Olivia

 

“So… where are we going, exactly?” I asked, glancing out the window. I hadn’t noticed at first - I didn’t drive, so I wasn't exactly familiar with the highways - but after thirty minutes of driving, we weren’t near anything I recognized whatsoever. 

“Somewhere,” Rachel replied, evasively. “Anywhere? I don’t know. I’m looking for a cheap motel or something, I guess?”

“And… why are you doing that?” I asked, a little nervous now.

“Because there’s no way Red isn’t tailing us somehow! Magical Girls don’t just let oozy villains go. Not that there’s really been an oozy villain to fight, outside of TV shows and the like, but the point stands!”

“Do you think she’s following us?” I asked, twisting my head around to peer out the back, in search for the iconic sight of Red on her heartpad. No such luck - though I guess that ‘luck’ might be pushing it under the circumstances? Some part of me still just wanted to fangirl over the magical girls in my life, though, no matter how twisted up everything had gotten.

“Not directly,” Rachel said. “But I’m pretty sure you crystals can hack into traffic cameras and the like, right?”

“Easy as pie!” Chrys confirmed, even as I reflexively cast the magic to let her speak. “Which is a bit of a problem… for Rachel especially.”

“Why Rachel!?” I demanded. “I’m the one they want, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but I’m the one she knows how to find,” Rachel replied, glumly. “Obscuring your real identity’s probably still doable, but she knows what I look and we should assume she saw my license plate.”

“So… the reason you’re looking for a cheap motel is…?”

“To set the stage for a trap, of course!” Chrys replied for her. “If she’s coming after us, we’ve got to meet her with force, right?”

“No. I’m just panicking,” Rachel admitted. “I don’t know what to do. I mean, by all logic, I should drive home, let you sneak off, and just… face my fate, I guess? If  we’re being honest, I’m the only one who can’t escape… and I’m pretty sure she won’t kill me, seeing as how I’m still human. …Probably? I mean… I know her. Or I thought I did, at least, before everything happened…”

“Rachel, I’m not leaving you. We should go with Chrys’s idea.”

“Really?” Chrys asked. If she had eyes, I think she would have been blinking them at me. “I mean, I’m all for it, but I didn’t think you’d wanna rise up against your precious magical girls?”

“Magical girls need to fight a proper villain now and then if they wanna shine!” I declared, with all the enthusiasm I could muster. Which wasn’t much under the circumstances -, I wasn’t even sure I really qualified as a villain, per se… and the local magical girls, at least, certainly weren’t the heroes I’d made them out to be, either.

Still… they were the only heroes we had, here. The heroes I’d looked up to all my life. And I wasn’t going to let a little thing like the dark realities of life take that away from me.

What were heroes if not something you could look up to in the darkness, after all?

“The only way out of this is through,” I declared, for the sake of the others. “So we’re going to take Red Heart down, and save Rachel from the clutches of… of all that is pure and good, I guess!”

“Great, but that sounds pretty temporary,” Rachel pointed out. “Unless you have some way of erasing me from her memory?

I shook my head, then paused. “I don’t, do I?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Chrys replied. “I’m sure Red’s crystal could suppress it if you gave it a reason, but…”

“I don’t see that happening, either,” I agreed. “Which just means we’re going to have to go all the way.”

“All the way?” Rachel asked.

I nodded. “It’s time to take out Red’s crystal. For good.”

 

***

Red Heart

***

 

I hummed to myself as I stepped off my heartpad and into the motel parking lot. Heartly had tracked our quarry here, and pulled up some information on one of our targets besides. Rachel Bloomweather. A student at the very same college we’d tracked the Violet Queen to.

It was an interesting connection. Something I was going to have to tell White about just as soon as I saw her… something I should have told her already, really, except… the idea of giving out information on the Queen… while it should have been natural, as part of a team, I just… couldn’t help but want to hoard it all to myself! To know her better than anyone…

So, the obvious answer was to get to know her a little better. To find out a few details that I could keep to myself, harmlessly. Then I could reveal the important parts to my team, and we could all work together as a group to take them down.

Are you sure this is a good idea, Red? Heartly asked - and not for the first time. I think what they did to you last time is still messing with your head.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoffed, gripping my wand a little tighter. Though… I didn’t remember summoning it. Or sharpening it to such a fine point at the end. “I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”

You’re really not! Heartly said. Look, I think we should turn back now, before it’s too late, alright?

“It’s already too late, Heartly,” I whispered, my fingers tightening further around the butcher knife - no, the wand. It was a wand. Even if it was somewhat more cleaver-shaped than what I was used to wielding.

Dammit Heartly replied, before going silent.

I didn’t pay them any mind, too focused on the motel rooms themselves as I walked towards their stairs. They’d rented a room with Rachel’s credit card. Second floor, seven doors down. 207. The room that had my Queen. The Queen who’d stolen my first kiss. Who’d taken it from me, and then ran away and tried to move on like none of it mattered.

I had held it together, though, like the good girl I was. I’d let it pass. Even thanked the little hussy for running off with the Violet Queen - stopping me from making a ‘mistake’ I’d ‘regret’ - though… 

I’d been sincere in that thanks, hadn’t I? Or it had felt sincere at the time… but… but… watching them go like that. Watching them together. Knowing that they were running away from me together. It just… set something within me on edge. Something that was now clawing its ways to the surface, even as I tightened one hand around my cleaver and the other around its chain.

I walked up the stairs. Walked down to the door… and hesitated. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted - that what I wanted was right past that fragile wood. I wasn’t stupid is all. It was obvious that this was going to be some sort of trap. That they were waiting for me to barge in, so that they could capture me or some such… Perhaps it would be better to take a different approach? Come at them from another angle?

Then another thought hit me. A worse one: what if they weren’t there at all? What if they’d already left? Fled? Avoided me? What if my Queen had absconded… run away with that Rachel… or been dragged away? Pulled away? Made to go away? It wasn’t as if the Violet Queen had willingly left my place last time, after all - I hadn’t left her with enough willpower to make any decisions at all, and Rachel had clearly just taken advantage of that.

Yes. That was a far more terrifying thought than them simply being ready for me. Better that I charge in. Better that I know.

I still wasn’t stupid, though, so first I deactivated my transformation, allowing my flashy white and red outfit to be replaced with a simple red skirt and pink blouse. It wasn’t really the best decision from a tactical standpoint, since it put most of my strength out of reach - even if transforming back only took a thought, that still meant a moment of vulnerability where I couldn’t use my magic. It also meant my cleaver disappeared.

In return, though, I got to be a completely normal cute girl knocking on the door of the scary criminals inside.

“Who’s there?” came a voice from inside, before I even finished rapping on the door. The Queen. 

My heart started beating faster.

“Who do you think’s there?” another voice answered. One I didn’t recognize.  “It’s obviously Red.”

“I don’t know… I mean, it sounds like Red, but… could it really be?”

“Why wouldn’t it be!?”

“I’m with Olivia on this one,” came a third voice. Rachel’s, this time. “I mean, yeah, it sounds just like her, but it can’t be her… can it?”

“Can someone open the door for me?” I called in. “I’m here to make a delivery!”

“No! Do not let Red Heart into your secret trap space!”

“I told you, that’s not Red Heart,” the Queen - Olivia? - said. “It can’t be. Red Heart would have more… oomph in her voice.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed.

“But you just said that they sound the exact… Ugh! This is why I hate cognition blockers! Do the stupid thing where you wrap yourself up in ooze and block it all out, alright? It’s the only way we’re getting past this.”

Whoopsie… that sounded a bit problematic for me. Better to nip that in the bud - easily done, as I transformed back with just a thought - though I suppose it was really more a transformation for my clothes, when you came down to it? From a reasonable skirt and blouse to a flashy white and red ensemble with flowing skirts and sleeves.

Also my cleaver was back, so I made a point of stabbing it right through the door to distract them for a moment before just enhancing my body to deliver a kick to the thing that knocked it off its hinges and sent it flying towards the room’s occupants.

“Oopsies! Looks like it’s my turn now!”

“Dammit…” a voice muttered, from seemingly nowhere. The same mystery voice that had been shouting instructions - but I couldn’t see a third person around. “We’re still doing that shield thing, but… later! Right now, focus on taking her down!”

“Right!” the Violet Queen shouted, reaching up, and causing me to look up at the ceiling. The ceiling, covered in ooze. Which really wasn’t how ooze was supposed to work - for all that it looked sticky, and could certainly climb, it didn’t actually cling to things as a rule. It just ate them or moved on. 

I guess the Queen played by different rules, though. That was fine.

So did I.