As Starlight Stella' did the intelligent thing and got distance between herself and her hulking and charging heavy hitter melee opponent so to maximize the effectiveness of her distance attacks (IE, she ran away, leading the still abled green eyed terror in circles around the sandy arena), there was a dim part of her that distantly wondered how the magical girls had sworn up a storm when insulting and baiting Samuel and the other new inmates when they'd first arrived. But now she found curse words were beyond her mouth's power to deliver and her brain's ability to process beyond an ever increasingly creative array of euphemisms.
She, he, was already 13 or 14, and she was going to get even smaller and end up eight or nine? How was she supposed to fight lunatics like this that at THAT age!?
"Well, he was definitely a fighter for the first few days, but I think she's gotten the message that there's no getting out what fate lies in store for her. Samuel Payne tried tearing his clothes off after they changed into his magical girl costume, imagine his face when they repaired themselves. And they will as long as she's alive." Faith Fiona said from the observation deck, leaning on her ringed staff. "I'd say King Payne of the Royal Paynes is on his way out now, and Starlight Stella is moving in."
Faith Fiona was on stand by in case their new recruit got a limb chopped off or two. Though it take more than 'Curaga' to fix that.
Magical Nurses Namine And Nicole were also on stand-by. The two were an effective pair, none ever guessed they hadn't been twins, or even siblings before becoming magical girls, but they had in fact been a criminal couple. But twin magical girls had a unique quirk, a link between them that enabled them to function as one person rather than a pair of individuals.
"I still can't believe we've been ordered to use Derelict." Miracle Mary said, on stand by too, both in case Stella got herself bisected, and if the Derelict proved too dangerous. "Another Magical Girl would know not to overdo it, usually, and an Embryonic-class Shattered One at least slightly less intelligent than the average animal. Instead it's the Green Eyed chosen tools of the Omega-Level Shattered Ones."
On the floor was engraved the symbol of the I.L.M.G. , International League of Magical Girls. A cartoonish heart surrounded by a circle of small stars, with a crossed pair of magical wands in the background.
They had operation centers all over the world, not just Red Rock Juvenile Center in the Texas Badlands. 'Standing For Love and Justice Across the Earth!'
"Orders from up top. Director-General Atomic Annie figures that even Embers are too dangerous to keep near the newbies, and I can't say I blame her," Lilly Lilith said over a new screen as she guarded the entrance into the arena, using the MG nicknames for an Embryonic-class.
"I'm sending a letter of protest to the Sanshu no Jingi."
"I agree with Mary," Moonshine, the white cabbit said. "We should be rehabilitating the Derelict, not using them as training fodder."
"Convict conscripts combined with child soldiers, our only means of defending the human race from an army of demons that see humans as hamburgers, and now we're using their pawns for training, what a wonderful world we live in!" Rainbow Rachel snorted a laugh, sitting in one swivel chair while leaning her legs on top of another. Leaning an elbow on the little end of her silver baseball bat.
"Remember the Magical Dolls? Those things were good for nothing but canon fodder. Or would you prefer we go back to recruiting actual pure-hearted little girls? At least this lot are now actually giving back to the world instead of plaguing it," Faith Fiona said.
Like all magical girls assigned to Red Rock, Faith and the others wore badges with their names and serial numbers, shaped like a heart within a star. Meant to symbolize the Star Stone that empowered and rebirthed them all, some more than others. There were still plenty of the 'old guard', little girls who had gained or be given Magic, and more recently, those who had felt a 'calling' and had become magical girls almost on their own. But they were no longer the majority as they'd once been. At least it meant fewer grieving and enraged parents at their little girl expected to fight monsters.
There had been some discussion if the rest of the Royal Paynes street gang should have been sent here instead of the Spofford Juvenile Center, but it was determined that Samuel was the only one who was to be considered 'truly hopeless.'
-
As Stella ran for it and Venator tried to expose her stomach wall to direct sunlight, she thought.
'Is this all just a game for them? Either I die as Samuel or I give in and die as one of them?' Stella felt tears in her eyes as she just kept retreating from the thankfully slower Venator. Phoenix Polly said she had resisted changing every inch of the way... and looked to be quite crazy. She wondered what Rob Jackson had though before the magic had turned him into the three year old power house Ruby Robin.
"But you have our promise that you'll never lose who you fundamentally are. The process won't change your memories, and your flaws won't be erased. Instead, the transformation will use your passions as forces for good. Those who sought a name for themselves will become symbols of hope to the world. Those who wanted wealth will find treasures far more meaningful than money. And those with a penchant for destruction will learn to relish wreaking havoc on the enemies of love and justice!" Mirror Mira had said.
'But if I'm the boss of the Royal Paynes, if I'm on the street making them my own, if I'm not telling off my worthless family... then... then who am I? Is that... is that all I am? Is that all there is to me? I'm proud of every thing I did to survive, to rise to the top, of the sense of POWER it gave me... Is this what it was all for? Is the leader of a two-bit gang that's likely already been replaced by another group of nasties seeing open territory? The Warrior likely took it all for themselves... Is that... is that what it was all for?
'If being the boss of the Royal Paynes, if all the power I felt flipping the law the bird and showing losers they couldn't mess with me isn't the core of me... then... then what is the core of me? Do I... Do I even know? What am I even here for?'
Because magical girls are the natural enemies of fear and despair.
'I could... Am I supposed to just scream out for help? Is that what this is? Just to show I'm not all that? I'm... I'm not going to win this by running away... ' Stella stopped.
"Not only will you need to crawl out of the jaws of despair, but you'll need to kick out its teeth, too!"
Stella's features began to become more feminine, and she last an inch in height, her costume changing to fit size.
Stella got an determined look on her face. She was still scared. But she had nowhere to run. Her offensive hadn't seriously worked, and her ice comet wasn't going to work after he'd seen it. "Solar Flare!" She slammed her staff into the ground, it was a powerful flash of light, not much to it, but that wasn't what Stella was aiming for.
The big brute rubbed his sickly green eyes waiting for a counter attack, but none came.
"Try and catch me ya big bully!" Starlight Stella said sticking her tongue and pull down on an eyelid.
-
"Heh, I think she's getting it a little." Rainbow Rachel sniggered.
-
"Your impudence will be your down fall little witch!" Venator snorted as he charged... and slipped on the little patch of new, shinny, smooth glass that had been the sand that he hadn't noticed distracted by Stella/Samuel's taunts. "QUASAR BLAST!" Then time blasting her opponent square in the face at point blank range. Stella was scared out of her mind! Except fear wasn't being the mind killer, not this time.
Venator's face was covered in soot, twitching. His concentration had been broken shattering his construct weapons. "You-"
He was cut off as in the blin of an eye Rainbow Rachel was on top of him, her baseball bat forced his face firmly into the ground creating an impression. "Okay, that'll do." She said to Stella.
-
"Then the new girl begins crying, saying she had it, then saying thank you, you know, the regular stuff." Rainbow Rachel explained to Stephanie Sparkle who was looking through a magically conjured microscope.
"Sounds like you had an entertaining day."
"Well, I won't like and say I don't get a pleasure in breaking down these jerks, it's what makes seeing them build themselves back up so satisfying."
"Like you?" Stephanie Sparkle asked not looking away from her results.
"I'm the first to admit I needed an attitude adjustment." Rainbow Rachel glanced at the Shattered One corpse Stephanie examining. "At least we know their body parts can't spontaneously come back to life." Preserving a Shattered Ones corpse wasn't easy, they began to break down immediately after death, preserving them always a race against time.
This one wasn't a giant scorpion, this one looked like the Centaur From Hell. Rainbow Rachel liked to think of it as a trophy.
"It's been a while since all six of us have been together. You, me, Pink Petunia, Fluttering Florence, and the rest."
"And we destroyed that Omega-class Shattered One on the moon. What really surprised our elder magical girls the most was that all six of us had come back from that alive." Stephanie Sparkle allowed herself a smile.
"Petunia ate so much ice cream to celebrate New Moon had to order extra." Rachel laughed.
"Florence almost fainted when we asked her to sing, thank goodness she found the courage before you started to sing."
"Hey! Being a magical girl means I have to be great at singing!"
"That part is not scientifically proven." Sparkle teased.
"How is any of this scientific?" Rachel gestured with her arms.
"The scientific method is just that, a method, a means to understand something."
"Hey, how about you get out of this lab and the six of us actually get together again? After all, isn't friendship supposed to be one of things we're fighting for?"
"... I'll think about it."
-
Wadjet Walidah, an Egyptian magical girl, watched calmly from the side lines, ready to mummify Neko Nikki's 'student' in case she got too rowdy again. With the number of times she'd had to wrap her up, her transformation into a Magical Girl had been swift and brutal.
Neko Nikki's Sword of Justice, passed through the innocent like it was a hologram, but it could cut through the guilty and non-living objects easily enough (innocent was not the same thing as mindless).
The cabbit Moon Beam was also there to call for help if the new girl did something foolish.
The formally big man with purple cat ears... now had fallen to the very edge of puppetry and was on the verge of falling onto the other side of it, and now had furry purple arms and legs with claws and a tail to go along with it. There was also the bell around her neck. The magical girl outfit that was beginning to take shape around her was violet and gold, like a suit of armor, but designed like a swim suit almost.
Kitty Kat as her new name was going to be, wildly jumped from wall to ceiling to floor, to wall behind Neko, trying to catch her off guard or find a blind spot. Easer said than done. Neko Nikki had been trained by Camelot Carol, a 'volunteer' magical girl (IE she had actually been a pure hearted girl before becoming a magical girl) and veteran.
"Chris. Stop doing this to yourself." Nikki said gently.
Kitty Kat snarled and leapt at her from behind, Nikki blocked her easily.
"You need a better outlet for this anger." Nikki back handed her, and her nose became feline. "And you need to accept... you're not here because you got caught. You're here... because you did bad things."
Then Kitty Kat made a dive for Moon Beam, she was wrapped up in Wadjet Walidah's bandages again in a moment, age regressing, masculine traits fading underneath.
"I think she's TRYING to speed it up along. I think she just wants it over with," Wadjet Walidah said.
"I just want to be her friends." Nikki Neko remarked, cutting her loose. "Even it's 'try try again.' "
Kitty Kat's armor now sporting a more egyptian motif than before meow as she shook her head trying to clear it.
-
Another magical girl, Gretta Graves, attended what looked like a indoor grave yard, a small shrine to every magical girl who had fallen in battle, her small pocket universe growing as large as it needed to, such was her responsibility among her sisters.
-
Keith Hanson was surprised when he did indeed get a letter from Alfred, now Angel Afriel. Apparently she was now Vatican City's resident magical girl. She'd also shared her PSP Vista friend code. Really wanting Keith to visit after he was done being turned into a happy go luck defender of love and justice.
Keith's weapon had appeared, a giant Chakram. Maybe the magic's idea of a joke to the car thief.
Beautifully craft but indestructible gauntlets had appeared on Maria Rodreguiz's hands, along with fluffy pink and lace.
Lee Chin was almost too quiet, looking at the picture of the little girl 'Kicking Kodachi' doing a spikeless cosplay of Chung-Li like it was his death sentence (which it might as well have been) his changing being the slowest of the lot.
And then... there was the arsonist, Matt Nickson.
"Isn't it gonna be wonderful!? We'll be helping people and spread love and justice wherever we go, and we all get to be friends! Isn't that last on the best?" Stars were in her eyes almost as she spoke. He'd resisted the most, and was losing the most of himself. It was creepy.
Gold bikini armor that wasn't going to be revealing anything sexy anyway, and more just adorable, and red dragon scales forming on his/her arms and legs. Tiny wings and tail forming.
Nickson had fought tooth and nail ... He had been warned. The punishments, zapping, and everything else had done a number. It wasn't clear how far back he'd de-age.
Starlight Stella stepped into the room, still in the double digit age line for now, and still had traits that could be taken for masculine.
Moonshine the cabbit, those who fed off positivity the way flowers fed off sunshine, was riding on her shoulder, she didn't protest.
"Hey girls!" Moonshine said regardless of their physical progress to their inevitable fate. "We've gone over your psychological profiles, your test results, and combat scores. And it's been decided this lucky lady will be your test squad leader for the time being."
'Oh great!' Stella thought with some dismay, blushing as she saw four sets of eyes all zero in on her.
"Now, I'll also be supervising, providing magical, healing, spiritual and telepathic support. Before you're right to fight Shattered Ones, you'll be going up against mundane criminals, if you can't handle untrained people with bullets trying to kill you, you aren't going to last against demonic beasts as old as the human race. Just some humor! Also, like my movie blog if you get the chance. But seriously, you'll be helping once your transformation are a bit further along, and you've been put through some basic teamwork exercises.
"To the average human being, the Shattered Ones forget me yes aura prevents the average human from remembering them, while Magical Girls are simply too pure hearted for the human brain to accept they exist outside of a fairy tale. 'Magic, miracles, and true pure goodness isn't real', so the human brain will invent any number of lies to tell itself. Which is why you don't show up in news papers. So get ready girls, you're going to be crime fighters."