The emergency lights came on via the mana lines in the classroom, bathing the three girls in the classroom in their eerie blue glow, yet a moment after these emergency lights came on, they took on a purple strobe that flashed every other second. Talia gasped when she saw the purple lights and Belle used a word that would have gotten her disciplined had any of the teachers heard her. They had only been taught what the color of those lights meant in student orientation; they had not lived through their reality like Liara had. A Yabanchi incursion was taking place.
“Oh man,” Belle was looking at them, no trace of haughtiness or resentment left on her face. “They must be doing a drill or something right?”
“I did not hear them warn us about a drill though,” Liara replied.
“Neither did I,” Talia said, “They would have made an announcement before classes started.”
Everyone jerked when a loud voice boomed from outside the building and inside its halls. It was a deep artificial voice that they were used to hearing when ME-GO had an important announcement, and usually a happy one, such as the adoption of a new Magical Girl or another Yabanchi planet cleansed. Yet this time the calm voice delivered a message that none of them wanted to hear.
“Citizens of Apophyllion, this is not a drill. A Yabanchi incursion is occurring. Please evacuate to your nearest designated safe zone or shelter in place. Citizens of Apophyllion, this is not a drill." The message repeated, short, and to the point.
The three girls waited there, listening to the message, hoping that it would stop and declare the whole thing a big mistake, but the unchanging voice of ME-GO never wavered. Talia broke the silence with an oath.
“My chair isn’t working.” The raven-haired girl was flicking the control switch of her chair back and forth, yet it was not responding as it was supposed to. Belle pulled out her phone and tried turning it on too, yet the crystal screen remained steadfastly blank against her attempts. Showing the other two girls this, Liara felt fear start to seize her chest and bowels. She sat down and did not look at the other girls who were still trying to get their devices to work.
“Liara,” Talia shook her shoulder, “are you ok? Liara?”
“It’s the mana disruption,” Liara whispered, “Your chair, Belle’s phone. That’s why they’re not working.”
Talia finally figured it out and went as pale as Liara, but Belle had yet to catch on, “Mana disruption? Like why would the mana be disrupted?”
Talia answered for Liara, “Yabanchi have a natural ability to disrupt mana flows of most manatech devices.”
“So what,” Belle crossed her arms, “Don’t they have to be real close for something like that to happen?”
“Exactly,” Liara whispered. The memories of the last incursion she went through came back to her along with the memory of her first proctorship with a Magical Girl. Both times she had been taken care of, once as a little girl being dragged through a slum city being set on fire and the other as a witness to a horrific battlefield. It was the earlier memory that came back the strongest now, the smoke, the screams, and the desperation as her parents tried getting onboard the last star freighter. They never made it, they-
"Liara," Talia's voice banished the memory and brought her back to the present. The wheelchair-bound girl was scared too, her main ability to move had been hindered, yet she was the one who was trying to comfort someone else. Somehow Liara drew strength from that and focused her mind on how they would be surviving this incursion.
“Sorry. I’m here,” Liara smiled at her friend, trying to pay back some of that hope. “Thanks, Talia.” Standing up from her desk and grabbing her schoolbook bag, Liara addressed the other girls, “I think we need to go. We shouldn’t just stay here.”
Belle jumped up from her desk and dashed to the door, “You don’t need to tell me twice,” but she stopped and looked at Talia. “Can you move?” With a flip of a few manual switches, Talia answered Belle’s question by physically wheeling herself to the door.
“Well then, I don’t think we should be sticking around here either. Ready to go girls?” It was strange to see Belle so genuinely earnest, lacking any of the usual façade of haughtiness that she fronted for other people, but Liara understood that the time for the usual teenage pettiness was past when an eldritch invasion was taking place.
“Come on,” Talia wheeled out the door that Belle was holding open. “I’m not going to wait for you slow-pokes.”
The purple, strobing lights on the mana lines were not just for warning about Yabanchi but also served the dual purpose of leading students and staff to the nearest safe zone. If Liara recalled correctly, there were five shielded areas total on campus, one in each of the four corners and one in the dead center with the administration building. Since they were in the senior classroom building, the mana lines would be leading them to Doctor Holzer’s office, which at this time was the safe zone for anyone who could reach it. As of that moment, the hallways were filled with people trying to scramble past one another in a dash to safety.
Liara grabbed Talia’s chair to prevent it from being knocked over by a particularly frenzied girl sprinting past them, who just kept running even when Talia loudly chewed her out for being inconsiderate. Eventually, the wave of people they had been swept up with reached an obstacle that had Talia swearing up a storm. There was a staircase.
Everyone ran past, ignoring Liara’s and Talia’s pleas for help. They were like scared rabbits caught up in a whirlwind of fear, every woman for themselves. The last person ran up the staircase and Liara and Talia were left there alone.
“Did they have to put the safe zone at the top of the building?” Talia snarled.
Liara was not looking at her friend, but shouted up the stairs, “Someone, please, help!”
“Forget it,” Talia sagged in her chair, “They’re gone. Just go without me.”
“No, wait, I hear someone!”
The patter of feet coming down the stairs terminated with Belle Noblesse looking down at them from the flight above. She was trembling, but she had also put that mask of confidence back on, hands on her hips, and grinning down at the two girls. "Did someone call for help? A Magical Girl always answers the call!"
Liara did not know if she wanted to strangle Belle or hug her, but she replied, “I need help, I think if we both lift, we can get Talia up the stairs.”
Belle hopped down the steps and onto the other side of Talia’s chair. Talia tried telling them to leave her again, but neither of them gave that a second thought as they both gripped the underside of her chair and lifted together. Belle’s cute face strained red with effort and a vein bulged in her temple, while Liara felt like her forearms were burning with fire mana, but the two of them carried Talia, step by step up the stairs one floor at a time, until after several minutes and as many breaks, they reached the top floor of the senior academic hall.
“Girl,” Belle huffed, “you need to lose weight.”
Talia looked down at her lap, ignoring Belle's bravado. "Thanks, you guys. You shouldn’t have." She was crying, but Liara did not have time to comfort her, so she grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and started pushing down the hallway, following the purple lights.
“We’re going to make it, we’re going to make it,” Liara kept saying, she did not know if it was to the others or herself, but she just knew that they would be fine. Yet the sound of crying broke her train of thought and made the party stop mid-stride. The crying was coming from a nearby classroom, so they looked inside and saw a familiar group of girls, it was the first years from the manarail.
Liara spoke, scaring the girls out of their sobbing, “What are you doing in the senior building?”
“We were on a tour with Mr. Holzer, but then the lights started to go off,” one of the girls spoke, the fourteen-year-old tried wiping the tears off her face. “And then Mr. Holzer yelled something about a Yabanchi attack and took off. We don’t know what to do.”
“That guy is a real piece of work,” Belle rolled her eyes, “I swear, I don’t even know how he used to be a paladin.”
Belle’s comments did not seem to be putting the first years at ease, so Liara strode up to them and knelt. “We know where to go, where the safe zone is. The Yabanchi can’t reach us there. You can come with us if you want.”
The first year who had spoken first looked at Liara, eyes threatening to cry again, and nodded. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, I thought we were going to die!”
Liara took the shaking girl into a hug and shushed her, “You’re not dying today.”
The party, which had now swelled to ten total, went back out into the hallway. Liara was about to say something when a howl tore through the quiet halls and sent ice down her spine. It sounded like an animal that had caught its prey and was celebrating with a roar that crossed between gurgling and a high-pitched shriek.
It sounded like it was close and coming from the direction of the stairwell.
The first years cried in terror, but Belle comforted them this time and looked to the other seniors. “We need to hurry, like right now.”
“You should just leave me,” Talia said again, but instead of slumping in defeat, she had a fire in her eyes. “I can hold it off while you get to safety.”
“Nice speech Donnally, but I’m not letting you become another dead hero,” Belle started in, “We are not leaving you behind.”
Liara looked back and forth between the arguing seniors and the frightened first years and broke in, “She won’t be left behind, I’ll push her, but you need to lead those girls to the shelter Belle. It will be faster.”
“But,” Talia sputtered.
“But nothing, if Belle Noblesse is not going to leave you behind, then I sure as heck won’t!”
Another howl came from outside the building, but this time an explosion answered, silencing it mid-roar. The sentinels that the school had installed must have gone online, but logic and experience taught Liara that a handful of mana golems were not going to be enough if the Yabanchi exerted any serious force against the academy. The safe zone was their only option.
An unspoken agreement punctuated that explosion, as Belle started gathering up all the first-year girls around her, and told them to follow her. She ran down the hallway at a fast pace and all of the first years, except one, ran after her. The remaining first year, a girl with big green eyes that looked like they were always on the verge of crying, stared at Liara and Talia.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Are you sure that you two will be ok?”
Liara had no idea if even the safe zone would be enough to protect them, but she put on a brave grin and flexed her arm at the girl.
“Talia and I are some of the best mana shapers in our class. So, don’t worry, if anything comes our way, it’s in for a big surprise.”
“Now go on, get out of here,” Talia pointed down the hall at the quickly disappearing group of first years.
“Right,” the first year started down the hall and waved as she ran, “thank you!”
Liara felt Talia squeeze her hand. “That means you too.”
Starting down the hallway and pushing Talia’s chair, Liara scoffed, “You think I’d just abandon you?”
Talia was about to reply, but Liara cut her off, “Get real Talia. You never left me when I was down and I am definitely not going to miss this chance to repay the favor.” Liara felt tears start to well in her eyes, “Besides, you’re like the only family I’ve got left. I love you.”
“I love you too.” The air had been deflated from Talia’s argument. She did not want Liara to go trading her life for her own, but there was no way you could tell someone closer than a sister to just leave you behind. She just accepted that whatever happened, it would happen to both of them.
Liara and Talia continued on the way to the safe zone, with the other girls long gone and no one else in the hallways, it felt eerie running down the halls. The senior classrooms were technically two tall buildings, but they were connected by a bridge at the top floor. When they reached that bridge, Liara knew that they were almost there, but she also wanted the chance to peek out the windows and see what was going on outside.
She almost wished that she hadn’t.
Apophyllion was on fire. The one bright and glowing city was obscured by the trailing miasma of multiple fires going off at once. Rescue flyers were hovering all over the city, some of them dipping into the smoke to rescue the people trapped underneath it, but those brave rescuers did not always come out. An orange plume blossomed on the tallest building in the city, and the girls not only heard the dull explosion but felt it rattle the building too. Liara could not see the damage the explosion left behind, as yet more smoke rose from the site, adding its part to the city-wide conflagration.
At the distance they were at, the girls could hardly make out any more details of the attack on the city, but as for the academy grounds, what they saw froze the marrow in their bones. The common grounds were crawling with Yabanchi, pale things crawling up on buildings, purple worms digging into the ground, dog-like monsters roaming in packs, and more. The golems that were supposed to protect the campus were destroyed, parts of them scattered as debris all over the place, and among them were twisted shapes and lumps on the ground. Some of them were Yabanchi that had been slain by the golem, but others had clothes on, familiar uniforms that she recognized. Liara stared at them for a moment until she realized what they were and wheeled Talia and herself away from the window.
The chair-bound girl did not protest and understood what her friend was feeling, she was feeling it herself after all. "We need to keep moving Liara. Keep moving."
It was not a command that needed obeying, as Liara was already pushing them down the hall and toward the safe zone. The memories of her home world scratched at her mind, the things breaking down the door, her father's shouts, her siblings’ screams. Instinct propelled her to run as fast as she could, scrabbling for safety, but instinct, blinded as she was by fear, also caught the sound of something scrabbling down the next hallway intersection toward them. Without warning, Liara pushed them both inside an adjacent classroom, which was thankfully empty of any monsters and closed the door, waiting.
Talia was about to ask what was going on, but the shushing movement and frightened expression on her friend’s face froze her tongue. In a silence similar to the grave, the two girls waited, breath held in anticipation. They did not wait long.
A shadow passed by the doorway, accompanied by the sound of staccato clicking. The tapping of those multitude of claws stopped and the shadow loomed from underneath the door. The girls sat there, praying that it would go away when a tapping noise came from the other side.
-Tap tap tap tap- -Tap tap tap tap- -Tap tap tap tap-
Rhythmically, again and again, whatever was on the other side was knocking on the door to be let in. Talia lifted her hand and pointed it at the doorway, ready to unleash a blast of concentrated air mana at whatever was going to come through, but it never came. The thing sighed like it was depressed at not being let in, and the clicking came back, diminishing with growing distance until the girls no longer heard it.
Liara let out the breath she was holding and whispered to Talia, “I think that was one of the Yabanchi.”
Talia whispered back, “No kidding, really?”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry. You remember that wicked slap you learned last year?”
“The one that the instructors said I’d break my hands if I used it the wrong way? Yeah, I do.”
“Well, break that hand girl. If a yabanchi comes breathing in your face, break his face along with your hand.
“Do you know how many times I wanted to slap Belle with that technique?”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Talia whispered, “considering that you’d probably have killed her with it.”
Talia’s pep talk was not without merit or effect. Liara was reminded of the last three years of training that all of the Magical Girl trainees had to go through to get this far. It was not just book studies and tests, but mana aptitude and combat training as well. The grim paladins who made up most of the combat training staff had run the girls through every form of destructive mana technique that they knew. Freezing water mana into spears, ripping the air out of an opponent's lungs, coating your hand in fire, and turning even your own body into a weapon. Which is what the school and society ultimately wanted in a Magical Girl. A living weapon that could be used against the enemies of mankind.
Those techniques required a lot of practice to get the mana flow just right. A non-magical girl could go a lifetime and on average only learn to perfect as many as three mana combat arts, so while they introduced the girls to a multitude of attacks, they were encouraged to practice only one. That would change if they were to be chosen as Magical Girls, those walking tanks that practiced death as their occupation, but as it was, Liara was just a normal girl who barely knew how to use two advanced mana techniques without killing herself.
Boosted by that reminder, Liara dared to open the door and peek down the hallway. They were clear and there was no sign of any Yabanchi. Grabbing her friend's chair, Liara started back down the halls, a little more cautious now that they knew monsters were lurking in those halls.
Liara felt her heart pick up in her chest, she knew that they were almost in the safe zone. She stopped at an intersection, looking around to make sure that there was nothing in the hallway, and squeezed Talia's shoulder. The other girl squeezed back and smiled up at her. Then they heard it.
"Help, someone, help me."
A girl’s voice mewled from a nearby classroom, the door slightly ajar. Liara looked at Talia, but the other girl only bit on her lower lip, hands tightening on her armrests.
“I’m going to check it out.”
“Be careful.”
Liara nodded at her friend and took a step toward the door, slowly pushing it open and peeking inside. A fist came from nowhere and greeted Liara’s face with a blow to the jaw. The senior girl stumbled back, and fell against the opposite wall of the hallway, legs giving out as a cascade of stars appeared in her vision.
“Help me,” a girl's voice pleaded from the mouth of a Yabanchi as it crawled out of the classroom she had investigated. Its voice distorted into a mocking mimicry as it said it again, "Help me."
It was comparable to a man in size, and even shorter than Liara with the way it hunched, but this Yabanchi was like some pale nightmare that had crawled out of a cave it had been living in for a century. There was not an ounce of fat on the sinewy and ripped muscles of its body, giving it a shaved ape appearance as it shambled toward them with its knuckle-dragging gait.
Liara tried looking at its face, but only two hollow pits met her eyes, even without eyes of its own, she still felt it looking at her with a depth of hunger she had never known herself. She was so absorbed by those depths of darkness glaring at her, that she did not see its mouth until it made another mocking call for help again. The yabanchi’s mouth was on top of its head rather than at the front and curled back to reveal a chomping set of human-like teeth that were settled in its mouth in multiple rows.
It reached toward the still-dazed Liara, grinning with those rows of teeth, and only stopped when another girl's voice got its attention.
“Leave her alone you freak!”
The air pressure in the hallway changed and a lance of solid wind howled through the space between the yabanchi and Liara. The wind lance was so dense and fast that it made a ribbon of blood spray from the monster’s hand where it cut it.
“Liara, get away!” Talia was preparing another wind lance in her hands to throw at the creature, but in the space of the second she had to try and help her friend, the Yabanchi clicked its teeth in a frenzy of pain and anger and jumped, reaching her with a single lunge. Long fingers grabbed hold of one of the wheels of Talia’s chair and with a single swing, the Yabanchi threw both girl and chair against the wall with a tremendous thud. The condensed mana in Talia’s hand harmlessly dissipated as she cracked her head against the wall and sprawled on the floor next to her chair. Knocked unconscious, the girl did not stir from her fallen position on the floor.
“Talia!” Liara had regained her feet, but she felt like they might give out underneath her at any time. She stumbled toward the yabanchi, fury coalescing in her palm along with a fistful of fire mana.
With a roar of her own, Liara swung her flame palm with all the force she could muster and slapped the creature in its face. It stumbled back and clicked its teeth, a raised welt appearing along the side of its face in the shape of a palm and Liara slapped it again and again, each slap sending it stumbling back more and more. Liara was mid-swing with another slap, ignoring the burning sensation in her hand when the monster caught her by the wrist and stopped her next attack. With a slap of its own Liara tasted blood in her mouth and a second slap made the stars blast back into her vision. The third slap from the Yabanchi sent her tumbling back to the ground and this time she could not regain the strength in her legs.
The void spawn shoved Liara’s head down with one hand and settled all of its weight on her body as it straddled her, pinning her to the ground, unable to escape. Long fingers probed around Liara’s face, caressed her nose, lifted her lips, and finally settled over her right eye.
It was like Liara was experiencing the worst headache and eye pain of her life as her vision buckled between red, white, and finally black. She screamed loud enough that the survivors in the safe zone heard her and shivered in fear. She screamed so loud that blood curdled in her throat as micro-vessels burst from the pressure and intensity. She screamed, but she did not pass out as half of the light of the world was stolen from her.
The pain threatened to make her pass out, but she held on and looked up at the creature and saw it fiddling with its face like it was popping in a contact. When she saw her own yellow eye staring back at her in the Yabanchi’s face, she screamed once more.
Fear, pain, and righteous anger flowed through Liara as she condensed fire mana in her hand again and broke one of the most important safety rules her instructors taught her. When using the fire palm, they always taught that it had to be used in a slap, but she took the fire mana and jabbed her hand into the monster like it was a knife blade.
The finger bones of her right hand, softened by the fire mana that flowed through it, slightly cracked as she did this, sending rivulets of pain down her arm, but she was numb to feeling by then.
The desperate attack worked and the tips of her fingers sunk into the Yabanchis flesh with a pop and sizzle, making the creature shift and try to get off the girl in escape, but her left hand caught it by the wrist and refused to let go. Another knife hand attack and more pain ripped through her hand, but each blow brought her fingers deeper into the creature's flank.
It howled in pain with the voice of the girl it had stolen it from and frantically tried punching Liara's ribs. Each blow from the creature broke something and more pain was added to the symphony of Liara’s nerves lighting up, but she pressed on with her knife jabs, her right hand by this time was totally pulverized and no longer even resembled a hand anymore, yet she kept it up, desperation, fear, and anger fueling her.
The Yabanchi raised a large fist to smash Liara's face in, but she jabbed one more time into its ribs and it spasmed, attack frozen in mid-air. Liara’s stolen eye glazed over and the Yabanchi slumped on top of her, at last dead.
With the monster gone, sense returned to Liara and pain reacquainted itself in a shockingly violent way. She couldn’t breathe, blood was coming up with every attempted gasp. She couldn’t move, two hundred pounds of monster pinned her down, and she couldn't see. Tears and blood obfuscated most of the vision in her remaining eye.
Talia.
She tried turning her head to see her friend, but the angle was useless, without a right eye, she saw only darkness in that direction.
Darkness was encircling her whole vision, like a tunnel she was going down swallowing all sight, noise, and feeling. She was falling, helpless against this black tide foe.
Liara was about to die.
“YOU SHALL NOT DIE. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.”
A voice boomed in Liara’s head and the darkness was cast away from her vision like it was fleeing from the voice. Liara saw light, but her eyes were not open.
“Oh my, a miracle is required for this one. She’s absolutely about to fall apart.”
“DENIED.”
Liara felt warmth trickling through her body, starting from her chest and radiating through her limbs. The pain melted away and she felt like she was floating in warm waters. The darkness came back, but this was a good dark, the kind the at she could fall asleep and rest in forever.
“No, no. Don’t fall asleep on me.” Another light appeared, this one was much smaller than the last, but it was not overwhelming either. It was like someone was standing over her, holding out a hand.
“You heard Him. You’ve been chosen to be a Magical Girl Liara. Don’t think it’s because you’re all so great or because you’re worthy and all, no, no, no. But you’ve been chosen to be an example to the people, a light in this world of darkness!”
Liara liked that, but she spoke into the infinite void, one question on her mind.
“What will it cost me?”
The light dimmed and then materialized in her face like a great, blue eye. Though it had no mouth, it spoke.
“Everything.”