Lights. Camera. Action.

Agatha Cain takes the stage, entering the commandeered museum hall resplendent in her signature outfit. That corset! Those boots! Keen-eyed Agatha steps through the archway, those piercing rainbow orbs sweeping across the scene and taking it all in. Our heroine came prepared for violence, her tome of lore at the ready, but even the quick-witted detective wasn’t expecting to find her own face staring back at her—and in triplicate, no, hextuplicate!

Six eerie dolls watch Agatha from around the empty museum wing, their plastic faces devoid of emotion. Their hair, their clothing, their shape, all of it mimics the magical girl near-perfectly, but artifice betrays them; they are frozen things, dead things, and their rainbow eyes lack the shine and glitter of the original article. 

Agatha hesitates, looking away from her unnerving imitations to squint up at the dolls’ mistress on her throne of twisted plastic. “Are you… narrating?”

I raise my hand to my chest and adopt a shocked expression. “Gasp! The wickedly seductive villainess is caught narrating her thoughts out loud in an evil monologue! Can she recover from this classic blunder?” I grin. “Count on it, viewers.”

This’ll actually be my third show fight under Visage. We’ve been working on a storyline to introduce Archon to the Visage audience and get the character settled among the complex dynamics of witches and magical girls. It was my suggestion that Archon’s first rival should be Agatha Cain, which Agatha agreed to readily.

Visage hadn’t found a stable pairing for Agatha yet, so they’d been rotating her between a few of the witches with less on their plate. I intruded on a feud between Agatha and Sweet Tooth, fought to a draw with the candy witch, and played up the start of an obsession with the heroine detective. Next was an ambush, securing a cheap win against Agatha under the guise of testing her measure.

This encounter is the payoff, the solidification of our rivalry. Visage rented out a museum wing that’s between exhibits—everything valuable tucked away in storage, waiting for bureaucracy to sign off on the new layout—to lend our fight some gravitas. I know my part, and Agatha knows hers, so all that’s left is to play.

I snap my fingers and the two dolls nearest to Agatha explode. Red ribbons emerge from the dolls like entrails, their plastic shells clattering discarded to the ground. The ribbons coil around the magical girl faster than she can react, encircling her with serpentine grace. They bind her wrists and ankles and suspend her from hidden anchor points above. It’s quite a good look for her, though acknowledging that out loud would ruin any plausible deniability about my motives for tying her up like this.

 Agatha struggles against her bindings while I prance over, smiling and waving to the camera drones that followed her in. The heroine shoots me a deadpan look. “An obnoxious riddle to lead me here, a pack of cheap copies, and now a cartoonish trap at the entrance to your lair. Something tells me you were born to play the villain of the week.”

“Gasp!” I say again. “I’ll have you know these copies are of the highest quality. They’re built on your official figure from the Visage store!” I conjure an Agatha figurine to my hand and show it off. “See? They got your hair just right.”

Agatha rolls her eyes. “How nice, a fan. What do you want… what was your name again, witch?” She’s throwing me a perfect opportunity to mug for the camera, how courteous.

I step back, stretch my wings, and bow deeply at just the right angle to give the camera drones a good shot of my cleavage. “I am Archon, the fallen angel of covetous desire. And I. Want. You.” I rise back up and hug myself amorously, leering at Agatha with the kind of unhinged desire I usually reserve for Striga. “I want magical girls, my darling detective. You’re all so virtuous and perfect and wonderful, a pack of incandescent flames that I need to make mine.”

I draw one of the dolls near to me with a curl of my finger, then caress its face, eliciting a shiver from Agatha. “And then what?” she asks, glaring at the doll. “Is that your ideal outcome?”

“Yes!” I pat the head of the Agatha doll, which is incapable of emoting in any way. “I want to capture the light inside every magical girl and turn you all into my perfect dolls. These puppets are lovely, they’re adorable, but they’re not the real deal. They’re missing that special spark. You’ll make a much, much better specimen.”

“You’re taking objectification to a whole new level,” Agatha says dryly. “I think it’s time I knocked that ego down to size.”

Agatha snaps her fingers and a spark of flame ignites in her hand, then jumps to the ribbons binding her. Her magic blazes through mine and frees her in an instant, and then it’s all about the violence.

Fighting Agatha is fun. We’re both holding back, but that adds a fascinating element of play to our scripted encounter. She flings fire and lightning in a way that’s easy for me to dodge, I shoot foam arrows that she knows to freeze before they hit her. I pop open another doll, she burns the ribbons before they can snare her. It has to look exciting for the viewers, but landing bloody hits is actually discouraged; a lot of streaming sites come down hard on depiction of real injury. We make good use of the space I’ve prepared, dancing around the half-empty hall before ending up at my makeshift throne.

“Magnificent,” I praise Agatha from my perch. “You’ll make an exquisite doll.”

“Keep dreaming,” she says from below, and then she prepares a massive volley of fire, ice, and lightning, dozens of spells all pointed at me.

I conjure a flashbang from Ferromancer, smile for the camera, and set it off. My maniacal laughter fills the room and echoes as I escape, leaving behind a pulverized throne where Agatha’s spells went off. The heroine curses and swears vengeance, which I hear clearly from just around the corner, and then the lights on the camera drones change to indicate that they’ve stopped filming.

I pop back around the corner and wave. “So! How was it? Good banter? I wasn’t too intense, was I?”

Agatha, still rubbing her eyes, laughs at my questions. “You were fine. I mean, it was a little creepy to be on the receiving end of that, but I just have to remind myself it’s all part of the game. I think the fans will eat it up, and that’s what really matters.”

“Great! Then, lunch? I’ll text Bombshell.”

We leave the Riley Biers Museum of Cultural Significance behind, transform into our civilian personas, and meet Bombshell—as Hannah, her own civilian identity—outside the sushi place I picked out. It’s a nice place, all wood and stone, with great mood lighting. The soft patter of rain outside adds to the ambience. I made a reservation for three, so we’re swiftly ushered to a private room to deliberate on our food choices.

The best way to eat sushi is to get a bunch of different varieties and pick at them as a group. Money isn’t really an object for us, so we go down the list: avocado and cucumber, blue crab, lobster, salmon sashimi, chicken karaage, shrimp tempura, and so on. Hannah and I order cocktails, while Eleanor—Agatha’s civilian name, as I learned for the first time last week—spends most of her time researching the differences between types of sake. She settles on the “Little Lily” drink, apparently the sweetest thing on the menu.

“It’s unfair how good you still look out of costume,” I accuse Hannah. “I am a troglodyte sitting next to you.”

The perpetually gorgeous Bombshell giggles at my compliment. “Hard work and practice is all it takes. If you want to, like, up your game or whatever, you could always start wearing some of those outfits I was suggesting last time! You’d look suuuuper cute!”

“Not happening.” I take another sip of my cocktail and muse, “I might take inspiration for a future work costume, though. Chat loves T&A.”

Eleanor snorts. “You’ve really taken to that side of things. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. I said it as a joke in the scene, but it is kind of objectifying, isn’t it?”

I shrug. “Isn’t that the point? We’re products. Sure, we have to keep up a layer of plausible deniability, gotta play to that Madonna-whore complex, but the merch team knows what they’re doing. Marketing knows what it’s doing. The viewers know what they’re watching for. I mean, not all of them, sure, but enough of them.”

“Sex sells!” Hannah adds cheerfully before snapping up a tuna roll.

Eleanor sighs. “I guess. I hope that’s not why most of my followers are watching. I mean, I can’t imagine I’m that… appealing, I guess.”

Hannah swallows her food and points a chopstick at Eleanor. “Everything is appeal. Cute, shy, nerdy, that’s an archetype! Glasses are a fetish! Girl, there is nothing you can do to escape being someone’s sexual fantasy, so don’t worry about it. Guy clicks on your page because gothic lolita makes him horny. Guy stays on your page because your personality is entertaining and you’re fun to be around. That’s how it is!”

I chew on some sashimi and ruminate. Venus had a hand in crafting Visage, of that I’m certain, but all the structures of Visage were in place long before her. She’s taking advantage of cultural patterns that already existed, etched into society by the weight of centuries. If you can’t beat them, join them. Is that Bombshell’s philosophy? You can’t escape the game, so learn to play and win?

She certainly seems more comfortable with that way of thinking than Agatha, despite having left Visage while Agatha still participates. But then again, Agatha’s position is very different from Bombshell’s.

Eleanor drinks more rice wine. “You make it sound so simple,” she chuckles. “I guess I should be more used to this than I am, but I’ve always been a little sheltered.”

“Why’d you join up, anyway?” Hannah asks.

“I needed the money. Playing vigilante doesn’t pay off college loans, and I’ve been able to help my parents and some of my friends with medical bills and the like. I don’t regret it. Most of the time, I actually think this job is pretty fun, if stressful. I just… feel weird about it. Sometimes I feel like I should have joined Vanguard. There’s this sense of guilt I can’t escape. Great power, great responsibility, right?”

Hannah laughs. “Oh my god, you have an adorable conscience. This is why you got tapped to be a magical girl and not a witch.”

Eleanor blushes. “I—you say that like it’s embarrassing.”

The witch waves a hand. “Sorry, sorry, it really is cute! Listen, sweetie, there’s nothing wrong with getting your bag and moving on. Work the gig until you’ve got your nest egg, then go off and do, like, whatever it is you’re really passionate about! That’s what I did.”

I chime in with, “Yeah, I don’t think you need to feel guilty about paying your bills, especially with what you said about using that money to help others. If that’s what you wanna do, pay it all off and then bounce. Though, personally, I’d be sad to see you go. I like your streams, and I’m really looking forward to playing off you in the future.”

The heroine’s blush deepens. “Aww, thank you, A—Rachel. That means a lot.” She buries further embarrassment in avocado and cucumber.

Hannah turns her gaze on me with an appraising look. “Sooo what’s the scoop on you? Settling in well?”

I grin. “Oh, absolutely. Love the role, love the attention, love it all.” I actually have my phone out, idly scrolling through social media channels for any posts tagged with my persona. “The money is nice and it’s good to eat good food, but I mostly buy merch to put in the studio or gacha rolls that I stream pulling, so it all kinda pays for itself. I just like the thrill of everyone paying attention to me.”

Hannah clicks her tongue. “And yet you won’t get in the miniskirt?”

“I’m only an exhibitionist when people can’t see my real face!” I protest.

After another round of banter, laughter, and idle chatter, I start working toward the heart of why I wanted to have this little get-together. Striga and Ferromancer’s assessment of Bombshell is that she’s not bound to any of our enemies, but neither would she care about our war; her motivations are too hedonistic to make her a useful asset to the conspiracy as anything but a weapon. Necessary when Echidna arrives—and I’ve heard Bombshell spoiling for that fight plenty of times in the past month—but not until then. I’m hoping I can get more out of her.

“So,” I start, finishing a plate of karaage and washing it down with the last of my second cocktail. “I may or may not have had an ulterior motive in setting this up. To cut to the chase, I was hoping you could help us out, as a favor. Agatha and I have been stuck to each other because we’re both newbies; we’re the new kids that have to prove ourselves to the trio on top. I’ve watched their streams, I’ve read their interviews, but you worked with them. So… what’s the deal with the big three? Pearl Princess, Radiance, Memento. What are they really like, and how can we get them on our side?”

Bombshell leans back in her chair, a look of mischief on her face. “Why, Archon, are you asking me to divulge the secrets of Visage? Gosh, I don’t know. That kind of information might cost you dearly. Are you sure you wanna pay that price?”

I steel myself. “Name it, wench.”

She giggles and leans forward. “Hair. Makeup. Outfit. I pick ‘em all. And then we go out, girls’ night on the town.”

“Scoundrel. Knave. Ne’er-do-well. The pact is struck, fiend.”

She claps her hands happily. “Yay! Oh my god, we’re going to have so much fun, it’s going to be great, you have no idea. Agatha, you’re coming too, right?”

The heroine freezes up like a deer in headlights. “Me? I. Um. I mean. Uh. I don’t really… do that? Kind of thing? Ever?”

“Great! You’ll learn so much! Of course, you don’t have to, if you really don’t want to.” Bombshell pouts at Agatha with S-tier puppy-dog eyes, a performance that’s overwrought even for her, but which proves super effective against poor Agatha.

“Oh, fine.” Agatha sags in her seat. “Learning experience. Right.”

The witch cackles. “Perfect! Okay, okay, you bought your intel fair and square. Here’s the scoop: all three of them care about profit and branding, sure, but they’ve got specialties. Memento is the money gal, she’s the type to stay up late going over profit margin spreadsheets and call down the thunder on anyone trying to cheat the company. Radiance is all about reach and networking, she wants to expand Visage’s market as wide as possible and burrow into every possible niche. Pearl Princess is the most image-conscious of the three, she’s the one who really buys into the ideals of idol culture, the one who’ll raise the biggest fuss if you threaten the respectability of the organization. Profit, reach, and image, that’s what you need to cultivate if you want to impress upper management.”

“I still think I’d be better off just keeping my head down,” Agatha mutters. This is part of the script; it’s not in-character for Agatha to play the social climber, so we’re framing it as me pushing her into it. I don’t know if Bombshell really cares about our motives, but this is for the benefit of any Jovians that might be watching us.

I nudge Agatha’s shoulder and give her a grin. “It’ll be fine. The faster you can rise through the ranks, the easier it’ll be for you to cash out and run off to Vanguard, yeah? Just like Bombshell said.”

The witch eyes me with amusement. “And what’s your endgame, cutie?”

I wink at her. “Isn’t it obvious? I want to be the new face of Visage.”

[commentary]

I’m excited to play with this stuff. Genuinely very happy about writing weird parasocial stuff.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: Adrian CC, Ashlyn, CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mgbm, Mhai Wind, Morrigan, October, Paige Harvey, PR4v1 Samaratunga, and Selacanis. Wow that’s a lot of you! Thank you so much!

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 7th of December. It’ll be another double length break as I work on my second writing project and some outline rewrites for TMGM.

[/commentary]