Chapter Text
CHAPTER 0 - OVERTURE
Lucienne Monroe stands before the Hall of Bells, where the dead are written into the world in marble and gold. The memorial stretches on, further than any one set of eyes can take in, the light glancing off its polished faces. The countless names embedded in the alabaster are stones around her neck. Even if the Pillar of Light far predates her and hopefully would keep standing long after she is gone, she cannot help but feel responsible for each girl whose life had been cut short by the Pale Choir.
One name in particular catches her attention, as it always does. Lucienne runs her fingers across the indented stone as her eyes squeeze shut. Five years later, and the memory still feels fresh. At night, she still sees it—Olivia pinned under that jagged slab, the weight of it grinding the breath out of her; she recalls the way her body jerked when the Choristers swarmed her, twisting her body and making her go in one of the most agonizing ways one could imagine. She still hears her hoarse voice, not telling her to run away and save her own skin, but to save her. Lucy! Lucy! Lucienne!
One year into her tenure as a Magical Girl, during her first Overture and fresh out of training and at the age of fourteen, Lucienne Monroe had lost her best friend. Her only friend.
From that day forth, Lucienne had sworn to never let life slip through her fingers like grains of sand ever again. That is when she became the world’s hope. That is when she became—
“Golden Promise,” someone says behind her. The voice is hesitant—she, after all, speaks to the most powerful Magical Girl on the planet. “Th—they sent me to get you. It’s time.”
Lucienne swallows the sigh that wants out. “I thought we had another four to six hours.” She doesn’t turn right away. Instead, she pulls herself together the way you brace before stepping onto a stage. A bright smile that warms your soul in the darkest of nights stretches across her face. You look at her, and suddenly, everything is going to be okay. She is no longer Lucienne Monroe; she is Golden Promise. “The forecast said we would. It’s okay, though!” she gently exclaims. “Do we know where on the west coast exactly, now?”
“They’re saying the Puget Sound. Seattle and the neighboring suburbs. I—I—God, sorry for being so unprofessional—”
By the time she looks up, she realizes Golden Promise is right next to her. The Magical Girl places a hand on her shoulder and asks, “I haven’t seen you around. What’s your name?” The Magical Girl Agency has plenty of employees like her who wouldn’t face the front lines. This one must have been in her twenties, yet she still addressed the Magical Girl like a senior.
“Janet, ma’am! Junior Mission Coordinator!” she quickly adds with three fingers over her heart. “Thank you for being our guiding light. Without you, the world would be—”
“The world would be just fine.” Lucienne’s lie is as smooth as they always are, so seamless she’s inclined to believe herself. She has stopped discerning lies from truth long ago. “We Magical Girls do this knowing that others will come after us to pick up the pieces should we fall.” She looks around the memorial. Thousands upon thousands of names from all over the world dating back to the 1960s, when the Pale Choir had first brought forth its devastating song. The Luminaries followed soon after, granting to humanity their gift to counter them. “So look alive, Janet! I’ll kick some butt for you.”
Her eyes grow bright and warm Lucienne’s some. “Yes!” she says. “I trust in you and the others.”
She salutes again before leaving, three fingers over her heart for the three virtues instilled by the Luminaries. Lucienne’s palm tingles as she calls forth her implement—a golden short staff crowned with a pulsating red orb, locked in place by delicate star-shaped prongs. Light blooms around her in a warm rush, spilling over her skin, weaving itself into fabric. The sensation races outward until her ordinary clothes are gone, replaced by her battle dress: short, white, and trimmed in gold at the hem and sleeves, a great golden bow tied at the small of her back. Her bare feet feel cold against the memorial’s stone floor.
Lucienne casts one last glance at Olivia’s name. “For you, Liv, I will save the world.”
Golden Promise rises from Keaton Island, the waters of New York’s Upper Bay glittering beneath her. Light gathers at her heels and then bursts, hurling her westward. She cuts across the sky in a blazing streak, the horizon already bending toward the Pacific.
——
Even Lucienne understands that this is not a simple Overture. The Choir has been remarkably silent this past year, meaning that they have been planning something big—humanity did not need the Luminaries’ incessant warnings to understand such a simple fact. This past month, a dense fog had been gathering all over the American west, stretching from Baja California to Juneau. Where the fog goes, the Choir is sure to follow. There had been minor incursions of Choristers all across the west—not full Overtures, but as if they’d been testing a home’s integrity before kicking down the door.
This one is going to be big. Maybe the biggest since ‘09 across Punjab. Everyone can feel it, from Magical Girls, to the media, to the politicians big or small, to the average man or woman bagging groceries. Beside the usual warning or ‘know better’ attitude, the Luminaries have been largely silent. Humanity is only one of the civilizations across their dear universe to receive their gift, and they have no favorite child, for better or for worse.
The United States stretches under Golden Promise as she flies. To people below, she looks like a comet striking across the sky, but to her, everything appears warped by the sheer speed and blazing light driving her forward faster than the military’s quickest plane could manage. Middle American towns smear into one another; mountains and hills seem to bend away from her. Endless farmland turns to arid desert, and then to green-covered mountains.
Eventually the fog comes into view.
It is not particularly dense, nor does it stretch high into the sky; one could very well mistake it for a natural phenomenon from afar. It did not affect people negatively aside from annoy them or make it more dangerous to drive, as a normal fog would. Lucienne’s stomach ties itself into knots, and she makes a slow turn toward the north. She flies along the coast, staff firmly within her grasp, and eventually, she makes it to Seattle.
It lies silent beneath her as if it has stilled mid-breath. The highways leading in are empty while the city center is choked with abandoned cars, their metal frames dulled by the salty air. Storefronts stand dark behind shuttered panes of glass, their reflections warped by the coiling fog. A toppled bicycle rests against a lamppost, its wheel turning faintly in the wind. The Space Needle rises above it all, pale against the muted sky, a watchtower over empty streets.
The Magical Girl Agency’s national headquarters are in Colorado, but their facilities dot all of North America—which is why the continent is included in their official name. Golden Promise smoothly circles around Seattle HQ to lose speed. The Essentia turrets have already been raised, their crystalline cores slowly rotating with each facet catching the dim light and scattering it into brief rainbows amidst the fog.
When she lands, a gaggle of reporters swarm around her. “Golden Promise! Golden Promise!” They scream her name with a hint of relief and an ocean of hope; she instills it upon them like a balm for their soul. They hold out microphones toward her mouth, desperate for a comment.
“Preliminary measurements of Essentia have this as beyond category ten—”
“How can we be certain that the region won’t suffer Harmonization like the Aegean Islands or Punjab—”
“Why did you take so long to arrive—”
“Are we safe, Golden Promise? Is Seattle safe?”
“Yes, you are all safe.” Another lie; Magical Girls do not need tools to feel the Essentia in the air. There’s enough here to know that they would be dealing with a Cantor. Golden Promise keeps her perfect smile that radiates warmth. “Don’t worry, we Magical Girls will make sure everyone can sleep soundly tonight. Please leave the city soon—”
“Promise.”
Lucienne recognizes the soft yet cold voice instantly; she faces the woman who glides through the doors. Star Sentinel moves like gravity itself makes way for her. Her uniform is a sweep of midnight blues and silver trim, the fabric threaded with faint constellations that shift when she does, never quite the same pattern twice. Light twinkles like distant stars across her pale skin. A dark cape trails behind her, its edge dusted in grand starlight. Her dark purple hair falls in sleek, dark waves that glimmer faintly, like the Milky Way drawn in miniature.
Eyes with the color and complexity of nebulae regard her own golden irises with no urgency despite the situation.
“Sentinel,” Lucienne says with a nod before turning to the reporters. “I must make haste. Stay safe everyone.” She gives them a bright smile and a wave and follows Star Sentinel inside.
“Lucy, you had the higher ups freaking out.” Lucienne knows Sentinel says this more to warn her, not because she particularly cares. She doesn’t care for much of anything; she carries with her the vastness of space. Stillness, distance, and cold. All that remains is being a pest. “By the way, they were handing out these little crackers with artichoke dip this afternoon that were such a delight.”
Lucienne wants to grab the girl and shake her. Vast swathes of the west coast are at risk of becoming uninhabitable through Harmonization, and this is what she talks about?
“Really?” Lucienne pouts—all smoke and mirrors, of course—and whines. “Aw, shucks! I’ll get some next time!”
“Finally. When the higher ups get their dose of you, they’ll stop riding the rest of us so hard.”
Golden Promise wags a finger at her as they walk through the large, towering halls. Given the situation at hand, they are empty, with only the most vital staff remaining. “That sentence can be interpreted in a number of dangerous and unethical ways, Estelle.” Her voice echoes across the walls.
“Intended.”
“What about virtue number one? You must always have a pure heart free from desire!” This is all fibbage to Lucienne, but she has to keep up the character. “We wouldn’t want you to get your implement confiscated.”
“You know that virtue’s deeper than having a good time once in a while. And if it was, there’d be a lot more girls losing their powers all the time,” she deadpans. They enter an elevator and go underground. “Not everyone can be the little perfect child like you, hm, Golden Shower.”
Lucienne doesn’t grind her teeth, no matter how much she wants to. “Promise.”
“Shower.”
Your sense of humor makes me sick, Estelle, is what she wants to groan. “I don’t appreciate using my chosen name in such a way,” she instead says with the gentleness of a blanket wrapped around Sentinel.
“Stop living your life as a lie, and maybe I’ll pull back on the jokes.”
Unfortunately for Lucienne, there were a few among the Agency who knew of her secret—or thought they did. She’d never confirmed anything to anyone but her boss. Sentinel just had a way of figuring things out. “This is really getting old. I’ve already told you a million times that I don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about!” She really accentuates the cutesy girl act for this one, just to piss her off.
“Whatever you say.” She clicks her tongue. “I hope the Choir gets you.”
“If you did, you wouldn’t be a Magical Girl.”
The elevator doors open.
The situation room is full of the brightest minds the Agency has to offer. A vast, circular chamber, its walls are lined with tiered banks of holo-screens projecting live feeds, satellite imagery, and streams of data that cascade in endless columns of light. A glowing map of the western seaboard dominates the center. Around it, analysts and tacticians exchange clipped reports.
North America’s best Magical Girls dot the room, all of which Golden Promise recognizes. Dozens of them, each ready to do their sworn duty and protect their reality from the Choir. There are also newer faces: volunteer Magical Girls who have conquered their nerves and vowed to help despite their lack of experience. They all stare at her in awe and respect—and the entire room salutes the moment Lucienne steps inside the room.
There is one who doesn’t. Ashen hair and darkened eyes with a scythe she leans against as she stares at her feet instead. Lucienne isn’t used to being ignored, but no matter.
Before she had entered, the center of attention rested upon one man: Director Nathaniel Kovalenko. His greying, silver hair is neatly combed back, and crowns a face lined by age, sacrifice and hard choices. As usual, he wears his military uniform despite the fact that the Agency is not officially affiliated with the United States’ government. The dark navy fabric is pressed to perfection, and numerous medals line his chest.
A veteran of the war in the Andes, he is a military man through and through. He even still sports a military salute instead of the three-fingered one. Lucienne wants to scoff, but she has learned to respect him over the years. He is, after all, the person she is the closest to.
“Nice to see you clock in, Golden Promise.” He folds his hands neatly behind his back. Nathaniel is the only man who dares speak to her this way, and by now, she is used to it. He nods at her colleague. “Star Sentinel, thank you for getting her. Now, we can finally begin the briefing.”
Nathaniel steps forward to the center table, the glowing map of the western seaboard shifting and expanding until the fog’s slow, curling mass fills the display. Red markers blink across it—small at first, then multiplying in clusters along the coast.
“I’ll keep it short. As of 1540 this afternoon,” he begins, voice even but carrying through the room, “the fog has advanced inland by an additional ten miles inland into Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Of course, thanks to our wonderful team and our friends in Washington—” he means the government, “—this has been one of our smoothest evacs yet. I want to thank everyone here for saving lives today.”
He taps a control, and the map shifts to a three dimensional array of Seattle and its surroundings. He rubs the stubble on his chin. “The plan is simple as always: intercept and destroy any Choir element before they can consolidate and gain a beachhead. Destroy them before anything more threatening than a Verse can pass through any opening rifts.”
A silence settles in for a few moments before a Magical Girl fills it. “Sorry to step out of line sir,” Twilight Ember hesitantly says with a deep southern twinge, “but we all know this won’t just be fodder we’ll be dealing with.” Her uniform is a dress of deep, smoldering crimson that fades into black at the hem, the fabric patterned faintly with drifting sparks that never burn out. In her hand, she holds a glaive that glows faintly along its edge. “I’m not so good at gauging Essentia, but I can still tell.”
Yes, they all can. Cantor. Twilight Ember fiddles with her auburn hair until Lucienne shoots her a reassuring smile.
“You are owed honesty,” Director Kovalenko answers sternly. A deeply religious man, he keeps a cross with him at all times; Lucienne sees him grip it through his uniform. “And God’s honest truth is that while the readings are bad, this is the greatest force the Agency has ever assembled to riposte.” He clears his throat. “Any more questions?”
No one speaks.
“Good,” he says. “Now, we’ll be going with squads of three.” He assigns each girl to groups across the city, taking in account personal relationships, power synergy, personalities, and everything else a leader needs to think about. Eventually, he gets to her. “Golden Promise. You’re with Shadow Lily and Silver Mercy. Of course, no Handler for you specifically, Promise. Just like you like it.”
Supportive picks that she has worked with before and who won’t pester her and without some person buzzing in her ear telling her what not to do—once again, a perfect choice. The Director gives them ten more minutes before they move out to do what they wish. Some girls call family or friends, of which Lucienne has none. Some speak among themselves to calm their nerves. These are girls ranging from sixteen to thirty-five, but the Luminaries have picked as young as thirteen before, as they had with Lucienne.
At twenty-seven, Silver Mercy is a veteran of the scene. Her attire is a flowing, split-skirt coat of pale, silvery fabric that catches light like water, layered over close-fitting combat leathers the color of storm clouds. Her hair is the color of pure silver, and the metal coats the tip of her fingers. Her implement is anything metallic she can get a hand on.
Shadow Lily is on the younger side of eighteen. The dark-skinned girl moves like she’s half in the world and half just outside it, always blurred at the edges as if she’s about to disappear. Her hair is a smooth fall of inky black, cut blunt at the shoulders, with a single streak of pale lavender curling near her cheek. There is nothing but swirling dark in her eyes, and a rapier is sheathed at her hip.
They go through meaningless small talk before Lucienne excuses herself and asks to speak to the Director. He brings her to a side-room and slumps on a comfortable chair before gesturing at her to do the same. Nathaniel seems older all of a sudden, with trembling hands and the mutter of a prayer under his breath. Just like her, he hides the weakness in him in front of others.
Lucienne doesn’t sit. “Nathan. How fucked are we?”
“Without you here, we’d lose all of the west coast to Harmonization before we managed to at least stall them, and then we’d need international help.” He pales at the mere thought.
“Not like they aren’t already checking in.”
He chuckles bitterly. “Even the Soviets are breathing down our necks to know what the hell is going on, but I’ve been told that our Essentia readings must. Remain. Classified.” He taps his desk with each word. “What a shitshow. If this goes the way of a pyrrhic victory, we stand to lose our standing on the international stage.”
Yes. The Agency is a beacon of Magical Girl independence across North America, with individuals from Canada, the United States, and Mexico working hand in hand to defeat their interdimensional enemies. Behind the scenes, while they do technically have the final say over their own matters, its leaders tend to go along with U.S. policy. Coincidentally, of course. Lucienne sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“This is a full scale Harmonization event. If they succeed, they won’t stop at the coast, they’ll go inland. God, I need a drink.” He grabs a handkerchief from his breastpocket and wipes his forehead—a sudden bout of frustration makes him throw it away in the corner of the room with a muffled scream. “And those little light fuckers aren’t saying shit!”
Lucienne crosses her arms. “Relax.” Her demeanor changes, and she becomes Golden Promise out of habit. She is all smiles and glows. “I’ll save the world as always.”
“For you,” he asks, “or for Olivia?”
Her mask collapses as fast as it had come. “For us both.”
“You were on Keaton Island again. At the memorial.” Lucienne can tell he is trying not to scold her, but he is failing miserably. “I understand that she haunts you, but there comes a time when one must look forward instead of back—”
“Mind your business.”
Olivia is dead. There is nothing to look forward to.
Except for one.
Prove yourself an exemplary Magical Girl, embody what it means to wield Essentia, and the Luminaries would grant you any one wish within their capabilities. It is a promise whispered in training halls and across the world—nay, the universe. Yet despite all of her accolades, despite defeating more horrors of the Pale Choir than any Magical Girl in history all across Earth, they have still not reached out to her. Only four have ever gotten the wish; one of them was Rose Keaton, America’s first Magical Girl.
Lucienne already knows why. She does not represent the three virtues, but only pretends to.
She storms out.
——
Golden Promise stands at attention amidst a rocky beach, ankle-deep in the cold Washington waters. She stares the sun down without a blink as it begins to dip under the horizon, casting a gorgeous orange light over the sea. The wind carries the salt-sweet scent of kelp and brine, tugging faintly at her hair. Shadow Lily and Silver Mercy are around a mile away, unwilling to get in her way when she fights, but still close enough to offer support when the time comes.
And it is coming quite soon. There is a certain pressure in the air; Essentia swarms the surroundings in batches so thick it feels like she could swim in it. Lucienne tightens her grip around her staff, which vibrates to the touch. She lifts a hand to the slim mic at her collar.
“It’s time.”
Across all of Seattle, the fog lifts at once, drawing upward and coalescing into dense shapes that hang in the sunset sky. There is a series of cracks and rips as reality tears like fabric and the fog once more diffuses over the entire city within a second. Still, the rifts in the air faintly glow in the sky, a perpetual reminder of the axe hanging above their necks.
“Holy crap, there’s so many,” Silver Mercy gasps into her earpiece. “Five, seven, ten rifts, and that’s just here. This is the biggest Overture since… since…”
No dates follow. It is the biggest Overture humanity has ever seen.
Then, the music follows. Hauntingly beautiful as always, yet so fleeting in a way that you would always forget, like in a dream. The melody is soft enough to draw you in, to make you want to listen closer. Here lies the combined voices of countless horrors that crawl and thrive beyond what humanity can perceive. Before she can listen much longer, Golden Promise clicks on her ear pieces, and Essentia floods the devices. Their song would be filtered out now.
The Magical Girl sharply sucks in air and takes flight.
She has been fighting for so long that this is second nature. Choristers materialize around her. They have the body of small children sculpted in porcelain and their visage is blank and smooth save for a mouth the size of their face. They open those mouths to sing, but the sound never comes; Golden Promise is faster. One sweep of her staff, and light bursts outward, shattering them into a spray of white shards that hiss as they dissolve into nothing.
More appear, dropping from the rifts above like brittle rain. She pivots, staff spinning in a tight arc, every strike exploding in a flash that scorches the air. Each impact carries the weight of instinct honed over years, her body moving before thought has time to form.
So she slaughters them again and again until the Choir throws something else at her. She blinks, and they are there—Crescendos, screaming across the water in a whirl of spinning spikes. Limbless torsos gleam wetly in the dying light, their shallow, dish-like faces reflecting her own radiance. Lucienne barely has time to ascend before the first few miss her and explode on the beach; their death brings corruption across the rocky sands and returns it to a blank, pure slate. The next batch follows, and as usual they are faster than her.
As she looks down, Lucienne spots Shadow Lily sprouting dark wings and cutting apart more Choristers and Crescendos below with her rapier with inhuman dexterity. Just behind her, Silver Mercy moves in, streams of molten metal spilling from her fingertips and hardening into shields in the air. Each barrier blooms just in time to catch the blast of a Crescendo’s death-scream, warping under the force before shattering harmlessly into glittering fragments.
This goes on for nearly ten minutes, and it is just the appetizer. The way the Choir probed at weak points in their lines of defense, which would obviously not be here. Yet there is no choice but to play this game. Humanity has not yet found a way of closing rifts, just of beating the Choir back until they stopped spilling out of them.
Golden Promise catches a glimpse of something in the corner of her vision—
Something else demands her attention. A combination that actually poses a threat to her squad and every other Magical Girl in this city. Already, Lucienne feels herself growing dizzy.
White, marbled skin draped in silk robes. Four arms brought together in prayer to their song. A single group of Anthems is a threat to be reckoned with, capable of letting the Choir slip past their protective earpieces and of waging mental warfare. Protecting them, an enormous monster crawls out of one of the rifts with the grace of a ballerina.
Each Verse is a unique being hand-crafted by the Choir. This one is somewhat human-like in appearance; Lucienne recognizes Verse 11 instantly, and the failure to kill her burns like a fire in her heart. She stands several stories tall with the poise of a dancer and the symmetry of a sculpture. Skin like white marble stretches smooth over her frame, veined faintly with threads of pale gold that glint as she moves. Her hair spills down her back in golden waves, every strand falling just so, as if arranged by unseen hands. The monster is beautiful in the way a dream is beautiful; it is perfect until you stare at it for too long and notice the inconsistencies.
With each blink, it slowly becomes something else. Someone else.
“We meet again, imperfect creature.” It speaks in her voice, too, and that makes Lucienne want to close her eyes and fly far away. “You are the leader of these lost children. When you fall, they will all be neatly folded into our cause, as it should be.”
How dare she wear Olivia’s face again?
“Leave the Verse to me,” Lucienne says into her microphone. “Cover the beach.”
No answer comes. That worries her, but there is no time. The Verse floats forward, Olivia’s face smiling at her with just the right amount of fondness and pity. Golden Promise raises her staff, and light splits into golden rays the size of a skyscraper.
Verse 11 sways aside with liquid grace, fingers brushing the air as if conducting some unseen orchestra. The Anthem’s song surges and presses against the edges of Lucienne’s mind. Images flicker there, unbidden: Olivia laughing in the training yard, Olivia’s hand in hers, Olivia’s voice saying we’ll be partners until we grow old.
Magical Girls rarely grow old.
She needs to focus on the Anthems. A burst of light, and she blurs to the side, circling the rift like a huntress. The Verse is on her in an instant; Olivia’s features twist and her nails grow as sharp as obsidian that rush for her throat. Lucienne’s staff catches her left hand; the other grazes her side, drawing a hiss of pain. The wound burns cold, Choir corruption already licking at its edges. She floods the area with a burst of Essentia, forcing the Verse back a step.
“You’re slower than before,” Verse 11 says in Olivia’s voice, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, Lucienne almost believes it. That is enough time for the monster to sing orders to her lackeys and to make another group of Crescendos rush her from below.
She spins and weaves light around her implement and pushes to get them away before they can detonate. She wants to boast at her sworn enemy, but the Crescendos getting here means that her squad is either dead of incapacitated. This should not have been the case considering what they were facing.
Golden Promise believed this would be a battle of attrition, and so she had preserved her energy keeping her attacks simple. She was wrong.
And so, she bends light to her will.
For a moment, she faces the Anthems with an entire Verse to protect them.
Then, she is behind them.
The song falters for a half-breath as they turn, but she is already moving. Her staff sweeps in a golden arc that shatters the first, splintering silk and porcelain into the tide. The Verse looks back, eyes widening in horror as her dear Anthems break apart one by one like dolls.
“How?” the Verse asks.
“We fought two and a half years ago,” Lucienne says simply. She is a being of pure light whose mere presence stirs the waters a hundred feet below her. She points her staff—a mere extension of her body—toward the shapeshifter.
“The Luminaries’ monster,” it whispers, fear slipping into its tone. “How do you even exist?”
Light blooms at the tip of her staff.
“No. No!’ It takes Olivia’s voice again. “Don’t hurt me again! Don’t leave me to die again! Lucy—”
It shatters beneath her staff just like all the others, falling into the waves below.
Golden Promises takes a few ragged breaths as her body returns to normal, and the rift closes. It must have run out of Essentia after letting a Verse through.
She taps the side of her ear, ignoring the dizziness and coming migraine. “Silver Mercy, Shadow Lily, come in.” Still, no response arrives. She scans the surroundings and sees Choristers swarming the beach and making their way further inland. Alone, they are no threat, but bring enough of them together, and they are capable of bending reality.
Of twisting and tying bodies into knots. Lucienne’s stomach churns.
She cannot afford to get distracted when the real threat is further, still. Above the Space Needle, where Star Sentinel and her team have been assigned, the world stills and she hears its heart beat. The thing that emerges is more suggestion than shape, visible only because of the sheer mass of Essentia boiling off its form, a corona of pale radiance that blots out the sky. It dwarfs the tower beneath it, its ghostly torso rising as high as the Needle’s spire, limbs too long for any human frame. They sway lazily as if underwater. With only hollow sockets for eyes, its head tilts, a slow, unnatural movement that makes the surrounding light bend.
Then crawls out another right before the rift closes.
Two Cantors. Two. Already, the world around them begins to change and turn into a blank, pale, nothing that will remain uninhabitable forever should they linger in this world too long. Light reflects in her eyes as the Essentia turrets begin to fire beams at the Cantors.
Emotionally tired as she is, she readies herself to fly their way—
Something wraps around her leg tightly enough to bruise—how had she not sensed its Essentia? Lucienne explodes with a burst of dazzling golden light, but the thing sticks to her. She cannot see it when she looks down, only feels its snake-like body crawling up her thighs. This is the thing that she had noticed earlier before Verse 11 reared its ugly head.
It reaches her hips. Her ribs. Her breath grows shallow. Each coil presses with a kind of ownership, a weight that feels inescapable. There is a sound now, loud in spite of the crash of waves, and it brushes the inside of her skull as though the creature has already found the way in.
Something drives into her nose, forcing its way up both nostrils at once. The burn is instant, like ice water flooding the inside of her skull. It keeps going, cramming deeper until her sinuses feel like they’re going to split. She can feel it writhing inside her head, pressing behind her eyes, pushing against the soft roof of her mouth from above while the rest of it claws down her windpipe.
Nothing she does works. She teleports, burns, explodes with the sun’s brilliance, but it is all useless.
Golden Promise realizes something as she begins to choke.
One, she is going to die, and she really does not want to. Two, she does not worry for herself, but for her fellow Magical Girls. For Seattle. For the west coast and the world. She cares. She cares! Her flight grows unstable, and she tumbles toward the ocean—
“LUCIENNE MONROE. WHAT IS YOUR WISH?”
Time has slowed to a crawl. She cannot even see what is talking to her, but she understands immediately. It is her first time hearing a Luminary’s voice since she was thirteen and first receiving her implement, and it is all encompassing, as if she speaks to God.
Please. I want to save them.
——
It failed.
It failed. It failed. It failed. It failed. It failed.
The thought isn’t language, not really—it’s a throb in the bones, a sour taste in the back of the throat. It failed. The sound of its own heartbeat feels wrong now. Too fast. Too loud. Not the right tune. The muscles under its skin twitch with the urge to pace, to run, to bite.
It had been made for one thing. One simple thing. Tear the strong one down. Tear her open and crawl inside. Wear her. Become her. The others have done it—their prey taken, their shells worn. It has not. The scent of her still clings to it. Salt and sweat and grief and light. The pulse of her brilliance still burns its skin. Her movements, her rhythm—it had felt them, mapped them, learned them. But it had been thrown off, blinded, burned away, and seen her body lifted out of the water by a gigantic hand of light.
Harmonization of the planet was progressing too slowly; humans had organized too well and repelled assault after assault, mainly because Golden Promise has forever altered the balance of power and keeps growing at an alarming rate. Should she die, the Luminaries would surely make another one like each member of their Orchestra is a replaceable tool. Thus, it would sabotage them from the inside.
And yet, it failed.
It cannot sustain itself outside a body for long in this alien environment. That is when a thought is born within the creature’s mind, one that it is never supposed to have.
I want to live.
For itself, not for the Orchestra, nor for the Conductor. It wants to fulfill its duty, but it also wants to live. The monster throws itself out of the ocean in search of a suitable host. The two on the beach are already dead or taken and thus inapposite. Heartbeat after heartbeat, the creature navigates this strange land of asymmetry and colors until it finds one human, wounded and isolated.
Fine trails of ash and dust swirl around her; in her arms, she hold a scythe with a lantern that glows ever so slightly in her own ashen darkness.
It plunges inside of her without hesitation.
Memory becomes its own.
She smiles as she dies.