January 17, 492 U.C.

Like a metronome, the clock in my room continued ticking, continuing its stream of lies. A beaker of brown, failed potion sat near it. I checked my mana. It’s time to go. I need Time Stop back.

Stretching, I stood and grabbed my gear. With a final once-over, I took off the necklace and donned my magic girl outfit. Turning, I paused to study my reflection. It’s no wonder they are hunting for me. Humanity will end up as fae if this keeps up.

Using that to further stoke my fire, I triggered teleport, appearing in a field of grass. Dark clouds cast it all in shadow. The grass and my hair waved in the breeze. Then I saw the Ankyls.

Ankyls, nicknamed after ankylosaurus, have thick armor and a mean tail. Yes, their real name is ankylerules; I refuse to call them that. Biologists have the worst naming rules, but I’ll get back on target.

The herd of Ankyls meandered forward, eating grass and any small dinosaurs that got in their way. Their club-like tails swayed. One snorted, ripping grass from the ground. Drawing my swords, I used haste while glancing at my augmented reality.

Quest: Ankyls Dungeon Reward: 50 reputation. (1000 total).

Quest: Guardian Contact – Meet with the guardians. Reward: 5,000 Reputation.

Level: 6 Mana: 203.67/301.53

Ignoring the second quest, I dashed forward. Every second in the earth-time bought me half a minute. It made defending myself way easier.

With the confidence brought on by the slow things around me, I dashed forward and swung. My blade quivered and bounced as it hit the heavy shell. With a frown, I darted forward and stabbed, driving the blade in between the cracks. A small trickle of blood emerged. So, I did it again and again.

The task rapidly became extremely tedious. They were slow and dumb. But I had to hack through the thick skin on their neck. Like chopping down a tree, it was frustrating and slow going. I slowly finished off my first, spraying blood on myself.

Then I turned to the next and resumed my chopping duty. Sweat started to pour down my body. My hands started to hurt with each jarring impact. Each one took like a solid minute of effort. Of course, that was only two seconds of earth-time. So, they didn’t exactly manage to do anything interesting. I, on the other hand, quickly became a sweaty, blood-covered mess.

Wishing for an axe, a cutting torch, explosives, a rail gun, and several other devices, I continued my hack job of things. – Get it? That was a good one. Dads everywhere are beaming with pride. Yes, I thought of it then. I was bored!

Anyway, I continued with my work. One charged at me. I hopped onto its back and stabbed between its joints. Then it got hit by another charger. Watching it was strange. It was like watching two people walk into each other, embarrassing for everyone present.

I shall spare you the bellows, grunts, roars, and screeches that happened throughout the ordeal. After all, if the Ankyls hated it, I can’t imagine that you want to hear it. Suffice it to say, that after a few seconds, many opted to flee the wailing banshee in their midst. Much to their chagrin, I rode along.

As the sixth second of earth time passed, I was bored beyond belief and swore to liberate axes, hatchets, and hammers. My prior life and death tension was gone. It had been replaced with the boring task of killing living stones with a sword. Seeing no other choice, I daydreamed while dispatching them.

After a few zillion years or twenty seconds in lying clock time, I looted things and headed down into the ruins they’d turned into a warren. Shuffling down worn steps, I entered an occupied, half-collapsed room. I blitzed up and hacked into the large mana Ankyl’s neck.

My sword exploded into shards. Several steel shards cut into me, sending pain lancing through me. My eyes watered while I bled. My trauma kicked in. Abandoning the quest, I teleported back home, appearing in the shower.

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Reaching down, I began pulling out the metal while covering my hands and self with blood. Whimpering, I ripped the last one free, downed a potion, and took a shower, letting the water wash away the red blood.

As the panic and pain faded, I felt tired. My arms were throbbing. I was down a blade. And I still hadn’t figured out the awakening potion. After putting on my bathrobe, I walked to my room.

“You need to go, Casey,” Dad said as he poked his head in.

“I did. Now I have a new problem.” I held up the sword hilt.

He sighed audibly. “How?”

“I was moving fast, and it had scales. I need better weapons. Weapons that can withstand high speed-impact.”

“Those are so expensive. Can you use your storage and liberate?”

“Yes. I could do it.”

“Do not get caught. That’s paramount.”

“I won’t. I’ll just get some studying done.” I meandered to the kitchen to cook up a snack. My studies would be there when I was done.

~~~

A week later, I frowned. My attempts to use magic to create things had failed. They weren’t even exciting failures. My attempted spells didn’t work at all. That’s when I embraced Dad’s plan to steal things. I used Time Stop and willed myself to earth.

To my surprise and joy, it worked. I was standing above a military barracks. There was an armory right there. Doubting that they were prepared for thefts like this, I willed myself through walls. Then I skimmed the inventory. While it was largely munitions, they did have some very high-quality blades and axes. I pulled them out of spacetime and placed them into my pocket dimension.

This work was stolen from Magical Girl Platinum by Samantha Nelson on Royal Road. Please message me there.

Finished with my munitions raid, I returned home. Stashing things in my room, I pulled out an axe and began debating the ideal enchantment for it, settling on one to strengthen it.

Dad poked his head in. “Where’d you get those?”

“Liberated them. Don’t worry. I made sure that any tracking was wrecked.”

Dad walked around, doing a screening while I worked. He was impressed, and his curiosity built.

“How?” Dad asked.

“Subspace, speed, teleportation, and sleight of hand. You know. I need some smoke bombs,” I lied. I love the guy, but letting him know about Time Stop would have been bad. So, it remained the spell unmentioned. He was too distracted to notice my mediocre lies.

“The Platinum rumors?” Dad asked, looking up from the loot.

I groaned. This conversation still wasn’t dead. “Dad, I’m not Platinum! You saw it! I swear they are just making up things. Yesterday, she was on every planet doing random nonsense. Even with teleportation, it doesn’t make sense.” I wasn’t lying either.

“We’ll see. I will review the tapes to see if you were here at that time.”

“Do! Seriously!”

“I will. If I find out that you are lying, your punishment will be worse than training.”

“I’m not!”

“We’ll see. There are too many coincidences.”

“Law of large numbers,” I simply replied. “And you know they are making up things. At least two of the reports yesterday were clearly costumes.”

“I haven’t had a chance to see them.”

“Go look! It’s a mediocre wig on some girls that wanted attention.” I turned to him. “Are we getting together for the holidays at all this year? I haven’t seen them in ages. It was lonely here.”

“Regrettably, no. I’ll be out of town.”

I scowled at Dad.

“I’m sorry. Work on our problem. We need real progress, Casey. That needs to happen now.”

I sighed and turned back to the book again. It was thorough, except for the part that was in Faiin. I couldn’t read that ingredient, and it frustrated me greatly.

As my frustration grew to an unbearable amount, I decided to take the edge off by playing games. I called up Fred and joined his stream. Then we began colonizing space!

Time and my father ruined things moments later, forcing me to go work on the horrible potion once more.

Current Level 6 Current XP 20.91% Current Max Mana 301.53 Regen per minute 0.84 Growth Time (Days) 9.57 Potential Mana 72.12 Reputation 1000

Tier Skill Cost Tier 5 User Time Dilation (Haste)

- User experiences 32 seconds for 1 earth second.

- Force transference limited to 25%. 1 mana per earth second. Tier 2 Pocket Dimension

- 8 cubic meters of pocket space. 8 mana Tier 2 Time Stop

- Caster leaves spacetime. They may remove and place things back in spacetime.

- Time does not pass in the demiplane. 200 mana to cast.

Variable cost to move items in and out. Tier 2 Teleport.

- Teleports the caster or a willing creature.

- The range is limited to 500 kilometers. 50 mana for the caster.

100 mana for a willing creature. Tier 2 Attire Swap

- Locked to a single outfit. Current outfit set to Magical Girl Uniform.

- Attire cleaned on swap. 20 mana. Tier 1 Enchanting. Variable cost. Tier 1 Potions. Variable cost. Tier 1 Free casting

- Cast any spell you can replicate. Variable cost. Penalty of 8x mana. Tier 1 Familiar Manifestation. 20 mana to cast. 1 mana for each additional minute.