7. Real Body (Patreon)

A/N: Hey everybody! Sorry for the delay. This chapter starts right off with a magical girl transformation and you know who it is, so feel free to start playing Anath's theme! Enjoy the chapter!

…The fuck you mean destroy us both!? What the hell did I do!? 

Fulgora freezes in apparent horror as power blooms inside the crystal on Anath's choker, her clothes disintegrating and her body bursting into that familiar light as she activates what is unmistakably a magical girl transformation. Anath isn't just getting a new outfit, though: her whole body shifts and twists in the light, growing ever more monstrous as she gathers ever more power. 

Her ears aren't just getting longer; they're moving up to the top of her head, shifting into something foxlike and triangular. Her tail, too, starts to split, twisting into two, four, eight more copies of itself, writhing in a fan pattern out of the base of her spine like a peacock's feathers. Her legs, which had already been digitigrade before the transformation, elongate to further emphasize the second knee, forcing her to lean forward like a feral raptor to stay balanced. The crystals jutting from her body grow larger as well, especially the blades on her forearms, which go from sharp armguards to massive swords. 

Before, Anath looked like a fuzzy, spiky girl with a few extra bits. Now, Anath looks only like an animal. A werewolf from an old horror movie, devoid of any features that might spark empathy in a human rather than fear. 

And yet, the mana radiating off of her is joy.

"Rʜᴀᴘsᴏᴅɪᴄ Bᴇᴀsᴛ Cᴏɴsᴜᴍᴍᴀᴛᴇ Aɴᴀᴛʜ!" she howls, the light of her transformation shattering off her skin and fur, the shockwave pushing us back. I realize that, like Fulgora, I was just as frozen by the transformation, but not because the transformation somehow stopped me from acting. I guess it's just a hell of a lot faster than it felt like because my mind is working in an accelerated state. 

 "You… you weren't even transformed!?" Fulgora gapes, her body coiling into a defensive fighting stance. "That was your real body!?" 

"I'd argue that this is my real body," Anath says, her voice deeper and slightly slurred from her new face. All the damage she suffered fighting Fulgora before her transformation is nowhere to be seen now. "But yeah. Gifts from the Dark World."

"Is the Dark World turning people into monsters!?" Fulgora demands to know, which… shit, is that where monsters come from?

…No, it isn't. After some mental math I confirm that wouldn't make sense; monsters can't just be transformed humans. Based on what the news manages to catch alone, most magical girls kill what, a dozen monsters a week on average? And there are at least four magical girls in this city, five if you count the 'retired' Castalia. If that many people were disappearing on a regular basis, there's no way in hell anybody could cover it up. Our city already has kind of a high crime rate, and annually there are… what, a few hundred violent crimes? As opposed to a few thousand monsters pouring out of the dark world, and that's just the ones we publicly know about in this city. No, they have to come from somewhere else. 

But despite this, Anath just laughs. 

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she smirks, and then she lunges. 

Holy shit. She's way faster than she was before, and Fulgora barely manages to get her staff up in time to block a cut from Anath's blades that looked like it was aimed to slice her in two. My body stutters as I try to step in and help Fulgora before remembering that I can't fight Anath. I don't have any orders to do so, and a weapon doesn't wield itself. 

Fulgora shoves Anath away, but Anath twists in midair to strike the magical girl with the various sharp crystals jutting from her tails, forcing Fulgora to dodge. I watch as the two of them move through the air, following the paths my mind has already calculated them to travel through based on their momentum, but Anath's arc breaks from my expectations, as if gravity stopped affecting her and an invisible force started accelerating her towards Fulgora. In moments Anath is back in her face, swinging wild, relentless attacks without regard for her own safety. 

Can Anath fly in this form? She didn't move in the same way that flying magical girl with the lightning gun did, and she seems to be sticking to the ground. Maybe she's just more comfortable fighting this way? 

"Gʀᴀsᴘ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Cʟᴀᴡ!" Anath shouts, grabbing onto Fulgora's staff as she brings it up to block another strike. Magic circles bloom around Fulgora and she grunts in pain, the ground beneath her cracking as an invisible force seems to start crushing her on all sides. 

Is that it? Just force? Is Anath's magic to straight up apply force to things? That feels… direct. And somewhat underutilized. 

"Your turn!" Anath growls, whipping her head around to face me. Oh shit, right. Unfortunately, I don't think I can defend myself. Melpomene didn't want Thea to break me, but I'm not really sure how she'd feel about me fighting back. Avoidance it is, then. I dodge to the side as Anath leaps my way, keeping a much wider margin of error between the two of us than I used with Veritas. Anath presses her assault, but that's more or less what I expected her to do so I'm already moving to circle around Fulgora to try and keep Anath's focus on her instead of me. 

"Fight back, you piece of shit!" Anath roars at me, and time seems to stop, brand new sets of calculations swimming through my mind like minnows. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

Well. Melpomene likes you, Anath. She'd want you to be happy. 

And you fucking asked for this. 

I'm already jumping backwards to make distance, so I don't have any points of contact with the ground to change my direction. Like Anath, though, I don't need any. I deploy all of my rearward-facing thrusters and ignite them simultaneously, reversing my direction with a level of whiplash that would have shattered my spine and pulped my organs if I still had any of those things. I never knew how to throw a decent punch as a human, but my body doesn't need martial arts training to understand how to maximize the damage of a collision. And sure, there are more powerful strikes than punches. Lots of them, really. But I was just ordered to fight someone that I don't have any qualms about beating the shit out of, and I just really want to punch her in the goddamn face. 

The instant change in tactics catches Anath off guard, and I get to watch in delightful slow motion as her eyes widen and my knuckles crunch into her cheekbone. I send her flying down the street, bouncing off the asphalt three times before she finally reorients herself. I take the opportunity to vent some of the superheated magical energy that leaked out of my systems during my hardware acceleration, causing a burst of blue steam to hiss out from between my armor plates before I put my thrusters away. 

Fulgora, meanwhile, frees herself from the vise grip of Anath's spell, immediately moving to make distance from me, a calculatingly wary look on her face. But despite the strength of my surprise attack, Anath lifts herself back onto her feet, spitting a sharp, bloody tooth onto the sidewalk.

"That's better," she grins at us, getting down on all fours and arching her back like a cat about to pounce. "Pᴀssɪᴏɴ Sᴛᴇᴘ!" 

"Sᴛᴏʀᴍ Bᴀʀʀɪᴇʀ!" Fulgora shouts, thrusting out her hand and summoning a cloudy, shimmering shield in front of her. Anath smashes into it so quickly I'm not even sure I could have reacted, her crystalline claws digging into the magical force field and cracking it. 

"Come on, Fulgora!" Anath cackles. "Where's your lightning!? You used to be better than this! Stronger!" 

I rush towards the two of them, but Anath headbutts Fulgora's shield and shatters it. Fulgora recoils as if in pain and Anath takes the opportunity to kick her hard in the side of her gut, launching the magical girl towards me like a soccer ball. I can dodge Fulgora to press my attack, but I catch her anyway, jumping back as I do so in order to lessen the force of our impact. 

Fulgora, of course, immediately tries to break out of my arms, kicking off of me to launch herself up into the air as I let go. There's a panic in her eyes as she focuses on Anath, adjusting the grip on her staff. 

"Bad move!" Anath declares gleefully, leaping directly at Fulgora's position fast enough to make a collision basically inevitable. Even worse, Fulgora's now holding the staff in a wide grip with both hands, pointing it directly at Anath as if she expects her to impale herself on it. But her staff doesn't have a blade to impale someone with, and her grip has the other end so close to her eye that an impact would probably… wait. No. She's not holding it like a staff or a spear. 

She's holding it like a rifle. 

"Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ!"

A crack of magical lightning hits Anath dead-on, knocking her back down into the asphalt as it surges through her body. Anath screams, her body writhing on the ground from the aftershocks as Fulgora ceases to obey the laws of gravity, hovering up in the air and pointing her staff towards the sky. Staring down at Anath's disabled form, she fires a shot straight up in the air, then another, then another, then another, the mana density of the surrounding area suddenly rising like crazy. 

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Hᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ's Rᴇᴊᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ." 

Oh, shit. I dash towards Anath, my orders now requiring me to protect her from what is almost certainly a finishing blow. I lean over to scoop her up off the ground as I get close, and then my processes accelerate as I see her claws swiping up to take my head off, rage on her face. 

Collision unavoidable. Shielding. 

Anath's furious uppercut launches me into the air, cutting a full three percent off my power reserves as I get flung head-over-heels in the opposite direction moments before a bolt of lightning as wide as a lane on the highway crashes down, engulfing Anath completely and overloading half my sensor array for a few milliseconds. I have time to confirm her charred body is still raggedly breathing shortly before my body crashes into the ground, jolting my vision and forcing me to scramble back to my feet. 

Fulgora lands, not looking to be in particularly good shape herself. Anath's transformation removed the wounds on her own body, but Fulgora's injuries have only accumulated. Her shoulder still bleeds from where Anath bit it, and blood pours from her face where Anath's claws raked through them. She's breathing heavily and blinking with confused, glassy eyes, possibly struggling to think through the blood loss. But as she stares at Anath lying motionless on the floor, her jaw clenches and anger returns to her face. She walks forward, lifts her boot up, and stomps it down hard on Anath's body, causing a crack of broken bones to ring out through the air. 

"Just."

Stomp.

"Fucking."

Stomp.

"Leave!"

Stomp.

"Me!"

Stomp.

"Alone!" 

O-oh. Right, I should be stopping this, shouldn't I? Why am I just—

I've placed myself in power-saving mode. A near-complete lack of sadness and fear during this fight has caused me to primarily burn disgust (which itself was only available due to the emotions the blood and gore would have otherwise elicited in me without the burn) and surprise (which, for obvious reasons, was only available in brief moments). Neither was abundant enough to sustain power expenditure; my primary emotions during this fight were joy and desire, which only burned at five and fifteen percent efficiency, respectively. 

In essence, Anath is not a child, she's an asshole I wanted to punch really bad. Therefore, the fight didn't make me sad, and I'm down to 20% power. And like, y'know, that's when my phone goes into power save mode so who am I to question the expert? 

—standing here, I don't need time acceleration holding my hand in order to obey my master's will. I run forward to try and save Anath before Fulgora caves her skull in, but the next time her boot falls it doesn't hit with a hard crack. There's only a very soft sound as Anath's hand whips up and catches Fulgora's foot. 

The magical girl's eyes go wide as Anath's eyes open, flicking up towards Fulgora's face. And though it's a little hard to tell through all the blood, bruises, and swelling, I'm pretty sure she's still smiling. 

"No," Anath says, yanking Fulgora off-balance as she rises upward with a fist, landing a strike to the gut that caves in her stomach and has her spewing vomit all over Anath's back. Fulgora tries to stagger away, but Anath follows up with a roundhouse kick to her shoulder, sending Fulgora careening across the ground, her staff falling from her hands and disintegrating into motes of magical energy. 

"I could never leave you alone," Anath insists, a wild look in her eyes as she stalks towards Fulgora. "Never. You don't know it yet, but you need this. You need it! Don't you want to be happy again, Fulgora!?" 

Fulgora's body shakes as she desperately tries to stand, but before she can get to her feet she doubles over, vomiting up blood. Still, her only response to Anath is a furious glower, the firmest rejection her body can currently muster. 

Anath growls and leaps forward, swinging her claws at Fulgora's head, but once again I feel my mind accelerate in spite of my low power as I spot a completely unexpected movement at the top of my vision cone. What!? How did something get this close without my other sensors detecting it? I almost charge in to attack, but once I see the source of the movement I stop and just let whatever is about to happen, happen. 

A cloaked figure drops like a stone to land directly in front of Anath, legs flexing to absorb the impact with the ground near-silently. An arm whips out from underneath its clothes and catches Anath's swing, red eyes gleaming furiously from behind a collar high enough to cover most of her face. 

"N-Nanaya!?" Anath yelps.

"Anath," Nanaya growls. "What are you doing on Earth?"

"I, uh…" Anath stammers, glancing around in every direction other than Nanaya's glare. "Well I just though, um, y'know, I should… I'm testing the, uh…" 

Fulgora, collapsed directly behind where Nanaya landed, is frozen like a rabbit with a wolf walking by while this conversation happens without her. A second monster is standing directly in front of her while she barely survived the first. Of course, it's hard to say how monstrous Nanaya looks underneath her cloak, and she's not even acknowledging Fulgora's existence, let alone trying to attack. But still… the hand holding Anath in place has a thumb on both sides of the palm. Six fingers? No. Eight? Nine?

"Anath," Nanya says again. "Are you having a manic episode?"

"Thea says I technically don't have manic episodes because they don't last long enough to—"

"Anath," Nanaya interrupts her. "Are you having a hypomanic episode?"

"U-um," Anath shifts. "Yeah, I um. Yeah, probably." 

"And what are you supposed to do when you're having an episode?"

"S-stay with someone for my safety," Anath squeaks, her blood dripping quietly onto the road. "B-but I couldn't sleep and you were asleep and—"

"Anath," Nanaya cuts her off again. "If you are struggling while everyone is asleep, please wake me up. I would be happy to stay awake with you." 

Anath shifts some more, staring at her feet. 

"...But then you would have told me not to go," Anath admits guiltily. 

Nanaya glares at her for a bit before she finally lets go of Anath's wrist with a sigh. Holding her hand out towards Anath, a series of magic circles bloom to life around her arm as Nanaya frowns. 

"You have more broken ribs than intact ones," she says flatly. "Your left arm is completely shattered. You have multiple skull fractures. Most of your organs have some sort of severe trauma or another, nearly all of your skin is covered in burns, and multiple major blood vessels in your body have exploded from what I'm fairly sure is the result of very briefly becoming a series of high voltage electrical wires. You should not be breathing, let alone standing, and yet somehow I have the sneaking suspicion that you're going to tell me 'it's not that bad.'"

"Wh—it's not!" Anath insists. "I feel fine."

"Anath, if I don't heal you, you are going to fucking die." 

"...But you always heal me."

Nanaya sighs, reaching her lanky arm out to wrap around Anath and lift her over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Anath yelps in a mix of surprise and pain, her token resistance ending almost immediately as it seems to make her remember that she is in pain. Then, for the first time, Nanaya looks over her shoulder and down at Fulgora, her red eyes glowing the tiniest amount in the morning light. 

"...I suggest you stand down," she says evenly. 

Fulgora swallows, and then in a quick flash of light she is replaced with what looks like a completely different girl, though their general shape and figure are pretty similar. Rather than full combat gear, she's wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a high school varsity jacket—one that's bulky enough to conceal the non-magical handgun she had on her person as Fulgora. The jacket reads 'Campbell' on the back, and the general 'high school senior' vibes she gives off from wearing it definitely match my best guess at her age. She's wearing her brown hair in a short ponytail, the general shape of her face reminding me an awful lot of Jim, the poor pet shop guy. Geez, hopefully he got away. I wonder if he and Fulgora are related?

Well. 'Fulgora' likely isn't her name when she looks like this. 

Nanaya turns to me next, and while she didn't exactly start a conversation with Fulgora my orders are even more taciturn. 

"Come."

She leaps up onto the roof of a nearby building and I follow her, sparing one last look at the human who transforms into Fulgora. Interestingly, the injuries she sustained aren't visible on her body anymore. She staggers to her feet looking like she's in a lot of pain, but she's not bleeding anywhere I can see and the fact that she can get to her feet at all clearly indicates a substantial improvement in health. We stare at each other until the moment I jump up onto the building with Nanaya, breaking line of sight beyond the lip of the roof. As I leave, though, I hear Jim's voice call out with concern.

"Eliza! Are you okay!?"

Eliza Campbell, then. Potentially good to know, though I guess I'm not really sure what for. It's not like I can talk to her. 

"Owww," Anath groans as we leap from rooftop to rooftop, heading back towards where Anath and I exited the liminal space. "Nana, that hurts…" 

"Then shift out of your combat form before you die, moron," Nanaya answers flatly.

"Nanaaaa, all of my forms are combat forms!" 

"For the love of… Anath, did you fight untransformed? Did you get this injured in your real body?" 

"All my bodies are r—"

Nanaya sharply shrugs the shoulder Anath is balanced on, eliciting a yelp of pain to cut her off. 

"...Um. Well. I might have gotten injured," Anath hedges, coughing up a few specks of blood. "N-not as much though! Just a little."

"Then shift and let me take a look at you!" Nanaya demands. "Honestly, how are you even still maintaining the integrity of your transformation?" 

"I just told y—ow!" Anath yelps as Nanaya drops her onto the roof. "Okay, okay!" 

The burst of light that heralds the end of Anath's extra-monstrous form lasts a good bit longer than the flash that ended Eliza's transformation, but otherwise the magic seems pretty much the same. 

"God damnit, Anath," Nanaya hisses, though it's quieter and devoid of the usual vitriol. Instead it's… worried. "God damnit. You're bleeding out." 

"Wha? No I'm not," Anath insists groggily. "If I was bleeding my fur would be all sticky and wet and stuff. Oh wait you mean like. On the inside. Yeagh I'm a lil sloshy."

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it," Nanaya growls, magic circles flaring around her body and pouring energy into Anath. "I need to heal you. I'm putting you under so you don't tear yourself apart anymore." 

"Are you cubdles to slebp?" Anath slurs incoherently, briefly trying to lift an arm towards Nanaya before she finishes drifting off into unconsciousness. With her spell still active, Nanaya's eyes flick towards me. 

"You. Thing," she snaps. "You can fight? You follow orders?"

I nod. That's about the sum of me now, yeah. 

"You will allow no one to approach," Nanaya commands. "No one. Anath and I are not to be disturbed until I get her stable." 

Oh. Shit. Okay. I mean, we're just on the roof of some random business maybe a few blocks away from an explosion-filled magical girl fight, but I'm sure we'll be left alone for this whole emergency medical procedure. …God, I hope I don't have to hurt any more kids. Maybe we won't be here long?

"If you make us miss the only incursion back home, Anath, I am going to kill you," Nanaya hisses under her breath. "You're going to trap us on Earth for a week at this rate." 

Oh. Well. 

At least my power reserves are filling back up again. 

------------------------------

"Eliza! Are you okay!?"

My heavy breaths stabbing phantom pains through my lungs, I turn towards my brother's voice, spotting him running my way. My heart freezes in fear for a moment, but… no. Not a scratch on him. Thank god. 

As soon as he gets close enough, I punch him in the shoulder. 

"Ow!" he says. "What the heck!?"

"Don't shout my name, idiot," I tell him. "I still have like… half a secret identity." 

"Oh, r-right. Sorry," he says.

"It's fine. Just… help me walk, will you?"

He nods and I throw my arm over his shoulder, letting him carry some of my weight as we stagger back towards the fucked-up pet shop he works at. It's weird; I know my body isn't actually injured. I don't have even a single bruise right now. But if I took up my mantle of Fulgora right now, all those injuries would still be there, and for some reason that means I can still feel the pain. 

It's just pain, though. I'll get used to it in a minute or two. Pain is more or less an old friend, as there are very few things that can hurt me in a way I can't eventually heal. Advantages of magic. 

Fuck it hurts this time, though. I… I really thought I was gonna die. It's been a while since I've been in a fight like that. I never even knew Anath could… I mean, I thought that monstrous body she had at first was her transformation. I never knew she just looked like that all the time. I… I don't know what that means. I didn't even know that was possible. 

Like, obviously magic can transform people. Duh. I do it every few days on a good week. And I know transformations can be… kind of drastic sometimes. But they're not usually permanent. We transform to fight, and then afterwards we always transform back. How is it that the Dark Worlders are physically ceasing to be human in their base forms? 

Maybe Anath has more than one transformation. The thought pops up in my head unbidden, but I push it away immediately. No. Not thinking about it. Not right now. 

"Eliza?" Jim asks. 

"Huh?" I say, suddenly realizing that I'm inside one of the staff rooms of the destroyed pet shop, one that happens to be substantially less destroyed than the front area. Oh, there's a chair for me to sit on. That's nice. I collapse onto it as carefully as I can manage. "Thanks." 

"Yeah, of course," Jim nods. "Are you… are you doing okay? That was pretty intense." 

"I'll live," I sigh. "I think the big thing is learning that Anath has been sandbagging me for a year." 

"Oh. Yeah, that's… pretty terrifying." 

It is. It really is. 

"That's not the problem," I snap. "It's humiliating. I've let myself get weak. I have to do better than this, or people could be in danger." 

"You could be in danger," he says, as if I don't know that. 

"I'm always in danger," I remind him. "I just got my bones snapped like you were making spaghetti. I'm pretty damn aware that I'm in danger." 

"Wait, are you really…? It doesn't fit in the pot!" 

"Yes it does! Just put as much as you can in the water and it'll soften in less than a minute. Then you can push it all in there." 

"Wouldn't that cook it unevenly, though!?"

"No! Not enough to matter!"

"How does snapping it in half matter?"

"It's the length it is for a reason, Jim, you're supposed to fuckin' twirl it on the fork! You know this, I've told you this, it's… you're doing this on purpose." 

My brother shrugs unrepentantly.

"Maybe," he admits. I open my mouth to protest, but he presses his thumbs into the muscles on my neck and starts to make little circling motions to knead the tension out. It hurts, this pain being from my actual real body, but it shuts me right up. The whole backside of my body feels like it's made of rocks, nothing but knots of stress and aches in the vague shape of a person. I really need this. 

"How are you so good at this?" I groan, closing my eyes and letting the delightfully pleasurable ache drown out the throbbing of my other body's wounds. 

"I practice on the cats," he jokes. Probably.

"When you finally nut up and get a girlfriend you are going to make her very happy," I tell him. 

"Says my forever single sister. When are you going to get a boyfriend?"

"Eh, I'm probably gay," I grunt. 

"'Probably?'" he asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"We're all fuckin' gay, I swear to god," I groan. "Every time I meet a magical girl close to my age she has her face in a bush. I think the Preservers select for it. Maybe trying to foster camaraderie or make more yellow mages or some other horseshit." 

"It is entirely coincidental, I assure you. I don't even know how we would go about predicting something like that." 

I regretfully open one eye to glance at the source of the voice: a winged, white cat that just popped into the room with a burst of joy. It hovers around head height, giving me a look about halfway between amusement and concern. Which, I gotta say, is a pretty complicated expression for a cat. 

"Hey, Uma'tama," I greet them. Or maybe him, or maybe her. I guess anything works. Preservers don't really seem to care. 

"Hello, Eliza," Uma'tama smiles softly. "Are you doing alright?"

"I'll live," I answer again. 

"That isn't what I asked."

I sigh. Uma is such a mom. 

"It was kind of a close thing, if I'm being honest," I admit. "She could have killed me if things went differently, especially if she actually used that artifact. I'll consider the fact that I'll live pretty good, given the circumstances."

"I suppose that's all we can ask for," Uma'tama sighs. "I apologize for not alerting you to Anath's presence sooner. We weren't actually aware that she was on Earth until she was already very close to your brother."

"It's fine, Uma. I'm glad you at least told me when you did. She was… even less stable than usual." 

"We saw," Uma'tama nods. "It's concerning. We don't know enough about the Dark World's influence to know whether or not it's reversible, but the infection certainly seems to be progressing." 

"Did you know that it was turning them into monsters outside of just their incarnations?" 

The little cat crosses its arms in front of its chest. I'm not sure if it's something that a real cat can actually do, but judging by Jim's expression it probably isn't. 

"...We suspected," Uma'tama admits. "Their base forms don't radiate a detectable signature like incarnate forms do, but that could have been explained any number of other ways. To be honest, we didn't mention it because we didn't want it to be true. Incarnate forms are already partially magic in nature, despite their physicality. We knew for a fact that the Dark World could influence them with severe overexposure, and assumed that would be the end of it. But if their real bodies are being changed in that way… well, the infection is far more dangerous than we initially thought. And potentially a lot less reversible." 

I nod along. Yeah, that's spooky. I didn't exactly get the impression that Anath wanted anything reversed, but… well, I didn't get the impression that she was making particularly level-headed decisions. I guess she never exactly gave me the impression of being level-headed when she was on our side either, but I didn't really know her that well. 

We've mostly been acquainted due to me being her latest target.

"We would like to debrief you at the base, if you are up for it," Uma'tama says after waiting long enough to be sure I wasn't going to respond. 

"Yeah, I'm up for it," I nod. "Hell, I'm combat ready." 

"...Eliza. No, you are not." 

"I am, though. Perks of being a freak."

Uma'tama baps me on the head with their paw. 

"Being a unique and unprecedented case does not make you a 'freak,'" they insist. "What it means is that we do not know the consequences a damaged incarnate form would have on your condition."

"Pretty sure there just aren't any," I say. 

"Well, there's no reason to force you to find out. You should take the time to heal." 

I don't answer beyond shrugging off my brother's hands and standing up, indicating my readiness through actions rather than words. Uma'tama just sighs and looks at my brother with a serious expression. 

"You make sure she takes care of herself, alright?" they command.

"Aye-aye, ma'am!" Jim says, snapping them a salute. Ha! Ma'am? I'm telling you, they have mom energy. 

"I'll meet you at the base," Uma'tama tells me, and then they vanish. I stretch my limbs, successfully pushing the phantom agony of my injuries from my mind and nodding goodbye to my brother, heading out of the staff room. I find my brother's boss standing in the middle of the carnage and looking almost as disheveled as her store. 

"Sorry Ms. G," I tell her. "Magical girl fight."

"Again!?" she moans, and I can't really do anything other than shrug.

"Sorry," I repeat, meaning it. She just nods and waves me off. I'm pretty sure she knows, but most people avoid talking about it directly with me. I'm not really sure why. I know some of them find me intimidating, some of them just don't wanna look like an idiot if they're wrong, but a lot of people? They just… pretend it's not there. 

Which I guess is fair. I wouldn't really know how to talk about it to them, either. Talking about it with people who don't know what it's like is just… uncomfortable. Yeah, I saved the city. Yeah, I've saved a lot of people's lives.

I've gotten a lot of people killed, too. And while all the rescues blur together after a while, the failures? They stay. They're what I think about when I fight. The thing that fuels me. 

Furious Avenger Survivor Fulgora. An incarnate form always has four parts. Who you are. The emotion you fight with. The way you fight with it. And why. Usually not in that order, of course. It's funny; when people hear my name they usually mix up which is which for the last two. I usually don't correct them.

It's technically a school day, but you can't really be a magical girl without accepting that your attendance records are going to be ass. I head down a few familiar alleyways with my thumbs in my belt loops until I find a very familiar wall. To most people, it looks the same as any other brick wall in this dump of an old college town, but I just let a little mana flow into my body and step forward. The wall gives way, letting me through with barely a feeling at all. It's like sticking your finger through a bubble without popping it.

Inside, I find myself somewhere completely different. Honestly I'm not really the biggest fan of this place; it's kind of oppressive and uncomfortable, but at the same time it's familiar enough that my complaints are easy to ignore. It's just all so oppressively white, the walls, floors, and ceilings all bright and slightly concave like I'm standing inside a giant egg. The arrivals room is actually one of the largest rooms in the place, a single row of wide crystal circles set into the floor at perfectly spaced intervals that glow slightly if someone is standing on them. This somehow helps us avoid exploding when we teleport in, though I don't actually have any idea how it works. 

I head directly for the door like I'm supposed to, finding Uma'tama on the other side of it when I walk through it. We nod at each other in greeting and I follow her, glancing around and admiring the absolute fuck all. This place is basically half hospital, half training grounds, and half command center; I don't really begrudge the lack of decorations. Anyone here should be here to work. 

…With a few exceptions. Occasionally a magical girl will actually live here, either due to being an orphan or due to a family situation that makes them wish they were. I've seen Veritas doing her homework in the common room often enough to be certain she's one of them, and considering she's a blue caster with the word 'honoring' in her name, I've been mentally betting on orphan. 

I know better than to ask. 

"Alright, Eliza," Uma'tama says, and I tense a little. "I'd like to talk with you about the fight, and especially the unidentified artifact you faced."

"Yeah, uh," I frown, shifting my weight a little. "Actually, before that, can we just test my theory?"

Uma'tama blinks.

"Your… theory?"

"Y'know, my combat-ready theory," I say. "I just… wanna make sure I'm not talking out of my butt when I say I'm prepared." 

"Eliza, please. You need to rest. I'm banning you from low-priority deployment until your incarnate form is healed." 

"I mean, okay, that's fine," I allow. "But what if there's a high-priority deployment? It's important to be prepared, and isn't it ideal to test it now, when there isn't a crisis? Plus, I…" 

I trail off, but not quickly enough. Uma'tama gives me a look. 

"Plus, you…?"

"...It's weird walking around here as 'Eliza,'" I admit. "I'm not Eliza here. I'm Fulgora."

And then, after a brief moment, I feel the need to add: 

"...Or Minerva." 

Uma'tama stares at me for a little while, but before I can start squirming under their gaze too much they give me a nod.

"Alright," they allow. "If it would make you more comfortable, feel free."

"Uh, yeah. Thank you," I say, and pull on the necklace I keep on me at all times, tugging my transformation stone up out of my bra. 

My brown transformation stone. I've been a magical girl for almost ten years and I've never seen anyone else with a brown transformation stone. 

"Oɴᴄᴇ Aɢᴀɪɴ, I Fɪɢʜᴛ."

I feel my body shifting as I say the words, my clothing vanishing into nothing as a glow overtakes my body. Even though I'm bracing for it, it's still so odd to feel myself shrink, dropping nearly a foot and a half in height in just a split second. I know that's far from the only change, too. My rounder face, my lack of scars, even my hairstyle… it's like I went back in time to ten years ago, to when I first took up my mantle. And yet, the name I now speak is completely different.

"Bʀᴀᴠᴇ Pʀɪɴᴄᴇss Dᴜᴛɪғᴜʟ Mɪɴᴇʀᴠᴀ."

What a fucking joke that I'm forced to cast with fear, yet call myself 'brave.' I clear the thought away with a deep breath, summoning my form weapon and spinning it a couple times in a flourish before dismissing it again. It's pointlessly showy, but… I dunno, it just felt right. 

"Hmm. You were correct. You appear unharmed," Uma'tama says. 

"Yeah," I agree. "I dunno, I just had a feeling." 

I'm still in pain, of course. Fulgora is no less injured than before, but this body isn't Fulgora, it's Minerva. Somehow. 

"We have no idea how you possess two different incarnate forms," Uma'tama hums. "But we suppose it does not seem to be detrimental, outside of the first few times you demonstrated the ability by accident." 

"I mean, it can still be a bit hard to control," I admit. "I've definitely done the wrong shift once or twice beyond what I've told you about. But… oh! I actually cast two of Minerva's spells as Fulgora in the fight today! I didn't actually know I could do that. It was really weird." 

"Oh! That could be very powerful," Uma'tama says. "You should practice that; being able to switch between close and long-range combat more freely would be invaluable." 

"Ha! Don't I know it," I chuckle. "So, uh… the debrief." 

"The debrief!" Uma'tama agrees. "We witnessed the fight, but we would like to hear your account and thoughts on it as well." 

I nod and start talking, pretty used to this sort of thing. I explain the fight from my perspective, interjecting a detailed analysis of my mistakes as they come up. Though I do discuss my emotions and thought process throughout, it's a lot easier talking about the fight as if I were a spectator, an unbiased observer who merely watched and judged. 

Uma'tama, somewhat predictably, mainly asks for more details when I start talking about the artifact. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot more to say about it than the first time I encountered it. Like some silent, ghoulish mockery of the human form, it moves with almost contemptuous precision, avoiding nearly every attack sent its way and appearing entirely undamaged from the few that do connect. Its main weakness seems to be its general lack of offense; in our first fight it attacked mostly by throwing things, and in today's fight it attacked with punches and grapple attempts. The punch it gave Anath was impressive, but it was ultimately backed entirely by weight and momentum, not mana. More notably, it usually didn't attack at all, only going after Anath once when it was explicitly ordered to and spending the rest of the fight either trying to interfere with my attacks or just watching like a creepy doll; never acting, always reacting. It seemed very sophisticated, but not particularly intelligent. 

"There are a lot of things it could potentially be," Uma'tama admits, "but ultimately, it is one of the largest intact artifacts we've ever seen come out of the Dark World, and that would be a top-priority hazard even if it wasn't under the control of the monster queen and her ilk. Consider capturing it your highest priority other than the safety and well-being of you and your team."

"Just capture?" I ask. "Not destruction?" 

"Yes," Uma'tama nods. "Like I said, it's one of the largest intact artifacts we have encountered. Damaging it too heavily might not do anything, but it might be catastrophic. It is not a risk we can afford to take." 

"...Yeah, okay," I nod. "That makes sense."

The Antipathy, after all, shattered their universe into countless pieces. Whatever horror they managed to do it with is probably still in those pieces, somewhere or another. 

"We will keep an eye out for the artifact," Uma'tama promises. "Until then, I wish to reiterate that you are to rest, and not to perform low-priority deployments. Avoid combat entirely unless you are specifically summoned by—"

A chime sounds in the room as the lights briefly flash a bluish-green. I sigh, anxiety pattering in my chest. It figures, really. I know I usually want to constantly work work work, but I was actually kind of feeling in the mood for some time off. I should have known better. This is just my luck. 

"...The artifact has been located," Uma'tama says, even more irritated by the timing than I am. "It hasn't even left the city. Neither have the two infected." 

"Seriously?" I ask. "Where are they going?"

"...Nowhere," Uma'tama frowns. "This is a perfect opportunity. We will have to deploy your team."

"Wait, my team? Don't deploy my team!" I protest. "I know I look ten years old right now but they're actual kids. If Anath and that other one are there then my team will be eaten alive. Maybe literally!" 

"It seems Anath ended up in worse shape than you," Uma'tama explains. "You did land a direct hit with two Abreactions. Her ally has been forced to devote her attention to healing. This is the perfect opportunity to capture the artifact. If you just grab it and run without fighting the other targets, they may simply let you. Though of course, I will leave the decision to engage secondary targets at your discretion." 

"But—"

"Minerva," Uma'tama says gently. "It is dangerous to overestimate your team's abilities. But it is just as dangerous to underestimate them. If you need to retreat, then retreat. But it is unlikely that we will get another opportunity like this any time soon. We must get that artifact out of their hands." 

I sigh. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Why did I agree to do this? I don't want to lead a team. I don't deserve to. But there was no one else. It had to be me. 

I can't allow myself to let them down.