03 Some People Can Be So Pushy
The very last vestiges of sunlight were going away as I sprinted across the concrete lounge and then the fields towards the forest. Part of that was a natural transition from day to night, but the magical veil that was always the opening move of a Starbane attack was most of it. The sun, and even the moon on the horizon had a hazy layer of darkness trying to smother them, and all but the brightest stars in the sky had effectively gone out.
I ignored Ms Coolomn when she called out to me, but found myself looking back when I heard a distressed scream. It was Stephanie, tangled with the teacher I’d just sprinted past, and was being held back by that same woman. Stephanie’s cool calm had evaporated. I’d never seen her so shaken.
Somehow, I hadn’t thought this whole thing would do that to her. She cared far more than I had assumed.
“Save her!” Stephanie howled. “I didn’t know she was there! Save her!”
Ms Coolomn hauled the shrieking blonde back into the gymnasium and I turned to face front again, nearly bowling into a guy I didn’t recognise who must have started moving late and slow.
I stopped briefly. “Did you see Diane?” There was a chance she was just more late than most, after all.
He shook his head, and I ran off nearly immediately. Something landed on my shoulder that made me flinch.
“This is unlikely to be bravery, you know,” the voice of Authority spoke in my ear, nearly making me flinch again. I glanced to see a fairy there, hanging on with her stubby little arms.
“Wouldn’t you do the same?” I panted.
“I would. But normally I would have magical power at my beck and call. You don’t.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle through my panting breath as I pegged this Fairy Authority as the surly one once again. Then my mind caught up with what she said.
“Normally?”
“I’m just a simulacrum. The sum of my power is the physical force I can exert,” Fairy Authority explained. “Don’t look now, but the others of me are doing what you’re doing right now.”
I looked, of course. I caught at least half a dozen blue dots darting towards the treeline. One disappeared into the forest in the short moment I glanced over.
“Hypocrite,” I panted.
“The difference is that we’re just mana tricked into thinking,” Fairy Authority scolded. “You’re flesh and blood. Less is lost if we make this sacrifice. You can still turn back.”
It was a good thing I was running, because it made me pant so much that I didn’t have to acknowledge that point, no matter how well reasoned it was. I shook my head and kept going.
“Well fine then. Make a detour to the shed by the BB range,” the fairy on my shoulder told me, finally caving. “I can unlock the instructor’s model gun for you. It’ll give you more defence than that stick.”
I heard the word detour and almost rejected her right away. Thankfully, I realised the Authority was helping me now and took the advice.
It wouldn’t be that much of a detour anyway. The shooting range and attached shed were in the same direction as the obstacle course. They were almost adjacent on the map, just with a whole bunch of trees between them. If going to the shed would get me a BB gun, I’d go and get a BB gun. There was still time.
I came in too hasty and tackled the metal door of the shed, bouncing off before I realised it was a pull door. Fairy Authority zipped in the moment it had cracked open wide enough and waved me over to the submachine gun looking pellet shooter sitting in a then opening display case. Still rushing, I grabbed the gun, found the safety switch to turn it off, shot at the wall, and was moving again as soon as I heard the tink of plastic hitting a metal wall. I didn’t realise it had a strap to throw over my shoulder until I was halfway to the treeline.
In all honesty it probably wouldn’t help much. I remembered seeing documentaries where soldiers armed with guns went up against Starbanes, and their guns with real ammunition hadn’t helped them do much more than hold out until the nearest magical girl could stop the threat. Maybe if I managed to hit the eyes?
I kept a tight hold of my stick, just in case.
That cold feeling in my stomach redoubled right before I made it to the forest. When I looked back to the gymnasium I saw the light coming through the doors shut off as they closed. The sun was fully gone from the sky, the moon as well. In that single moment I had become blind.
“The veil finished,” Fairy Authority observed. She continued before I could put in a sarcastic remark. “That was too fast. They must have found something they’re interested in.”
“Like what?” I asked, unable to conceal my interest.
“I want to say my host crystal, but it’s not nearly that tasty,” the fairy said, and it took me a moment to connect that to the chandelier I’d seen her appear from. “Keep moving. You’ll be safer in the trees now.”
I pressed my lips together and took her advice. “Should I call for Diane?” I asked, still moving but slower.
“Now’s the time. There’ll be Starbane all over shortly. Best to regroup while you can.”
“Diane!” I shouted. The darkness surrounding me leaned close, false silhouettes of trees danced in the utter black. “Diane, we need to get to the gym!”
I heard a crack, off to my right, and I froze. Then I heard faint flapping, moving away. Maybe I wasn’t close enough? I moved forward again, but shortly went right into a tree that I hadn’t seen. Feeling my way around that, I grit my teeth and kept walking with my left arm held out. I still had the stick in my right hand, and the gun wouldn’t be hitting any eyes if I couldn’t see them.
“Light?” I asked the fairy on my shoulder.
“It will eventually lead Starbanes to you,” Fairy Authority said. “It could also lead Diane to you.”
And right now there weren’t many Starbanes to attract. More than that, I really needed the light.
I fumbled with my pocket to get my phone out, and even the home screen lighting up felt too bright. The brightness made me reflexively shield my eyes when I turned on my phone’s torch, but I quickly adjusted. My vest pockets were perfectly sized for the head of my phone to poke out, letting me shine my torch sort-of in front of me while keeping my hands free. The light reflected enough that I could see all my immediate surroundings, and the shifting shadows played with my paranoia as much as they revealed the world around me.
The light revealed that I had unwittingly crossed the path going from the campfire to the obstacle course. I swapped the stick from my right hand to my left nervously as I started making my way further from the gymnasium, my right going to the handle of the BB gun.
“Diane!” I called out through my fear. Enough time had passed that I couldn’t be sure it was just us anymore. The shadows shifted with my every move, and I could swear I saw movement in the distant ones.
“-!”
I paused when I heard an indistinct sound from behind me. It could have been Diane. It sounded like a voice.
“Who’s there!?” the same distant voice called, and I immediately made a break back in its direction. The voice was female, and tinged with fear. Diane must have realised that the veil had fallen, or just made her way back on her own. That, or an alien was mimicking her voice, which I didn’t want to even think about.
“Diane!” I risked shouting. “Come to me!”
“Stay away!” she shouted with a note of hysteria. I got the feeling she wasn’t talking to me. My suspicion was confirmed when I heard Diane scream.
“Hurry!” Fairy Authority urged me as she took off from my shoulder. “I’ll try and alert the rest of me. I won’t be far!”
I saw the light of Diane’s phone’s torch first. It was angled further into the trees and I adjusted course to approach. She was staggering around, with the shadows she was casting moving up and down as much as they did left and right. Then her phone fell and must have landed torch side down, because that part of the forest went dark.
Then I arrived, and my own light revealed Diane on the ground, wrestling with what could only be described as a purple fuzzball with six legs. The ball part was about the size of my waist, but the legs were segmented into three, with the end parts being longer than the ball was wide. Alarmingly, those end segments were actually tapering blades made of some grey metal, and two of them were stabbed into Diane’s shoulder and stomach when I arrived.
“Ahh!” I shouted as I did the only thing that came naturally, using both hands to swing my stick into the body of the thing as hard as I could.
It felt like hitting an overly large baseball. There was a moment of resistance, and then the creature went flying into a tree, where it rebounded and fell somewhere out of sight. It hissed something at me, which I did my best to disregard while I readied the BB gun. My stick had snapped, its purpose fulfilled, so I dropped it.
The sound of leaves rustling in the wind descended on the forest.
“You-” Diane tried to say, sounding weak.
“Shh!” I responded, scanning the trees with the model gun. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for.
“Above!” the voice of Authority called from right above me. “Look up, Donna! U-”
I aimed the BB gun up in time to see the fairy catch one of those leg blades through her head. The blue motes in the air that she dissolved into were desecrated as the creature responsible moved along the branch towards me, and the torchlight gave me my first good look at it.
It had three white eyes and an absurdly large mouth with teeth that opened to bellow something right as I started pulling the trigger as quickly as I could. Most of the pellets missed, but I know one hit the leftmost eye because it shut that one in pain. I know one also went into its mouth because its shout was cut short as it closed the damn thing and tipped backwards off the branch it was balanced on.
I hurried over to where it had landed and shot it a few more times with more pellets, but it didn’t seem to do much. The damnable thing was flailing every which way, and the way its four legs reflected the light coming from my pocket made it hard to tell if I was doing anything. So, before it could right itself and flee to set up another ambush, I pulled the strap of the gun off of me, grasped it firmly in two hands, and started beating the Starbane with the butt of the model gun.
It made screaming sounds, and I screamed at it too. The sounds it made told me I was hurting it, so I didn’t stop. Unfortunately, getting so close to the blender meant I eventually got lacerated by the sharpened legs of the thrashing murderball. I hissed and backed off as pain spread from my waist.
When I pressed my hand there I felt a newfound gap in my vest and a whole lot of pain. The gap in my vest was longer than my hand, and my hand came away red with blood.
“Oh,” I said, and fell backwards onto my butt.
I really should have expected this. The Starbane were an existential threat, and I was just a girl. Doing as much as I had against this small creature was already nothing short of a miracle. Now Diane and I were going to die.
“Donna,” Diane said with a wavering voice. I was vaguely aware of her trying to give me something. “It’s still alive. Please, I don’t want to die to that thing.” Her arm gave out, and the thing she was holding fell to the ground with a light clang.
Wait, clang?
I blinked and refocused to see one of the murderball’s legs next to me, and Diane’s hand resting beside that. When I looked at Diane properly she was leaning heavily on her side, a weeping wound on her shoulder. There was another of the creature’s legs still impaled in the side of her waist.
That’s right. The screaming little murderball originally had six legs, hadn’t it? More importantly…
“Did you… pull that out?” I asked, my mouth going dry.
Diane just nodded ever so slightly, far too weak for words.
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Feeling numb, and in far less pain than I should have been, I grasped the detached leg and pushed myself to my knees. The upper part of the leg had stiffened after getting removed, so It wasn’t flopping around and was therefore relatively easy to move with. I shuffled over to the murderball and arrived right as it was getting its bearings again.
It hissed something at me, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t think about that and angled the creature’s own leg at it, then thrust.
The alien hisses died at last, cut of by a wet “shluck” sound.
I collapsed again. My whole body felt tired. After watching the dead body for a few moments, just in cast it revived itself somehow, I turned and crawled around to be next to Diane. The other girl had moved a little using her weak elbow, backing away from the Starbane creature, or to lean herself on a nearby trunk. She only made it far enough that the tree’s roots were propping up her head.
Diane turned to face me with great effort. “That’s… Starbane… right?”
“Yes,” I answered, still out of breath. I turned again and leaned my back against the tree that Diane was using. “There will be more soon, if the documentaries didn’t lie. Bigger ones. Smart ones.”
“Oh.”
“I… James was being shifty in the gymnasium, so I yelled until he admitted to being an idiot.”
“Oh,” Diane repeated.
“So I came out here to try and save you,” I concluded, feeling a little lame at the reasoning. “Try,” I repeated.
“Oh,” Diane said again. “I…” She drew in a hissing breath. “I went… to the river for a cry… Was… so tired of it all…”
My eyebrows furrowed. I’d assumed wrong then. Parts of the river were closer to the gymnasium, but if she’d specifically gone to get away from people…I had been searching in the wrong place from the start.
The fact that Surly Fairy Authority wasn’t around to tell me that made the melancholy strike deeper. We weren’t getting help.
“Thank you… for trying…” Diane continued, heedless of my thoughts.. “But you… shouldn’t have.”
That’s what everyone had been telling me. And it wasn’t like I even considered myself a hero. I wasn’t even sure why I’d done it.
“For me, I think it was a choice between living with myself for at least trying, or hating myself for not,” I said slowly. “Maybe I’ve killed myself by trying, but you deserved at least that much.”
There was a howling sound in the forest. It sounded like a wolf, but not. I figured we weren’t going anywhere fast, so I started fumbling with my phone to turn the torch off. When I was done with that I realised that Diane wasn’t silent. I heard sobbing in the darkness. She was crying.
“Shhh…” I scooted closer and tried to pick her up by the shoulders. I got her upper torso off the ground, and moved that onto my lap. In our new position, I could feel the sword leg pressing against my thigh, telling me it had gone the whole way through and then some. Every movement Diane made would make it worse. More importantly, the new position let me hug her.
“It’s not fair…” Diane sniffled in the dark.
“I know,” I said, trying to be comforting. But my eyes were teary too. Fortunately there wasn’t anybody to see me cry. There wasn’t much to see in the dark.
“Just because my… stupid… tits grew out, everyone started… showing off.”
“Hmm…” I knew what she was trying to say. Without her assets as motivation, James probably wouldn’t have made his hairbrained bid for a date, and Diane would be safe at the gymnasium. I had no idea how to comfort her there.
“Stupid… growing pains never… hurt this much.”
“My mom told me that you need to suffer to look good before she left,” I said, trying to distract her and definitely failing. “So wherever you go next, I’ll bet you’ll look beautiful.”
Diane shuddered with silent, painful laughter. At least, I thought it was laughter. I genuinely couldn’t tell.
“Your… mom…?” she questioned.
Aha! My distraction had been successful. Somehow. “There was a whole kidnapping thing,” I said. “But the thing is, my dad was so cheap that he didn’t pay out. My mom ended up being saved by a random samaritan. Spent a few days with him, then came back to divorce my dad.”
“You live… with your dad…”
“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice finally coming out raw. I couldn’t tell if the wet feeling on my face was from tears or blood. “He won in court, since he doesn’t cheap out on lawyers. I didn’t think it was fair, either.”
“I’m… sorry…” Diane’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper now. Her breathing had slowed a lot, and less blood was spilling onto me from her shoulder wound.
“Hey,” I said, squeezing her gently. “Is there anything you want me to say to anyone? Just in case I make it back, somehow.”
[There you are.]
I was suddenly alert, blinking and trying to rub my eyes clear so I could find the source of that… it wasn’t quite a sound. When sight returned to me, I saw a faintly glowing white form sitting just beyond where mine and Diane’s legs were tangled. It was slightly larger than my cat, and was sitting in the same way Prissy did when he was watching me from a high up vantage point. A long, wide tail was twitching ever so slightly behind the creature, if that’s what it even was.
It didn’t have conventional eyes. Instead, there were two black shapes like circles, but with a segment cut out from the top and angled so that it had a concerned set to its face. Its ears were wide and rounded but short, and fell down on either side of its head. Other than that it had the shape of a head but no other features. The same went for the rest of its body, which was entirely that strange white colour.
“What?” I uttered.
Its tail flicked behind it. [We were alerted that you, Donna and Diane, may be in this area, and are glad to have found you.] The thing like a voice appeared in my head again, and it was nearly enough to give me a headache. The creature by our feet tilted its head down to look at Diane, then back up to me. [We will continue communication with you alone, Donna Vitale. Diane’s state will be worsened by receiving our words.]
“You’re…” Words failed me. Intellectually, I knew what was happening, but I hadn’t expected this. Hope had left me when I saw Authority dissolve and felt my side open, and this saviour wasn’t anything I was expecting to encounter. I was out in the middle of nowhere, there had been no reason to expect this.
[You are catching on, but allow us to help you,] the creature told me. [I am a fragment of The Familiar, capable of forming a contract and empowering an individual with the magical power to combat the existential threat your culture refers to as the Starbane.]
“Is there one here?” I asked, feeling something like hope starting to form inside. “A magical girl?”
[At present, there are no magical girls or boys under the veil at Camp Elysium Lux.] The tail of the familiar thing twitched again hypnotically. [However, we have been empowered to change that.]
“You’re kidding.”
[The terms offered are as follows. You will receive our service as a familiar, and we will unlock the magical secrets of this universe and others for your pleasure. You will also receive one wish, with further wishes depending on future actions. In exchange, you swear to combat that which you call Starbane in the manner best suited to you. There are no further terms.]
“Seriously?”
[Yes. We are serious.] It said that, but its tone was jubilant. In fact, whenever it did that not-quite-speaking thing, its tone was always upbeat, and that was unnerving.
I was suspicious as hell right away. The pinky promise with Authority’s simulacrum was one thing, but this was a contract. Different in both approach and impact on my life. The promise had been a nice assurance. This would allegedly change my life forever, and my father had taught me to be very careful when legal terms were in play.
Then Diane moaned, and guilt nearly made me accept right then and there.
“Can you help Diane?” I asked first.
The creature looked at me with impassive eyes for several moments. [We can empower you to heal Diane to a better condition than before she was wounded.] It dipped its head. [However, we will admit this might take longer than Diane can hold on to life.] It stood and began to pace to the side. [Set Diane on the ground beside you, and we shall inflict a stasis upon her.]
“Just like that?”
[Most of our magical prowess is locked except in certain circumstances. Facilitating an even negotiation ground is one of them.] It locked eyes with me. [Please be assured of my honesty. I am attempting to form a contract with you.]
I swallowed. There wasn’t any other option that kept Diane alive. Taking care to be gentle, I lifted Diane’s torso off of me and tried to set her where she had been before. A stabbing pain in my waist made me drop her the last few centimetres, as my wound reminded me of its presence. I gasped and tried to hold back more tears as I retreated a short distance from Diane.
The Familiar prodded Diane daintily with the front of its head, and a faintly yellow magic circle drew itself underneath her. It was large enough that Diane was entirely inside it, and I was sitting just inside of the edge of it. Then a pyramid of that same colour formed over Diane, before then fading into transparency.
I spent seven seconds watching Diane’s chest for the rise and fall of breath before returning my attention to the creature that had cast the spell. I could only see because of the faint light of its form, and there hadn’t been any movement like breathing, so I had to take its word for it.
[Allow us to set a ward,] the Familliar requested, before swishing its tail and generating a much larger magic circle, this time coloured a dark blue. [The mana expenditure would have attracted attention from the Enemy had the ward not been cast. We have privacy now, and abundant time to discuss the proposed contract.]
“Really?” I felt out of depth. I coped by trying to pick holes in what it was saying. “What if they just walked up to us?”
[Depending on the form of Enemy, I would flee and you would die. Or they would fail to perceive us, and we may continue to discuss.]
“Right. I don’t want that.”
[You do not wish to discuss the contract with us?] it asked, tilting its head.
“No, I meant the dying thing.” I glanced down at the hand I was just now covering my wound with. I didn’t have much more time than Diane, at this rate. “Why me?”
The creature’s tail twitched to the other side. [You mean to question why we are attempting to make a contract with you specifically?] I nodded. [The answer is simple. We are constantly evaluating individuals with complex morality tests and character evaluations, and have concluded that you stand out from your peers in this regard. Your recent act of heroism has only made you stand out further, Donna Vitale. You also have a sensitivity towards magic that will make you a natural savant at exploiting our services, though this is an exceptionally recent addition to our notes on you.]
I let out a single chuckle of disbelief. “You’ve been spying on me?” I couldn’t even think about responding to the magic comment. Humans weren’t supposed to be naturally magical. Getting spied on was something more familiar to me, and I didn’t want to even start thinking about the implications.
[Phrased indelicately, yes, we have been spying on you. We have decided that we like what we have seen.]
“What about Diane? She ripped the sword-leg-thing out of herself just so I could kill…” I waved my hand towards the corpse. “That thing.”
[It was a noble act of heroism, which has caused us to regard her highly,] it told me. [However, it was also a sacrifice that left her quickly losing her blood and life. She would have shortly died in your arms if we had not found you in time.]
Right. That sobered me right up. Did I even have a good reason to not accept this offer, aside from rampant suspicion? I didn’t think I did.
“When you said, “manner best suited to me,” what did you mean?” I asked slowly.
The Familiar’s tail twitched hypnotically before it answered, as if considering what to say. [The Enemy, which you call Starbane, can be combated in a number of ways. Most contractors search for veils and breach them from outside in order to combat the Starbane directly. Others have focused on uplifting humanity as a whole, developing technology that is capable of using magic. Your headphones are an example of this method’s effects.]
I inclined my head in acknowledgement. I did enjoy the way my earbuds flew to their charging station whenever I paused my music, even if it did get annoying at times.
[More specifically, though not explicit in the contract, is the expectation that you will work to improve yourself as time goes on. There is no single school of magic that excels for every individual, and it will take time to determine which spells are the ones best suited for your slaughter of the Enemy. However, in the event that I conclude that you are squandering the benefits of our contract, it will be made void.]
Meaning that if I decided not to fight Starbanes, it would take away any magic powers it had given me, and I’d go back to being normal. Curiously, it was the threat that the magic could be taken away at any time that made me most comfortable with what this thing was saying.
“What about the wish?” I asked.
[The wish will allow me to unleash great magic power to accomplish an objective, as per your wish. Know that I will not simply grant the first thing you wish for. We will discuss the wish before it is granted, so that the spirit of the wish may be observed along with the letter.]
“Huh.”
[We were greatly amused upon learning humanity had explored the concept you know as the “monkey paw.”] the Familiar commented. [We misunderstood much suspicion given to us until we learned you knew of it. However, we are not like that. We are genuine.]
I found my lips thinning. People who claimed to be genuine often turned out to be anything but. At the same time, I wasn’t sure if it applied since this thing wasn’t human. That was a point I was comfortable putting a pin in.
“Could I take the contract, then wish for you to remove the veil over this place, and you would do that?” I asked.
The glowing white creature dipped its head. [Yes, and I am capable of that feat. However, we would counsel against that use of your wish. If you still insist that to be your wish, then we would grant it.]
“Why?”
[Because this is an opportunity for you to gather mana and grow as a magician. Healing Diane would grant you experience with healing spells, and the rest of the population under this veil are already in a secure location. Providing you are careful, you can quickly learn to slaughter the Enemy, just as the rest of our contractors do.]
And that was the part of the speech I’d been waiting for, the call to arms. “I’m not comfortable…” I trailed off as the exact words failed to reveal themselves.
The white tail of the creature twitched again. [What is it you are uncomfortable with?]
“A lot of it,” I confessed. “Mostly the constant fighting part.”
[We agree that it is unrealistic for you to constantly seek out veils to fight the Enemy. If it is the revocation of the contract that worries you, know that you will receive warnings before we terminate our contract.]
“No, it’s-” I cut off, then started again. “I have a hard time seeing myself as one of those superheroes. First because I can’t imagine wielding power like what Roaming Polaris or Authority uses. Then because I’m afraid of what I will do after I become used to that power.”
The tail swished. [Interesting.]
“Does that make you second guess this whole contract thing?”
[No. It makes us more certain.] The tail swished back. [If you want to save this person between us, and secure the safety of every living human in the camp, then say the words “I want to make a contract” truthfully, here and now. We are certain you are a good candidate, and that you will come to see the same as us in time, if you give yourself the chance. We will allow you to make your decision.]
Then it went silent, using the same tactic that my dad did when he was pressuring me to finally decide on something. I tried to go over everything again, like he had taught me to in those scenarios, turning things over and looking for any loopholes. But the terms offered were so wide and encompassing that there wasn’t much to turn up.
I stood, then staggered to the side when the wound in my side complained. With great effort, I found my feet and stood as tall as I dared. Everything else seemed to fade away. It was just me and the glowing white creature. My throat was dry, but the words came all the same.
“I would like to make a contract,” I said truthfully.
Nothing happened, save for its tail twitching.
[That is relieving to hear,] the Familiar- My soon to be familiar told me. [The Enemy has been breaching the veil constantly during our discussion. We worried you would hesitate until their numbers became overwhelming.]
I frowned, and opened my mouth.
[We offer the terms as discussed, given in good faith, as humanity understands it. Do you accept this contract?]
I closed my mouth and swallowed. Then…
“Yes,” I agreed, and the ground shattered underneath my feet.