They managed to lose the pursuers on their tail. Luckily, none of the generals followed them. The idiot had probably stalled them long enough.

Jessica still wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She had told him to do better, but this wasn’t what she had in mind! Granted, she didn’t really have anything in mind. She hadn’t been planning on ever forgiving him at all, in fact.

But for him to do a sacrificial play like that to let them all escape… Was it because of what she had told him? Had she indirectly killed him…?

Jessica mentally shook her head.

Something to address later. Right now, they still had a massive problem to tackle.

They made it to their hidden outpost in the mountains unseen and gathered around the teleporter. The magical girls got ready to power up the device to get back to Earth, while Jessica convinced Agent Eye that it was fine to let her down now.

“I’m no’ even slurring anymore… s’fine,” she slurred.

“Still, be careful. I couldn’t fully patch you up,” Agent Rose cautioned her.

“Yeh, yah” Jessica waved her off as she watched Frost and Bloom activate the portal.

“So you’re not a general anymore? Back to being a minion?” Spark asked, hints of mirth in her voice.

Rather than replying, Jessica tried testing it out. She held out her palm and concentrated. It took a lot of effort, but she eventually managed to scrape up enough magic to create a ping pong-sized ball of darkness. No matter how much she tried, that seemed to be her limit.

With a sigh, she reabsorbed the precious little magic back into herself and looked back at Spark. “Worse. I’m barely a lil’ moa than a baseline human now.” She frowned. “My pocket dimshn is intact tho. I could probly get my spear out wif’ some effort.”

“... fuck,” Agent Zero cursed. “So even if we kidnapped Trish, you probably can’t do the ritual either, huh?” She raised a hand to her mouth, probably wanting to bite her nails in frustration, but then remembered that her mask was in the way, so she settled for growling and curling her hand into a fist.

Jessica blinked. “Wha’? No. I can still do it. Jus’ cuz I don’t have any magic doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle magic anymore. But I’ll probably nee’ a bit of help.”

Zero blinked before heaving a sigh in relief. “Alright, so not everything is lost then. Silver linings…”

“I still can’t believe the demon lord did that to you…” Cody murmured. “I guess we were right being careful and not telling him everything.”

Jessica frowned, remembering what had happened. Baugh had been backing her up all the way until Frost had sent that dubious message. And then…

She shuddered.

Having Nomed enter was nothing compared to having him be ripped away. She’d genuinely thought she was dying back there.

She shook herself, trying to keep her mind off of that.

“No, he ‘as backing me up. But then Frost sent ‘at message and everyone heard it.”

Frost visibly cringed as murmured, “Sorry…” even as she and Bloom finished setting up the teleporter.

“Oh… And then he went ahead and ripped the spirit out of you?”

Jessica nodded… and then she remembered something. “But I… re’ayed a code phrase to him. ‘Let’s talk in private. Meet me North of the castle. I’ll signal you with lights.’ He seemed to understand it.”

Her not-so-secret black ops exchanged a look before Zero pinned her with a stare through her mask. “... You’re not actually planning on going there, are you?”

Jessica frowned. “I don’t think I should. Someone should though’. We need to get im’ on our side again. We just have to explain.”

The portal frame hummed and the glowing orb swirled into life, ready to be used for transportation.

“Then we’ll go,” Agent Eye said with conviction. “This is exactly the kind of mission you created the black ops for in the first place, isn’t it?”

The other three nodded.

Jessica eyed them with some trepidation.

It was dangerous. Baugh probably wouldn’t try to fight them, but if he did… they wouldn’t stand a chance. It was risky. Did she want to take the risk?

“Maybe we can even convince him to kidnap Trish for us,” Rose suggested. “If he cares so much about her, we just need to stress the dangers to him.”

Jessica pursed her lips.

“And in the meantime –” Spark interrupted, “-- the rest of us will return to Earth and make a plan for if your negotiation goes wrong.”

“Sounds good to me,” Cody agreed.

Everyone sans Jessica made sounds of agreement before turning to her.

Jessica sighed before grumbling, “Yeah, ok, fine. Les’ go with that.” She then looked straight into Zero’s eyes and said, “Don’t you dare die, ol’ lady. It’s enough that our idiot old man sacrificed himself for me.”

Zero just snorted. “That’s my line. You keep tossing yourself in the middle of everything…” She shook her head. “How about you let me have my turn and trust me a little, will ya?”

Jessica just clicked her tongue. “Trusting you is almost always a mistake,” she murmured.

“Alright,” Eye said with a nod. “Let’s depart then. You had another mini-base somewhere north of the castle, right?”

The former general nodded with a hum.

“Good luck, everyone,” Frost said, giving Eye a nod. Everyone echoed her, each magical girl looking at her predecessor.

Her black ops team shuffled out of the cave they were in and everyone else went through the portal. Frost and Bloom worked on disabling and blocking off the teleporter as the rest waited around.

“So… where do we go…?” Spark asked.

Jessica thought for a second before saying, “The school.” To Spark and Flame’s questioning glances, she shrugged and elaborated. “The demons know where me and Frost live, so not there.”

Flame hummed. “My place is pretty far… We could go to Bloom’s?”

Bloom shook her head. “My parents are there… and I would rather they don’t know about… well, everything.”

“Don’t look at me, my parents know nothing about demons and I would like to keep it that way,” Cody added with raised hands.

“School it is then,” Spark concluded. “We ought to check on the sealed demons anyway.”

With a round of nods, the group set off.