Sofia watched as everyone cleared out of the room. The sleep deprived girl, Hazel, undid her enchantments and put Sofia back together. Her wounds were healed. Her glasses were mended with aircraft-grade adhesives. Then, she was left alone.
Sofia was probably allowed to roam the house, but she preferred the white room. Uninteresting concrete as far as the eyes could see. Decent soundproofing too. Utter sensory deprivation. It was perfect– any more stimulus and she would have exploded.
Later, Abby came inside the room and offered ice cream. Sofia asked for a chair instead. She was given one.
She sat down and thought about her day.
Sofia woke up, brushed her teeth, and murdered Hazmat chick. She wrangled Lucia into submission, but not without burning down her own house. For grief seeds she traveled to Los Angeles, which turned out to be the only metropolitan city in the world with no magical girls in it. She met Mimi, who turned into a witch. To save the civilians who wandered in Mimi's labyrinth, Sofia came up with a plan.
A plan that worked! Lucia defeated the witch. It even gouged out Lucia's eye which was a nice bonus, Sofia hoped that took a hefty chunk of magic to heal, fuck that bitch. But Lucia beat her after that. And she sent her to see Abby, and Chase, and, and–
Sofia ran her hand through the bridge of her nose.. There had been a gash there, the epicenter to a radius of destruction where plastic stabbed into flesh and bones fractured into serrated shrapnels. Crevasses of festering blood and ravines that exposed bones.
Humans bodies weren't built for this. For every pain receptor in your body to light on fire, and subsequently feel nothing immediately after. The flesh covered by her shirt wobbled like slime. She pressed her back against her chair, but the rigid surface gave her no rigidity.
Sofia closed her eyes.
In this room there was no junk food or terrible books. She could not jump out of the window without snapping every toothpick bone in her mortal body. But, unfortunately, her brain could still wallow in regret.
And so the scene sprawled around her. Greasy fast food restaurant. Constructs of beef patties squirming across the room. Sofia looked to the tables and found unmoving human-shaped husks sitting neatly around them. An inventory of the people she'd saved.
Sofia was living in one of her fantasy books. The heroic princess who allowed herself to be captured so her friends could get to safety. The bad guys could cut her open and torture her but still everything would be fine because she saved people.
That heroic princess would remember Sofia's day and be happy things turned out this way. She would have allowed herself to go through Abby and Chase all over again for this outcome, because her momentary peace was worth infinitely less than twenty human lives. Saving lives was why she became a hero in the first place.
But now, in Pasadena, California, Sofia Robinson stared at the people that she had saved. Their bland interchangeable faces, people who'll never repay her for her deeds or even know she saved them. And she recalled every bone-crushing punch Chase threw, every time Abby's enchantment turned the smallest cut to a bullet wound. She realized that she hated every last one of them, their stupid fragile minds and crunchy little bodies. She realized if she had to pick again she would run, she would have allowed Mimi to rape their minds and hopes and dreams and until they were the unliving shells who could only die.
Sofia balled up her fist. Just entertaining the thought in her head, she surged with some dark satisfaction, a forbidden power finally unsealed. She would never allow herself to be in this situation again. This was the last time she would be tortured and she had gotten through it wiser, realized some truth about the world she never would have otherwise.
Time passed.
When the door finally opened, it scared Sofia half to death. Abby strolled through like she owned the place (which she did). Without thinking Sofia conjured the gun and pointed it at her–
Abby glanced at it once and only looked bored. "Put that down," she said.
Sofia did. That voice, Graceful and jingly and sickly sweet, the same one that mocked Sofia as her brain tried its best to convince her that there was corrosive acid pouring down her face.
"I remember," Abby said. "That you called Lucia a psychopath."
"Yeah,"
"I can't hear you. Speak up."
Sofia flinched. God, why was she such a coward? She was a CK. A hardened magi killer. Sofia should be the one telling Abby to speak up.
Sofia stood up and corrected her slouch. In her current body she stood almost a foot taller than Abby, which made it easier to pretend she had a spine. "I, I did, And I notice you seem to, find that surprising. Are you, by any chance, blind and deaf?"
Abby crackled. Some long unused yet still finely honed evolutionary algorithm told Sofia that it was genuine. A traitorous thing ballooned inside her stomach. She made someone laugh!
Sofia pushed those thoughts out of her head. Jesus, what was wrong with her?
"Oh, no." Abby said. "I'm well aware of what Lucia's like. In fact, I want to help you with your bounty."
There was stunned silence.
"You're, an opportunistic b, bi," Sofia said. Her vocal cord scrunched shut. She couldn't say the last word.
"Why do you say that."
"Lucia called you. When she was in danger she called you to, to pick her up." Sofia said. "She trusts you with her life. And you want to kill– kill her."
Silence. Sofia braced for impending death.
But Abby did not kill her. "Lucia trusts me with her life." Abby looked amused. "Oh my god. You don't know the half of it do you. The incubator hands out a piece of paper with a name on it and you race here to kill someone with no idea why–"
"I know Kyubey wants her dead," Sofia interrupted. "I know Kyubey knows what's best for this world more than the rest of us." Sofia exhaled. "And that– that– that's enough."
"Take a look outside for me," she said, gesturing her hands towards the window outside.
Sofia suppressed her flinch, but she almost tripped over with how fast she kicked off the chair and scrambled next to the window. She saw the houses on the other side of the road. The lawns were yellow and weedy and the doors were bolted from the inside. There were no cars, people, or any sign of life anywhere.
"You know how many people Pasa had before? A hundred forty thousand. Do you see a single one? This place has the worst witch infestation since the world wars and people get pulled into labyrinths in broad fucking daylight. Lucia did this, with her quotas, her bullfuck rules, she drew all the magical girls away and now things are like this– and I watched it happen. Watched, with my own fucking eyes, the city of Pasadena turn into this!"
"You're lying," Sofia said. "But how– how many people, how many are in Pasadena now?"
"Maybe less than half what it used to be. Some moved away, not all of them. Perhaps not even most of them."
Half of a hundred forty thousand.
Jesus fuck. That was– that was, that was historical dictator levels.
"Yeah. Okay. Lucia sucks. Agreed, one hundred percent." Sofia continued. "But I– I don't need your help to kill her. Lucia, she got lucky today. I'm strong– I'm strong! I can kill her on my own. I've always done, I've been a CK for two years you know–"
"You're in an unfamiliar city. You don't know where to find her. And Lucia is a manipulator. Everyone loves her, they don't give a shit about civilians as long as there's plenty of witches. If you just go up there and kill her, you're screwed."
"They won't. Kyubey will protect me."
Abby groaned. "Bestie, bestie. Do you see Kyubey anywhere? The girls here, they're mindless pawns with no individual thought. Do you think anyone can stop them when they get riled up?"
"He'll stop it," Sofia said. "And if not. He'll get revenge. He'll make sure they pay."
"Sure. But put yourself in Kyubey's shoes. You really want to make him kill girls in the most profitable city in the world? A city which is already heavily understaffed? You think that would make him happy?"
That was a really good point.
Put yourself in Kyubey's shoes. Make him happy. "I– I don't–"
"If you really like someone so much," Abby was quiet. "How can you bear to die? How can you bear to take someone so important away from them?"
The world went even further away and sounds became echos, like her surroundings were being transmitted to her brain by telepathy. Abby was right. Dying, being killed here, it was all so selfish, how could she leave Kyubey without the only friend he's ever had? No, no no, there was no way she'd meant it, it was all just a stream of consciousness, Sofia vomiting whatever she was thinking into the world as usual. Sofia looked to Abby, perhaps she should clarify, tell her that she wasn't that kind of person–
Abby didn't look back. She stared vacantly into the floor, as if trying to remember something.
She looked confused. Sad.
Distracted.
Red light coalesced into her hand, becoming her gun, pointed straight at Abby's face.
Sofia fired.
It was a perfect shot but something about it made her uncomfortable. It was like expecting to hit the dartboard while throwing darts straight up at the ceiling– obviously impossible. But her kool-aid was en route to hit square in Abby's chest, it had to be a bullseye, there's no other way–
Then the liquid turned a rigid ninety-degree angle. There was no easing, no acceleration and deceleration. If this was a math textbook, they would have drawn a cute little box at the turning point. The kool-aid hit the ground a couple of feet to the right, hissed, and turned yellow.
WHAT.
The next moment Abby's fist connected with her face.
Sofia didn't realize she'd been knocked out until she woke up. Her right ear rang. In her mouth sloshed blood, along with something hard. A tooth.
She spat it out, briefly acknowledged that Abby did not kill her, and replayed how her shot had curved. Maybe it was some bullshit deflection magic, but it was strange she knew it'd curved before it actually did. Something about it smelled really fucking fishy.
Sofia conjured her gun, aimed for the window, and concentrated. The trajectory revealed itself, bits of space that seemed more important than their surroundings. It traced a wide parabola that went straight through the opposite window.
Except it didn't. Instead Sofia traced the trajectory from the tip of her gun. Before it reached the apex, the arc swerved rightwards in another square angle, and continued until it splattered on the ground six feet to the right.
Sofia pulled the trigger. Her shot traced the path perfectly. It made the same aerodynamically impossible turn and splattered on the ground.
What the fuck.
Sofia asked her brain about her gun.
Oh, yes, our gun, said her brain. Wonderful piece of equipment, a miracle of modern engineering, hardly fits someone like us, yeah? The cutting-edge air pressure pump is capable of–
The bullets. How do the bullets move.
Oh, yes! Our gun produces water saturated with spores. It should move the same as water! You know we wouldn't be able to handle anything too complicated–
Even as Sofia heard the words she knew they were wrong. Like someone said her name was Sam, or something. Sofia asked her brain if it was sure.
Of course I'm sure— wait. I've gotten my paperwork mixed up. After traveling for up to one second, your shot's momentum shifts right by ninety degrees. Everything else is the same as water!
It clicked. That was her power, correct and true.
What the fuck.
The eye gouger psychopath Chase did this, something this deranged could come from no one else.
If Chase had messed with her powers, Sofia kind of had to work with Abby. It was the best move anyway. Finding Lucia in this unfamiliar city would take time, time that Lucia could be spending to causing pain and suffering.
She ignored cold fingers of terror that massaged her heart when she heard Abby's voice. The tingling on her skin as phantoms danced inside healed cuts. All irrational distractions, things that Kyubey wouldn't give a second thought to.
And Abby– she may be evil, but she had been citymates with a psychopath for months. For her, every waking moment must have been hell. She must constantly fear for her life, walking in tiptoes so as to not be the next person Lucia slaughtered for fun. That was why Sofia wanted to be a CK in the first place, so other people wouldn't have to go through this.
No one should have to live as Sofia once had.
Sofia closed her eyes. Flexed her metaphorical telepathic vocal cords.
Abby. she said.
The response was instant. Yes bestie?
That voice again. She stared at the concrete floor. It wobbled like a jello.
Er, Abby said. You there?
Let's talk. Face to face, if you can.
Footsteps. Abby burst through the door, wearing a smug smile. Sofia kept staring at the floor, which caused it to wobble harder.
"I'm– I'm sorry I shot you," Sofia said.
"You are."
Sofia gasped for air. "I, yeah… yeah," she said.
"I don't care if you're a CK or not. I don't care if the incubator has your back. If you try to attack me or Chase, especially Chase, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"
Sofia nodded four times in quick succession. Just in case Abby had missed it, she added, "I understand."
Abby's smugness evaporated. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinized Sofia's face for unwillingness to make eye contact or shiftiness or some other lie-indicating microexpression, Sofia didn't know. "I respect you a lot." Abby said.
"...what?"
"There's a lot of stigma on CKs ever since Magicord. Once you said you were one Hazel refused to poke you with a ten feet pole. I…. A couple of months ago, a CK saved my life."
That got Sofia's attention. "How?"
"Someone snatched me and Chase from our city," Abby said. "Presumably it was a magical girl. She did something to us. I'm not sure what, I can't remember. Then CKs found us. Killed her."
Abby shifted. "It probably wasn't you. But you must also have saved many, many people, some trapped in a worse hell than I was. But all that makes it worse that I hurt you.
"Normally I'm not like this. I don't– do this. But you understand what you looked like, right? You snatched Lucia, like how me and Chase were snatched. You come here in the body of a random bystander with Lucia white as a sheet, eyes darting around like she's afraid the house would crunch up and eat her. You attack Chase. Then, you say that you're a CK?"
Abby's body went limp, soul already poured out of her. Her back slid down the wall and she sat on the concrete.
"I thought you were a liar. No CK could ever do that. Lucia was a cunt but she wouldn't have a bounty, it was too good to be true, so I hurt you. I'm sorry."
Sofia stared at Abby. She observed the black circles under her eyes, magnified by her gold wire spectacles. The outline of her skull was covered barely with flesh more rubber than fat. She remembered people in the lairs of her bounties, dissected, starved, disemboweled, brains scooped out, limbs mismatched, and thought how easily Abby could fit amongst them. How Abby had fit amongst them.
Sofia stared at Abby and saw the exact kind of girl she had become a CK to save.
Information sloshed in her mind. Her convenient abstraction of Abby as a pool of infinite malevolence overflowed and hemorrhaged all over her brain.
"Uh, uh." Sofia said.
"That's the truth," Abby said. "I despise liars. I could never be one myself. You shooting me was preferable to flattering me to backstab me at the last moment."
"So. You'll help me with Lucia. Still."
"Yeah. I'll help you. I would apologize for enchanting your gem, but you did try to shoot me, I'm not going to be sorry for saving my own life. Chase will fix that for you when she gets back from witch hunting."
"Sure." Sofia said.
"Also, by the decree of Maia our lord and savior, acting independently on her own of course, you are to attend an emergency Pasadena meeting scheduled at six thirty PM. So in an hour."
"Meeting? I'm not going to a meeting. We can't waste be wasting time. No here's what we want to do, take me to Lucia's house, I have her address it's, it's– something something, South Colorado street–"
"She's not there."
"What?"
"Lucia is insane. Spends twelve hours a day hunting witches. She's not home right now. Probably in some alleyway, getting reamed by a tomato."
"Lucia told you guys, she spends what, twelve hours a day hunting witches."
"Yeah. She does."
"And you bought it? What the fuck? Like, you think person ever spends twelve hours a day hunting witches–"
Abby stood up. Sofia pushed herself away from Abby, the ridges in her chair etching marks on her back. But Abby only spoke. "She makes three times the seeds per week I do. So unless she can synthesize grief seeds. Which, hey, maybe she can, maybe that's why the incubator called you in. But I still don't know where she is right now. But Lucia will be at the meeting. Do you understand? She's the one who called it. She'll be there."
"So– so we do it there."
"No we don't. Everyone in Pasadena will be there. And Maia. Yeah, Maia will definitely be there."
Sofia's heart ran cold. Maia, the psychopath leader of this psychopath city. The one that left Mimi Shizuki to die and spawn the witch that landed Sofia in this steaming soup of bullshit.
"You can't beat Maia." Abby said. "You can't run away from her, and if you try you instantly die. Trust me. We can't do anything at the meeting."
"Then why am I going?"
"It would be suspicious on my part if you didn't." Abby shrugged.
"Literally just– come up with any excuse. Say I'm, I don't know, unconscious, catatonic, dead, you can think of something–"
"How about," Abby's face fell. "Instead of making me a liar, you quit being a whiny little shit and do what I say."
"Okay okay okay, okay. I'll come– yeah. Yeah I'll–"
"Shut up."
Sofia shut up.
"They won't make you talk," Abby said. "Hazel wants you there to make some kind of point. You'll be fine, I'll stop them if they do anything absurd. After the meeting, we strike. And we save this town. Yeah?"
Sofia tongue was a dead slab of meat in her mouth. She could only nod.
"Very good." Abby said.
Abby left Sofia alone again.
An hour had passed, and Abby called Sofia outside. From the white room it was like stepping into a rustic forest cottage. The walls were painted maroon and the floor was tiled with wood. The room was lit up (badly) in a series of strategically placed electric candles.
And everything was so tidy. The wooden surfaces reflected orange candlelight like a prism. There was no wrinkles on the couch and no flakes of grease on the stove. Sofia had not seen such tidiness in– five or six hours, from that man who she borrowed a phone from. Weird. How old were they, sixteen, seventeen?
Abby was staring at her. "Do you want to change."
Change? Changing was that thing you did every morning after you woke up if you felt like it, or at night when you felt too sweaty. It was five in the afternoon, not the right time for either.
"You're too tall for any clothes I have. Chase is about your height, though, you can borrow some from her."
Sofia looked down. Her gray shirt was torn, crusty with sweat and dried blood. There weren't even that much, easily written off as a nosebleed. Of course, that was really all that Chase had done to her– a less localized nosebleed.
Wait a minute, didn't Abby say that the civs were being eaten by witches and afraid to go outside? Then what was the harm, magical girls weren't going to freak out over a little blood. Though the Pasadena girls probably drank blood for fun. Sofia supposed it wouldn't do for them to slobber all over her shirt.
But that was a joke, of course. It obviously wouldn't happen. There was no need to change. Why was Abby crowding her with bullshit non sequiturs, was she screwing with her?
Sofia kept her head down. "Yea yea yea we can, we can do that."
"You don't have to if you don't want to." Abby said. "I merely offer a suggestion."
What the fuck, that was the exact opposite of what Sofia said. Was she doing some kind of reverse psychology without noticing? Or was she really that bad of a liar? But now she was faced with a choice. Saying yes would establish Sofia wasn't just changing to oblige Abby (even though she was), thus creating the illusion of a spine under her neck. But it also meant that she had to change, and Sofia really didn't fucking want to do that. Her host hadn't worn these clothes for very long, she felt their freshly-washed stiffness against her strange masculine body. Washing it then would be nothing but a meaningless squandery of Southern California's dwindling water supply–
"Are you changing or not?" Abby snapped. "We're in a hurry."
Panic seized her. Sofia's prefrontal cortex banished the list of pros and cons and grabbed the answer with the closest memory address. "No! No. I mean er, it's okay. I'm okay, if we're, in a, a hurry–"
"Well, let's go then."
They left the apartment and entered a dim rectangular atrium with two doors on each side. Five other doors were open, revealing unrenovated husks, plastic-wrapped furnitures and dirty concrete walls.
"Housing owns this whole building," Abby said. "The incubator expected more magi in the area."
So it was. The ride down the elevator was silent. It wasn't awkward, Sofia was too busy staring at Abby so she could flinch like a coward every time she moved.
They went through an identical atrium on the ground floor and passed through the door outside. The sun, having overstayed its welcome by a couple of hours yet stubbornly refusing to set, shined its harsh rays upon them. Sofia stared at it from habit. It burned her human eyes and left an incandescent splotch in her vision.
Outside, in the parking lot, a car– a sleek, red thing– hummed and exhaled gas. In the driver's seat, motionless and expressionless, sat Chase.
Sofia's legs lock up and she tripped on nothing. Abby grabbed onto the back of her shirt.
"Be careful," she said.
Sofia gave jittery nods. Looking at anything but Chase, she skittered into the back of the car and closed the door.
During the ride, Abby waxed bullshit as Chase said nothing in response. Sofia tried to disappear.
Hot.
That was the first thing Sofia noticed. In the onset of twilight the Californian heat slowly waned even as the diurnal light did not. Then, they passed some invisible barrier and entered a literal furnace. Scalding humid air infiltrated the car and streaked heat into Sofia's skin.
"What was that," Abby said. "Didn't Lucia say the witch was made outta snowflakes or something?"
Chase shrugged. Abby fumbled to turn the air conditioner. From the fans burst air that was noticeably hotter than the actual air. On the car's dashboard, a thermometer icon glowed bright orange.
"Car's overheating," Abby said. "Chase, get out, u-turn. Park out, outside the bubble–"
Park outside the bubble. The unspoken assumption being that they were going in afterwards. No, right? Sofia was in a human body, if the fucking car was overheating then Sofia was going to get roasted into jerky two minutes in.
Sofia said nothing.
Chase turned the car around. Abby dialed someone on her phone. Hey it's your girl Steph here, what's the dealio– Abby cursed and hung up, dialed someone else. "Hazel! Hey Hazel, Heyzel am I right, bestie bestie, are we still meeting next to the parking lot. What. Why would we meet inside this sauna. No no no no no, need I remind you that the CK is in a human body and will suffer a heat stroke if we–"
Beep. Dial tones followed.
"Fuck." Abby pocketed her phone. "This is a massive waste of energy."
The air turned lukewarm, signifying the exit of the threshold. With a flourish of the steering wheel Chase executed a perfect parallel park between two minivans. Sofia whimpered.
They got out of the car. The landscape of abandonment sprawled around them. Abby, Chase, and the fading hum of a car's engine the only indication of civilization.
Lucia did all this. And to end it all Sofia would have to willingly steam herself to death to purchase Abby's favor.
They entered the threshold again. Sofia melted into putty as she walked, leaving a trail of slime behind her sluglike.
But it wasn't as far as she thought it was. In the parking lot of a strange abandoned lot was Hazel, Lucia, and four people who Sofia did not know. The person who stood next to Lucia stood out– mousy, little more than five foot. She looked thin, Sofia but couldn't tell because she was wearing a bright orange winter coat. Sofia was having a heat stroke just looking at it.
This was probably that girl Lucia brainwashed. Abby mentioned her in the car– Steph. But this development was troubling– the ability to wear a winter coat in this heat meant she was capable of some serious disassociation. Probably a veteran.
Next to Steph were two girls, skins in different shades of brown. One wore a tomato-colored bra tops that matched with a dress that was made of, was that leather? The other wore a pink t-shirt. They conversed.
There was also a Small Child. She was so cute! Twintails and everything. Awww. Also very sad, because she's like what, twelve? Sheesh, Kyubey. Sofia had made him promise to not contract girls younger than thirteen unless it was really important.
Hazel and Lucia argued about something. Steph nursed a bottle of water and turned to look at Sofia.
"Abby who the hell is that," Steph said.
"Oh yes!" Hazel clapped her hands together. "Abby, Chase," (wary glance in Sofia's direction) "Sofia. I'm glad you could make it. Lucia, you remember Sofia–"
"Why is she here," Lucia said. Her lower lip wobbled. "Why did you bring her here? Why did no one tell me that she was coming?"
The small child cleared her throat. "Hey! Guys! We should–"
No one acknowledged her. Hazel kept talking. "We determined that Sofia's presence would prove productive to us in this meeting. I'm surprised Abby didn't inform you, though. I–"
"Go fuck yourself Hazel. Three times I called–"
"I lost my phone! Are you stupid? I had to borrow phones to call you back at LA, I obviously do not have it–"
"Three times I called Steph. Three times she hung up on me."
All eyes turned to Steph and her winter coat, nursing a rapidly boiling bottle of Crystal Geyser.
"Uh. You uh, only called me once. So."
"I was interrogating the person who attacked Lucia. And you didn't see the need to pick up when I call you."
Small Child cleared her throat again. "Ahem. Guys. Hey hey hey–"
Steph made strangled chuckling sounds with her throat. "I was doing something, important, and whatnot, yeah, yanno– I was, gonna call you back, but–"
Steph's voice died. Sofia looked at Small Child. Her adorable little preteen head turned like a bobble to look at Abby and Steph and Lucia and Hazel as they insulted each other. Her frustration was apparent on her face, eyes narrowed, lips lined in a frowny face emoji. Sofia too, Small Child, Sofia too.
"That doesn't matter now." Lucia said. "Abby, you tried your best to reach me. I do appreciate it." she flashed a smile. It made Sofia's stomach twist, because it looked genuine, sincere, a manifestation of pure unadulterated happiness, and about what? About how Abby tried and failed to call her? And Lucia continued. "And anyway, we'd all like to not die from a heat stroke, correct? Let's get to business. First, she leaves."
Sofia no longer wanted to leave.
"Lucia," Hazel said. "Sofia is relevant to the issues I wish to discuss. I apologize, but I do insist on her presence–"
"No. Shut up. I don't care. She leaves."
"I ain't leaving," Sofia said.
"Yes, you are."
"Do you want a goddamn fight? Is that what you want? Because let's fucking go–"
"Sure," Lucia said. "Let's fight."
Sofia blinked. "Actually? You want to go? You want to do it?"
"Yeah," Lucia said. "If I beat you you leave. Yeah?"
Sofia saw how it was. Lucia was no garbage tier magical girl, but her style involved throwing shield-shaped extensions of herself at people. It was something Sofia countered easily. But since Sofia had garbage human reflexes, so Lucia thought she had a chance.
Actually, did she have a chance? Sofia didn't understand the specs of her current body well enough to answer that question.
"Let's do it then. Three– two– one–"
Lucia threw her shield at Sofia. Sofia pointed her gun at the shield's position in point two seconds, and pulled the trigger.
She did not get to witness the satisfying sizzle of her spores assimilating the magic in Lucia's shield. Being in a magical girl's body was rejuvenating– the heat and background exhaustion all but disappeared.
"What–" the civilian said before the shield hit him square in the chest. He jerked, paralyzed, before he fell and slammed on the ground.
That was it?
"-what's happening, ahhh," said the civilian. "where am I, why can't I, why can't I move who are you people–"
"Uh," said Leather Dress girl. "Lucia… won?"
"Nope," Sofia said. She manifested her gun. "Lucia's gone now. It's all me."
Wait a minute, what was she going to do now that she won? She'd just given away her power, too. Should she run? Abby had said that Maia would stop her no matter what she did. Was Maia even here?
"Calm down all," Steph said. "Things are going to work out."
And then, the feeling of something dragging her collar. The things in front of her changed.
With a squelch of blood, Sofia's body collapsed like a house of cards.
Sofia tried to scream in pain but nothing came out except air. Her head, bifurcated through a diagonal which cleaved her brain in half, was still coherent to process that her decapitated head was laying in a pile of her own flesh, like chunks of a freshly butchered cow.
She'd been teleported by a Pearl that had barely been conjured. As a result, only part of her body had made the trip over. She could still see her body at where she stood, next to Steph. It was almost whole, though headless and a hole poking through in its abdomen. Intestines squelched.
She'd been played.
Sofia checked her gem. It was already half corrupted from all the despair sucked out of Lucia. And it accumulated metric fuckloads more as Sofia fought to keep her decapitated head conscious. How much more time did she have? A minute?
"You lost." Steph said. "Possess your old body."
Fuck. Fuck.
The world was fading into rainbows. Her head was being ripped apart, gnawed by invisible zombies that she couldn't stop because she had no arms. Lucia outsmarted her again. Sofia was so stupid, what did she even have to gain by winning this fight, this had OBVIOUSLY been a trap–
Sofia conjured her gun and felt it come into existence a couple of feet away from her, in the hands of her half corpse. Hopeless. HOPELESS. She couldn't do anything. That's it, that's her life, fin.
All the pain disappeared.
Sofia blinked. She could see normally again. She laid on the dirty asphalt. Steph was pointing her water gun at her, about to shoot her.
No, Steph already shot her. Sofia felt the weight of the stupid glasses on her nose. She was back in the civilian's body.
It turned out being a human was pretty rejuvenating too. All pain disappeared, and Sofia still couldn't move. With the corner of her eyes, Sofia saw Steph's arms lengthen uncannily, grabbing the flesh chunks next to her, and fitting them like a jigsaw puzzle into Lucia's mostly intact headless body next to her.
Regrowing body parts from scratch took the better part of a week and truckloads of grief seeds. It was substantially easier, though, if you already had your decapitated body parts, especially if you had a friend preserving and oxygenating them with magic. Skin boiled and connective tissues grew. Instantly, Lucia stitched herself back together.
No one batted an eye except for Hazel, who gripped the sleeve of her shirt with paste-white knuckles and avoided eye contact with everything.
Lucia's tattered, blood-soaked tailcoat vanished, replaced by an ordinary PASADENA HIGH SCHOOL t-shirt. "That was a demonstration of Sofia's ability. Single strike you're out. No defense, no counterattack. Mutilating myself wouldn't have stopped her from finding my gem, if you guys weren't here."
"How did you beat her the first time," Pink Shirt said. She sounded slightly scared, and in awe.
"Sofia blundered into a labyrinth and couldn't beat the witch. She let me out so I could do it." Lucia flashed her teeth like a dog. "After I beat the witch, I beat her too.
"I got extremely lucky. God decided that I wasn't done living yet. That WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!" Lucia roared. "When you are possessed, there will be no witch coming to save you, and you will never wake up at all!"
The real world concentrated on that the only spot that mattered, Lucia's lips as it flapped to actualize the evil produced by the malevolent mass of writhing black tentacles Lucia had where normal people had a brain. Sofia clenched her fist, needed to kill her, maul her, destroy her. But that could do nothing. The others also stared at Lucia with expressions of frenzied disgust. She commanded eyeballs. She directed all their attention and turned them into hate. Hate towards Sofia.
"Sofia still intends to kill me. If any one of you rise to my defense, or even simply wield a power that could serve her ends, what do you think she'll do? You think she'll spare you?"
"Lucia, stop." Abby said, sounding very tired.
Lucia ignored her. "Do you want to wait for the incubator to solve our problems–"
Abby talked over her. "I asked Sofia some questions, as promised. She's a CK. She attacked you because she took your bounty."
And everything went deathly still. Lucia did not move. Her face was still frozen in her expression of determination and confidence. The wires attached to Lucia's facial muscles had been severed from the parts of her brain that contained her actual emotion. She willed an expression and her face made it. When she was too shocked to will things, her face froze like a faulty program, recurring the same code endlessly.
Steph, penguinlike in her coat, broke the silence. "Abby you're not stupid. You don't believe this."
"O–on the contrary," Hazel said. Her face was still a sickly white color, and she was trying her best to not look at the splotches of Lucia's blood on the asphalt. "I believe– I verified Sofia's identity with an associate who is an ex-Contract Killer. She remembered working together with her–"
"Who." Steph said.
"She has been a trustworthy source of information for years and owes me favors," Hazel said. "She has no reason to lie–"
"Who."
Hazel looked down and fidgeted. "My source wishes to stay anonymous."
This display of weaknesses rejuvenated Lucia, as it would a wolf or hyena. "That's convenient for you," she said.
"Regardless, I am not a liar. I had my own suspicions about this incident, coupled with the disappearance of the incubator–"
"So your head formed the thought," Steph said. "what if Lucia was a mother fucking CK target that would make everything make sense."
"I know this could be hard to accept– remember, I have no reason to wish for this outcome, Lucia being– so, so crucial to maintain equilibrium for the city–"
"It was a trick," Lucia said, loudly. "Maybe Sofia got to your source. Or she was mistaken. Again, I don't know who she is. We can't trust disembodied voices when it comes to something as serious as this, yes?"
" I am, certain. She was not tricked. Lucia–"
Hazel was trying to convince Lucia while Lucia was trying to convince the crowd. That's why Hazel was losing. Come on, even Sofia could see that.
"Let me put it this way." Lucia said. "Who is more likely to make a mistake? You, or the incubator?"
Hazel opened her mouth, but no words came out. She surveyed the surrounding magical girls until her eyes met Abby's.
Abby sighed. "Lucia. You are stressed out of your mind. You've beaten this ludicrously powerful girl, probably killed like, two, three witches today after. You need to rest. We'll confirm Hazel's sources. We can discuss this later, hopefully not in this sauna. Yeah?"
Slow nods of assent rippled through the crowd. Lucia said. "No, I'm fine! We have, more important issues here. Let's talk about where we're keeping her–"
"No, no no no." Abby said. "We're not talking about this. Let me worry about it. We talk this through tomorrow, yeah? Maia, bestie. What's next on the agenda?"
Maia.
"Yes!" said the small child. She brightened at Abby's acknowledgement. Her eyes glittered, the edges of her lips creased upwards, and dimples showed in her cheeks. She straightened her threadbare tie, flattened the wrinkles on her white shirt, and spoke. "Well Miss Abby, I would love to start, but I think it would be best to wait until Miss Ellen and Miss Odessa gets here so they can h-hear about the witch too?"
Groans emanated through the crowd. "Maia," Leather girl said. "We are being microwaved, okay? That's, that's what this is. Fuck them, let's get this over with yeah?"
"Well– I–"
"Odessa did not want to enter the threshold for fear of her life," Hazel said. "She deems it to be 'too crazy'. If Ellen wants to be here, she is likely present already. Maia, I recommend you allow Lucia to proceed."
Maia sent a guilty look in Hazel's direction. "Uh, er, I- I guess that is a, uh, fine, fine. Miss Lucia, if you will—"
YOU.
From the dizzying heatscape beyond echoed the auditory manifestation of infinite stygian darkness.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME.
There were nine magical girls here. The odds that they were talking to Sofia was one in nine. The right course was then to look as small as possible, attract no attention, and–
Invisible slimy fingers clamped around Sofia's waist, binding her hands to her body. Her weak mortal shoulder attempted futilely to force themselves free, but it was like struggling against an extremely sticky wall. Slowly, her feet left around and she floated midair, like she was possessed by a fucking poltergeist from a horror movie from twenty years ago.
WHAT. IS. YOUR. NAME.
Vaguely, Sofia heard voices crowding around her. Ellen the fuck is the matter with you. Ellen this is uncharacteristic of you what's wrong. Ellen you she's a CK you'll get yourself killed. With each word the grip tightened. Sofia heard her ribs begin cracking and popping and collapsing onto her fragile fleshy innards–
"I'm Sof, Sofia," she squeezed out.
Silence. This information was surprising to Ellen. Ah, that was a familiar name once upon a time, and this power seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe it was that Ellen, or maybe the infinite cycle of karmic reincarnation conspired with Kyubey's designs to spit out a new edgy shadow girl called Ellen. Did it matter?
WHO DID YOU KILL.
Maia's eyes rolled to the back of her head. There was a flash of light and she was in a vaguely familiar peacock costume, blue bird mask with flashy crown.
The grip on Sofia loosened and she fell five feet on her ass. Something gurgled behind her. Sofia's shadow shook, squirmed, and gushed blood in a crimson geyser.
Purple gel emerged from her shadow like a ball of dough. There was a pair of red kitchen scissors stabbed into it where blood continued to spurt. The dough stretched and hardened into ELLEN FUCKING KAUFMAN.
The pair of scissors was hilt deep in Ellen's stomach, right next to a cut amethyst crystal embedded on her navel. The gem's gold clasp had some bits chipped off. One micrometer to the left and Ellen was dead.
Ellen pulled the pair of scissors out of her stomach, allowing a burst of blood to gush from the wound. She was grinning as if nothing happened, but her extremities trembled so hard it didn't even fool Sofia. "Really don't hold back ay, Maia dear?"
"My scissors!" Pink Shirt girl said. She was next to Maia. She ruffled inside a little purple purse. "Maia can't you ask before–"
Maia untransformed. Her peacock outfit disappeared. Her pupils reappeared, swirled into an apologetic grin. "Oh, I'm sorry Miss Madison. I, er, just thought it was a good idea!"
Ellen threw Pink Shirt girl's– Madison's– scissors back at her, the blade pointing at her and everything, which was very rude. Was Madison the kind of person to just bring a pair of scissors with her everywhere? If not, how had Maia known it was there?
Ellen flashed the most venomous smile imaginable. "Maia dear. With your full permission of course, I would like to ask Sofia here some questions of utmost importance. Would that be acceptable?"
Maia grinned a grin considerably more forced than Lucia's had been. "Eheheheh, yeah. Thank you for uh, uh, asking first..."
Ellen turned to Sofia. Reached out her hand. Sofia flinched, but she only fingered Sofia's chain necklace.
"That's pretty," Ellen said.
Sofia disagreed.
"Where'd you get it, dear?"
Sofia wore an expression of defiance to buy herself time while she figured out why Ellen was asking her that question. In Malibu the chain rose from the ground and almost choked her to death. It had been after she possessed Lucia, neutralized hazmat chick, and–
And killed her.
WHO DID YOU KILL, Ellen had asked.
"I don't know," Sofia said. "I never killed, killed anyone. Ne– never." Wait, shit, that wasn't the question that Ellen was asking.
Lucia spoke up. "Really?" she said. "No one? Not a single person?"
Sofia could no longer breathe.
"Short hispanic girl," Lucia said. "Black hair, Maia's build. White hazmat suit. She had a flamethrower. Sofia you fought me in her body. She was gone when you let me out in the labyrinth. Right?"
Sofia did. She remembered the gem shattering in her hand, losing its incandescent red glow and becoming shards of worthless glass.
Ellen stared at Sofia with an unreadable expression, but her hands shook, even more violently than it had when Maia came microns away from breaking her gem.
Her body turned back into purple goo and drained into the nearby shadow. She disappeared.
Silence pervaded the meeting. Air flowed through Sofia's windpipe once more, respirating through Sofia's lungs in the biological rhythm of her soul. A rhythm more beautiful than Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Michael Jackson, beautiful in its finitude, the coda already in reach, because she was going to fucking die. Ellen was going to fucking kill her, and it wasn't Ellen it'd be Lucia, then Steph, then Chase, Hazel, Maia, Abby, Madison, Leather girl, a whole hierarchy of people who wanted her dead.
Sofia was going to die in this psychopath city.
"Well," Maia broke the silence. "That's that. I guess. Anyways, er, Miss Madison is, yeah, I agree with her. Miss Lucia, the– the witch?"
"Oh, yeah." Lucia said. "I want to talk about the witch behind me." she gestured towards the convenience store. "I had called it Snowflake Witch in our messages. It's not such a good name anymore. As I'm sure you know, it is able to affect the real world. It's powerful enough that the barrier of its labyrinth is already breaking down."
God, they were standing in the same place for too long. Sofia's feet were getting sore. She didn't deserve this, she'd sold her soul for her feet to not be sore. Where was Kyubey? She needed a goddamn refund.
"The labyrinth used to be themed around the winter." Lucia droned on. "The witch turned water to ice and conjured snow and hail. That has evidently changed. It might change again tomorrow, or it might not. We need to be ready for everything."
Leather girl reached into her pocket, pulled out an entire fucking chair, and sat down. Sofia tried to stop incredulous jealousy from manifesting on her face.
"You got a clue which magi it was?" said Pink Shirt. Or Madison, as Maia called her.
"I uh, checked obit bot, did some uh, cross referencing. No one who died in California over the past two months was THAT power level. The witch likely, uh, orange rated, pfut," Maia blew a raspberry. "Originated. ORIGINATED. Ahem. Originated in Mexico or Nevada, maybe?"
"Pasadena is not near either," Hazel said. "It's absurd that such a strong witch could go unnoticed the entire journey here. Plus, a witch that far away shouldn't be attracted to Pasadena at all."
"That doesn't really matter," Lucia said. "We'll crush it all the same."
"Yeah, that's the, the spirit." Maia's lips tugged upward in a non-smile. "Yeah. Hm. Anyway, uh, yeah. Me, Miss Lucia and Miss Hazel will be there, of course. We've also decided that um, for those who join, join the expedition, they will get one week free from the quota."
"Jacinta," Hazel grinned way too widely. "Are you going?"
"Yep! Y'all know I love… uh, dying!" grinned Leather Dress girl. Jacinta.
"I'll go too," Madison said.
Lucia raised an eyebrow. "Excellent. Excellent. Anyone else? Abby?"
"I'll be there. Chase can keep an eye on Sofia while I'm gone."
Sofia intestines tied itself into a knot.
"Six people probably isn't enough," Lucia said. "Maia, you should talk to Odessa and Ellen. Remember, if the witch kills even a single one of us, we all lose."
Maia grinned. "Don't worry guys. You've got me! I won't let any of you get into trouble. Do you guys have any, any questions?"
"When do we gotta show up or whatever," Madison said.
"As soon as we wake up," Lucia said. "This is urgent. How does uh, six sound?"
Stunned silence.
"Uh, six PM?" Madison said.
"AM. Is six too early for you guys?"
It was too early for them. After several minutes of pointless nagging while Sofia writhed in agony, they agreed on twelve.
Through the last ten minutes Hazel had stared at the ground and probably had several existential crises. She finally woke up. "One last announcement," she said. "Lucia had already stated this earlier, and the observant amongst you have deduced this for yourself. But I wish to make it official. The incubator has withdrawn from the globe."
SHUT UP. Sofia thought. SHUT UP. SHUT UP.
Sofia's sweat dripped onto the ground in fat droplets as Hazel continued to speak at a snail's pace. Something something not collect seeds. Something something Magicord censorship. Something something Lucia's bounty.
Lucia launched into a self-righteous pedant speech about Hazel calling the bounty a bounty. Hazel acquiesced because she was a bitch.
"Anyway," Hazel said. "The first problem is obvious: our only avenue to dispose of grief seeds is gone. Over time, seeds randomly transform into witches even if below the critical despair threshold. We must minimize this risk. Henceforth, all grief seeds submitted for quota inspection must be less than eighty percent saturated. Also, we will confiscate them for safe-keeping."
Jacinta stood up. "Whoa whoa there buddy pal, you can't just take our grief seeds, we don't owe you for living in this crapfuck city you don't get to steal from us– Madison back me up."
Lucia's eye twitched. Madison did not back her up.
"We do not steal." Hazel said, "All seeds will be returned after communications are reestablished with the incubator."
"We can't survive with eighty percent." Jacinta said. "It literally takes more than to beat the witch it came from. You've fought a witch before right?"
"It's highly unlikely to consume eighty percent of your gem capacity during a single fight." Hazel said. "If you optimize your fighting style, you will still make a profit!"
"At the end of the day," Lucia spoke up. "These are extraordinary circumstances. The incubator disappearing at this scale is unheard of. He's missing out on boatloads of contracts. Whatever he's doing, he'll be back soon. Work with us, please, and everything will be fine."
Keep arguing, Sofia thought. She was willing to withstand the sores if it meant seeing that smile wiped off Lucia's face.
But that explanation seemed to shut everyone up. Jacinta sat down, looking embarrassed.
"Alright." said Maia's slight voice. "Any, any questions?"
Silence.
"Er… yeah… that's all the stuff, that we got here to say," Maia said. "You guys, rest well. We have a big, big day tomorrow, yeah?. Meeting adjourned."
Lucia Mount clamped on Steph's wrist and poured runic teleporting voodoo into her arm. Then Lucia threw a pearl, didn't aim because screw that. She needed air, oxygen, not the parking lot oxygen that singed her lungs like fire from a stove, tinged with the inexplicable scent of rotting food that diffused inside her cranium and drove her mad.
Her collar dragged. The miasma of heat disappeared. They landed a block away from her car.
"Steph, do you think- that Hazel was right? Do I have a bounty on me?" Lucia said.
"Didn't you say it yourself. Hazel was acting sketchy as fuck, there's no way Sofia's actually a CK."
"No– no no no, I was lying." Lucia said. "No. I– may– maybe– God. God!" she sat down on the dirty curb. "You're, you're right. There's no way. Body snatcher magi. Sofia. She can't be a CK. She can't! Right Steph? Right?"
Steph smiled sadly and nodded.