I sighed, feeling the headache coming from a mile away; my shoes dulled the force of my feet as I thudded to a stop and looked at Pinky, cigarette going into one hand. She was the most exasperating creature I had met because she would be totally normal, and they say the most out-of-pocket shit and do not explain.
Like the commander guy, who she just seemed to fuck around with because she could.
The guy tickled my memory something fierce, but I couldn’t place it for my life.
I got the sudden urge to rub my temples, but instead of doing that and probably lighting my hair on fire, I sighed, “What do you mean, Pink?”
Pinky looked at me as if I was perhaps, not the sharpest tool in the shed, and in a tone that felt only a little patronizing answered, “Luna’s Haunted. You know, like mysterious stuff happens all the time? No answer as to why it happens? It's probably the second most haunted place in the solar system.”
“Yeh, Pink, I know what the word haunted means. I mean, what the fuck do you mean when you say haunted?”
“Ohh… Do you want the technical answer or the historical one?”
“Are they different?” I asked her only for her to give me a so-so.
“They are a little different, think practical vs folklore,” she explained.
I nodded, saving this pinkyism away for later, and simply said, “Go on then, it's story time,” before sticking my cigarette back in my mouth and sucking back a nice lungful of relaxation.
She scrunched up her nose at the smell but nodded, and we started walking as she collected herself.
“Well… How much do you know about the history of Luna?”
“Not much, you guys made ships a long time ago… and you make a bunch of decent high volume products that other people can’t, and that’s about it.”
“That’s not even history, that’s just commerce… Ok, so, long ago in the before times, and by that I mean pre empire, a bunch of people moved to the moon because it was better than back on the throne for some reason, and to do it, they basically betrayed Humanity, right?”
“Following you so far,” I tacitly agreed.
“Yeah, so humanity didn’t take it so well, and they basically decided that if they ever recovered, they were going to kill off the traitors to their entire people; they recovered, and the first settlers decided they were owed, humanity refused, they came here, rounded them up, and killed them all, like a full stop, root and branch. Afterward, those first members decided that they liked the moon and settled down. Those were basically the proto-silver legion, who came equipped with the finest weapons and who most of the noble cast can trace their roots back to. But after that, people started having sightings, strange occurrences, people going missing in the dead of night, that kind of stuff, and it's been like that for centuries.”
I blinked at her, that was… Kind of hardcore.
It was so hardcore that my cigarette almost fell out of my mouth. I caught it, saying, “So Luna is a giant burial ground, weird shit happens, therefore ghosts?”
“Close, except they’re not ghosts. They're some sort of monster; they can come out of nowhere and just disappear after, in and out.”
Her words conjured a familiar sight: A dog made of hate that could walk out of corners.
They were around, here and there, many on the sides of buildings or mid-air, though they were mostly faint and unused.
I asked her, not quite with intention, “Any dogs?”
She looked at me like I had just asked something particularly stupid, and I felt relief flood into my shoulders.
“I tell you that thousands of people were murdered, and there are monsters… And you ask about dogs?”
“It… It just reminds me of something I saw. It… It was like something made to look like a dog, only from a bad painting, by something that held nothing but contempt for them. It was more like a monster, in the shape of a dog, and it could come and go as it pleased.”
Pinky looked at me and then nodded.
“That matches the general idea most people get from it. Basically, if something you can’t explain happens, it’s a monster. There are all sorts of stories, though I don’t think I’ve heard of dogs… No, no dogs. There were some that seemed afraid of dogs, but I can’t remember if those were tall tales or recorded.”
I gave a sigh of relief. If I never had to meet another in the flesh, it would have been too soon.
I turned to her, realization dawning on me, “So wait. If you’re a legionnaire-”
“Magical Girl,” she said emphatically, cutting me off.
“Sure. If you’re that, then you're some kind of noble princess? Is that how you got the,” I said, gesturing to her.
She snorted, “No, nothing of the sort. I’m a minor noble at best; I basically just have a few niche rights, like carrying a sword,” she said, pointing at the sword, “and I’m an outcast. It is how I got all this,” she said, gesturing at herself, stopping for a moment on her ample bosom. “I was hired to basically get it to work so they could reclaim their family’s historical glory or whatever, and it bonded to me instead. I got my wish, and the rest is history.”
I nodded, “I see, I see. So your knockers are fake, and you got a wish out of this?”
She looked at me and stuttered, “They’re not fake…” Before catching herself and continuing, “Hey, you’re fake too, and we both got a wish; everyone gets one.”
I was trying to remember what kind of wish I got, but Lilly chimed in, “Killing the Collector was your wish. Remember? I had to get you to sign on so I could save you?”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Ohh. Yeah, I guess I did get one, even if I wasn’t exactly in my right mind.”
Pinky looked at me curiously, not asking out loud, but it was obvious from the look on her face that she wanted me to spill.
“I got shot and kicked into green goo. I made mine half-conscious,” I explained briefly, not willing to give the stranger my personal grudge.
Pinky looked a little shocked.
“That’s… Wow, that sucks. Was it worth it?”
“I’m still doing it right now, revenge is, after all, a dish that’s served in the future, not piping hot out of the kitchen.”
“Maybe… I’ve never been much for vengeance. Or smoking,” she said, stopping.
“What, you don’t like smoking?” I asked.
“You might want to-” I didn’t hear her warning in time.
I gave a little hop backwards, turning to face her, intending to make a joke, and passed over an unseen threshold.
I could feel as, mid-hop, gravity's hold on me suddenly dropped, my ears spinning as they quickly recalibrated down. The smoke coming off my cigarette slowed its rise slightly, glamping together more before leaving in a curtain of smoke instead of as whisps, and my need to right myself as I floated left me ratcheting backwards from the minuscule jerks.
“Put on your shoes…” She said, slowly. Walking over to me with a little smile on her face as I flapped around like some manner of small mammal, her magnetic shoes clipped to the ground enough to hold her.
I got ahold of myself and stopped flailing. Pinky grabbed me at the waist and righted me vertically, bringing my feet to the ground and letting me take a seat.
I looked up at her and was surprised by the slight predatory look.
“You’re looking at me funny, Pink.”
“You look funny… Huh, you never gave me your name,” she said.
I looked at her, taking my cigarette out of my hand and letting it float off to the side. I went to grab my boots from my pockets, but then I realized I hadn’t.
“Shoot,” I said and felt my mouth trying to work. I stopped it for a second and then let it go, some intent behind my words, some automatically drawn from the influence of my form.
“Well, it’s a bit rude of me not to say, but for now, you can call me Bandit. No offence, but considering my circumstances, it could be dangerous to use my given name, even if we trusted one another with them,” I told her. My words augmented by form into something passible as manners, though not without removing the slight bashfulness.
“Well, Bandit, my name is-”
“Magical Girl Sparkling Bubblegum, yes,” I said along with her, staring at her as I fumbled with one boot.
She stared at me blank-faced, and I stared back at her, not laughing. It was hard because it was a little silly, but mostly, it was just so long it was impractical.
Apparently, I was still no good at hiding anything on my face because she looked at me wryly and said, “I know it’s a silly name, so thanks for not laughing at it; I know that took restraint.”
I did my best not to shy away from the feeling of being read so easily; it was not the kind of thing a mercenary would do.
“Do you mind if I call you pinky?” I asked her. I know it’s not all that much, but pseudonyms are generally short for a reason. I can’t keep calling you that; silliness aside, it’s so long I can feel it in the back of my throat,” I told her seriously.
She didn't pick up on the joke, but she looked at me and thought it over. I could practically see the hamster wheel in her head spinning at my words. She looked at me, and with a minor sight, she nodded.
“I can understand that; it is quite long, so long it would get in the way. But, I expect you to come up with a magical girl name so we can further mess with people, which, if I’m going to be honest, is way more important.”
I cringed a bit at the idea of agreeing to it, but in the end, I nodded as I tied my shoes, slipped the free shoes into my pockets, and picked up the remains of my cigarette.
“Sure, I guess I’ll come up with one… But I’m not going to respond to it.”
She nodded, “If I have to put up with your smoking and short names, I’m going to periodically use it on you. Think of it as a way to balance the scales.”
“Sure thing…” I told her as I stood, “So what the fuck was that?”
“The… Oh, the gravity thing?”
“No, I mean the unicorn that just kicked me,” I told her.
We started walking, me following her as she ignored my jab.
“Lunas orders. It's some kind of gravity artifact project she’s been insisting on. Apparently, it's good for our health, but we haven’t gotten enough for every prefecture to install them all, so they’re here and there. Some sections have priority over others, like the spires over there, but here is low priority. So, for now, just pay attention to the lines on the ground. You missed them, but there was a yellow line with a green and red border.”
I whistled in appreciation. That was some kind of crazy golem bullshit if I had ever heard about it. One of the archangels making an artifact was not something I had thought about. I had to wonder why they didn’t do it more if they could just do it.
“Are they fabed, or is she making them from scratch?”
“No clue. Luna doesn’t exactly talk with people over tea, you know? She doesn’t even talk with us, even though my Oracle tells me she should.”
“Hah!” I cackled, “Mine’s been losing her shit over that.”
“My Oracle sends one every day and seems to expect her to respond. Honestly, I understand why she won’t respond.”
“Shit is nuts,” I told her, “Still, I can’t get over the gravity thing, I was coming from the Voidrome and getting hammered with gravity was not something I was expecting, especially as I walked out of the concourse and into that shit.”
The idea of the Commander's voice being familiar came back to me with the subtlety of a hammer to the brain.
I had felt his voice had been familiar, and that’s because it was.
I had recognized his voice from the guy I had gotten in touch with who sounded similar.
“Oh fuck,” I said out loud, not watching where I was going, I stopped as she did.
“What? My house isn’t that bad,”
“Not you’re house, the Commander; I thought I knew him from somewhere. He’s the one that gave me landing permission,” I said out loud. Looking up to take in our final destination, I could see why she might be a little defensive.
“Oh, what the hell is that? Do you live in a haunted house, Pinky? What is that? Is it structurally sound?”
“It’s a totally normal… Able it, very old house. It’s perfectly safe.”
Looking at the house, the best way to describe it was the haunted house meets the industrial building. Two floors with wood panelling so old you could see the concrete through its cracked surface. Old blacked-out windows with cobwebs on the outside. There was a small wall outside, like the boundary of a graveyard made of old wrought iron.
Along the side was what looked like a loading dock at the side of the house where there might be a garage, but it was so underused that it looked like the spiders had died from a lack of flies.
“Damn, Pinky, I assumed you might have a body count, but I didn’t expect it would be from stone-cold murder. Are you sure it's not just your house that’s haunted?”
Pinky started walking towards the door, waving my half jokative, half-confused critique away.
Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I followed, creeping along behind her like a monster might breach the front door when she opened it.
“It’s not bad; it's rough on the outside, but inside, it's fine. I got it for a steal because it looks like a death trap, but it’s quite comfy,” she said, moving up to the door before pulling a key out of her chest and unlocking the door.
I stared over her shoulder, up on my tippy toes, as she finished her speech and swung the door open.
Inside, I could see a sea of garbage bags over a nice wood panel in an open room interior. I could see a tile area to the left where the side seemed to open up to the alley with a dumb waiter next to it. A bar-like area in the back where I assumed a kitchen was, next to a door that looked like a bathroom, and next to a repurposed office, I assumed it was a bedroom. A set of stairs was just to our right, passed a half wall, and led up to a metal security door that looked like the most secure thing in the whole house.
And surrounded by the sea of garbage bags to the left, between where we stood and the kitchen, appeared to be a nest of some sort, made around a-
Pinky shut the door and turned to me, her face so solid it was more mask than face.
I could see a hint of a blush creep into her cheeks that I pretended not to see.
“So… Would you mind waiting around for a minute? I wasn’t expecting guests, I just need to clean up a bit.”
“You know what… Sure. Take as long as you need,” I told her.