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“Thunderclap, report.”

Striga hovers over the battlefield we’ve made of the mall parking lot. As ever, the knight in shining armor is completely unreadable. Her mouth, visible below the owl mask covering her eyes, is set in an expressionless line. She is a steel sentinel working a ceaseless vigil, unbroken and never tiring. More than any other magical girl, Striga truly embodies the concept of “heroine” in the hearts of the people.

I want to break that mask and see the human beneath. I want Sophia, my Sophia, bare of this armor and this hateful persona. They say that Striga never tires, but I know the truth; I’ve seen her stumbling home, exhausted, as dawn rises over a city that thinks her untouchable. They’re killing her.

Thunderclap doesn’t know what Striga is really like. How could she? All she sees is the cold metal mask.

The weakened heroine straightens her posture, or tries to. Her mouth tightens and I can almost hear her teeth grinding as she works through an answer in her head. Maybe it’s dawning on her how badly she messed up.

“I was attempting to subdue a dangerous witch, ma’am,” Thunderclap grits out. She’s glaring at me with so much anger I can almost feel the rolling waves of heat. It’s cute.

My more impish side wants me to make a snarky comment here and keep ruffling Thunderclap’s feathers, but the heroine who attacked me is an entirely secondary concern with Striga in the room. She’s so close. All that matters is getting her attention. But how should I go about doing that?

There are civilians around. They were cautiously interested when it was just me and Thunderclap, but now they’ve been lured closer by the sight of Forks’ very own guardian angel. I could threaten them to catch Striga’s eye, but I don’t really want her angry at me.

“Dangerous?” Striga asks. “More dangerous than the beast of Echidna that your teammates are fighting? How very impressive. It’s strange, then, that I haven’t heard of her before. One would think that a witch with that kind of history would be all over the news, or on the lips of our peers.”

Striga finally turns her head away from Thunderclap to look at me instead. My heart flutters. Her eyes are hidden behind the opaque lenses of her owl mask, but I can feel my darling’s attention as she takes in every detail of my appearance, how I hold myself, and Thunderclap’s own axe resting on my shoulder.

“How long have you been a witch?” she asks me, calm and cool, everything about her so dispassionate and controlled. Is she screaming inside, or has she deadened that part of herself to become their saint of steel feathers?

I check a watch I’m not wearing and have never worn. “Well, given the current position of the stars and the turning colors of the leaves… about half an hour, maybe? Also, wow, it is so cool to meet you, Ms. Striga. I’m your biggest fan.” I set the axe down and make a heart with my hands, like I did for Thunderclap before, but this time the adoration on my face is genuine. I could never hide my feelings for Sophia.

Striga notes that, I’m sure, in her organic supercomputer of a brain. Then she stops looking at me and turns her attention back to the other heroine. My hands fall and my heart twinges in pain, but it’s fine, it’s fine, I can wait my turn. I’m used to it.

Thunderclap is still glaring at me, but her wall of anger falters when Striga descends from the sky and sets down right in front of her. “Commander, I—”

“Tell me, Thunderclap,” Striga stresses, pointedly not using a rank for her de facto subordinate, “what was this witch doing when you left your teammates behind to apprehend her?”

Thunderclap doesn’t answer. She can’t. She looks so miserable that it takes a real effort for me to hold back my laughter. Striga would have felt the same wave of dark energy that drew in the other heroine—she would have known it meant the birth of a new witch—and she would have noticed Thunderclap racing off half-cocked to pick a fight that never needed to happen.

The gawking spectators hear everything. This must be humiliating for a heroine, especially for a Vanguard heroine. We all knew Thunderclap was a hothead, but now that’ll be the front page story on every site. The forums are going to love this.

Striga is stern and sharp, seemingly uncaring that this whole conversation is being recorded or streamed on half a dozen smartphones. Maybe that’s an upside from her perspective. A teachable lesson for her student.

“Disengage from this conflict immediately. You are in a gray area at risk of violating the pact and incurring retaliation from the Coterie, and others. We will discuss your failings when you return to base.”

The pact she’s talking about is a pseudo-formal agreement between witches and magical girls to play nice with each other. It doesn’t have an official name, nor is it legally binding, but everyone with a lick of sense follows its rules.

If the conflict between heroines and villainesses was a war in which neither side could negotiate with the other, they’d both keep escalating until the whole world looked like the ashen remains of Texas. In the Pacific Northwest, Vanguard and the Coterie (a loose alliance of witches) enforce the agreement and punish those who break it. It’s not exactly ironclad, and the two groups have disagreed in the past over whether a given action broke the terms in a way that demands retribution, but it largely holds together and keeps places like Forks from turning into another crater. Other regions usually have their own version of the pact.

When a witch learns the civilian identity of a magical girl, she doesn’t turn that heroine’s friends and family into hostages. When a magical girl learns a witch’s identity, she doesn’t ambush that villainess at her home or place of work. If a witch’s evil scheme would cause mass harm to a civilian population, she shelves the idea and finds a new scheme. And if a witch hasn’t done anything yet, it’s not very politic for a magical girl to force a first encounter.

Thunderclap’s issue is that she smashes first and rarely asks questions. She believes in the Vanguard, of that I have no doubt, but it’s never been clear if she really believes in the pact. A lot of magical girls scoff at the idea of treating witches like human beings that can be reasoned with, no matter how much history of cooperation there is with groups like the Coterie. Of course, most heroines with a grudge against the pact don’t join up with the organization that enforces it.

If Thunderclap respected the pact, she would have blanched when Striga mentioned a potential violation. Instead, that red anger boils to the surface again. The heroine is barely able to contain herself as she grinds out, “Is that an order, Commander?”

Striga lets the question hang in the air for a moment before answering, “No, it isn’t. It never is. I can only tell you what I think is best. If you aren’t willing to listen, then there’s no point in me staying here. There are real battles to fight.”

As Sophia turns around and tenses her legs to leap into the air, I call out, “Striga! Hey, before you go, could I—”

“I apologize,” she cuts me off, “but I have to find out what Echidna is planning before more people get hurt. Welcome to our world, new girl. Please don’t become a problem that I have to solve.”

And then she’s gone.

Sophia is gone, just like that, right back to the endless war without a second glance spared my way. Like I’m beneath her notice. One more speck not worthy of her consideration. I’m just the new girl, not a serious threat like Echidna or Typhon.

I should have known that—I did know that—but still… she barely even looked at me. She spent the whole conversation focused on Thunderclap, of all people. That stupid heroine monopolized the attention that should have been mine. The whole reason I became a witch.

Thunderclap looks angry, but all I feel is emptiness. I’m over this fight.

“Don’t think I’m letting you get away,” she snarls. She cracks her fists and a few sparks of electricity scatter. In the time we were talking, her powers came back.

Was that Striga’s plan? Did she drag her speech out just to keep me at bay long enough for Thunderclap to recover her strength? It’s the kind of plan she’d make.

It doesn’t matter. I beat this girl once, I’ll do it again.

I don’t bother with banter. I pick up the sapphire axe, I point it at Thunderclap, and then I burn it. I feed the axe to the furnace in my chest, the power of Prometheus blazing inside me, and my magic gobbles the axe like any other object. In an instant, Thunderclap’s signature weapon burns away and is added to my arsenal.

If she was angry before, now she’s enraged. Too bad for her; she can’t resummon her axe until she transforms again—another detail I learned from making so many stat sheets.

I have no such limitation. The heroine charges and I recreate her axe in a burst of purple flame. I swing at the approaching heroine and she veers off to avoid the blade, frustration written across her face. The axe is heavy and unwieldy, so it drags a bit as I try to arrest the motion of the weapon and bring it back to a readied stance.

Thunderclap blasts me with lightning. It hurts, but not as bad as the full storm. I shrug off the pain, adjust my stance, and finish raising the axe.

The heat in my chest pulses, a short little burst like a wave from a friend. Prometheus conveys an image of transformation to me, the sword in the forge becoming more than just a slab of iron. It wants to reshape something: the axe in my hands.

Sure, why not? I let green flame surge into the stolen weapon and mold it into a new form. My power guides the reconstruction, emerald fire solidifying the haft and melting the sharp blade into scorched slag. The slashing weapon becomes a brutish club, perfect for beating an obnoxious heroine into the ground. Perfect for letting the anger out.

“You should run,” I taunt the heroine. “You couldn’t beat me before, and now I’m the only one with a weapon. Go cry to your mother. Run away, little girl. Run away.”

She can’t. Not with everyone watching. Not with a dozen cameras recording. The whole world is looking at her, and they see weakness. I narrowly dodge another bolt flung my way.

“Or,” I say with a grin, “you can try your luck.”

I conjure a second axe and throw it on the ground in front of me. Thunderclap stops charging up another bolt of lightning and stares at the axe, torn between suspicion and the need to prove herself. The correct tactical move would be to keep pelting me with lightning. The move that preserves her reputation, though…

Thunderclap picks up the axe. “Mistake,” she growls at me.

The fight doesn’t last long.

She makes me work for the win, but she’s exhausted from burning out. She’s too slow, too weak, too unbalanced. I’m in peak form, all my injuries from her ultimate attack having faded away while Striga was talking. The melted axe feels lighter and easier to swing, perfectly molded to my hands, yet it lands with greater force and wins every clash. My magic hasn’t just changed the weapon, I’ve upgraded it.

I take a few nicks, but I hit back harder. The melted head of my makeshift club cracks into her shoulder, her leg, her ribs, and each contact sends a new thrill up my arms. Every blow exhilarates me. I laugh, maniacal and joyous, and I feel like a proper witch. This is the satisfaction I deserve. The apology I’m owed for not getting what I really wanted. For not getting Striga.

Her bruised flesh, the blood on the end of my weapon, the way her head lolls as she finally passes out… all of it sings to me in a way I didn’t know I needed. I want to keep going. I want to cradle her face and bite her lip. I want to squeeze her wrist until it snaps. Are these my instincts as a witch, or did I always have this in me?

Some small part of me thought that I wouldn’t enjoy this when it was actually happening. A little voice in my head hoped that any fantasies were just delusions, and that a strong moral fiber would rise to the surface and stop me. I thought I’d grow a conscience. Foolish of me. I was always meant to be a witch.

I stand over the unconscious form of my foe. I’m breathing heavily and I’m wounded, but the victory is mine. It’s satisfying, I can’t deny that, but as the adrenaline seeps out of me I’m left staring at the face of someone that Striga—my beloved Sophia—cares about more than she cares about me.

Magical girls can’t die from a little thing like internal bleeding. If I leave Thunderclap, she’ll wake up, shrug off every wound, and get back to doing what heroines do. If I summon another knife and drive it through her chin and up into her brain, she’ll take longer to regenerate, but more importantly it’ll count as the first kill in a pattern of three. That would send a message.

I want to kill her. I want to kill every girl between me and Sophia. I want to punish them all for getting in my way.

But… that’s not the smart choice. It’s what my heart wants, but my brain knows what I need. Witches who kill are witches that get killed. And besides, it’ll be more fun if I’m just playing with the other girls than if every fight is life-or-death. That’s the message I should be sending.

So I make the knife, but I don’t stab the heroine. I set the knife beside her, pointing at her neck, and I look around at all the bystanders that were mesmerized by the battle and holding their breath to see if I went for the kill.

“Be seeing you, Forks,” I tell the cameras. “I’m new in town, but I’m here to stay.”

I flap my wings and take to the sky.

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