no, she was going to-
"You'll do." the ghost muttered, before standing to attention, reaching one hand out towards Hannah, and forming a sphere of darkness in the other.
Alison panicked. Oh no, it was going to happen again!
Selenium began the incantation. "O soul of the weak, bounded to pathetic life, I summon thee, to take and do with as I please!"
Light gathered at Hannah's chest, small blue and white strings beginning to reach out towards the sphere of darkness.
Alison fumbled with her pen case. She hadn't been able to stop Fleur from being turned into a demon, and at this rate the same thing would happen to Hannah!
She stared on in helplessness as more blue, stringlike bits of soul made thier way towards the sphere, but before she went back to trying to transform she had to stop for a minute.
Why were they pink?
And indeed, some of the strings were magenta instead of blue, and they seemed to be stuck to her body, preventing the rest of the soul from being sucked out.
The magenta bits began replacing the others, until it had all been replaced, and rapidly began rushing back towards Hannah, creating a wings symbol for a second before disappearing from sight.
Her eyes quickly regained thier life, before closing, as she stumbled before falling to the ground from exhaustion.
Alison stared for a minute. What just happened? Why couldn't she take Hannah's soul?
She glanced towards selenium, whose face was one of solem rage, eyes lit up. "So that's how it is? I'll just have to kill them both then." she said the incantation again, this time raising her hand towards the subway ceiling.
Strings of soul came through the roof of the subway, and a full soul was gathered in her hand before Alison could think to stop her.
"Did you, just summon that out of thin air?"
The woman let out a laugh, "If it was that easy, I wouldn't be here! No, this is just some commoner of your world with the luck to have been standing directly over us. But enough talk, let's get on with the show, shall we?"
She dropped the soul into the sphere of darkness before fading it into Hannah's picture frame. The frame grew and malformed, until a soul demon stood before her, with distorted limbs, a body like paper mache, a small bow-tie right where a face would be and a large frame outlining its edges.
The few people in sight, who hadn't noticed the interaction between Alison and Selenium, ran away screaming, desperately getting away from the demon.
"Clin, protect Hannah!" she told the familiar, who nodded.
Alison finally managed to get out her pen case and charm. Hopefully she'd be able to do this right. "Precure, Shining Power!" she yelled, being enveloped in the light of her transformation.
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"Aaaugh!" Alan yelled, clutching his head
Biee quickly flew over to him, "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
He rubbed his temples, "This is the same kind of energy as the thing the ghost used other day- what was it called again?"
"A soul demon?" Biee said with fear. She didn't want to have to go near one of those things again!
"Yeah, that! And I think that it's either attacking Alison, or one of the other cures!"
Biee clenched a paw, "Either way, we- we need to get going!"
Alan nodded in agreement, and they got up, pushing open the doors and flying out off of Alison's balcony.
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Meanwhile, Cure Heiress had just finished transforming, and immediately started blocking blows from the demon as it attempted to hit Hannah. She missed a few opportunities to attack while doing so, and she knew that she'd already asked Clin to do it, but she didn't want them to get hurt either, with Hannah being so close to the fight. And while she could at least run away if things went south, Hannah was defenseless, and Selenium had ordered the demon to kill both of them. She couldn't risk it.
"Heiress!" Clin said as she blocked a rather harsh blow from an origami sword, "Hide her over there!" they pointed behind the vending machine where she'd found the frame, which had been knocked over.
She nodded, and picked Hannah up. She jumped over to the side, and set her down. "Make sure nothing happens to her." Hannah was away from the demon now, but she wouldn't be able to stand it if anyone, stranger or not got killed because of her.
She turned back towards the demon, and readied her stance. Now that she was able to properly study it, she could see that the soul was in plain sight, right in the middle of the demon's ridiculous bow tie no less.
Still, it would be better to at least knock the monster down before attempting to retrieve it.
Heiress dashed at the demon, jumping up to land a solid kick into its "Head", before flipping back, and preparing to land another one.
But before she could dash again, the monster caught her off guard and punched her towards a wall, and she barely managed to collect herself and skid to a stop before she slammed into it.
She looked up, and saw that the demon had turned away from her, and was now once again facing Clin and Hannah. "Clin, Look out!" she called.
"And what are you planning on doing about it?" Selenium said from above, compromising Heiress's focus.
The demon formed its hand into a sword, and swung down onto Hannah and Clin-
-Only to be stopped by a glowing blue shield.
"Okay, the second we get home, I'm gonna teach you both how to create shields. I can't be saving you all the time!" Biee yelled back towards her companions.
"Biee! Alan! Thank god you made it!" Heiress said, her face breaking out into joy.
Alan smiled, "You think we'd let you take on a soul demon all by yourself?"
"Now focus on the soul demon. We can protect this girl." Biee dropped her shield as the demon backed off.
"NO NO NO NO NO! Kill them already! WHY AREN'T YOU KILLING THEM?" Selenium screamed, "Now thier backup arrived and we're going to Lose AGAIN!"
True to it's master's orders, the demon charged for Heiress, who rebounded and got up just in time to avoid the attack.
Quickly focusing on the image in her mind she summoned the pen, before extending it out into her wand.
Heiress pointed her weapon at the demon, "I'm going to finish this up quickly."
She jumped to avoid another attack, and readied her wand. "Precure, Crystal Catcher!" she called, throwing her crystal grapple towards the soul.
However, the demon folded in on itself just as her attack reached, and her grapple caught nothing but thin air.
"Wait, it can do that?" she questioned.
"Hehehe, she fell for it! Demon, do the thing!" Selenium said giddily.
The demon's head spun into a drill, and using its powerful legs, launched itself at Heiress.
She held her wand in front of herself in a desperate attempt to take the blow, but ended up getting launched to the other side of the subway anyways.
"Okay, well that didn't work." she said, looking at the demon, which had reverted back to how it looked before "But maybe if I…" she tightened her grip on the wand, before running forward.
"Precure, Crystal Catcher!" she called, hurdling the grapple at the demon once again.
Selenium laughed, "You know, the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again with the hope of a different outcome." she said, before sneezing.
Ignoring her, Heiress continued with the attack, but this time, when the demon pulled the sphere of darkness into itself, her grapple followed, launching itself into the demon.
She attempted to fish it out, praying that she'd caught the soul, but instead the demon pulled back, dragging her towards it.
Heiress tried to keep herself grounded in place, there was no way she was going to lose to this thing, but unable to find any solid grip on the subway floors, she got pulled forward, closer and closer to her enemy.
And with one final pull, Heiress was sent hurtling towards the demon, flying into the inner abyss.
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It was dark. Not just as in a lack of light, but as if the darkness was a physical thing, pulsing and swirling around her.
Heiress shook her head. Of all times, she couldn't lose focus now. She was literally inside of the soul demon.
She looked around desperately. There had to be a way out, she couldn't be trapped here!
She spotted a small light a ways away, faint, as if it was being blotted out. It was swirling around opposite the darkness, the only thing that wasn't pitch-black.
The only thing she could think it might be was the soul.
She attempted to make her way towards it, she needed to get the soul before she escaped, and managed to get a firm hold on the sphere of darkness.
She pulled the soul out, the darkness becoming ever more suppressive. She held it close to her. even if she died she could at least save it-
Suddenly, the light returned, and the demon unraveled around her, hannah's frame clacking to the floor and the monster's body being reduced to dark glitter. The suppressive feeling had completely vanished, and a smile broke out on her face. She did it! She'd beaten the soul demon! But, how?
"Heiress, Heiress!" Clin cried, flying towards her, "I was so worried!"
Selenium held a fist, "Damn! She won again? And just when I had her trapped too…" she glared at the cure, "I'll have to work even harder next time." she asserted, before dissipating away, the last of the darkness leaving the wrecked subway.
Heiress let out a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad you're okay!" Biee said, "I mean, being inside of a soul demon? Being close to one is bad enough, I can't imagine."
"Yeah!" Alan chimed in, "and on top of that, Selenium ordered the demon to fill itself up with dark energy in order to overpower you! It's a miracle you managed to get the soul back in time."
"I guess, I don't know. I just knew I had to get out of there, and then I saw the soul and…" she looked at the soul, swirling between her hands, "How did I manage to beat it anyways? Don't I need to use my special power to beat it? I didn't even have it activated!"
Alan laughed, "You don't need your special power to beat a soul demon! All you have to do is either retrieve the soul, or break the sphere of darkness."
Heiress looked down, "I didn't realize."
"It's not a big deal." Biee said, "Here, I'll take the soul back to its owner, and you can take care of this girl, okay?" she pointed at Hannah.
She nodded, and passed the soul on to the familiar, who flew up and out of the subway.
Heiress grabbed her pen case to detransform, but Alan stopped her, "Wait!"
"But, the fight's over. It would make more sense for me to be in my other form, right?"
"Well yeah, but you said you don't want people to know about you being a precure if they don't have to, and if you just waited around until this girl wakes up then explaining it would probably give it away anyways!"
"What else am I supposed to do?"
"I was just about to say, you could fly her back to, wherever you want to fly her to!" he said with enthusiasm.
"I-I can't fly!" Heiress stuttered. What did he think she was, a bird?
"Of course you can! Haven't you noticed you wings?" He pointed to the bow on her back, "You've just gotta focus really hard on flying, pour your energy into your wings, and you'll be able to!"
Well that's literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard she thought, but knew better than to say anything at this point. Flying with a small bow just because you wished really hard didn't sound half as crazy as fighting not-dead ghosts and demons powered by souls.
"Okay, but what if I fall? Like, what if I get hit by a bird, or get too tired or something? I don't want to end up as a splat on the pavement!"
"You don't even need to worry about that! If you start falling then your floaters-" he pointed to the long ribbons which came off of the bow, "Will keep you from becoming a 'splat on the pavement', they're the reason you're so agile as a precure after all!"
She looked back at the 'floaters'. So that's what those were.
"So, I guess we should get going?" she asked, to which Alan eagerly nodded. Alan picked up Hannah's picture, and shook Clin awake, since they'd fallen asleep, as Heiress picked up Hannah piggyback-style, finding it much easier to do than she expected.
She walked up in front of the stairs leading up to the subway, slightly scared, but ready to take off.
She closed her eyes, and focused on what it would be like to fly. The rush of takeoff, the wind in her face, the sheer, jaw-dropping height…
Like releasing a breath she didn't know she was even holding in, a new sensation came to her, and she turned around to see wings, shining light blue with swirls of pink, adorned on her back.
She made sure that Hannah wouldn't fall, and began running up the subway stairs, Alan and Clin following right behind her.
With a final push she dashed into the sky, the ground falling out from under her.
Now she was really flying.
The pavement got further and further away, as she flew up out of the city's reach. Wind danced through her hair, and her stomach dropped at the height.
"Is flying, always like this?" she asked the familiars, joy in her voice.
"Yep!" Alan said, him and Clin flying out beside her, their little wings not struggling in the slightest to keep up with her.
It wasn't effortless, but the effort needed wasn't that much. It was easy enough to keep up for a while, but hard enough that it'd tire her out after too long. And it would probably be quite a while before she got to that point.
She tightened her hold on Hannah. above all else, she couldn't let her fall from this height, and continued on.
"So, where are we taking her?" Alan questioned, flying above just above them.
"I, hadn't got to that part yet…" Heiress said. She'd been so focused on the 'how', she'd barely stopped to consider the 'where'.
Alan sighed, "well then, where are we gonna take her?", to which Heiress didn't have an answer. If they took her back to the park, then there was the possibility of something happening to her, but she had no idea where she lived!
As if on cue, a small paper slipped out of Hannah's pocket, barley being caught by Clin before it was lost to the wind. "What's this?"
"Lemme see." Alan snatched the note, "I don't know, some kinda address maybe? Doesn't quite look right through."
"What does it say?" Heiress asked. It was probably Hannah's address!
"Okay, um, it's '555, Thisisnotarealstreet way'. But what're the numbers for?"
Ignoring his question, Heiress thought about it. She could've sworn she'd pasted the street on her way to the park! Now she knew where to go.
She continued ahead in the direction she thought it was, grateful to have a way to go.
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Something was, off.
Her mind flitted on the edge of consciousness, and sense was returning to her.
Something was definitely off. There was no ground, no solid surface, and lots and lots of, wind.
What was going on?
She was tired, unbearably so, and only had the energy to barley crack her eyes open to try and see where she was.
What she saw was sky, bright, open and all around, and a girl who was carrying her, with pink hair and sparkly wings. Something about her seemed, familiar somehow…
And that was her last thought before her mind was once again sucked into darkness, as she returned to sleep.
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Heiress spotted the park, and began descending down onto one of the nearby streets, behind some bushes. It had rows full of townhouses, so trying to get around as a precure would be too difficult. She detransformed, stuffing her pen case and charm into her bag before looking around.
She spotted a nearby signpost, and by sheer luck, saw that she had landed on 'Thisisnotarealstreet way'.
She quickly found house 555, and thank every god she'd ever read about, there was a bench in front of it.
She did her best to carry Hannah over to the house, which was much harder to do without her precure strength, but she managed. The familiars meanwhile stayed behind in the bushes, unwilling to chance that someone would see them.
She set Hannah down on the bench, and put the slip of paper next to her, before taking the picture frame to put on top of it.
As she looked at the picture, she felt a pang of loneliness. The picture was of four girls, one of whom was Hannah, all holding tennis rackets, smiling and laughing, having a great time and being friends.
It was something she'd never really gotten to experience before, or maybe she had, but she'd forgotten. And Hannah, being in a new place with nobody she knew- it was hard to think about.
She heard the front door starting to open, and quickly set the picture down before rushing off down the street, praying that whoever opened the door hadn't seen her.
Once she was a safe distance away, she looked back to see a woman who was probably Hannah's mother fawning over her, waking her up to make sure she was okay before helping her sleepy daughter inside.
It was heartwarming, but it wasn't her place to be. She turned around to start heading home, the familiars emerging to join her.
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"-And then I had to get inside the hospital van, which was an absolute nightmare, let me tell you, and I managed to return the soul to the guy, but even when he woke up and was almost perfectly fine, they insisted that he was still hurt! Can the doctors of this world not recognise a healthy person when they see one?" Biee complained, having joined the others a while ago as they were walking home.
Clin had fallen asleep in her purse, and Alan was currently floating next to Alison as his friend recounted her 'adventure'.
"Uh huh." Alan nodded, "but on another note, Alison, I forgot to tell you, we made a bit of progress when looking for the other precures!"
"Really? Do you know who they are?'
"Well, no, we don't know that, but we do know that they're not your parents, and that they're all close by here, probably. I wish we could've at least pinned one of them down before we had to go though."
Biee nodded along with his words, "On the subject of souls, Alison, why didn't Selenium just take that girl, you said her name was Hannah? Why didn't she just take her soul instead of going through all the trouble of taking the soul from the guy who was up on the street?"
"I'm not really sure. She tried to, but then Hannah's soul turned pink, and I think something prevented it from being taken. It was really weird, but after that happened she wanted to kill Hannah too! Do you have any idea what that could've been?" Alison pondered.
The familiars shared a knowing glance, before thier faces broke out into smiles as Alison continued, "And she was also able to see Selenium when nobody else could-"
"Yes!" Alan cheered.
"Oh my goodness, you actually found her!" Biee shook Alison's arm.
"What's going on? Who did I find? What happened with her soul?" she questioned.
Biee grinned, "She's a precure! We found the second cure!"
Hannah was the second precure? She almost didn't know what to think. On one hand, she was going to have a teammate, and it was someone she knew, someone who was friendly and nice! On the other hand, Hannah didn't seem to be going through the best of times, and she didn't want to push her if she didn't have to.
She looked out towards the endless horizon, the sky fading into the land. She wasn't going to be alone in this fight anymore, and a friend would be alongside her.
She smiled, "Okay then! Next time we see Hannah, we're going to recruit her to be a precure!" Alison yelled, before running ahead.
The familiars smiled, before giving a nod and flying after her as they went back home.
No matter what happened, it was all going to be okay.