The shout startled all three of them. Cody jumped, Jessica snapped her head toward the source while the rest of her body froze, and Max summoned his demonic sword to his hand on reflex.
The magical girls emerged from the cave, where their hidden portal was. Pretty Spark stomped her way out, glaring at Jessica, but stopped a fair distance away upon spotting Max and his sword.
“Wha…” Jessica managed.
She did not expect to run into the magical girls here. A tiny part of her was annoyed that someone left the portal open, but the bigger issue was that somehow, the magical girls knew who she was now.
Dammit, she should have kept the mask on like Cody and Max had.
“I knew it!” Spark yelled as she stabbed a finger in Jessica’s direction. “You’re the troll minion, Jessica!”
Spark’s teammates merely stared in shock.
“And what is this about us destroying the world?! The demons are the good guys?! We’re being manipulated?! What kind of nonsense is that?!”
A million thoughts ran through Jessica’s head. What to do? How to react? Come clean? Explain everything? What Nomed had told her? What if the magical girls being ignorant was somehow important to preventing destruction? Surely, someone would have told them everything otherwise, right?
…
Jessica stared back at Spark for a tense few moments before she narrowed her eyes and said, “Well… this is… unexpected.”
The low drawn-out tone of her voice startled the magical girls and her fellow minions alike.
“I take it that you four know nothing about the imminent destruction of both worlds then?” Jessica asked, putting as much intimidation and authority as she could manage into her voice.
She wasn’t sure whether this was the right move, but she still didn’t know what part the magical girls would play in the supposed destruction. Maybe she was dumb for trusting Nomed’s words so easily, but she didn’t join the demons to help speed up the destruction, dammit.
“Whatever they told you, they have to be lying!” Flame shouted, finally recovering from the shock. “We’re the good guys! We’re trying to help! Destroying the world is the demons’ plot if anything!”
Jessica stared at her favorite magical girl with a frown. She didn’t like this at all.
“Then, riddle me this, Pretty Flame–” Jessica spread her arms, palms up. “-- If the demons’ goal was to defeat you and then destroy the world, why haven’t the generals ever attacked all at once? You can barely beat one at a time. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“I… That… There must be some kind of limitation…?” Flame tried to reason, failing to convince even herself. “Only one general can be on Earth at a time…?”
Jessica shook her head. “Even if there was some arbitrary limit on generals, they could simply send the strongest minions out.” She pointed a thumb back at Max. “My friend here is probably already as strong as the generals and I will soon become one myself. And we have no problem both existing on Earth at once.”
“Y-you will become…” Flame stuttered, her eyes widening again.
“Wait, I thought you were a human, Jessica!” Frost yelled, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “Were you a demon from another world all along then?”
Jessica snorted at that. “What? Of course not. The only real demon left in this world is the demon lord. Everyone else is a human with powers they got from a demonic spirit.”
That seemed to be another bombshell the magical girls hadn’t been expecting.
“The spirits… Oh…” Bloom whispered to herself.
Jessica started to realize that the magical girls knew quite literally nothing. They didn’t even know who they were fighting. Were they just pawns on the board of some hidden mastermind behind the scenes? Her heroes and idols, mere chess pieces?
Why did life have to keep kicking her worldview into pieces? First, when her mom died… Then when that jackass disappeared… And now…
“So…” Bloom spoke up. “You were visited by a demonic spirit, then? All three of you?”
“Hmm? Yes,” Jessica said before glancing at her minion friends. They nodded as well.
“And it…” Bloom flicked her eyes to Frost for a moment before looking back at Jessica. “Offered you power…”
“That’s right…” Jessica’s eyes narrowed.
“And you just… accepted?” Bloom finished her Q&A segment, seeming to put some puzzle pieces together inside her head.
Maybe the magical girls knew something? Well… It couldn’t hurt to tell them this at least.
“My plan from the very beginning was to join as a double agent of sorts,” Jessica said with a shrug. “Pretend to be on their side, make a name for myself, and then open the backdoor for you so you could beat the demon lord.”
A moment of silence followed as the magical girls stared at her wide-eyed.
“Wait, so that message… You were serious about that?” Spark muttered.
“A-are you crazy?!” Flame followed that with a shout. “Why would you do something so dangerous?!”
“What are you on about?!” Jessica shot back. “You totally okayed this!” She stabbed a finger in Flame’s direction.
“Wha– I didn’t! I would never!”
Jessica narrowed her eyes for a moment, before she breathed in, adjusted the muscles in her throat to imitate Flame’s voice, and began.
“Are you okay?” she said, stepping to the left and looking down to the right, her facial muscles mimicking concern.
She then stepped to the right, crouched ever so slightly, and looked up and to the left while changing her voice back to normal.
“Y-yeah… Thanks.”
Once again, she changed her position and voice before continuing.
“Sorry about that… sigh, I wish we knew where the demons would attack in advance somehow…”
“Like… Having a spy among the demons or something?”
“Hehe, yeah, sure, that would be nice. Just someone who could warn us in advance.”
“Alright! Gotcha! If I ever get the chance, I’ll become your spy in the demon army!”
“Uh, um, sure?”
“You can count on me! I’ll penetrate their ranks and flip the entire demon army upside down!”
“R-right…?”
Jessica finished her one-woman dialogue, still positioned as if she was standing over someone, and then slowly turned her head toward Flame, her expression blank.
A moment of silence as Flame’s jaw dropped and her cheeks dyed red.
“Oh…” Bloom spoke up after a good while. “I remember that conversation…”
“I-I-I didn’t mean it for real! I thought you were joking!”
Jessica snorted. “Really? That’s your excuse? The classic ‘It’s just a prank, bro’? Wow, I feel scammed!”
“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t think you would actually do it!”
Jessica couldn’t help it. She giggled.
Ah, damn… She had intended to come across as intimidating and stuff but somehow transitioned to friendly teasing now. How had that even happened? It felt so natural. Damn. What a crappy actress she was.
“Teasing aside…” Frost spoke up. “What was this about both worlds being destroyed? What makes you think we would be responsible?”
“I have no clue!” Jessica shrugged. “All they told me so far, was that the demons were actually trying to prevent the destruction of both worlds. But seeing as you don’t know anything, I assume keeping you in the dark is somehow important.”
“Well, that’s awfully convenient,” Spark grumbled.
“They said I’ll learn the full truth at the trial.”
“Trial?” Bloom asked.
“Yeah, some weird trial of the demon ancestor spirit boomers or whatever. The thing I need to go through to become a general.” Jessica crossed her arms and shrugged with her left shoulder.
“So, you’re really going to be a general…?” Flame asked, sadness seeping into her voice.
“Yup… Well, before that, Salem told me there would be one more attack.”
The magical girls tensed.
“And she wanted just me and herself to be in that attack. Some kind of final test to see if I’m worthy or whatever.” Jessica rolled her eyes.
“Right… So we’ll fight for real, is what you’re saying. Or at least, real enough to be convincing,” Frost concluded. “Otherwise she won’t let you do the trial, and you won’t learn the full truth.”
“Well… Yeah. I guess so.” Jessica gave them a wry smile.
Nobody felt comfortable with that, but it couldn’t be helped.
“So anyway… What is up with the aberrant demons?” Bloom then spoke up.
“The what?” Jessica frowned.
Bloom and Frost glanced at each other for a moment.
“We’ve had… a few incidents these past few days,” Bloom explained. “Demons coming to Earth and possessing people out of the blue.”
“Huh…?”
“One attacked a school. Possessed a kid and threw fire everywhere.” Bloom grimaced.
“That’s… What the hell?” Jessica turned to her fellow minions.
“First time I hear that,” Cody replied.
“... Me too,” Max agreed.
What was that about? Possessing a kid? Trying to burn down a school?
“That… should not happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are rules against things like this in the demon army,” Jessica explained. “The demons aren’t supposed to be trying to actually hurt anyone. Only intimidate at most.”
Frost frowned at that.
“Well, this one definitely was. And not just this one. We had to handle five similar cases already,” she stated.
Jessica mirrored her frown.
“Well… Something weird is going on then. I guess we have more digging to do now.”
How come she hadn’t heard about this though? Did the demon lord and the generals know? Who even were these aberrant demon spirits?
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Yay for actually healthy conversation inatead of throwing assumptions and escalating!
Thanks for sparing us that trope.
Yay, early chapter
Also I wonder why Jessica didn’t ask how they know her
@Num she doesn’t have her mask on, unlike Cody and Max.
@Clayton4956 But how do they know her name was my question
@Num Jessica and the magical girls know each other from, you know, constantly running into each other during demon attacks. :P
Like in chapter 6 and chapter 19. Or when they had the conversation Jessica had enacted by herself this chapter.
It happens so often, it's not that weird that they would learn her name eventually.
@BottledChaos I guess I forgot about that