The next morning, Adah was grateful to have designed herself a heavier and layered transformation outfit. With the rising sun still hidden behind the trees that surrounded the cabin, the early morning air retained its nighttime chill. A crisp breeze attacked any exposed skin available to it. Adah’s teammates—particularly Rika with her bare midriff—crossed their arms and resorted to rocking on their heels in an attempt to stay warm.

  Ketzia had woken them up early, before even the birds (excluding Lesh). She had roused them out of bed and rushed them through a door at the back of the cabin, waving them on like a policewoman directing traffic. Once outside, where it was still dark enough to pass for night, Ketzia had ordered the girls to transform.

  The yard sloped down gently from the cabin at first, then fell almost as sharp as a cliff where the clearing met the treeline. A short wall of rocks lined the perimeter of the yard along this would-be cliff’s edge, probably marking the limits of what constituted Ketzia’s property versus public land. The rest of the yard was an empty stretch of grass save for a long, green shed the size of an office trailer that sat at the left end of the clearing.

  “Don’t mind the chill. I’ll get your blood flowing soon,” Ketzia said, then took a deep breath of morning air. She was wearing the same kind of outfit as the day before, surely using her connection to fire magic to keep herself warm despite her tank top.

  While hopping from foot to foot, Rika said, “Let’s get started then.”

  “Nothing beats an eager pupil,” Ketzia laughed to herself. “Today’s gonna be all about art. I can tell you’re all still stuck in your heads after losing your duel. Doubting yourselves and whatnot. The best cure for a bunch of jammed-up thoughts is to get your creative juices flowing.”

  “You had us transform so we could do art?” Adah asked.

  “Of course!” Ketzia didn’t hesitate to answer. “Magic is art, if you know how to use it. When you’ve truly mastered your spells, there’s no better way to express yourself.”

  To illustrate her point, she conjured a small flame in her palm. She molded it into a perfect sphere of fire by cupping her hands together as if forming a snowball. Instead of rising upward in licks like the flame of a candle or campfire, the sphere held its shape as its fires burned in place. Then Ketzia casually tossed the ball of fire toward Adah.

  Adah, remembering what had happened to Ami yesterday, stepped to the side to dodge the ball, but it ended up not mattering. Before the fire ever reached her, Ketzia snapped her fingers, and the fire burst into sparks like a firework with a noise to match. Adah and her teammates all nearly jumped out of their skin.

  “Told ya I’d get your blood flowing,” Ketzia said with a chuckle.

  She wasn’t a wicked witch of the woods, but she definitely wasn’t sane either.

  “Well,” Ketzia continued, “you won’t be able to do anything like that unless you’re Untethered, but you can still show off a bit. It’s just a matter of understanding every detail of your spells. It’s not hard to use spells the way they’re intended to be used; it’s using them in unintended ways is where the real fun is.”

  “And that’s going to help us get more popular?” Adah said.

  “Sure it will,” Ketzia said. “First of all, being extra resourceful will help you fight more Cruelties—stronger ones and different kinds. People who get stuck in a cycle of taking safe jobs that their spells are well suited for end up losing out on other opportunities. They pass on interesting or challenging jobs, and they stop inspiring their fans. Which leads me to point number two.

  “You’re putting on a show when you fight. Even when it’s life or death for you, it’s still a show for the people watching you. That’s the nature of this industry. So, you gotta give people a reason to tune in. Show them something that’s gonna surprise them, something they’ll want to post about online or talk about with their friends. Something for the news to replay every hour on the hour. Something cool, new, and maybe even a little dangerous.”

  “Something like ending a mission by revealing a new, powerful spell,” Rika said.

  “Or winning a duel off of a single spellcast,” Adah said.

  Ketzia looked over the girls, all of whom wore a dour expression.

  “That girl’s really stuck a thorn in you, huh?” she said. “But yeah, kinda like that. She scores a little low in creativity for my taste, but she’s a top tier showboater. By the time I’m done with you, though, you’ll be able to make a fool of her.”

  That revved Ami up. She stepped forward and thumped a fist against her chest.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “You’re gonna teach me to be more than a shield, right? Let’s do it.”

  “Oh, there’s some fiery spirit from someone with water magic,” Ketzia said, giving her toothy grin. “Don’t worry, I’ve got something in mind for all of you. But first, I want to get a better look at what everyone’s working with. How about you show me what you’ve got?”

  Given Ketzia’s demeanor about everything else, Adah thought she might have meant she wanted to fight each of the girls in magic combat. However, she ended up being surprisingly practical about showcasing their magic. She had them line up and take turns casting spells into an empty space in the yard. For some of the spells, such as Rika’s [Renova Railgun], Ketzia asked them to cast a couple of variations at different degrees of power, but otherwise it was a very basic demonstration.

  At the end of it all, Ketzia narrowed her eyes and hummed. “Looks like we’ve got some interesting toys to play with,” she said. “Let’s start with something simple. Captain, come over here.”

  Adah joined Ketzia in front of the other girls. Lesh landed on her shoulder, as was becoming routine for him whenever she was around. She really didn’t understand why he’d taken such an interest in her.

  “Have you ever hit anything other than a Cruelty with that whip of yours?” Ketzia asked.

  “Uh, Ami,” she said. “Once.”

  Ketzia paused to process what she’d said. Adah could have cleared up any confusion easily enough, but it felt good to be the one putting Ketzia on her back foot for once. Eventually, Ketzia responded in her favorite way: by laughing.

  “You really lean into the wicked princess thing, huh?” she said. “But today, you’re gonna try hitting nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Ketzia repeated. “I know it’s your strongest attack, but that’s not all it’s good for. You make all this smoke when you swing the thing—that’s something your team can take advantage of. So go ahead and hit right there with everything you’ve got.”

  Ketzia pointed to a spot on the ground about halfway between where they stood and the rock wall surrounding the yard. It was far enough away that any debris from the attack wouldn’t harm them, so Adah went ahead and followed Ketzia’s instructions. She floated up to about eye level for a better strike angle, then held her hand to the sky.

  [Nightwind Whip]

  The chilly air gathered in her palm as always. The strange sensation of holding the wind as if it was something solid like a rope had grown familiar to her now. She poured more and more magic into the spell, causing the form of the whip in her hand to grow more tangible. Then, once the spell reached its peak strength, she swung down at the ground. The impact exploded with dark, smoky magic as it always had. Since her target was the ground itself, that smoke lingered and left a blackish screen that obscured everything on the other side.

  “That’s perfect,” Ketzia said as Adah floated back to the ground. “It’s a total smokescreen. You can’t see through it, and you’re totally hidden behind it. Think about this: you’re up against a Cruelty that you just can’t seem to get the jump on. It’s always ready for you and defends against all your attacks. Maybe you can kick up a smokescreen like this and start sneaking around. Reposition yourself while you’re out of sight, then blindside the monster.”

  The smoke still clung to the earth like a morning mist, covering nearly half the yard lengthwise. The screen was tall enough, too, that Adah could fly around without exposing herself over the top of it. Ketzia was right—it made for a perfectly obscuring curtain.

  “With some practice, you can probably do even more with it,” she said. “Try hitting from different angles, or whipping some walls—stuff like that. Play around with it, you’ll figure all that out on your own.”

  Adah watched the smoke dissipate and reveal the hidden treeline once more. It was such a simple idea, she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her before. Actually, she had noticed that she couldn’t see the impact of her spell on a target until after the smoke cleared, but she’d always considered it an inconvenient side effect. Now she saw how it was yet another tool at her disposal.

  Ketzia gave Adah no time to marvel at this discovery, however. She pointed at Ami and beckoned her over while pushing Adah away.

  “Next up!” she said. “This one might take some testing, but I have a good feeling it’ll work. Go ahead and make your shield for me.”

  Ami cast her [Aspis Meniscus] as directed, holding a shoulder-width wall of water between herself and Ketzia.

  “Has anything ever not bounced off this?” Ketzia asked her.

  “There was this Cruelty during the IndieMagie that shot out spikes,” Ami said. “Those drilled into the water and kind of got stuck there.”

  “That’s a good sign. It seems like your shield is more like a membrane than a wall. I want you to just keep it steady while I try something. Give it enough juice so that it holds its shape, but not anything more.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Ami adjusted the flow of magic to her shield, then nodded when it was ready. Ketzia nodded back, then thrust her fist straight through the center of the shield. Her hand slowed to a halt as it passed through the water, and when Ketzia tried to withdraw it, it wouldn’t budge. She leaned back and yanked harder, to the point Adah thought she might dislocate her shoulder, but her fist was totally stuck.

  She grinned again and said, “Okay, you can drop it now. Looks like this idea’s got potential. Now we just gotta see if it can do the same thing with magic as it can with a punch. If this works, it’ll be awesome.”

  Ketzia pointed at the other girls again, this time calling out Rika to come join Ami. She set the two of them up a short distance apart, then explained her idea.

  “Testing: Part Two,” she said. “Ami’s gonna put up another shield, and Rika’s gonna shoot one of her lasers at it. Then we’ll see if it holds.”

  “I should just shoot at her like normal?” Rika asked.

  “And I’m basically trying to catch it?” Ami asked.

  “Exactly,” Ketzia said. “Give the shield just a little more magic than you did last time. It’s gonna take some trial and error, but we can start there as a baseline.”

  Rika shot Ami a worried look, but the other girl only shrugged in response.

  “It won’t kill me either way,” she said, and cast another shield in front of herself.

  With her teammate’s blessing, Rika aimed her [Shining Shot] at the shield. She waited only a second, perhaps considering just how much magic to put into her own spell, then fired off her shot.

  The red laser-like projectile struck Ami’s shield with a splash, and carved a path straight through the water and out the other side. The light struck Ami in the sternum and knocked her off her feet. She hit the ground ass-first. Though her face scrunched into a wince from the pain, she was otherwise unharmed. Rika ran over to help her back to her feet.

  “Maybe a tiny bit more power this time,” Ketzia called out, to which Ami gave a wholehearted thumbs-up.

  “I feel like a mother watching her kids about to make a very poor decision,” Adah said from the sidelines.

  “Same old, same old,” Emi replied.

  Rika lined up another shot as Ami prepped her shield again. The twin stuck out her tongue in focus, then nodded to Rika when she was ready. Rika let loose another laser, and this time Ami stayed upright.

  The wall of water had swallowed the laser just as it had the spikes from the armadillo Cruelty. Suspended within the flow of Ami’s shield like this, what Adah had always called a laser revealed itself to be more of a bullet of light, just like the projectile fired by Rika’s railgun. Ami stared at the light she’d caught, her tongue still poking out from the corner of her mouth. She poured all her focus into holding Rika’s bullet in place.

  Ketzia snapped over and over with both hands, popping off sparks like a caricature of an overexcited cowboy shooting revolvers into the sky.

  “Second try is badass!” she shouted. “I thought for sure you were gonna get blasted five more times before you got it.”

  Without looking up, Ami asked, “What do I do now?”

  “Now you try flying,” Ketzia said. “You said you’ve bashed Cruelties with that shield, right? Now when you ram into them, you can have a little extra firepower included in those hits.”

  “Are you saying if she hits a Cruelty with her shield, she’ll damage them with my spell at the same time?” Rika asked.

  “Probably,” Ketzia answered. “Part of the power behind your spell might be its velocity, but I’m not sure about that. Your captain’s stars move pretty slow, yet they still pack a punch. For a lot of spells, their strength lies in the vessel that carries their magic, and how fast that vessel travels only makes them easier or harder to connect with. My guess is that if you can preserve that bullet within your shield, you’ll be able to ‘pop’ it when you slam into a Cruelty. We won’t know for sure until you try it out in battle, but you can practice flying around while holding it for now.”

  If what Ketzia said proved to be true, then Ami had just gained access to a proper offensive tool. Rather, she could now turn a defensive spell into an offensive spell.

  “That’s fucking awesome!” Ami yelled, and wasted no time taking off into the air. For now, she didn’t seem to have much trouble keeping Rika’s bullet contained as she flew.

  While Ami practiced—or maybe just celebrated—her new technique, Adah walked over to Ketzia. “Is this any more effective than just shooting a Cruelty normally?” she asked. “Even if the speed of the shot isn’t where its power comes from, wouldn’t it still be better to use the fastest method? Not to mention one without any setup.”

  “First of all,” Ketzia said, watching Ami zip through the air, “this is cooler. And cool counts for a lot in this world. Every spell has two jobs: defeating Cruelties and hyping up fans—remember that. Secondly, this girl flies fast and fearless. There’s bound to be times when you can’t line up a direct shot on a Cruelty, so a combo like this lets her swoop in and deliver a blow from whatever angle you need. I’m sure you’ll find a use for it.”

  “Could it surprise a Cruelty?”

  “Surprise? Sure, it’ll hurt like hell.”

  “No,” Adah said. “I mean could it be something they don’t expect? Some of them are capable of learning how we fight. I’ve seen it—they adjust to us in the middle of a battle. Could something like this catch them off guard?”

  Ketzia looked down from Ami’s flight and smiled at Adah. “Now you’re thinking creatively. Yeah, some of those monsters know how to adapt. Just like your smokescreen, this combo is another way of keeping the upper hand against them.”

  Ketzia then whistled loud enough to startle every bird throughout this whole forest, signaling to Ami it was time to come back to the ground.

  “All right,” she said, “you two can practice playing catch again later. You’ll want to get it feeling as natural as casting your spells normally, so you’re able to do it during a fight without having to think about it. In the meantime, let’s see what else you’ve got to work with. Grace told me you all unlocked your weapons recently?”

  The three girls who had crested that threshold went quiet and looked at the ground, leaving Ami the odd one out.

  “I’m really close though,” she mumbled, to which all of her teammates nodded enthusiastically.

  Ketzia scratched her chin. This was the first time she’d stopped to think before speaking since the girls arrived at her cabin. Eventually, she said, “Okay, we can work on that at the same time then! The rest of you, take ‘em out.”

  Ketzia had no way of knowing, but this would be the first time they’d conjured their weapons since unlocking them. In fact, they weren’t even sure what would happen when they did.

  Rika held out her hand with the palm facing up, and called upon her weapon, the Fornax Firestarter. With a flash of light like that of a camera’s, a silver lighter with scarlet etchings appeared a couple of inches above her hand. Rika snatched it out of the air with a flick of her wrist.

  After observing Rika, Emi followed suit and held out both arms as if already gripping an imaginary halberd. When she called for Mercury’s Majesty, a jet of water shot from her left palm to the right. A moment later, the liquid solidified into the turquoise shaft of her weapon. The metallic handguards and blade grew out of the shaft after that with a noise like unsheathing a sword.

  Ketzia nodded with approval to both Rika and Emi, then turned to face Adah. Now it was her turn to mumble.

  “I haven’t picked mine yet,” Adah said.

  “You waiting for your birthday or something?” Ketzia said. “Don’t overthink it—just pick whichever one makes your heart flutter.”

  “Once you start overthinking, it’s hard to stop,” Adah admitted.

  “Let me help you out, then,” Ketzia said. “While these two girls are having fun with their new weapons, your job will be to sit on sidelines until you make up your mind. Let their joyous laughter fill you with jealousy, and come back once you’ve picked a weapon. Lesh, go grab her phone.”

  She finished by making a shooing gesture. For once, she didn’t laugh or grin, so she must have been serious.

  Feeling much like a grade schooler sent out of the classroom and into the hallway to reflect on her behavior, Adah walked over to a far end of the yard. She sat down with her back against the stone wall while she waited for Lesh to return with her phone. From a distance, she watched Rika and Emi experiment with their weapons.

  That was one way to describe what they were doing, anyway.

  In reality, it looked more like they were playing baseball. Rika conjured what looked like a small bomb and lobbed it in front of Emi, who had transformed the blade of Mercury’s Majesty into a hammerhead. Emi then swung with all her might, making a perfect connection with Rika’s bomb and sending it soaring over the treeline at the yard’s edge. The bomb disappeared into the dense woods, followed by a loud bang. A flash of light pierced the forest canopy in the distance. Ketzia applauded the girls’ effort, but was soon interrupted when smoke started to rise from where the bomb had landed. She launched into the sky and flew out toward the woods, presumably to put out whatever fire this little experiment had sparked.

  Shortly after Ketzia left, Lesh returned with Adah’s phone and dropped it in her lap. He made himself comfortable on her shoulder once more.

  “We haven’t even tried using our weapons normally, and now Ketzia’s got us playing backyard sports with them,” Adah said to the bird, who had returned to his skeletal form.

  “This attitude was the source of her success as a magical girl,” he said. “Before she embraced her own methods, she was nothing but a failure.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Not as harsh as how she might describe herself,” Lesh said. “The specific techniques are inconsequential, but she seeks to help you avoid the same mistakes she once made. You claim to want to be the strongest magical girl. To achieve a goal such as that, you cannot allow yourself to be defined by anything but your own ambition. Not your spells, not other magic users, not any external force of any kind. You must detach yourself from all of it. Defy any means by which someone else may attempt to impose a limit upon you. That is the skill this exercise is intended to train.”

  “That’s a deep analysis of two girls playing baseball with cherry bombs,” Adah said, even as she was turning Lesh’s words over in her head.

  “Perhaps it will help you choose your weapon. Unless you are content to simply observe.”

  Spurred on by his words, Adah opened her Magiapp and looked through her three options once more.

  “I think I can rule out the meteor,” she said, mostly for her own sake. Maybe thinking aloud would make the decision easier. “It just doesn’t feel right for me. The rapier and scythe, on the other hand… They’ve got two totally different meanings, you know?”

  “Which makes your heart flutter, as Ketzia says?”

  “Maybe the scythe? But it’s not for the weapon, it’s for the effect. If I want to become powerful, something like a magic battery would be useful. It’d help me defy my limits for sure.”

  “Then you have decided,” Lesh said. “No need to overthink, correct?”

  Perhaps it was that simple. Wasn’t her new goal also something simple? Becoming the strongest—there was nothing complex about that. If she wanted to reach the greatest heights possible, she should choose the weapon with the most potential power. The other considerations didn’t matter—Twilight Heartbreak would certainly put strength before aesthetic.

  A scythe with a blade of smoky magic was pretty badass anyway.

  Adah didn’t hesitate any longer. She made her selection.

  Weapon Selection Locked: Beleth’s Bloodletter

  “Nothing about me sounds very much like a magical girl at all anymore,” Adah said.

  Though, that fact didn’t really bother her now. She even took some pride in it.

  “Fitting for one who aims to rise above the others,” Lesh remarked.

  She liked that line of thinking. Maybe she ought to let the world know about her intentions. There had been something on her mind since last night.

  Adah stood up and held out her hand. She called upon Beleth’s Bloodletter, and soon the shaft of the scythe materialized in her hand, its smoky blade not yet activated. Then, as if sensing Adah’s intent, a black haze slowly extended from the weapon’s ornamental top. The magic crept out in hazy streaks like a spider crawling out from hiding, before coalescing into one curved blade.

  She pulled up her phone’s camera and started trying out different poses with the scythe, doing her best to ignore the fact she was taking so many selfies in front of a millennia-old bird. She wasn’t sure how close she should get to the magic blade, but eventually settled on a picture where she had held the scythe in front of herself, allowing the smoky magic to obscure part of her face. With the eyes and horns of Twilight Heartbreak peeking above the smoke, she looked properly wicked.

  “Something for your fans?” Lesh asked.

  “For them and me,” she said.

  The tricky part was the caption. She needed to find the words that showed she and her team weren’t down for the count, but that didn’t make them seem like sore losers either. The post needed to spark the fans’ interest without coming across as a sad plea for attention. It should give them something to talk about while the girls were at Ketzia’s cabin. Most of all, it needed to be adversarial and aloof all at once—a bit of theoretical drama for those who wanted it to be such, but just a good-natured jab to everyone else.

  “This might work,” Adah said.

  twilit_heart: New toy unlocked. Think this could mow some flowers?