Vitalizers Chapter 3 - ATTEN-TION! (OC Militarization TF/MC) (Patreon)

They say women love a man in uniform - but what about the inverse? -Glamour Gala

Is Modern Apathy How Villains Gain Minions? -Buzzfae article.

Lecroix MagiTronics to unveil new home-use magitech this month, stocks expected to rise -Atlas Times

—————

Maya Lecroix woke up early. 5:00 AM sharp, a time she’d gotten up at for long enough that she didn’t need an alarm anymore; it was just the time that her body woke up.

The morning began with stretches, then she went downstairs to the gym. Her instructor was already awake as well, and prepared for her morning practice. Boxing each morning kept her fit, and in practice even when there was a period without a mission. She was not a Magical Girl with enough raw power to rely on it like Alex, and nor was her ability so purely a magical act that she couldn’t practice it in mundane form, like Celica. Magic could make her punches powerful, but it wouldn’t teach her how to throw one right. That was what her parents had insisted.

When her morning practice was done at 6:30, she took a shower. An attendant helped her with her hair afterwards, and while the woman was quite kind, Maya would really rather have dismissed her.

Breakfast was at 7:00 AM. She sat at the table, eating her well balanced breakfast quietly. Father was late as usual, but Mother kept up some polite conversation.

“How are you feeling, Maya?” her mother asked.

“I’m fine, Mother. Thank you.”

“I know it was a few days ago, but are you sure it was ok for the Association to let you go so easily?” Maya’s mother insisted.

“Yes, they are professionals and I trust their judgement.” Maya said.

This particular conversation had repeated for each of the two days since she had come home after being temporarily brainwashed into a minion during a fight with a villain. It was not an uncommon issue amongst Magical Girls.

“Next time she won’t get caught like that.” Said a new voice. Father had arrived - he’d always had a hard time waking up early, spending much of his nights dealing with the business of the family in the Magitech field, reviewing designs and such. “You’ve reviewed what you did wrong, yes?”

“I allowed emotion to get the better of me. I did not confirm my target before I engaged. I struck without an escape plan. I didn’t get the Handler to confirm the target location.” Maya repeated once again. “I understand.”

She could feel her eye twitching. She’d fucked up, yeah. Did he have to get on her about it?

“That new Handler… she sounds like she wasn’t as on top of things as she should have been. It shouldn’t have been able to get that dire if all it took was one strike once you actually found the man.” Maya’s mother said.

Maya could feel her eye twitching. “Hina was essential in completing the mission, and any other Handler would have had the same problems.” She said. Her voice was still the carefully neutral tone she kept normally, but one with a harsh edge to it. “I messed up myself, not her.”

“Okay, okay. I understand, you’re the one out there. We’re very proud of you, but we worry, you know?”

“I understand.” Maya said, though her tone didn’t shift. She reached up to adjust her glasses. “Just to make certain, the tests we did revealed nothing new, correct?”

“Magical abilities are at expected levels, yes.” Maya’s father confirmed. “Nothing out of the ordinary, your growth is as steady as ever.”

Maya nodded. She didn’t say anything else. She had been the one to screw up - she’d let her team down and got herself turned into an additional threat. If her team was less competent things might have really gone poorly as a result, a cascading failure from her own to everyone else. But the rest of them had their act together while she was skipping around the stage like a brainless floozy.

She had to do better. She had to be better. Just growing as expected wasn’t cutting it anymore, that much seemed clear if she was going to have such an easy fall.

But maybe it was for the best she remained weaker - make a weaker minion if she was just going to keep dragging the team down… she shook her head. No, bad thoughts. She had to get stronger, to keep improving, as she always had. She couldn’t mess up any more than she ever had room to mess up.

The meal passed in awkward silence, and then Maya decided to go out. The Lecroix family had people to handle the shopping if they wanted them to, but Maya wanted to go and do something for herself.

—————

The shopping district was full of people - it was a weekend after all, and students on their days off along with a not small amount of adults had flooded the district. The number of people and their disorder usually bothered Maya. It was hard to hear yourself think in such conditions. But there was nothing supremely attention consuming at the moment anyway, and it let her mind wander.

She’d decided to come for newer books, and had found them easy enough. While she was there, she’d texted some of the hired help to ask if the house was missing anything; she was out anyway, so she might as well pick some stuff up, so in addition to her books she had some food.

It was lunch now, and the crowd only growing thicker. She stopped in a cafe to get something to eat and drink and relax for a little bit, when she noticed a commotion outside. There was the rat-tat-tat of drums, and people crowding around to watch something. Was there a parade or something? She was pretty sure there wasn’t supposed to be anything of the sort out there; it wasn’t a holiday as far as Maya was aware.

She looked out, and then noticed what the “parade” actually was. There was a group of women in dark, militaristic uniforms marching along the street. A team of women dragged along a big rolling platform, while a pair at the front forcefully cleared cars out of the way. Standing on the platform was a woman in not too dissimilar attire - but her uniform was ornate and white, decorated with lion faces and giving off an air of authority, and she had a whip on her side.

One of the women in front blew a horn, and called for the march to stop. The woman on the platform - tall, athletic, and with a statuesque beauty - called loudly. “Fools of New Union! I am The Marshal! I come to tell you - you are weak! Your modern lives, your petty squabbles, have rendered you as mewling infants before your betters! I come to bring us strength. The world was not meant to hold such fools as you. I am not offering. I am not asking. Those who join me willingly will be rewarded - those who deny me, will be conscripted.”

The woman was… not the best at speeches, in Maya’s frank opinion. But she didn’t need to be; there was magic on her voice and in the drums of the legion, along with in the crack of her whip, and already some were beginning to step into the line and transform, clothes turning into the black, stiff uniforms of the soldiers.

Maya sighed and adjusted her glasses. There was already an alert going off on her bag. “Hello?” she asked one young woman who was staring out the window. She jerked out of her stupor and looked at Maya, who pointed at her purchases. “Would you watch my bags? I need to take care of something.”

—————

Those who had not been close enough for the speech and the drums and the horn to convert them outright were now running. It was for the best - that way they couldn’t get in the way of the fighting. Of course, soldiers weren’t making it that easy. They brought up weapons, and fired. Rather than bullets however, the guns fired paralyzing beams. After someone was frozen by one, they were dragged into the line and converted into another uniformed soldier woman.

Maya - now in the magical form of Vita Rose, brimming with magical power and energy - didn’t leap into the fray immediately. She was a woman who liked to plan things out, or at least get an idea of what she was facing before throwing herself into a fight - even in her rather more reckless magical form. <Hold tight Maya, we’re on our way!> came Hina’s call over the comms; she and the other two Vitalizers had been at MGA HQ for some reason or another. On her map of the city, three symbols - a blue dot, a yellow dot, and a pink dot - were approaching her location.

The soldiers weren’t quite mindless - but they also didn’t have all that much initiative of their own. With the exception of The Marshal’s attendant who’d blown the horn, they all wore full-face covering helmets and did not speak. Practically drones, unable to do anything but what their master told them. Even moreso than with most Villains, the Marshal was in driect control of these women (and men turned women; why was it that so many Villains preferred female minions?); end the Marshal and the fight’s over.

Vita Rose watched on her phone as her allies approached, block by block. How long would they take? Vita Sky and Vita Sun had some limited flight ability (more an especially high jump then gliding down, really) so they could make good time. But each minion grew the Villain’s strength, and at this time of day in this area, there were a lot of people to transform.

From Vita Rose’s observation post on top of a building, the ‘parade’ was passing just below. Soon the Marshal’s platform would pass her. She could take the chance. Go for the knock out right away.

She checked the map again. Still not close enough.

But the Villain was right there.

She could do it herself. She could make it so the others didn’t need to put themselves in harms way.

Normally, Maya’s rationality would have interceded to make her be patient, reposition to ambush the bad guy after her friends arrived. But Vita Rose was not patient.

Vita Rose took a deep breath, and leapt down.

The ground rushed up beneath her, and so did the villain. Vita Rose wreathed her fist in magic and took aim. She had a dead shot at the woman’s head - she could send her flying with a blow.

Suddenly - moments before she was close enough to make contact - there was a shift, a thunder of boots marching and changing position as there was suddenly a wall of bodies in between Maya and her foe. When her punch landed it wasn’t on the Marshal, but on the unfortunate random soldier who had interposed herself between Magical Girl and Villainess. The minion went flying, as did several behind her from the shockwave of the magical punch.

“Damn it.” Vita Rose muttered under her breath. But she didn’t take that as an excuse to slow down her attack or freeze up. She wasn’t here to make an introductory speech or get into a dramatic battle of wills, especially not with somebody who’s voice seemed to have powerful hypnotic qualities if she paid it too much attention.

The minions had their rifles still - but Vita Rose had landed in their midst, so they didn’t have the range to use them effectively; they were more likely to hit their buddies or even their ‘glorious leader’  than her. So Maya decided to keep that range nice and close. She yanked the rifle out of one’s hands and tossed it into a pair to her side, while in the same motion kicking out behind her to take one that had tried to sneak around. The soldiers dropped rifles and brought out batons, planning to club her down if they couldn’t blast her.

The soldiers weren’t individually threatening, but there were a lot of them - and they were working together. They weren’t patiently waiting to take their turn to attack her as she punched and kicked her way through their swelling ranks, they ganged up on her, tried to be tactical.

“Don’t finish her.” The Marshal commanded. “I want to take her myself.”

Vita Rose finished off another duo and whirled around for the next target, only to realize the group had retreated to get into range to use their guns. She’d screwed up. There was no time to get into another group and hardly any to escape. Maya braced for the incoming beams to take her, but they didn’t come; instead, the beams bounced off of golden shields surrounding her.

“I see someone needs to put their temper in check, hmm hmm~?” Celica, or Vita Sun, called as she dropped the barrier. The other Magical Girls had just arrived.

“Vita Rose! Are you okay? Why would you jump in by yourself like this!?” Vita Sky - Alex - added. She made her entrance explosive, sending a beam of magic out of her wand towards one of the groups of minions and knocking them from their feet.

She’d screwed up and made it harder for everyone. Again. Maya felt her face heating up. “I- I’m okay. I’m okay.” She said. “I just- had to help. Couldn’t let them keep going unopposed.”

“We’re just glad you’re not already transformed or something!” Came the voice of the team’s handler Hina over the comms. She’d gotten herself set up on a roof overlooking the street. “We can take them on now together, I think.”

“Hmmph.” The Marshal grunted. “Your numbers mean nothing to our unity. Soldiers. Stay in formation. Divide and conquer.”

“Yes, Marshal!” Came a unanimous response.

The battle picked up, taking a new tenor as the groups of soldiers now had to divide their attentions between three Magical Girls rather than one. Vita Rose, guarded by Vita Sun’s shields, plunged back into the fray, while Vita Sky engaged another squad in a shootout with their respective beams. Vita Sun mostly played support, healing damage and paralysis when needed and otherwise interfering with the soldiers’ plans.

“Hey, watch out - I think they’re trying something.” Hina’s voice reported. From her high position, she saw that the Marshal was making signals to her women, and forces shifted in response.

At first it seemed like they were amplifying the forces arrayed against Maya and Alex - reinforcing them with squads that had originally been dealing with Celica. Were they trying to overwhelm the more direct combatants, then? Vita Rose was getting swamped again, and Vita Sky had her hands full keeping the enemies from getting too close to her.

But unlike earlier, they weren’t going for the takedown, Vita Rose noticed; she was a melee fighter, so if they were trying to bring her down they’d go from a range. But instead… “Vita Sun, pull back!” she called suddenly.

It was too late; while the combatants were occupied, the soldiers were targeting their support. A squad of soldiers surrounded Celica and fired repeatedly into her shields, from every direction - there was only so much she could do when forced onto pure defense, and her shields were failing. The other soldiers were in between Sky and Rose and their endangered ally.

Eventually, the shields burst, and the beams hit Vita Sun dead on. She gasped, and then was paralyzed and unable to move anything but her face, frozen by the paralyzing beams. The soldiers collected her and dragged her to their Marshal’s platform, still unable to move. “Ah~ Sorry, friends, seems I’ve messed up, ehehehe…” she said awkwardly.

Vita Sun was made to kneel in front of the Marshal, who tilted her head up to look at her with the tip of her whip. “Hm. You should have joined me outright. You wouldn’t have had so difficult of a time that way.” The Marshal said. “But you Magical Girls are strong. I respect that. And I will use that.”

The Villainess cracked her whip at Vita Sun, and in doing so started pushing her magic into the woman. “Serve the Marshal. The Marshal knows what’s best. She knows what’s best for you. She knows what’s best for everyone.” A voice in Celica’s head proclaimed. It was nonsense of course, but in the moment it was convincing nonsense.

She was too nice. She had always been too nice, hadn’t she? She let her ‘friends’ get weak by supporting them. They relied on her too much. They would never learn to stand like that. She had to be strong. She had to make sure they had no choice but to become strong.

The thoughts forced themselves into her head, and overtook her own, twisting and corrupting them. Suddenly able to move, she felt herself forced to stand. Her clothes started to dye themselves black, from their normal white and yellow. The style shifted, falling away from the cleric-esque type; tightening, spreading less, as the material went from silk to hard fabrics.

It started to conform to her body. Unlike the fatigues of the general soldiers, this was a nice dress uniform; gold buttons and epaulets. Instead of a helmet, she had an officer’s hat with a golden rank patch. Her hair fell out of it’s ponytail, falling down her shoulders and growing longer.

The paralysis faded as the transformation ran to it’s conclusion, and the former Vita Sun snapped a salute. “Lieutenant Sun, reporting for duty, Marshal!” she said. “Eager to begin subjugating your foes!”

The Marshal smiled at her new soldier. “Good. Take command of the ladies and take those Magical Girls. I need a full command staff.”

Lieutenant Sun turned to the fight, and in particular to the Magical Girls. She grinned, but it wasn’t Celica’s usual cheerful and friendly look, but a strict and cruel look. “Fools. Facing the Marshal is futile; allow me to educate you in battle, and in the glory of our leader!”

“A-Ah… looks like Celica got taken…” Hina groaned. “We can still do this! As long as one of you is up, we can finish the fight!”

Hina’s voice was thick with clearly-forced positivity, and Vita Rose could understand the clear worry behind it. She’d been in Sun’s position not long before after charging at a villain on her own…

The battle was taking a turn for the worse. Lieutenant Sun maintained Vita Sun’s powers to shield and protect, but now they were directed at the soldiers fighting the Magical Girls. The foes once easy to dispatch were a lot tougher when every blow was intercepted by a magical shield and they got back up to fight.

They were trying to separate the remaining two foes, Vita Rose realized - just as Hina’s voice came in. “Be careful and stick together! I think they want to split you up like they did with Sun!”

It made sense; split them up and go after them one at a time, stop them from supporting each other. The soldiers worked well together, and even Lieutenant Sun had been smoothly integrated into their tactics. Nobody was running off on their own.

Vita Rose bit her lip, and stared up at the Marshal, who had Sun by her side. Her smug face was pissing Maya off. Her attitude was pissing Maya off. But that was what she wanted. So she wouldn’t give it to her.

Going in alone had gotten them into this situation. Fighting alone had gotten them into it. So it would have to be working together that got them out of it.

“We need to take down the Villain before this gets out of hand.” Vita Rose said sharply. “And we need to work in tandem to get close enough.”

“Of course! And we need to save Vita Sun!” Vita Sky agreed. “I’ll help you however I can!”

“Then clear me a path! The Marshal’s not so tough, but I can’t fight through so many of them when they just pull back to use their guns!”

Vita Rose opened their joint attack by charging up a blow, and then aiming it at the ground. Vita Sky jumped up, but the minions were unable to avoid the concrete-cracking shock wave of the strike. Many of them fell down, unable to keep balance, as their close formation mostly resulted in them stumbling into each other.

With a gap in the attacks and the breathing room that offered, Vita Rose charged forward. Vita Sky focused on blasting down any enemies that targeted the crimson Magical Girl, keeping their blasts from targeting her. While Lieutenant Sun could protect them from being knocked out by those blasts, she was unable to protect them against the kinetic force that threw off their aim and knocked them back.

“Marshal! Retreat, I’ll deal with this rabble!” Lieutenant Sun bellowed as she interposed herself between the Marshal and Vita Rose. “I won’t let undisciplined fools end my Leader’s dream!”

“You don’t have a choice! Sorry about this!” Vita Sky shouted from her position; while Vita Sun was focused on Rose’s attack, Sky’s blast came from the flank and knocked her away.

Vita Rose had a clear path to the Marshal - and she was going to take her shot. The punch landed hard and the Marshal was sent flying. “No- fools… my disciplined world…” she groaned, as the magic she’d enforced began to fade.

“Shut up already.” Vita Rose said in response. “We’re done with you.”

“Grrr… I’ll avenge the Marshal!” Lieutenant Sun - still mind controlled, it seemed - declared, “Troops, keep up the attack, they’ve separated themselves!”

Unfortunately for her, without the Marshal’s commands, the minions were disorganized and unmotivated - they barely listened to the brainwashed Magical Girl, and now when they went down they stayed that way, without recognizing orders to get up.

It was probably for the best it was Celica who got taken - she couldn’t put up much of a fight on her own when the Magical Girls took her down and tied her up to bring back to the MGA for deprogramming.

—————

“I’m sorry.” Maya said, bowing her head deeply. “I was a fool and I put you all in danger.”

“Maya, Maya, I already said it was ok~” Celica giggled. “It’s kinda funny to see you so apologetic though~”

Alex, back to mundane form, shuffled around uncomfortably. “Y-You don’t have to apologize so much…” they muttered.

“But yes, I do have to apologize.” Maya insisted. “Once again, the operation was made far harder than it had to be because of my impetuousness and impatience. In the last fight, I charged the Spellbinding Sorcerer alone and got turned into a minion, turning against you. In this fight my attempt to defeat the Marshal before you arrived failed, and the situation was already desperate when you arrived. You have a right to be angry.”

Hina pat Maya on the shoulder. “I think if we can be angry, we can also choose not to be, right?” Hina said. “You’re Magical Girls. It’d be weirder if you didn’t want to do justice as fast as you can! Especially when the villain’s actively transforming people like you saw!”

“And besides, the outfit was cute~ I wonder if they’ve got a copy of it?” Celica wondered aloud. She had been deprogrammed a few hours ago, back to control of her own self - though she still responded to any requests as if they were order and was a little too quick to snap a salute.

Alex coughed and their words were lost under their breath, at least before being prompted to repeat it louder. “I’m just saying… you’re not fighting alone, you know? We care about you.” They said, stuffing their hands in the pockets of their hoodie.

Maya looked down at her feet. She had always been competent at anything she tried. Great things had always been expected of her. Solo Magical Girls weren’t unheard of; why wasn’t she powerful enough to be one? She shook her head. That was useless thoughts, and it was unfair to her team.

The Vitalizers were a team. She was in a team. She just had to get that through her skull. “…I understand. Thank you for giving me another chance.” She said, adjusting her glasses slightly.

—————

“Another weak Villain defeated. We should thank those Magical Girls for getting rid of them.”

“They’re our enemies, Morrigan. I’m reluctant to give Magical Girls credit for anything.”

“I’m no fool. I am well aware. And because I’m no fool, I can respect a job well done.”

“I suppose it would be annoying if there were too many competitors later on… though they might make passable distractions.”

“If they weren’t so distracted we’d probably have to fight them already. Though, that could be fun, too.”