Previously:

A lot of people do not like public transit, even in Hawaii. Elizabeth Anne Moller was one of them. In fact, Elizabeth Anne hated it more and more every second.

She hated it for several reasons. She had to travel alone. That weirdo in the hoodie might be staring at her. There was an uncomfortably sticky spot in the seat, and she desperately, desperately hoped it was just spilt soda.

As far as most of her acquaintances - and the tablogs - knew, Elizabeth Anne would never be caught dead in baggy, ripped jeans and a sweatshirt. Much less ones from a thrift shop. Unless someone had happened across her dead body and decided to play a cruel and horrible joke.

Or she had fallen victim to a serial killer obsessed with leaving his victims very tacky.

She tried to act confident. Well, as much as a 15 year old girl could, anyway. This mostly consisted of staring at her phone and pretending her heart wasn't going triple time, and her throat wasn't as tight as a bendy straw tied in a reef knot.

Occasionally, just to mix it up a bit, she'd pretend to yawn.

Presently, her phone vibrated in her hand; this is your stop. She looked at the bus door as it swung open.

Last chance.

She was over the threshold before her brain caught up.

-/-

The street was...nice. Some of the driveways were cracked, had flowers growing out of them. The occasional colorful pinwheel in the yard, or tire hanging from an oak tree.

Nice.

Homey.

Her target was the two story apartment building at the end of the street. There was a man leaning over the railing with a vape in his mouth.

He was tall, and skinny and probably in his 30s. Elizabeth Anne suspected he was not skinny because of diet and exercise, but because he forgot to eat. There were bags under his eyes.

Elizabeth Anne stopped and looked up.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," the tall man said.

The young woman waited. He did not say "can I help you?" or "are you lost?" or "looking for something?"

"I'm Elizabeth Anne Moller," said Elizabeth Anne Moller.

"Moller? As in -"

"Yes."

"And-"

"Still yes."

"Wow. Are you here for my roommate?

Elizabeth Anne did not roll her eyes. "Is your roommate named Kenshin Williams?"

"No, that's my name."

A beat's worth of silence. Two beats. Wind rustled in the trees.

Williams frowned. "Wait, what?"

"I'm a magical girl." She held up the phone so he could see his face on it. "And you are my manager."

He smiled at her, and her heart rose.

"No," he said. "I'm not."

Meanwhile, in the future

The sun shines. The wind blows. Elizabeth Anne Moller would never do drugs.

She was not, as you might expect, persuaded by the anti drug messages at her various schools. The blackened teeth of a meth addict or blackened lungs of a smoker were off-putting enough, but those were not the images that lent strength to her resolve.

That would have been the video she saw once - and only once - of some white dwarf starlet, drunk and high, stumbling around a party like a kite in a hurricane, completely out of control. She laughed too loudly at things which weren't funny, flirted too hard with people who weren't interested, and generally turned herself into a laughingstock.

Elizabeth Anne had looked up the fate of the famous woman. Her record label fired her, she was removed from several upcoming movies, and nobody had seen her in the decades since.

Elizabeth Anne valued her control very, very highly.

So her magical girl transformation was probably the closest she'd ever come to completely tripping balls.

It took a lifetime for her, and an eyeblink for outside observers. Afterward, she leaned on Mr. Williams' car with her eyes shut and waited out whoever kept tilting the world to the right and the left. Hopefully, she wouldn't-

"Don't throw up in my car again," Mr. Williams said. She heard a nose, then smelled cotton candy; the wind blew from the mouth of the alley, past Ken, toward her. Her stomach lurched.

...He was probably doing it on purpose.

Elizabeth Anne would not give him the satisfaction of a complaint, and he'd just say he was trying to look less suspicious. She gritted her teeth until her breakfast stopped trying to take the emergency exit, and looked up. Mr. Williams was just adjusting the mirror, and made eye contact with her. "You ready?"

"Born ready."

She looked down. Her uniform - not an "costume", never a "costume" - was red and white, much like Mr. Williams' own hat and jacket. She wore opera gloves on her arms, and both the gloves and her waist had silver bracing, much like you'd expect to find on the sides of a snare drum.

She flexed her fingers. Good, full range of motion. Same with the red shoes on her feet.

"Liz-"

"I'm on it!"

She stepped up to the wall. Her heart jackhammered in her chest.

She breathed in.

And reached out.

Previously

When she looked back on it later, Elizabeth Anne would feel really embarrassed about how she pouted up at Mr. Williams and went "yes you are!"

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are!"

"Duck season, rabbit season, magical girls aren't real." He kept leaning on the railing and shrugged. "That's an anime thing. Do you see any outlines or giant eyes around here? No. I don't know who put you up to this, but tell them to do a better job next time."

"But they're real!"

Williams narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. "Were you not paying attention, ooor..."

"Look, I had a near-death experience-"

"So do I. Every morning after I've been drinking."

"I had a near-death experience and I saw something. And when I woke up, I remembered a job offer-"

Williams' eyebrows rose. "From a man with no face?"

"...Yes? Well, at least-"

"-You couldn't remember the face."

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They locked eyes.

Then, simultaneously, they said "How did you know?"

Meanwhile, in the future

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and as far as Carl was concerned, that made it a good day.

Except for the gun in his face.

Carl had seen that sort of look in people's eyes back when he was a security guard. The clothes were a giveaway too; long, ragged, stained, just kind of dusty grey all over. And the smell! Who wore long pants in a Hawaiian summer, anyway?

Carl still went with the standard "can I help you, sir?", just in case the guy was one of those eccentric millionaires you hear about in stories who deliberately look like they're homeless nutjobs in order to teach retail employees extremely contrived lessons about prejudice. Maybe he'd want to buy an engagement ring or necklace or something.

It was like those fairy tales about meeting an old woman in the woods who turned out to be a witch, except stupid.

The nutjob did, in fact, prove to be a nutjob when he pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and told Carl to put his hands up and leave the door open. Oh, great, not again. Their insurance deductable was going to go up.

First, the nutjob went outside and popped two caps into a nearby, empty car, and watched people scatter. Then he came back, told Carl to lock the front door, gathered them in the storefront and spent twenty minutes ranting at them about "her" and "faith". He had his finger on the trigger as he waved the gun around, and the staff flinched whenever the barrel pointed at them. Whoever She was, the lunatic seemed very taken with Her. She sounded like some some combination of the Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa, and Oprah.

"She spoke to me through my phone."

Of course. At least it was better than a dog.

"All I have to do," the gunman said, "is wait and have faith. I am not the messenger, but the message-"

Carl tried very, very hard not to roll his eyes. Weren't cops supposed to respond to silent alarms in five minutes?

Then the lunatic flinched, right when Carl felt a weird tingle. Kind of like the time he watched a building impode, that pressure wave-

The nutjob lowered his gun.

"Did you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Carl says.

A shaky smile slid across the nutjob's face. Somehow, it was more terrifying than the rant. "They're here."

Previously

Ken sat down on the steps. "I was taking a smoke break between deliveries. I remember a car coming around the bend, then it hit me, then I had that...dream about meeting the guy, and the job offer to be some kinda coach or manager, and I woke up lying in the road. I thought I had just blacked out and fallen over."

Elizabeth Anne nodded. "I was taking a bath. Fell asleep, slipped under, had the same dream. When I woke up, my phone told me to find you. Gave me the address and your picture. See?"

Ken looked at the phone. "How did they get my driver's license picture?"

"Did you have anything on your phone?"

Ken narrowed his eyes and lips, then looked up into the sky.

Had he...?

Liz sighed. "You haven't checked your phone yet, have you?"

"Gimme a sec." He stood up.

"Mr. Williams? Could you put out that vape? Or turn it off or something?"

"Excuse me, ojou-sama." He titled his head forward and tapped the side of his index finger to his hairline. Then he went upstairs, around the corner, and into his apartment.

Liz stood there awkwardly until he got back.

"What was the app name?"

Liz opened her mouth.

"Wait, nevermind, found it. Company. Is this your picture?"

"...Yes. From my school ID."

Their phones beeped. One notification from the "Company" app.

"That's...interesting," Ken said. He tapped the notification, and a video call opened up on both phones. The person sitting behind the desk was-

Well, it was hard to say what he was. He was a void in human perception and memory, is what he was.

"Good morning, Mr. Williams, Miss Moller."

Ken rolled his eyes. "Good morning, Charlie."

Liz said "who are you?"

"Middle management."

Meanwhile, in the future

Elizabeth Anne said "he's on the other side of this wall. He has-he has a gun."

"Yes," Mr. Williams said, "I know. Because I am looking at the camera. Like I told you five minutes ago."

"Baasan said check twice whenever possible."

"When did you start calling her that? Wait, when did she tell you that? Have you been talking to her behind my back?"

"She's a grown woman, she can talk to me if she wants to." Elizabeth Anne ignored Mr. Williams' sputtering, and focused on the deep well within her and the beat of her heart. Little by little, the sounds of the city faded away.

Ba-bump.

Inhale.

Ba-bump.

Focus.

Ba-bump.

She touched the wall with her left hand, the tips of her fingers.

Ba-bump.

She drew her right fist back.

Ba-bump.

Focused power.

Ba-

Her right palm slammed into the wall.

Her power kept going.

Previously

"This is getting really elaborate," Ken said. "When do you ask for my bank account number to help the Nigerian prince?"

The guy on the screen said "I believe they're using the Crimea these days. But that's not important. You may have noticed my lack of appearance."

"Yeah, neat trick. We're very impressed. What do you want?"

"I want you to train Miss Moller and other assets for the company. There is a force that has invaded or is about to invade your world, and we need local combatants."

"So you recruited a 14 year old girl-"

"Hey!" Liz said. "I'm fifteen!"

"-whoops, fifteen year old girl and a random disaffected thirtysomething to fight?"

"Of course not," Management said.

"Good-"

"You are a non-combatant. A line manager."

Liz raised a hand. "Excuse me, Mr. Management?"

"Yes?"

"If I have magic, what sort of magic do I have?"

"That depends on your interests and temperment. We find teams tend to follow a theme."

"I distinctly recall a piece of paper," Ken said, "with a few more zeros than my current job. When does that kick in?"

"After the six month probationary period. Retroactively."

"Of course. Got an answer for everything, don't you?"

"That's what a good manager does."

"Taxes?"

"We handle those. Wouldn't do to have the IRS take too close a look at our employees, after all."

"I see. Well, we'll leave you to get back to it." And Ken cut the call and look up.

His eyes met the girl's. A wide smile sat on Elizabeth Anne's face, and her eyes shone. Ken frowned.

Simultaneously, they said;

"Can you believe it?"

"You can't believe it."

Meanwhile, in the future

"My name is Carl," said Carl.

The nutjob paused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"My name is Carl. What's yours?"

"Jack," said Jack.

"Jack, why don't you just put the gun down?"

"What gun?"

Carl blinked. "The one in your right hand."

Jack looked at his right hand. For a second, he looked like he had just walked past a mirror and realized the glasses he was looking for were sitting on his nose the whole time. "Oh."

Carl took a step closer. "Is that a real gun, Jack?"

"I don't know. She gave it to me."

"I could take a look at it for you and find out." Am I close enough to go for the gun?

"That's-" Jack's eyes widened, and he aimed the gun at Carl. "No! You're trying to trick me! She said people would try and trick me!"

"Who's 'she'?"

"She-"

Something made Jack stagger, made the glass in the cases behind him shiver and break.

And, for just an instant, Carl heard a drumbeat.

He surged forward.

Jack's gun wasn't pointed at anything important. Carl reached out with his left hand and grabbed Jack's right wrist. Then Carl's right hand came up, and the heel of his hand slammed into Jack's chin. Jack recoiled, and Carl followed up with a knee to the smaller man's crotch. Then Carl moved his left hand to the slide of the gun. His right hand held Jack's wrist, and his left wrenched the weapon upward, then outward.

Carl took a few steps back, let Jack crumple to the floor, pointed the gun at the nutjob, and screamed "Don't move, dirtbag!"

And that, of course, was when the blue and reds lights started flashing outside.

"Is everyone all right!"

General confirmation.

"Could someone step outside and tell the cops not to shoot me?"

Someone went to the door, and Carol laid a hand on Carl's arm and looked at him in a way that hinted at several things. If he hadn't been focused on trying to maintain bladder control, he might've noticed.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"I took a class once. Must be muscle memory. Like riding a bike."

"Did you even know you knew that?"

"No." Carl frowned. "Weird."

Jack groaned, and curled into the fetal position.

Previously

Mr. Williams stood up, scratched at the sweatband on his left hand, and said "bye."

"Where are you going?"

The steps creaked under him. "I'm going to borrow my roommates phone, hope they didn't get to him too, and call the bank. Hope they didn't drain my account already."

"You...you think it was a scam?"

He looked down at her from the landing. "Well...yeah. What else would it be. Magic isn't real."

She didn't stamp her feet, that would look childish. She had dignity. She was fifteen. "You can't know that!"

And there was his smug, oh, my sweet summer child look. "Really, Sabrina? Cast a spell. Pull a rabbit out of a hat."

"I...I haven't had enough training!"

"Wow, isn't that convenient." He stepped onto the second flight. "Stay in school, kid."

"But you do!"

Mr. Williams stopped again. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The manual in the app said you can manifest a basic uniform without training. Because you're the team manager."

"Uh...huh. You're going all-in on this, aren't you, kid?"

"Just...try it." If it didn't work, she had only wasted a morning. If it did work, if it was real..."

He rolled his eyes. "Oookay. But don't say I didn't warn you." He pulled how his phone. "Company app...costume...oh, here it is. Apparently managers can make their uniform appear on them. They warn me about the 'bright lights' from the transformation. And I can customize it too! Well la-dee-da! Let me just put a big ol' MANAGER on the cap, and there, done! Almost..."

"What are you doing?"

"Entering an activation phrase. Ahem." He held the phone very close to his lips, and said, very sarcastically "It's-a me, Manager!"

And then he was wearing a baseball cap and jacket. Off-white, dark red trim.

Both of them froze. Mr. Williams blinked a little.

Elizabeth Anne had seen someone back away from an angry dog once. Mr. Williams touched his sleeve in the same slow, deliberate way. Then he touched the hat in that slow, deliberate way. Then he put his phone in his pocket in a slow, deliberate way.

Then he skinned out if the jacket so fast you'd think it was a bad date. He dumped it on the steps with one hand and ripped the cap from his head with the other. He traced the letters on the cap's brow with a trembling hand.

MANAGER.

And then he said something he hadn't said since he was seven years old and he had just left the dentist's office under anesthesia.

"Nani?"

Meanwhile, in the future

"Good job" Ken said. "You nearly got everyone killed."

"I thought I did it right." Elizabeth Anne raised her hand to her face. It seemed normal. "I put enough power in, just like we practiced. I thought about the end result, just like we practiced."

"What result?"

"I wanted to make the people in there safe. And I did."

"Good thing that Krav Maga guy was in there." Mr. Williams inhaled. "And now, all three of us need to get out of here."

Elizabeth Anne blinked. "Three of us?"

Mr. Williams jerked his head at the mouth of the alley. Elizabeth Anne turned around just in time to catch the girl ducking out of view.

"Elizabeth Anne Moller, meet Meryl Tsu. Your next teammate."

Elizabeth Anne blinked. "How long as she been watching us?"

"About two weeks. Now change back before the cops ask us what convention I'm taking you to."