Hello! Please, enjoy what you read at your own will, within reason and respect. Thank you for reading.
Disclaimer: I do not claim nor own anything. All rights are reserved to their respective owners and no copyright infringement intended. This fiction is for pure entertainment only and not for commercial purposes.
The battle against the Majesty had been won. Casualties were average, if one could consider over three to five million deaths as average. This had happened before and the casualties were devastating. More than three billion have died from a Beur of the Majesty type. Not just one planet, but other inhabited planets as well. Yet, the one to carry the blame and burden were thrown towards the Pretty Cures.
In the current state of time, after the defeat of the Majesty, Honoka and Nagisa were sent back to the Queen's palace to recuperate and rest. The United Court and Counsel of Galaxies (U.C.C.G) demanded the Pretty Cures to be on council meeting in front of millions, billions, and trillions of eyes from many galaxies, planets, and (astral) planes.
It should have been nervous and if not, utterly frightening and small for two women to stand at the centre of attention. However, the fights, experiences, knowledge, and scars fighting the Beurs had put their resolve and willpower to the utmost test. The proceedings of nature were but an unconcerned complaint to the two immortal, magical warrior women.
While the Pretty Cures were demanded immediately, the Queen along with a few supporters and rational councillors pushed the meeting away. The state of the planet and people must be tended to first. For now, the Pretty Cures were in the domains of the Queen, the Garden of Light. Pulled from space by their mentors, the fairies had gathered some life-force spent from fighting the Majesty. These life-force gathered by the fairies belonged to those outside of a person's possession; severed or no longer needed as due by nature's cycle – death.
To clarify, the life-force the Pretty Cures were their own, and that other life-forces must go through the process of fusion to stabilise its use. Which the Pretty Cures were in the midst of the process. Within the Queen's Palace, Honoka and Nagisa were found floating on the surface water on their backs. A lake of some sorts, were it not for the contraptions that circled around the pillars of the corridors around the lake. These contraptions contained chemical residues as well as magical compounds sent into the lake to mix with the Pretty Cures' body. Fusion of life-force was a complicated matter, as there was a chance for mutational or dysfunctional parts of the person: body, mind, and spirit.
Before it turned into a lake, it was the fairies Alchemical Laboratory, where the fairies created potions to ail and provide nature sustenance to create or grow life. Technologies have advanced from other races and it had the fairies separating their divisions, so as to help the Pretty Cures fusion and the fairies' welfare. Aside from the fairies' welfare, they have provided the Pretty Cures an abundance of life-force to soak and fuse in the lake. From there, the Pretty Cure could manage for themselves and enjoy their break. It was literally their bathtub.
While that was the case and privately so, they were hastening the fusion of life-force gathering into their bodies adorned with a tight suit. Eyes shut and minds silenced of any proceeding thoughts, their spirits touched upon the atoms of life and energy dwelling in the lake, coming out from the pipes of the contraptions connected to. Once again, most of the contraptions were assigning magical compounds and elements for the Pretty Cures to immediately use in their battles. The Pretty Cures could do it outside of the lake, but it would take too much time without the machines and process those life-force into them.
Nevertheless, it was a break the Pretty Cures have before they were to stand before the court and conglomerates of important standings. Probably people shouting and spouting the top of their lungs about how the Pretty Cures were unreliable, inadequate, unpassionate and whatever that did not meet their expectations. Frankly, neither women cared nor they had to.
"Honoka?" Nagisa called, an amused grin on her lips.
Honoka replied, "Yes?" Smiling as she knew what absurdities Nagisa had in mind.
"Think they'll jump off their seats and shake the council when we cuddle?" Nagisa asked and widely smirked.
Honoka giggled and chided, "Nagisa! They'll be envious, and it's unprofessional."
Nagisa opened her eyes and looked to Honoka, "What? No way!" The surprise in her voice amused Honoka.
Honoka turned and swam towards Nagisa, her hands cupping Nagisa's face as her fingers thread along ginger-coloured locks of hair, "Well, we are beautiful women."
Nagisa crinkled her nose, "I was accused a man in a woman's clothes." She crossed her arms and frowned.
Honoka shook her head and chastely kissed Nagisa's forehead after tenderly sweeping the bangs apart, "Then they are blind to your feminine charms."
Nagisa beamed and sunk her legs into the water, turning to embrace Honoka by the arms, "If you put it like that, I'd say the same about you more than words can offer."
Honoka rolled her eyes with an amused grin, "Do I hear a cliché romantic excerpt?"
Nagisa huffed and pouted, "You're unbelievable." Yet her brown-eyes held fondness and amusement.
The two women leaned their head together as their hands slipped past their arms to rest upon each other's sides. Warm, serene, and tender bubbling emotions coursed through their bodies. Yearning to further their intimacy elsewhere. But, they decided otherwise and took each other's hands, while the other lowered to their hips. Blood rushed to their faces as their brains went into the gutter – an explicit image of their bare bodies fleeting into their minds.
"Don't blush." Nagisa said, brightly smiling as she calmed her rapid, beating heart and averting her mind from tempting her any further unreadily.
Honoka giggled, "A natural chemical reaction, Nagisa. Although it puzzles me if we do have any remaining sense of humanity. Considering the fact that we have severed ourselves as humans." She pursed her lips as she leaned back in thought.
Nagisa shrugged, "It hasn't bothered me for a long time now that you mentioned it." Honoka looked at her inquisitively.
"If somebody was in our shoes had experienced what we have gone through, being human isn't going to help against the Beurs." Nagisa answered sombrely, her brows creasing in a little from the ridge of her nose and her lips in a thin line.
Honoka blinked, and then gently smiled as she raised her hand from Nagisa's hip up on to the shoulder. Nagisa did not back away as her gaze was caught by the sweeps of sparkling, long dark blue-hair touched by the water. Though it was a short distance to close-in, Nagisa did not back away but tense up as their hips nearly touched, their thighs brushing along one another for a moment. Feeling Nagisa's tense muscles under Honoka's palm, Honoka gave a tender squeeze there and soft strokes of the thumb. With a few strokes, Nagisa was tentative, but relaxed as Honoka kept an acceptable space from scaring her.
"It was a rhetorical question." Honoka said, her soft gaze and smile never changing even when Nagisa returned a tight smile.
"I've been called a freak before." Nagisa looked unbothered as she nuzzled to the hand on her shoulder cup her cheek.
"Well, I'm one of them with a brain capacity of a galaxy than the average human." Honoka smirked as Nagisa laughed.
Then Nagisa smiled and placed a chaste kiss to Honoka's forehead, "Any scientist would want a telescope into your brain, professor." She chuckled as Honoka pinched her cheek.
"Ahem!" Mepple interrupted, earning a groan from Nagisa and a giggle from Honoka as they looked to their companions, him and Mipple.
"We're sorry-mipo." Mipple apologised amusedly.
Nagisa gave a small smile and answered to them, "Hello you two. Thanks for getting us out of space. We were pretty deadbeat." The praise easily affected Mepple to be a bit more sincere.
"As your mentors, you need more training-mepo." Mepple smirked.
"Oh no-mipo." Mipple smiled and shook her head with her cute little hand placed to her cheek.
"But as magical warriors, you two did great at keeping up without needing more life-force to fight three Beurs in one day-mepo." Mepple confidently smirked and genuinely complimented.
Not that Mepple rarely compliments, but one compliment coming from him meant a lot to the Pretty Cures growth. Mipple agreed with a nod and asked about their wellbeing before they needed to go.
"Have you two soaked up enough life-force to last another dozen battle-mipo?" Mipple's gentle concern earned a receptive nod from the two women.
"Do we have another Beur?" Honoka asked.
"Not at all-mipo. Your previous battle have had the Beurs delayed, but unfortunately…" Mipple sighed as she landed at the edge of the lake.
The two women looked at each other and then swam towards their friends next to the edge.
"They're not happy with our performance?" Honoka provided.
Mepple snorted, "As usual, but that's not it-mepo." He landed on the ground beside Mipple, and the two summoned in an object with their hands raised up in the air.
An object morphed in the air above Mepple and Mipple. It was a fragment of sorts, and no ordinary fragment that all four recognised: a Malice coin. Malice coins were the rarest and most highly dangerous item in the universe. They could be found rarely left behind by the defeated Beurs, mostly from those that have survived long and powerful. They must be retrieved and dissolved through cleansing. For if not, what was once defeated would be revived from the one who possessed the Malice coin.
"It's happening-mipo." Mipple dreadfully stated, "This is the first Malice coin to appear since 150 years ago-mipo."
"We've heard and learned of its history, but this is the first time I'm seeing it." Curious and piqued by the coin hovering in the air, Honoka examined the coin slowly rotating in place.
"What do you with it? Where was it found?" Nagisa asked, raising a pointer finger to touch the floating object.
Mepple slapped Nagisa's finger away with a swat of his tail, "From the Majesty's remains-mepo. We will teach you how to enter inside a Malice coin-mipo."
Nagisa frowned, "It's just cleansing. It shouldn't be any different compared to what we've already done."
Mipple shook her head, "While that is true, Malice coins are too condensed for us fairies to purify."
"But they're not any different to the glyphs of malice. Why is it that you couldn't? Honoka asked.
"It's not that we can't, but it's too volatile-mipo." Mipple replied, earning a puzzled look from the two women.
"The Malice coin does not only store glyphs of malice, it also confined the substances and life inside it the Beur has absorbed-mipo." Mipple said.
Mepple sighed and continued, "Even after a Beur is defeated, and its own rage is hectic and created a turmoil within its confines-mepo. Causing a lot of chaos and disturbance to those who purify or touch it-mepo."
"As we possess the power to defeat Beurs, we have a better chance at purifying them without incident." Honoka said, nodding at the consensus she came to.
Mepple bit his lower lip and scratched his cheek, "Well, not perfectly-mepo. Maybe just a little or lesser..." He begrudgingly said.
"Lighten up Mepple! We can do it. You guys are gonna' teach us growing professionals on this job." Nagisa cheered, earning a lopsided frown as Mepple looked at her.
"You're still amateurs-mepo." Mepple smirked as Nagisa glared and scowled.
Honoka grinned and averted the banter clearly to come between Nagisa and Mepple, "Then let's begin right away teachers."
Mipple giggled and agreed, ending their banter with a grumble. The four of them need not move anywhere, but Honoka and Nagisa wanted to dry up and get out of the water. Mepple and Mipple however, suggested that they just take the coin in their hands and proceed from there. The fairies advised sternly that if they saw any Malice coins; immediately commence cleansing them or otherwise guarding them from any hands except for the fairies in the Garden of Light. The process and method unfortunately rendered the Pretty Cures inactive and stuck on their purification.
Following their mentors' instructions, Honoka took the coin onto her palm and Nagisa's palm resting snuggly onto her. With their palms together on the coin, their other hand rested upon their partner's back of the hand. A furtive glance from each other brought a soft smile to their lips. Barely allowing themselves to take comfort and joy in the moment, their mentors instructed them to cut off their current emplacement in this world and navigate into the Malice coin's territory with their solitary forms. Basically their spirits in human's concepts and beliefs.
In the case of Pretty Cures as were for Honoka and Nagisa, human, ghost, alien, or monsters should not affiliate themselves with the origins of their nature. Because the Beurs were amalgamations of undefined properties and nature, forcefully moulded together to form its own shapes solidifying the glyphs of Malice roots to bring abominable and phenomenal destruction.
To fight them required a perspective and concept that went outside the box of the civil, learned, starters, and or faith born from a specie. This has caused many deaths of previous chosen Pretty Cures because of their species and cultural mind sets to believe or insist that they could or would successfully combat the Beurs in that method. Frankly, it was also the means to boast a race or culture to a higher standing/prestige in the galaxy's recognition.
Honoka and Nagisa had come to gripes with that problem, but as they fought Beurs and won whilst carrying devastating scars and injuries including depressing circumstances. The assessment was true and that the severity of their origins helped them combat the Beurs in a different way almost all the time. The Beurs were an unpredictable, ever-changing noise of devastations.
With that considered, and while Honoka and Nagisa disembarked from their physical bodies into spiritual or otherworldly forms, Mipple reminded them that just like the Beur that looked the same, their method and objectives might be different. That was a warning as well as an important knowledge. Within the Malice coin in the palms of Honoka's and Nagisa's hands, existed a barrier that cannot be felt or seen up front. Not to denominate exorcists or spiritually connected people, but Honoka and Nagisa now knew why the coins were better tasked upon the Pretty Cures rather anyone else.
The barrier had a bear-trap hex formula. Much like how a bear-trap worked, it clamped its jaws together when something or someone put pressure onto the plunger, and the jaws snap together brutally into the victim's limbs or parts. But for this hex that trapped their victims, it instead sheared the victim's defences (be it body, mind, and spiritual), blended in those defences in some sort of blender inside the barrier, and then freely sliced and diced their defences off the blender's jug. Virtually, the victim whom touched the coin, would be dying unknowingly through the course of the events the glyphs of Malice has done infectiously towards their will. Their semblance would be constantly disturbed into obscurity.
It had surprised and briefly scared Honoka and Nagisa that they were unaffected by the hex upon the discovery of the barrier. Easily recomposing themselves to fight once more, they dispelled the barrier with a whisk of their ghosts circling around the barrier, the barrier weakened and cracked. The two magical warriors quickly battered the barrier by ramming their 'bodies' through.
Now past the barrier, existed the turmoil and obscure amounts of disorderly. It simply was difficult to understand even though it could be described. Limbs were stretched morphed to the point they were rooted in and on the centre of an eyeball – the iris acting as the land, while the white of the eye was the globe of water. The pupil glowered like a flame, an eerie flame giving 'life' to the 'tree' rooted to its pupil.
Although there were other deformed things to look at, the glyphs of Malice was found from an infantile thing blankly staring them next to the hand. Honoka and Nagisa remembered what the Majesty looked like, and the infantile entity had a part of its semblance – the swarms that made its head. It was now that the two magical warriors were thankful to have severed their humanity, because that would have brought out a volatile reaction, no doubt.
Without delay, Honoka and Nagisa raised their palms to their sides, conjuring a pair of squares. The infantile head wailed and cried, a sound eerily so real and begging to be helped, but the Pretty Cures were immune to be caught vulnerable in its attempt to their humanity.
With a sweep of their hands, the squares flew towards the defeated Beur and the glyphs of Malice embodied together. The Beur shrieked an eerily, spine crawling cry. Honoka and Nagisa remained unaffected and left the disorderly limbo back to their bodies. The sound of the Beur's cry, ended suddenly as the squares crushed the swarms. In a blink as Honoka and Nagisa returned to their physical forms, the Malice coin resonated a brilliant light and warmth.
Pulling their hands apart, an ascension of prismatic specks rose up to the air. Faint hums and what seemingly sounded like a lullaby, brought warmth and serenity for a brief moment as they appear and disappear to wherever they went. Mepple and Mipple cheered at Honoka's and Nagisa's success. The two immortal blinked their eyes as they looked at each other. A small smile and weary eyes from each other's face gave acknowledgement to the nightmares ordinary people would not be able to withstand.
Their fight remained eternal, and this nightmare did not phase either of them. They were only thankful that they experienced what was inside the Malice coin together – an odd memory to hold and remember weirdly fondly.
Drinkie:- I would actually love to write that. I'll probably write both of that anyway. I wanted to figure out how a story would go being AU and standalone. The thing is, that I don't want that intimate moment to be just about intimate pleasures, but also joyous and comfortable affectionate intimacies that clicked nicely in place. Having read and written some M-rated pieces mostly about sex, it quickly gets boring to me and predictably stale. I want to turn that around whilst maintaining a level of explicit together with love.
Author's afterword:- I'll admit, the last few bits touched along the lines of Horror. Horror genre really scare me and I just never inch myself to touch them. I have watched some and actually think they're good. I'm just not a fan of the genre because I won't be able to sleep at night. :C
I'll admit that it was put in at the spur of the moment. Which to me, fit in comfortably to the lore around the Beurs. Not too sure how much of a depth is flexible to put in the story though. I'll figure it out, and you guys can comment on that. I'm thinking this chapter felt like a filler, except that I added some depth to the AU.
I hope you enjoy what you read at your own will, within reason and respect. Thank you for reading.