"Are you serious?" Vera says as she takes another bite of the salad. "What kind of plan is that?"

"Because there would be legal trouble, so doing it while fighting you could be chalked up as collateral," I reply. Amaris laughs awkwardly, even though I wasn't talking to her.

"Okay, get this. Your plan hinges on me cooperating, right? Then why didn't you just ask me to destroy stuff for you? I'm already a criminal, I don't have much more to lose." Vera wriggles out of Otis's hug, who still had his arms wrapped around her. He gets the message and sits on his own side of the sofa.

"It was Amaris's idea, I'm not too knowledgeable about the legal system here, so I trusted her plan."

Frustration looks back at Amaris, and she lets out another awkward laugh. "U-uhm...it's, I- err..." She looks down at her empty salad bowl. "I...I- I just thought t-that having another magical girl in the orphanage could help with- I mean...maybe share some of the money you make? I- I also wouldn't be the only magical girl here, and I- I could...talk about work stuff with s-someone there..."

"I only understood half of what you just said--but I just became a magical girl because I thought it sounded fun, even if you had ulterior motives when you convinced me to become one, it was still my choice." I shrug.

"Still a dumb plan." Vera interjects, "We're not talking about blowing up a few buildings here and there, we're talking about the entire city. Even with Hotel's help, you do realize how much mana you'll need to use to apply your runes to so many homes- and legally? Perseverance gets away with it because she's the ace of this god-damn country, but neither of you are popular enough to do that without some repercussions, even if you rebuild everything later."

"Sooo...what are we supposed to do?" I ask.

"What? I said it was a dumb plan, not that we weren't going to do it. It sounds fun as hell, I just wanted you to know what you're getting into first." She finishes her salad and puts the bowl down on the floor. "Alright, here's what we're going to do..."

*****

"YOUR-" I look at my script again. "YOUR REIGN OF TERROR ENDS HERE, FRUSTRATION!"

"You?" Frustration laughs haughtily, "A third rate magical girl like you could never defeat one such as I!"

"It is true that you are stronger than me, but my friends are supporting me!" I point to Amaris, or Inadequacy in this case.

Instead of her usual hoodie, she's wearing a tank top with short pants, calling it revealing is a massive stretch--it's basically just a sports outfit--but that doesn't stop Inadequacy from being extremely embarrassed, as her athletic build that she was trying her best to hide is now in plain view.

I'm pretty sure her face is beet red under the blue mask, we couldn't convince her to take that off, unfortunately.

"D-do I really n-need to be h-here? A-and d-does it n-need t-to be t-this cheesy?" Inadequacy whispers to me.

"Yes, that's the entire point." I reply, flipping through my script to figure out what I have to say next.

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"Friendship will not help you against...against true evil? Wait, that doesn't sound right...FUCK!" Frustration tries her best to remember her lines, getting more and more frustrated with each part of the script she forgets.

I can't believe she called our plan dumb when that's what she came up with, the worst part is that it might actually work.

"SHIT, FUCK THIS SCRIPT, WHO WROTE THIS?" Frustration creates a massive circular saw and throws it at a random building, it cuts through a dozen houses like butter. I'm actually surprised at how fast her power ramped up, it took way longer when she was fighting against Perseverance.

I nudge Inadequacy, and I can hear her scream both internally and externally before finally speaking up, "H-how could you...I- I will- f-friendship? Uhm- b-because everyone believes in me, I-I shall use my power to p-protect and r-rebuild all that you have destroyed?" Inadequacy knows the script by heart, but that didn't stop her from butchering half of her lines when it was finally her turn--that's fine though, the entire point is that the lines are supposed to be corny and embarrassing, it doesn't matter if she gets them wrong, she just needs to feel bad about saying them.

Inadequacy quickly runs away to where Hotel should be, and the helicopter above is now moving to follow her.

Ho right, we're filmed, and this entire fiasco is probably broadcasted live. I'm sure a lot of people are watching--I'm a new magical girl, Frustration is a prominent criminal, and I promised the news in question that it would be interesting to watch.

I let my power loose, Frustration is probably strong enough to take what I'm throwing at her--I don't know what I'm attacking her with by the way, the entire point is that my power is stronger when I'm facing away from what's happening.

I can hear meat being cut, screams that I recognize and feelings long forgotten start to re-emerge, I filter out the voices until I can only hear what I want to hear, only see what I want to see, only feel what I want to feel.

"HOW MANY TENTACLES DO I HAVE TO CUT- THERE'S MORE!?" Frustration is reaching her peak, and all the buildings at my left are impaled by a massive, rusty spike. And then there's more, more spikes, more saws, everything around me is crumbling left and right.

A terrifying thought occurs to me. Frustration was holding back against Perseverance, and now that she knows she can go all out, she's showing what she's truly capable of.

Thankfully, my power drags me out of the way of her attacks whenever it can, I don't question it. If I doubt or question my power it'll just get weaker, I just have to look away from it, that's all I need to do. I just have to hope it's not doing something horrible while I'm not looking.

I feel parts of my soul being drained, it's not big enough to be an issue, but it is noticeable, which means Hotel and Inadequacy have started.

Sure enough, I see buildings rise out of the earth and replace the ruins in the distance. I'm afraid that the newly created homes are going to crumble with how fast they are being made, but they all stand tall--and most importantly--all of Frustration's attacks bounce off them harmlessly.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I take in the scenery, there's so much dust and rubble being thrown around that it's a miracle I can see past my nose. For some reason, this is very calming to me, it feels as if I'm alone but not in a bad way. I'm usually bothered by loneliness, because all I can do is think about things, but it doesn't bother me all that much to think about stuff right now, I wonder why that is?

I'm thinking about names. I wonder why you hated names so much, I thought your name was cute. Sure, 'Egglin' isn't a very cool name, but it was yours, and I liked it. My name isn't really cool either, but it's still mine.

I wonder, what was I even afraid of this entire time? I don't know, in truth, I'm still afraid, I'm still scared. But I think-

My legs are ripped off by a circular saw that just passed beneath me, the impact throws me into the air before gravity takes a hold of me again. I laugh, and right before my head hits the pavement, my legs regrow and I dust myself off.

My magical girl power got a lot weaker--weak enough that I was able to get hit at all. I can see Frustration running towards me, but she stops midway when she sees I'm okay.

I give her a thumbs up, and she nods. The dance of destruction continues, while someone else creates. Sometimes, the foundation of something is so badly built that you need to start over. I've destroyed myself over and over again, but I think this time I know what I want to build on top of the rubble of my soul.

What do you think, Egglin?