“By My Will, So Mote It Be!”
Elen feels the divine power growing in her body again, hotter and stronger than the night before. It releases in a flash of light and she changes into her Apostle form.
Salacia’s eyes widen and sparkle. “You’re a magical girl?!” She sticks her face close to Elen’s, all traces of fear apparently vanished. “This is so cool! Just like in the manga Magical Cat Francesca!”
‘That’s zero to sixty in no time flat,’ Elen thinks as Salacia pokes and prods at her outfit.
“But aren’t you supposed to wear pink? And isn’t your hair supposed to be in twin tails? Oh! Do you have a crush on the school jock or a cute little mascot?”
“Will you stop that already?!” Elen curses as the beast pounces at the stall doors, breaking it apart and causing both girls to shriek. Elen scoops Salacia up and jumps and runs to relative safety. “Damn, you’re light.”
“I have to be for someone to lift me during routines. It’s mostly muscle though,” Salacia replies happily. “So if you’re transforming in front of me, does that mean I’m allowed to know about your secret identity?”
“Yeah. Especially since you’re also going to be transforming to fight.”
“Really?! I can?! How?”
‘I don’t know whether to call this girl stupid or naïve.’ Elen puts Salacia down behind a row of lockers. “You’re a heathen, so I don’t know if it’ll work for you, but try using my phrase. When I transformed the first time, I was told to pray to activate my powers.”
The beast finds the pair again, swiping at them and batting Elen away as if she’s nothing. She slams painfully into the lockers, pissed that she keeps colliding into hard surfaces before climbing to her knees and conjuring her wand. Elen points the wand to the beast and wills the butterfly-shaped energy to shoot out. It does and hits the beast to make it back away.
Elen glances to Salacia, watching the entire thing with stars in her eyes and apparently completely forgetting that they’re in mortal danger right now.
“Transform! Now! Just focus on the energy inside of you!”
“Ah! Got it!”
Salacia closes her eyes, focusing her mind inward. How she communes with the gods and the energies associated with it. She feels an energy well up within her from head to toe, something she’s sure she’s never felt before but is too warm and familiar that she must have.
“By My Will, So Mote It Be!”
Light engulfs Salacia, dying down after transforming her into her own Apostle form. She pulls on her hair to see it’s turned light blue, loose and wavier than before. Salacia’s outfit has turned into a blue, strapless dress with a short, slightly puffy skirt, coupled with a wrap in a toga-style pinned on her shoulder with the Triple Moon Brooch and cinched with a silver belt. Her legs are covered with fishnet stockings matched with fishnet gloves, with a grey garter with a blue ribbon on her left leg. Grey knee-high boots that resemble a figure skater’s complete the outfit quite well.
On Salacia’s upper arms are silver cuffs with light-blue icosahedrons decorating them, matching her earrings and the bail on her blue mjölnir choker, showing off her Mark of an inverted triangle on her sternum. On her head is a silver circlet with a swirling design and a blue icosahedron in the center.
Salacia looks at herself through the locker room mirror to see her eyes have also turned a silvery color, twirling to get a better look and she squeals in delight. “This is so cute!”
“Less talking, more fighting!” Elen lands next to Salacia before hooking an arm around her middle and pulling her to a seemingly safe spot. She sets Salacia down and moves her hand to her side before she remembers that the icosahedron card was in her purse that she now doesn’t have access to. “God fucking damn it all!”
“Shouldn’t I have a weapon or something?”
“Working on that!”
Salacia pouts, mumbles something about how she doesn’t have to be so mean, but Elen doesn’t pay it much attention. She fires her wand at the encroaching beast to draw blood and making it retreat for the moment. She takes this split second to sort her thoughts. Salacia needs her wand. But how the hell is she supposed to get the card without dissolving her transformation and delaying this?
The palm of Elen’s left hand begins to glow and the icosahedron card lands in it. Right. Magick.
She’s brought back to the fight when the snarling beast stalks towards them and Elen shoots her wand again. “Damn monster’s stubborn. Animals usually turn tail and run when they’re injured.”
“Isn’t this how it usually is during fights?”
“Don’t know. I’ve only been doing this for about twelve hours and this is the second one I’ve faced.” Elen hands the card over to Salacia, which turns into a grey wand topped with a light blue icosahedron once it’s in her hands.
Salacia glances at the wand before pointing it towards the beast that’s still at bay thanks to Elen’s attack and waving it in a rather childish fashion. “How do I use this? Just point and shoot?”
“Wands are used to direct energy. Just feel the energy within you and direct that to your attack.” Elen jumps back into the fray to start kicking at the beast.
Salacia looks to the fight, how Elen is punching at the monster and breaking off its teeth, then to the wand in her hands. Alright. She can do this. She stands, grips the wand tightly, and concentrates on the energy that she’d felt during her transformation. It wells up from somewhere in her chest before she directs it to the wand. The energy fired causes her to recoil painfully into the wall behind her. Salacia stands her ground though, and the energy continues to flow like rushing rapids in the shape of dolphins.
Elen upswings her wand when Salacia’s attack wanes. The result is that the energy cuts deep into the beast’s front leg, almost severing it as it howls in pain. She smirks. This is perfect for cutting open the chest and destroying that sphere quickly. She winds up her arm, focuses her energy, and—
“OW!” Elen steadies her stance as she presses her hand on her back as she glares at a sheepish Salacia.
“Hee hee! Sorry!”
Elen groans, but jumps to dodge a paw and lands next to Salacia’s side. She holds her wand to point at the beast and nods her head for Salacia to do the same. “Aim at its chest and fire.”
“Got it!”
Salacia holds her wand up the same way Elen does, and focuses her energy. It’s sporadic, uneven, but it’s powerful and packs a good punch. Elen and Salacia pour their energy into their wands, concentrating and wounding the beast until its chest splits open to reveal the sphere and the rapidly spinning object in it.
“Just a little more!”
With one last burst of power, the sphere breaks and the top-like object shatters into pieces. The beast roars in agony as it disintegrates into nothingness, the same as the night before.
The pair pant heavily. That happened. Salacia actually fought a monster like in one of her mangas. And won no less!
Salacia turns to glomp on Elen, bouncing and twirling around while screaming into Elen’s ear. “WE DID IT!”
Elen wants to rub the ringing out of her ears, but instead decides to rub Salacia’s back. “Yes. Yes we did, Salacia.”
“Oh! You can call me ‘Sal’.”
Elen looks up to the ceiling, asking herself if she's actually the weird one in this situation.
“Hey, Mystia. May I ask you something?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Elen takes a second to gather her thoughts, seeing Salacia look around with sparkling eyes as David shows the vision again. The story seems even more unreal upon hearing it the second time. “I don’t have any wounds from last night. Do these powers have anything to do with that?”
Mystia tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “Your Magick was dormant before you awakened as an Apostle. Now that it’s active, you have accelerated healing abilities. Better than explaining it to your family.”
“I live alone. Since it’s ‘active’ now, would I be able to use the Magick when I’m not transformed?”
“So long as it doesn’t change the course of nature, you can use the Magick in your human form no problem.”
Breath stills in Elen’s lungs and she has to force herself to make it work again. “Human form”. As if she’s no longer human. “Is Magick is how you summoned my Brooch?” Mystia nods. “But you’re not an Apostle.”
“About a year ago, I was plagued with strange dreams. David is known in certain circles for his powers, so I went to him and he unlocked my past memories of being a faerie in service to the gods. Since then, we’ve been working together to find you guys and unlock your powers.”
“So you’re duty-bound to do this.”
“I don’t see this as a duty. I would do this even if I wasn’t once a faerie.”
Elen looks down as David consecrates Salacia. ‘Would I do this if I wasn’t an Angel in my past life?’ She shakes her head. ‘Even so, something is wrong here. More than it being like something out of a movie.’
“Thy name is ‘Apostle Aqua’.”
Salacia glows with the divine light, the same Elen had seen when she saw her during her figure skating routine. Is that what she looked like the night before? Elen doubts it.
When the light dies down and David steps back, Salacia pulls her shirt to see her Apostle Mark now permanently etched into her skin. She squeals and bounces on the balls of her feet like a poodle puppy.
“This is so cool!” she exclaims, taking Elen’s hands and spinning them around the room. “Now, you and I will be the best crime-fighting team of the century!” She stops to let go of Elen’s hands and strike a pose like something out of Charlie’s Angels.
Elen puts a hand to her head in an attempt to restore some equilibrium. Tiny girl, lots of energy. “Let me ask you something, Salacia.”
“‘Sal’.”
“Right. Sal.” Elen takes a breath to calm herself down. “Why is it that you’re so damn eager to be a part of this whole thing?”
Salacia takes Elen’s hands again and she’s almost scared of the pure joy in her eyes. “I’ve been dreaming of something like this ever since I first watched Sailor Moon! Almost as long as my dream of going to the Olympics!” She pulls Elen into a near-bone-crushing bear-hug. “You coming here all cool and the like then telling me that I’m also a magical girl… This is one of the best days of my life!”
‘Naïve. Definitely naïve.’
“Well, the two of you have been through a lot today,” Fredrick says with a smile that Elen wants to slap off. “Why don’t you both go home?”
Grateful for the out, Elen pries Salacia off of her to quickly leave the apartment with hurried farewells. It’s still mid-afternoon, so she wonders if she should go out for lunch. Nah. There’s still pasta in her fridge. Best to finish that before wasting money on restaurants.
After she scans her AIDCard and steps on to the platform for her train, Elen feels an arm wrap around her shoulders. She turns to see that it’s Salacia, still grinning like a fool.
“So, what do we call those monsters, anyway?”
“Don’t know, don’t really care. I just want to get rid of them and go back to living my life.”
Salacia sulks. “That’s boring.”
“Not every magical girl story has to be exciting, Sal.” The train pulls up and the two embark onto the car and take their seats. “Besides, I haven’t done this for even twenty-four hours. I haven’t had enough time to completely process this situation.”
With a hum, Salacia asks, “Well, you must have an idea of where they come from.”
“If what they say about ‘Satan’ is correct, then probably ‘Hell’. Obviously not the same Hel as what you believe in.” Elen leans back and rests her head against the window, glad it’s cold so that she can cool herself down. “A load of crap if you ask me. Even if there is an ‘absolute evil’, as long as you don’t believe in it then it can’t hurt you.”
“I take it that you’ve had bad experiences with people who have those beliefs?”
“I grew up in a town that was largely a Fundamentalist Christian cult before coming here. That, Sal, was Hell. Especially as a twelve-year-old Witch.”
Salacia quiets down. What is she supposed to say to that?
“Bes Station! Bes Station!”
Elen and Salacia follow other passengers to disembark the train. They part ways at the station’s exit, and Elen goes back to her apartment building.
As soon as she gets to her apartment, Elen shrugs off her jacket and slips off her sneakers before collapsing onto her couch. She should eat something first. But the couch is comfy, the sunshine is warm, and the combination of a terrible night’s sleep and another fight has completely depleted her energy levels. Surely a little nap wouldn’t hurt.
A young woman kisses her girlfriend, long and sweet after an amazing date. She feels hands slide up and under her shirt and they break apart. The young woman knows that look in her girlfriend’s eyes. One that promises only good things. But not tonight. She has an important project at work that she needs to present first thing in the morning. Her girlfriend pulls a face but gives her one last sweet kiss before they part ways.
She’s almost back at her apartment, so she takes her AIDCard out from her jean pocket. There’s a strange figure next to her building’s door, cloaked but the golden eyes show a carnal fierceness. The young woman moves her thumb to the pad, fully intending to summon the police if things get dicey.
She doesn’t have a chance to do so as the cloaked figure stretches out a hand and she feels a pain in her chest. She can’t scream. Can’t make any kind of sound. Her vision turns black as light leaves her body and gathers in the figure’s hand.
“You’ll make fine bait.”
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