The pain was becoming all too real again, vibrating through every nerve of Liara’s body. The only thing preventing her from lapsing totally into unconsciousness was the floating eyeball staring at her. No, her mind refocused and saw the thing more clearly, it was a golem, the kind magical girls used and it had been speaking to her.
"Hello, are you still there?" The golem stressed the words like it was speaking to someone slow in the head.
Liara had a hard time speaking, just breathing hurt so much, she whispered, “Yeah, it’s just a lot to take in.”
“Well, you are about to die. Really, I thought you would have been granted a miracle given the state of emergency, but the system’s deemed that it won’t waste resources on you.”
“So, I won’t be a magical girl,” Liara felt like she could cry if the tears would not have ended up blood. As it was, she was so close to her dream, but she was being denied the chance at the last moment.
“Now now, I didn’t say that. Your wounds are indeed as fatal as they are gruesome, but it may take as long as two hours before you die and there are measures we can take to prevent that.”
Liara winced, she did not want to die and would do whatever it took to get back up, “Such as?”
“What do you know about magical girls?”
It was the absolute worst time for a lecture, on top of the fact that Liara had been attending an academy to become a magical girl for years, so she knew quite a lot. Unfortunately, a flare of pain burst through her when she tried shifting, so she only groaned in reply to the golem’s question.
“Well, I’ve researched you, both the information publicly and privately available and I know you have a minor regenerative ability. It’s a nice trait, a major reason I chose you, but unfortunately, it’s not enough to save you. If you become a magical girl, the decision will grant a minor boost to your physical stats, promoting healing. Furthermore, there are certain items we can purchase from the system to get those wounds healing as well!”
“The pain,” it was grinding and unending. Breathing hurt. Blinking hurt. Everything hurt. Liara would have bashed her head against the wall to induce unconsciousness if she could just escape the pain.
“Well of course! Painkillers are cheap purchases in the system.”
That settled the issue for Liara, she gasped, “I accept. Make me a magical girl now!”
The golem laughed, maniacally. Liara did not know if she was the crazy one or if it was, but she wanted to crush the floating machine.
“That’s great to hear! Sometimes young ladies require a lot of convincing before taking the final plunge, but there are rules we have to follow. You need to be informed of the risks and consequences of becoming a magical girl.”
Here? Now? Liara was lying in the middle of the hallway, halfway passed out, in the middle of a Yabanchi incursion, and had one of the nasty creatures lying on top of her. She passed out, but a prodding sensation in her ribs flared up a shock of pain to bring her back.
The golem was there, a long spidery leg hanging from its body poking her. “Sorry, but you need to be awake for this to be official!”
It grew more legs and settled down next to Liara's face like a spider. "First, the risk of death and mutilation is much higher for a magical girl than for the general population. Second, you are a magical girl until the day you die. You will not be allowed to retire. Third, any children you bear will be automatically considered for Magical Girl Academy if they are girls. Fourth, I will be assigned to you as your magical girl sentry. So, knowing all this, do you accept?”
The first was obvious, the third had not happened yet, and the fourth was annoying but not horrible. It was the second thing that had her mind racing despite the pain, what was essentially forever servitude. A forever war against an enemy that wanted to either kill her, eat her, or use her for parts. Yet if she refused, she would die and it was likely that Talia would too.
Easy decision.
But the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t breathe anymore. That golem's estimation must have been off. The tunnel of darkness was coming back, but she struggled for the fading light. She took what was left of her right hand and slammed it against the floor. The pain that had been settling at least somewhat came back with a vengeance and jolted Liara back for one crucial moment.
“Yes!”
The tunnel of darkness came back and Liara felt that she was not falling so much as she was flying into it. The pain was gone, but so was every other sensation save for sight. For beyond the veil of dark Liara could see a light, like a dim star in the night. With each passing second in this realm without time, it grew brighter until its brilliance eclipsed even the Primary Star itself. Going through the light, Liara thought she would be burned and shut her eyes, but when she opened them again, she was still alive and standing in a giant throne room.
The light came back, bursting from the front of the room and a voice boomed across her mind. Liara did not understand the voice, but not because it was not speaking in a language she understood, but because her mind could not comprehend what it was trying to process. For once the voices of self-doubt and loathing in her mind were silent, replaced by a sense of vertigo that threatened to tip her over and onto the ground in a spasmodic collapse.
With as much control as she could manage, Liara sat on the marble floor, legs trembling from the shrinking control of her body. Her heart hammered in her chest and every fight-or-flight chemical in her body must have been lighting up her nervous system like a Christmas tree. The thought occurred to her that she had her right eye and hand back, but that thought was blasted away by the thundering noise.
Liara’s brain raced overtime in trying to explain to itself the significance of the voice still thrumming in her mind. An electric organ of meaning emblazoned itself on every neuron with the intent of being understood, but the only thing she could understand was the pain splitting apart her head and eardrums. Covering her ears did not help, but in the attempt, both hands came back with blood.
The voice had not been speaking for long, but in the intense pain and terror of it all, Liara remembered the stories of old where a pilgrim had heard the voice of God and begged that it be stopped. The way it was described, with the smoke, the fire, and the fear, it was starting to make all too tangible sense for Liara now as she was brought down on her knees by the power of the voice from the throne.
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Ironically, it was only when she heard the ringing in her ears, that Liara realized that the voice had stopped. With this small span of quiet, Liara looked at where the light had been shining, and in its place was a veil that covered the other half of the room.
With the loud noise ceased, enough strength was finally lent to Liara’s legs so that she could stand up and look at more than just the veil. The floor was not just marble but made of gold and gemstones too. So many gems festooned the walls and floor that it must have dwarfed the wealth of every person on Liara’s home world and then some.
Liara hung there in suspended animation, caught between reality and disbelief for what felt like an eternity to her until the survival part of her brain kicked in and started guiding her feet away from the veil and voice and toward a small door at the end of the room. Her gait was awkward and clumsy, guided more by instinct than thought, but she was almost at the door when another voice spoke inside her mind.
Where the first voice was loud, this one was quiet. A slippery oil painting melting inside a car after being left to face the heat of a hot, summer day. It wriggled between her mind, finding purchase in individual neurons and colors exploded in shifting vision as everything looped back and forth between a slurry of hues and vivid sharp details. She could not see anymore, everything had melded within a horizon of exploding contrasts, but there was a molecule floating in front of her that was so clear to see that if she wanted to she could count every atom of its makeup. Liara’s next step was her last as she stumbled to her knees again and vomited. The whirlwind swirled around her in carousal frenzy and shutting her eyes did nothing to relieve the feeling.
The voice spoke again, clearer this time and someone approached in the haze of her vision. From the direction of the door, a hand reached out and Liara squinted to look at the face of its owner. In the space between shifting colors, blurring, and her own mortal vision, Liara caught a glimpse of it and her mind blanked to preserve her sanity. Darkness overcame her and she slipped into sleep, escaping wherever that place was.
She knew she was back by the pain once again refamiliarizing itself, but there was something warm floating in her chest and radiating throughout her body, not entirely neutralizing the pain, but dulling it a little. With this small boost, Liara heaved the cold body of the Yabanchi off herself and struggled to a sitting position on the wall.
Letters danced in her mind, not like words in her vision, but images that burned their meaning into her brain itself.
(Magical Girl Introduction Quest Complete) – 100 points
(Mylock Slain) – 10 points
(Calculating point total) – Error
“Success!”
The golem’s voice also burned in her mind, but hearing its voice with her head and ears was a little disorienting.
“Well, now that you and I are a little bit, closer, I can give you a better status update on your condition.” The golem’s eye dimmed for a moment and Liara took the opportunity for quiet to look toward Talia. She was still unconscious, but Liara had no idea how much time had passed since the golem had spoken to her. No, she supposed it was her golem now.
"Oh my!" The golem's sudden exclamation would have made Liara jump if she felt better, instead, she nearly fell over again.
“What, what?!”
“You’re not going to die!”
Liara sighed, a weight coming off her shoulders that she had not realized was there. In the span of a few minutes, she had killed a Yabanchi, been told she was going to die, told she was becoming a magical girl, went somewhere…, and been told that she was in fact not going to die. The round and round of emotions was starting to frustrate her.
“So, it’s not as bad as you thought?”
"No, it’s much worse than I thought. Even with your ability and the bonus you get from becoming a magical girl, you would die from internal blood loss in less than an hour.”
Liara counted to three, despite the urgency of the situation. Suppressing her anger was second nature to her. “Please then, enlighten me, how will I not die?”
“With your points of course!”
The notifications were still in her mind, like a memory she could recall, “I think I got a hundred and ten. Something about a quest and killing a Mylock.”
“Oh good, so your neural net is operational. I assume you can hear my voice in your head too?”
Liara nodded. “Excellent. You know, I never introduced myself. I am Pellas, your new magical girl sentry golem! You might think of me as a ‘robot’, but I assure you that I am superior to any steel and bolt mechanism of man, as I am made entirely of mana. As your personal sentry golem, I can be upgraded with the resource allocation point system that you are already dipping your toes into."
“One hundred and ten points,” Liara sighed, “I had magical girl economics last year. I know that’s nothing.”
“Ah, well, you do not have one hundred and ten points human.”
“Are you kidding me,” Liara had a hard time putting a stop to her boiling annoyance, “What happened to them?”
Pellas chirped, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! You don’t have one hundred points, you have over fourteen thousand!”
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The streets were empty, most of the humans were either dead, hiding in their homes, or in one of the city's many safe zones. A pair of figures walked the abandoned streets, the only humans not being harassed by the roaming Yabanchi. One of them, a man in a green robe that shimmered with a rainbow hue, was taking his time in appreciating the sights and breathing in the smoke of the burning city. His laughter contrasted with the distant screams of the dying and explosions from the city’s desperate defenders, but he was having the best day of his life.
“Doesn’t it smell wonderful?”
“If you suppose so master,” the other person replied. A woman in black power armor whose armored steps made no sound as she followed. “Though I would prefer if you did not strut about in the open so much.”
"Are you afraid of these vermin? A predator fearing its lunch? I would have thought you were looking forward to this too?"
“I look forward to killing your enemies master, but the ‘deadliest knife strikes from the shadows’.”
The man laughed even more from being quoted words from his own grandfather but stopped when he felt a life force in a nearby habitation. A grin split across his face, cruelly anticipating slaughter. He reached out, his senses crept through concrete and stone until he was sure of it.
“Tsk, tsk,” he hissed to a nearby Yabanchi, a screamer that towered over him, but the creature did not attack and instead approached by crawling on the ground, head bowed in deference. With a flick of his wrist, the man pointed toward the house and the screamer understood the mental command, bursting through the flimsy front door and rampaging inside. The howls of joy from the beast and terror from the humans inside told the robed man that his senses were right once again. He lifted his hands in worship, the screaming and ripping noises were his orchestra to listeners without ears.
His companion did not share in her master’s pleasure, “They are not all as helpless. This attack will be beaten back, their Slayers will see to that.”
"You and your kind have no flair for the dramatic, dust instead of blood, gears instead of hearts", he replied, lowering his hands and shrugging. "But the great masters are pleased whether or not the beasts are beaten back. 'As long as the blood flows' neh?” He quoted his grandfather back at the woman, but she did not seem to care or react.
“You would know better than I master.”
“As long as you remember that." Yet as he said this, a new sense of life blazoned in the man's mind like a beacon of fire on the horizon. It was a familiar energy, the kind that he dimly sensed jumping around the city, slaughtering his minions. A new Slayer had been born.
“Master? Is something wrong?”
With a jump on one raised toe that terminated in a spin, the man told his companion what he sensed and the woman perked up immediately, “Open a portal for me master and I will cut her down before she even buys her first item!”
“I think that would be a little too boring my dear,” he pulled an amulet from his robes and held it aloft, chanting a strange incantation that made it begin to glow green. The ground beneath them shook and a voice whispered from the amulet, “Stop, stop. Hurts. Stop.”
“I will stop when you listen and obey,” the man hissed into the device. “Do you sense the new life blooming on the other side of the city?”
The amulet dimmed, but responded with a single word, “Yes.”
"Find its source and extinguish it.” The ground rumbled again and the man twirled the darkened amulet around his hands several times with a flourish and sleight of hand down his robe sleeve.
“Master, a kort? You are using a bomb to kill a rabbit.”
“And sending you would have been less excessive force?”
“No, but it would have been more fun.”
“Hmph,” with a wave of his hand, a portal opened up before them, another city was on the other side. It was under Yabanchi attack too, but instead of day, it was the middle of the night. They stepped through and the man said, “Trust me, we’re just getting started.”