QuillRabbit

CW: Minor Transphobia

A red lance pierced the archery target and knocked it clean off its stand. It landed on the ground with a thump and the red energy disappeared. Rory cried out in triumph and pumped her fist into the air.

“Damn,” Jada said, folding her arms and smirking. “You got a lot stronger overnight. What happened?”

Rory grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck. She knew what happened. Now that she knew who she was supposed to be, Rory was more in tune with her magic. At least, according to Carina.

“I guess all that practice paid off,” was all she said.

“Well, let’s see some more.”

Rory turned her attention back to the remaining four archery targets. She fired an orange blast at one of them, sending it spinning as the stand was obliterated from the force of the hit. A yellow slash cut the next one in half, straw spilling out everywhere. Lastly, Rory’s staff started to glow green and a green concrete block appeared in the air, which she sent flying into the last remaining target. It didn’t do nearly as much damage, but the construct remained undamaged.

She was shaking a little bit. Her powers were definitely stronger. That seemed to be confirmation that the bureau was right. Rory really was a trans girl at heart.

“I want to see how well you do in a fight, now,” Jada said. Her guitar was still strapped to her back, but she grabbed a pair of drumsticks from a belt an her waist and started flipping them in her hands. “You up for some sparring?”

“Just so long as nobody gets hurt,” Rory said, spreading her legs wide.

Jada just grinned and started doing a roll in the air with her drumsticks. It sounded like a snare drum. She got faster and faster, and then slammed one of the drumsticks down with a loud thwack.

Rory felt a rush of air just in time to turn her staff up and create a violet barrier. An invisible force slammed into it, causing the whole thing to shake and a small crack to appear. She was breathing heavily. That had actually been a little scary.

“That’s not an attack I can do very often,” Jada admitted. “Powerful, but it takes some time to wind up. Now—” She took the guitar off of her back. “—shall we begin in earnest?”

They traded a few blows, mostly dodging each other’s attacks. Occasionally someone was knocked back or cut up, but they healed quickly. Once they’d had some fun, the two sat aside their weapons to grab a bottle of water.

“You’re stronger,” Jada admitted, “but still not quite as strong as me or the others.”

Rory frowned and asked Carina, “Why is that, do you think?”

“It might just be that you actually need more training,” Carina suggested, shrugging.

“At the very least,” Thunder added, “skill will be more useful to you on the battlefield than raw power.”

Everyone was a little hungry, so they retreated to the Silver Saucer to get a bite to eat. Rory ordered a small sandwich on a big croissant. She sipped some tea while Carina lapped up a small soda.

“By the way,” Jada said in between bites of her pastry, “I saw your coming out online. Congrats on figuring it out. I guess that explains why you’re here.”

“You don’t mind, do you?” Rory asked. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

Jada shrugged, admitting, “I don’t see why it would be. You’re still you, after all.”

Rory’s phone started to chirp. She pulled it out of her dress to check. There was an alert for her. Coraline was in a fight, and there was footage. Setting her food aside, Rory pulled it up.

Coraline was in the middle of a mostly-full parking lot, facing against a large ice-blue creature. It looked like a very long eel with millipede legs, but the most noticeable thing was its mouth. The jaws sprang open like an umbrella to reveal a huge gaping maw filled with flat, yellow teeth as it plunged toward Coraline.

She leapt up on top of a car to avoid the attack, raising her hand to manifest a large mechanical shield covered in glowing lines. At the center was what looked like a small cannon barrel. The creature (”A Cold Gnawer,” Carina explained.) twisted its long head in midair and slammed into the shield. Mechanical boots appeared around Coraline’s ankles, bolting her to the car she was standing on, which started to collapse in on itself under the weight.

A burst of blue light fired from the center of the shield, pushing the Cold Gnawer back a few yards. It roared and charged in again, this time managing to knock Coraline off of the car. Rory put her phone away and stood up.

“Coraline is in trouble,” she said. “We have to go help her.”

“Hold on,” Jada said, raising a hand. “Coraline has experience. She’s got this on her own. Magical girls don’t go around helping each other.”

“And every year, magical girls end up dead,” Rory retorted. “I’m not letting that happen in my city because you are all too proud to admit you need help. I’m going, whether you come or not.”

She gestured for Carina to follow and started walking away. After a few moments, she heard Jada get up from her seat and start to follow. Without looking behind her, Rory activated her magical girl powers and leapt up onto the roof to get some more room to run.

They followed Carina and Thunder’s magical sense, but it wasn’t long before the two could pick up on the sounds of a scrap nearby. The Cold Gnawer had a fierce roar and the sound of car alarms was incessant. They ran into the parking lot, which looked like a bomb had gone off, to find Coraline still behind her shield and circling the creature. She didn’t look too hurt, but her outfit had a few bloodstains and tears.

The Cold Gnawer lashed out with one of its legs, much faster than Rory would have thought possible. She jumped in, creating a violet barrier just before Coraline was slammed from the side. Coraline scowled at her, but said nothing.

The sound of a shredding guitar caught the creature’s attention. Jada was playing a riff and a musical staff had emerged from the aether to start wrapping itself around the Cold Gnawer. It thrashed and stomped its many legs in hopes of breaking itself free.

The musical staff didn’t seem strong enough to slice into the creature. Rory’s orange blasts and yellow swipes weren’t doing much good either. Only the red lances managed to pierce the cold outer shell. Coraline flanked it from the other side, using some kind of modified nail gun to shoot rusty metal spears into its side.

There was a loud screech and suddenly the creature seemed to shatter. Icy dust filled the air, and Rory had to wave it away so she could breathe easy. She grinned and planted her hand on her hip. Job well done.

When the dust cleared, there were two Cold Gnawers standing there. Each was about half the size of the original, perhaps a little smaller. Rory gulped and turned to Carina.

“Phase two!” was all Carina cried, giving her a thumbs up.

One creature went for Rory, the other for Coraline. Rory protected herself with a barrier while Jada wrapped her musical staff around the creature’s legs, hoping to trip it up. But Rory could see that Coraline was getting tired and struggling with her own, much more aggressive gnawer.

“Help Coraline!” Rory cried to Jada. “I’ll keep this one busy.”

Jada nodded and obliged, quickly trading her guitar for her drumsticks and running over to help Coraline.

Rory grit her teeth and cracked her neck.

“Alright,” she said, holding out her staff. “Let’s see if you have any weaknesses.”

The gnawer charged at her, splaying its jaw wide and exposing all those flat, ugly teeth. Rory dodged, though the ground shook where the creature hit it. Her staff started to glow green as Rory generated a big green spike from the ground to pierce its mouth. The monster reeled back, crying in anguish, before turning to face Rory again.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rory could see that Jada and Coraline were having better luck than her. Jada was using a saxophone and Coraline had a big mechanical sword that turned into a razor whip. She turned her attention back to her own Cold Gnawer. It hissed at her before trying to pierce her with another one of its legs.

Rory had to be patient. She would take a few hits against her barrier, then drop it and send out another red lance. There were cracks in this thing’s armor, but it didn’t seem to be bothered by them. It wasn’t opening its mouth anymore, though Rory could see blue blood trailing from the openings in its jaw.

Suddenly, the creature seemed to slow, then stop as a rhythmic jazz solo started playing. Rory glanced behind her to see Jada playing a tune, her saxophone glowing with soft light. Emerging from the bell were multicolored musical notes, which floated up and toward the Cold Gnawer. Turning her attention back to it, Rory saw Coraline standing on top of the creature. She twisted the handle of the sword, causing it to separate into a spiked whip again, and with an impressive maneuver managed to get it hooked on the creature’s jaw.

With a heave, Coraline managed to pry the jaw open a little bit. The monster started to fidget a little as the intoxicating melody was interrupted by the pain. Before it could react much, though, the string of musical notes reached its open mouth.

There was a series of small explosions and Rory had to cover her ears, dropping her staff in the process. She felt a bit of the shock wave and turned away to shield her eyes. There was a slam as the monster finally came down on another row of cars, Coraline landing gracefully on the ground.

“Took forever to figure out how to do that,” she said.

“Cold gnawers are rare,” Thunder explained, peeking over Jada’s shoulder. “We don’t have a lot of strategies to fight them.”

“I’m grateful for the help,” Coraline insisted. Her yellow pixie, Birch, just folded his arms and scoffed. “I would not have been able to handle two at once.”

“What are friends for?” Rory asked.

Coraline seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “Yeah. What are friends for?”

“Awesome,” Jada said, clasping her hands together. “We’ve got our own little posse of magical girls.”

Coraline wrinkled her nose a little.

“Something wrong?” Carina asked.

“It’s just…” Coraline sighed, then told Rory, “I heard that you think you’re trans now. I just… I don’t know, Rory. I can’t help but wonder if you feel that way just because you want to fit in better.”

Rory felt like she’d just taken a blow to the chest from a shield cannon.

“The bureau has known that she’s transgender for longer than anyone else has,” Carina retorted, floating in between them. “That’s why she got the job in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Thunder added. “And even if it wasn’t, she wants to be a girl now, doesn’t she?”

Coraline turned to Birch, who shrugged and said, “She’s clearly gotten stronger. It must mean that she feels more at ease with her identity, now.”

“Fine, whatever,” Coraline said. “It just feels like something she should have known before agreeing to become a magical girl.”

“We all figure things out at our own pace,” Jada reminded her.

“I said whatever,” Coraline said again. “I’ll see you both around.”

She took off, and Carina asked Rory, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she mumbled.

Jada had to go soon after. Marisol’s place was nearby, though, so Rory and Carina headed in that direction. There was no reason not to travel by rooftop, though.

“Who’s going to pay for that mess back there?” Rory asked Carina. “I can’t imagine insurance is happy to pay out for monster attacks.”

“The bureau has some deep pockets,” Carina explained. “Pixie magic can be used to produce luxury items that fetch a high price in the right markets. We also make arrangements with world governments to help cover some of the damages so people aren’t completely out of luck.”

Marisol invited Rory in, noting, “You look a little better than the last time I saw you.”

She made them some tea and the two sat down.

“I saw the news,” Marisol continued. “You three made quite the team out there. There was a point where magical girl teams was the standard, but even by the time I became one it was starting to go out of fashion. You need to be careful, though. Just because you’re stronger doesn’t mean you can get reckless.”

“So you know what happened?”

“Rory, everyone in this state knows about you coming out of the closet.”

She sank a little bit into the couch.

“Probably wasn’t the best way to handle that.”

“It really was not,” Carina agreed.

Rory asked, “Is there any news about Cynthia?”

Marisol shook her head.

“The bureau hasn’t told me anything about Miss Peterson. That doesn’t mean she’s innocent, it doesn’t mean that she’s guilty. I’m sure we’ll hear one way or another soon enough.”

“I know it’s her,” Rory said, putting her mug down. “And I’m stronger now. I want to go after her.”

“That’s not smart,” Marisol said quickly. “You might not be strong enough to go after another magical girl, especially one we know nothing about, not even where she gets her powers from.”

“Thank you,” Carina said, before telling Rory, “I know you’re eager to get to the bottom of what she’s doing, but the last thing we need is for you to get hurt because she surprises us. Remember how she already knew more about you than you knew about her the last time we encountered her? We don’t know how she got into your head like that or what else she may know.”

Rory grumbled, but picked her tea back up.

“What if I don’t go after her alone?” she asked. “I can recruit Jada and Coraline to help me. Maybe I can even recruit Amira and Liv. They’ll want to stop her as well.

“I don’t know about that,” Marisol said. “Teaming up to defeat a planar invader is one thing. Hunting down a person is another. People might not be on board with that idea. And coordinating a whole team is something that isn’t really taught to magical girls anymore.”

“I can try, at least.”

Carina asked, “How would we even get in contact with everyone? So far we’ve just been stumbling into them.”

“I can help with that.” Wolf fluttered over. “I know where everyone lives. I can get in contact with everyone and ask them to meet with you so you can plead your case.”

Wolf didn’t look quite as perky as Rory remembered him being. Something seemed to be weighing him down. She shoved that thought aside for the time being, though.

“That would be super helpful!” she told him. “How fast do you think you can do it?”

“Give me a couple of days.”

“Good,” Carina said. “We’ll need that time to practice.” To Rory, she added, “Also, for you to do some more schoolwork you’ve been putting off.”

QuillRabbit

I haven't mentioned it before, but I really love Rory and Carina's relationship. The two just bounce off of each other in such a cute way that is a lot of fun to write. I won't lie: I've always kind of wanted a Carina of my own.

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