Magical Girl Origin - Fractured Time (Patreon)

Origin - One - Fractured Time

The first time Meagan was murdered was about three minutes after stepping off the bus.

Her class was visiting a local museum in what seemed like the cheapest, low-budget-est field trip in the history of field trips. She’d poked her nose into the big blue building with the floor-to-ceiling puzzles and decided that it wasn’t for her.

So she wandered off. Not too far, just back up the slight hill to where their bus was parked. The teacher, Miss Togonon, was the old-school sort who’d busy-body everyone soon enough. For the moment, she was just getting situated and getting things prepared with the tickets.

Then, quite out of nowhere, someone grabbed Meagan from behind.

She figured this wasn’t a joke when she felt something cold and sharp press up against her neck. Meagan fought back, of course, but a few impotent elbow swings didn’t stop the knife from opening up her neck.

She fell soon after, the world around her going very, very dizzy even as warm wetness crawled down her front.

Meagan didn’t expect much out of her life. She had a few simple hobbies, a couple of dreams. Nothing too special. She knew she wasn’t special, and that was okay. Still, she didn’t expect to die quite so soon.

MOVE ON.

Her mind continued to spin and twist, but something nagged at her. Who was it that slit her throat?

She had to know.

IMMORTALITY IS BUT A FACET OF TIMELESSNESS. BREAK THE FACE OF TIME, AND THROUGH THAT BREAK, EMBARK UPON AN ENDLESS QUEST. SATIATE YOUR CURIOSITY.

Something grabbed her just under the navel and pulled.

The voice, thunderous and impossible to miss, continued to bellow in her mind.

A SOUL UNWOUND OF THE MORTAL COIL, UNBOUND BY TIME. YOU ARE RELEASED, AND AS YOUR BELL TOLLS DEAD MY HAND SHALL GUIDE THEE.

“Who?” she asked.

I AM THE CHRONICLE. YOU ARE MY MASTER AND THE MASTER OF EONS, FRACTURED TIME.

Then she woke up with a start in the middle row of a bus that smelled like petrol and piss. She breathed hard, but her heart was steady and still.

Looking around, Meagan discovered a few things right away. First, this wasn’t the rickety field-trip bus. This was the bus she used to get to school. She pulled out her phone and blinked at the screen. It was before classes started.

That was, obviously, impossible.

Just to be sure, she ran a hand over her neck and felt at the lack of cuts there.

“You okay?”

She glanced to the side where Rosa, a girl she frequently sat next to, was pressed up against the window. “Uh.”

“You jumped. Did something bite you?” Rosa asked.

“Huh? No, I’m fine. I just... woke up?”

“But you weren’t asleep,” Rosa pointed out. “Weird.” She turned her head down and focused on her own phone, Meagan’s behaviour easily dismissed.

They were almost to her school, which was time she would have usually spent chatting or doomscrolling on her phone, instead, she kept looking around herself to make sure everything was real.

The trip to the puzzle museum had felt real... as real as any recent memory. She was starting to doubt her own sanity. So, of course, she tried to talk to the voice in her head. That meant thinking a tentative ‘hello’ first.

GREETINGS, MASTER.

She jumped again, and Rosa glanced up from her phone.

“Hiccups,” she lied.

Rosa nodded and looked back down. As soon as she wasn’t paying attention Meagan returned to thinking hard. First, who the voice was, and second... why?

I AM SHATTERED HOROLOGE, YOUR STAFF, YOUR WEAPON, YOUR GUIDE. I WAS SENT TO YOU BY YOU, TO UNVEIL THE PATH TO BECOMING A POWERFUL MAGICAL GIRL.

“I’m a magical girl?” Meagan asked, astonished and confused.

A few heads turned her way and she felt her cheeks warming. That had been louder than intended.

“Yeah, I always figured you were,” Rosa said. “The way you look at some girls.”

“N-not that way,” she hissed to Rosa. “I mean... I’m having a weird morning.”

“Uh-huh. You need something?” Rosa touched her purse, the offer obvious.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she replied before sitting back.

The bus soon arrived at her school and she grabbed her things and filed out with the rest. Her grade was the only one who had a field trip that day, and the trip was only in the first half of the day. She’d have to get to Miss Togonon’s class sooner or later.

But before that... “Hey, I need to use the washroom,” she said to Rosa.

“I’ll go with,” Rosa replied.

Meagan shook her head and made a small ‘no, no’ gesture. “I’ll be fine, promise.”

“Okay?” Rosa said. “You sure? I’ve got, like, gym clothes in my locker if you need something to change into.”

“It’s not that kind of thing,” Meagan said. “But thanks.” She darted into the school and then walked fast to the far end where there was a less-commonly used washroom right next to the gym. It wasn’t used as much because it was gross inside, having been last remodelled sometime in the late seventies, and only one of the three stalls had a working toilet.

Meagean leaned up against the front of the bathroom’s sink and stared at herself in the mirror.

“Am I dreaming?” she asked.

No one replied.

“Are you even real... Shattered Horologue?” She didn’t know what that word even meant. She’d look it up on her phone later though.

I AM REAL.

“Prove it,” she said.

SAY THE WORDS, AND I WILL BE BY YOUR SIDE.

She paused, considering what the voice in her head had just said. That was probably not a healthy thing to do. The words though... it took a moment, but she found them. Two words that just felt right.

“Move on.”

Time stopped.

She didn’t notice, not at first. The absence of time wasn’t immediately noticeable, after all. It was only in the silence that she didn’t hear time flowing. No talking from the old clock above the washroom door, no gurgling from the pipes, no distance voices and the squeak of sneakers from the main hall.

Then she noticed herself in the mirror.

Her clothes had changed. Her normal school outfit was a nice blouse and some jeans. Cheap but workable.

Now she was in a strange dress, with large lapels at the front that almost looked like a caplet and a short, pleated skirt. All in dark blues that verged on purple. She had a hat on too, a little thing with a wavy brim, some lace, and a cute bow on the side.

“Okay,” she said. “I am a magical girl... that’s cool.”

She twisted from side to side and checked herself out. The outfit was nice. A bit on the leggy side, and maybe it could have done something to suggest more in the chest, but she gave it two-thumbs-up.

It felt incomplete though. “Is there more?”

AS YOU GROW, SO WILL YOUR POWER, YOUR ABILITIES, AND YOUR MAGIC. YOUR COSTUME--A REFLECTION OF YOUR SOUL, WILL DISPLAY THESE CHANGES.

So, it wasn’t her final form. She was a magical girl noob. Great. She touched her hair, which now had a streak of white across it. Her glasses had changed too, from the fashionable square-rimmed ones she had to a smaller, more delicate pair with round frames decorated with faint filigree.

“Right. Magic. Okay.” She took a deep breath, and then time reasserted itself like a wave clawing onto shore.

She was still in her new outfit. Which might be an issue, but it was low on her list of problems at the moment.

“So, now what? Do I have to do something? I... guess I died, is there a price to pay for all of this? My soul? My eternal servitude? Am I going to turn into a man-eating witch? A creature of despair and evil?”

She’d seen her share of magical girl deconstruction anime, she knew what was up.

YOU PAY NO PRICE. YOU SERVE NO ONE BUT YOURSELF. YOU ARE FRACTURED TIME.

“Okay then,” Meagan said. “So, do I get a cute animal companion?”

ONLY MYSELF AND YOUR FELLOW MAGICAL GIRLS.

“So there’s others?”

YES.

“Will you tell me about them?”

NO.

She nodded. “Cool, cool. Yeah, totally great.” Leaning forwards, she grabbed onto the edge of the sink again and did a few rudimentary breathing exercises to calm herself down. There was a lot to take in, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it.

One thing was for certain though, she was a little more special than she’d anticipated.

“I can summon you, right? You’re a weapon?”

YOUR WEAPON.

“And you’re not some super-advanced alien AI jammed into my head to help me prevent the end of the world?” she asked, just to be sure.

I AM NOT. THOUGH THERE IS LITTLE I AM PERMITTED TO REVEAL ABOUT MY PAST.

“But you’re my weapon, and you’re meant to obey me, then couldn’t I order you to tell me?” she asked.

YES. BUT THE ORDER COMES FROM AN ENTITY WITH EQUAL AUTHORITY.

She grinned. There was the catch. “And who’s that? Or can you not say?”

I CAN REVEAL THAT THE ENTITY IS YOU.

Meagan paused, then frowned. “Well, that’s a catch-twenty-two, isn’t it?”

YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER TURNING YOUR ATTENTION TOWARDS YOUR MURDERERS. WHILE YOU BENEFIT FROM A MAGICAL GIRL’S CONSTITUTION, YOU ARE STILL NEW. STILL VULNERABLE.

For some reason, the thought of capturing the person who’d killed her hadn’t crossed her mind. “You don’t happen to know who that was, do you?”

I DO NOT.

“Meagan?” Rosa’s voice asked, the bathroom door was opening.

Meagan, of course, freaked out, she couldn't be seen dressed the way she easy (not just because she was certain the skirt wouldn’t pass muster with some of the older teachers who still believed that all skirts should end somewhere around the ankle) but also because it would all require a lot of explaining she wasn’t sure she was ready to do.

Time slowed to a crawl.

It wasn’t just a metaphor, she felt time slowing down as she panicked. “How do I undress?” she hissed.

THINK ABOUT IT.

Her eye twitched at the sarcastic reply, but then... she did think about it, eyes half- closed, breathing even. Her costume unravelled. Every thread flew back and away, even a bit of lace warped and twisted. It was like watching a fast-backward of someone putting together an intricate tapestry.

When it was all done, she was back in her blouse and jeans and Rosa stepped around the door into the washroom. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Meagan replied. She opened the tap and washed her hands in cold water. “Sorry. You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Rosa said. “Miss Togonon will have our heads if we’re late today. Got your permission slip and all of that?”

“Yeah, it’s all in my bag.”

The last time she’d lived that moment she’d had a small panic attack when she couldn’t find the slip. This time she knew it was in the outer pocket of her bag. Time travel, she imagined, was going to be great to have when it came to life’s little inconveniences.

They rushed back to their classroom where the old teacher and a pair of parent volunteers were checking over everyone’s permission slips. The blackboard was covered in instructions which basically boil down to: Don’t be an embarrassment; and do as I say.

She joined Rosa in chatting with a few others, but she wasn’t feeling terribly social. For one thing, she’d heard all the gossip already, and while rehearing gossip was part of what made gossip fun, she wasn’t used to hearing it so exactly twice in a row. Besides, her mind was on other things, like figuring out who in her class, if anyone, had murdered her, why, and also what to do about the whole... magical girl thing.

She definitely needed to watch more anime.

Maybe time travel could help with that?

“Meagan?” one of the girls asked.

“Sorry, I was just... hey, if you suddenly have time powers, would you be okay with using them to binge TV shows?”

“What kind of question is that?” Rosa asked with a laugh.

Meagan laughed along too. “I don’t know. Better than finding out who Jason slept with this week. So what if he’s after Maria again.”

“You heard about that too?”

The teacher called the excited class to attention, and then gave them a half-hour-long lecture about safety and not wandering away from the group which she took a lot closer to heart now than she did the last time.

As they left the school and boarded a bus driven by a man old enough to be her grandpa (probably not him, even if he was close to where she was murdered. He looked a little too thin to pull it off) she kept looking at her fellow classmates and wondering which one, if any, was the one who’d tried to kill her.

For a silly trip to a strange museum, it was turning out to be pretty darned tense.

***

Art by: Fnostic!
Find them here: https://twitter.com/Fnostic1

Week Two of the magical girl origins!