You shrug and suggest "Maybe we should get coffee instead, and see if any magical girls come in." pointing at a coffee shop the next building over, with some patio seating overlooking the parking lot.
Hunter and River mumble something about 'coming for snacks anyway' and agree to follow you. The coffeeshop is a pretty stereotypical jazzy affair, though the staff seem weirdly brusque like twitchy automatons.
"It's probably just too much caffeine." Hunter snarks at you as your group of three sips on lattes and munches on surprisingly high quality artisanal sandwiches. A few cars pull up, and a few strangely stuffily-dressed women appear. A black-cloaked dusty-rose-haired woman with a strange black visor and a blue-glow-lined black sword emerges as some form of leader, whispering something nondescript to the police officer before beckoning a few others forward.
"Huh," Hunter says, glancing aside at River then you before squinting and leaning slightly forward. "That's strange. Are they in with the police?"
The mysterious women enter. Suddenly, there's a rustling in the bushes as a small brown teddy bear in a white clown-like costume rolls out, dusting himself off and complaining in a very chibi-like moving between places rapidly.
"I can't believe they took over Anime-Con!" he bemoans, before realizing that the three of you are staring in shock.
He stares in shock back at you all.
"Uh," he recovers with a fumble, "would you be interested in becoming magical boys to deal with the industry dominance of magical girls? I'm Doctor Kramer, the maestro not-mad scientist of henshin heroism!"
Animated-looking yellow stars roll out from behind Dr. Kramer before dissipating into yellow sparkles and vanishing.
"Seriously please help." he says. "Asking a bunch of random people to rush into combat with undertested high-power weapons may be a stupid idea, but these things are powered by genre conventions! I'm just a provider, I'm not supposed to have power to deal with all those midline ladies!"
"Slow down and explain, please." River asks as Dr. Kramer shoves magic belts toward the three of you. "What's going on and why are you giving us weapons?"
"The Dark Magical Girls Club!" Dr. Kramer explains animistically, hopping up and pointing at the distracted-looking police officer. "That policewoman isn't a policewoman, just an impersonator. Olive Briggs is one of the DMGC flunkies who gets episode boss'd for this stuff. She used a magic power to incapacitate most of the real convention staff and attendees, so her superiors could raid the merch stockpile and use it to power their next evolution! Snap on those belts and fight her while we break the news, just go with the flow! Side effects include superpowers and active effects include improved male potency!"
Confused, you stand up, loop on your own magic belt thing (it clicks together sort of like a seatbelt, with a release switch instead of a button?) and feel the desire to...
"Belt, on." you state, raising a fist to your heart before bonking the area where it buckles together in the direction away from off, which connotes on. You rise up from the chair, feel your clothes envelop in white light that stores them somewhere abstract, only to be replaced with a 'puff' as you're suddenly wearing a mid-length pink skirt with a white apron. Your long-sleeved pink shirt seems to connect at the belt line, and beneath that you feel something that barely qualifies as underwear, white stockings, and green combat boots for some reason. You feel slightly more buff actually, and a bit ridiculous with the 5 o'clock shadow. Your hair seems to be pretty much the same but with a white hairband.
Hunter's outfit is about the same but with green instead of pink, while River's is blue. Hunter's eyes seem to glow with emerald light while his hair flashes orange, while River seems to express a starry void in his eyes and brushes his brown hair aside a bit.
You hold out your arm and an entire halberd materializes, strangely lightweight but in the sense that its mass is negated when not using its weight for combat and also that you're much, much stronger than usual. Hunter acquires a bayoneted rifle in a puff of light, while River acquires something between a sword and a wand.
Detecting hostile magic, Olive Briggs finally gets wise to the situation and radios for backup. Horns sprout from her head and wings from her back, as she grabs her gun and opens fire. Dr. Kramer dives for cover as you inexplicably spin your halberd and form an energy shield. River surges forward on a suddenly appearing wave of water, while Hunter begins shooting back. You do a long forward jump after River, with Hunter strafing aside and throwing something that appears to be a grenade. Somehow it rolls all the way to Olive, who flaps her wings forward to protect against a near-spherical transient dome of light before parrying River's sword-wand with her gun. You charge forward, attempting to spear-slash in some impractical but inexplicably effective way, causing sparks to fly and Olive to dash back.
The magical girl leader from earlier busts out of the theatre doors, in a flash behind you with her sword before getting spark-coated by enough of Hunter's bullets to knock her off-course enough for you to dodge and spin another shield. The leader is too bloody fast, and smashes your shield-wave apart in a burst of swordwork that sends you flying back. River is still tied up against Olive, matching pistol-whip with sword-slash, errant bullets into the sky and riddling the building's bricks. Hunter sprays and prays as the leader turns to him next, but you fling your entire halberd at her before summoning another and jumping. She disintegrates the first with barely a turn-around strike, but with your active power slamming down upon her the second crackles as it meets her sword. Time enough for Hunter to jam another clip in, and scream "ALLEGRETTO SHOOTOUT!", phantasmal copies of his weapon materializing to fire further.
"Pitiful." the boss woman comments, flicking you away before casually stabbing and slicing down every bullet heading her way. "A first stage finisher against the end of the world? Doctor Kramer must not even be trying."
Other magical girls emerge cautiously from the theater, just in time for River to scream "DIAMOND GANGA!", forcing a vajra-like spinner to appear and disintegrate Olive with a pressurized water jet cutter followed by an explosion.
"Apparently, I'm not trying very hard either." the magical girl boss complains at the death of her underling. "Dem-gece! Grab the merch and go, hostages ain't worth shit now!"
The remainder scramble back inside to grab paraphernalia as River wave-dashes back over, firing bolts of water that splash harmlessly against the boss' shield of interception. People run about in confusion and screaming at the robbery, someone setting off a fire exit in response to a dark magical girl cackling madly and activating a flame-related power as an excuse to cry flame without actually burning anything.
"I cut raindrops, motherfuckers!" the final boss swears, a prohibitively imposing aura forming around her as she negates bullets, splashes, and even some more of your thrown halberds without even breaking a sweat. People run away, while Dr. Kramer calls the actual police at the coffee shop's phone where its puppetlike staff seem to have roused to actual concern about a magical boys and girls battle in the nearby parking lot.
"AXES SPLIT THE HEAVEEEENS AND EAAAAAAARTH!" you roar, conjuring twin halberds and jumping into the air for a forward spin attack. Everything goes really fast rotating as you achieve an immensity of speed and throwing giant axes, approaching the speed at which the final boss repels blows. You flare into brilliant fires and sparkly pink hearts, a barrage of special effects raining down in an attempt to exhaust her point defense capacity.
"Not today, and certainly not in Episode 1." the blocker comments.
It is now that Hunter realizes the other magical girls have run off, shouting "They're getting away!" and turning to try and shoot the legs or centers-of-mass for a few carrying inhumanly large bags. They stumble only to fail at falling, but in the slight reduction of firepower...you're exhausted from such a crazy finisher. You try to lock her blade into place...only for her to slide it right back and backflip into the sky. She keeps backflipping, a humorous mockery of your own moments-ago spin as she cartwheels off in the same direction as her forces.
"We..." you start, instinctively dismissing your weapons, then sliding the off switch on transformation and letting the outfit pop, returning you to normal and more male-presenting clothes. "We didn't win."
"But you didn't lose, either!" Dr. Kramer says, helpfully popping up from the window and drinking an almost-black coffee he'd bought after the battle ended. "You saved (most of) Anime-Con! The police know about this jazz and will handle it, you're legal vigilantes for this stuff now."
"What the actual fuck." Hunter says, turning off his transformation too. "I didn't know guns could HAVE that much aim assist."
"It's literal magic, I think." River chimes in, returning to normal and shrugging. "Might be an affinity thing, since you're just naturally accurate and I got water?"
"I'll explain everything offscreen and/or in the next chapters!" Dr. Kramer confirms with a laugh. "We'll let the audience figure out what kind of base is nearby this coffee shop, though."