Back in the lobby, the other girls were helping Grace set out their dinner. The television hanging from the wall in the reception area was already showing tonight’s coverage of the IndieMagie finals.

  After panning around the arena for tonight’s duel, the camera cut to the DreamRise members. Although Iris was smiling and waving to the camera as happily as ever, her teammates looked a little more restless. Clair had her eyes shut and her lips twitched in tiny movements as if she was chanting something to herself. Ekki didn’t acknowledge the camera either, though his attention was focused to something off-screen.

  After the announcer finished introducing DreamRise, the coverage cut to their opponents: a trio of animal-eared girls in closely coordinated idol costumes. Each girl had a unique set of ears—one with black catlike ears, another with an orange fox’s, and the last with tall rabbit ears—that appeared to grow naturally from their heads instead of as artificial ornaments. Direct augments to one’s body were rare in transformations, but technically something like this was possible.

  If Adah had been able to get a read on DreamRise’s headspace on account of knowing their members, this second team made their attitudes obvious for anyone. The rabbit-eared girl hopped from foot to foot; she was bursting with so much energy that it seemed like she might jump up and dropkick the camera at any moment. Meanwhile, the cat-eared one stretched her arms overhead in such a way that her shirt lifted and exposed her stomach. She threw her arms down in a panic to cover up, then glared at the camera with a pouting face. The fox-eared girl would have been the hardest to read, had she not suddenly pulled her cheeks apart with both hands and exposed the set of fangs in her mouth—surely magically augmented in the same way as her ears were.

  “Are they fighting against furries?” Ami asked.

  “They’re not furries,” Emi said. “They’re catgirls.”

  “She’s got bunny ears!” Ami said.

  “They’re not—I mean, they’re like…” Rika struggled to find the right words. “They’re just magical girls. It’s just a theme.”

  Adah wasn’t sure what this team preferred to call themselves either, but she did recognize them. They had caught her eye back during the first round of the IndieMagie as one of the teams that had advanced for Region 2.

  The rabbit-eared girl was called Sheffa Surefoot, while the catgirl went by Canto Quickclaw. The foxgirl broke their pattern with a name that Adah wasn’t even sure how to pronounce: Inarikari Pakamari. Everyone, including her teammates, just called her Mari.

  They were the newest team from Apex Vox, an agency that typically focused more on the entertainment side of the industry than combat. The agency’s previous roster of magical girls had all retired last year, leaving them to rebuild a new team from the ground up. While they were a relatively successful agency, they were still small compared to those that could afford to field multiple rosters and reserves of trainees. These new animal-eared girls were essentially a fresh start for Apex Vox, and followed in the agency’s tradition of producing idol-like musical talent.

  This new team had grown in popularity fast, thanks in no small part to the monthly music videos their agency produced to highlight them. However, the reason they had caught Adah’s eye was that they were simultaneously throwing themselves headfirst into missions. The strategy for most teams that leaned into the music business was to take a few easy F-Ranks just to show the girls in action, then build up their popularity through shows and songs, and finally take on higher rank missions once the team’s FP levels had already skyrocketed. The new Apex Vox girls had almost done the reverse.

  Their agency was supporting them with music videos, but those videos were packed with footage of them fighting Cruelties all the way up to C-Ranks. The cute costumes and dance routines that made up the bulk of most other idol-type magical girls’ videos were replaced with this hard-hitting battle footage that showed off the Apex Vox team’s spells and fighting style. Impressively, they managed to look just as cute while fighting as those other girls did during their sparkling close-ups.

  According to Seb and his network of hardcore fans, Apex Vox was considered the top contender in this year’s IndieMagie. The interregional rounds were decided by head-to-head competitions and not votes, but the fans still felt Apex Vox had the edge when it came to strategy and strength. Tonight’s duel would put that to the test. The final round of the contest came down to a best-of-five series of duels between the finalist teams. DreamRise and Apex Vox had each won two duels, so this fifth match would crown a champion.

  The fifth and final duel was a straightforward rugby-like sport called Takelen. The game was played in a similar fashion to “capture the mascot,” but took place in an open arena with a singular ball. The objective of the game was simple: carry the ball through a circular goal at your opponent’s end of the arena.

  There were only a few rules beyond that, such as a non-lethal safety measure and a requirement that the player carrying the ball through the goal must have full, uncontested possession of the ball for the goal to count. The game had no timer and no breaks except for a brief reset period after a goal was scored. For this contest, the first team to score three times would win.

  Considering the previous four duels had included a mixture of physical and mental competitions, a pure sport like this was a fitting way to decide a champion.

  At the start of the game—as well as after each goal reset—the ball was placed on the ground at the center of the arena. Each team positioned themselves behind a line of scrimmage on their side of the arena, a couple hundred feet away from the ball. Once the starting horn sounded, the teams were free to move and play however they saw fit, whether that meant charging for the ball or setting up defensively.

  DreamRise’s strategy at the start of the duel was predictable: send Ekki in with his [Vanishing Vapor] to grab the ball before anyone from Apex Vox could reach it. Since the two teams had faced off multiple times already, the animal-eared girls were well aware DreamRise would take this approach. They didn’t bother flying toward the ball, and instead focused on setting up a defensive zone to snuff DreamRise’s ability to advance.

  Adah had a sense of how DreamRise would approach this first round of the game. It was a strategy that Apex Vox could easily adapt to once they had a chance to regroup during the post-goal reset period, so DreamRise might as well capitalize on it early.

  In the same way Ekki had used his portals to box in Rika during their duel, as if there were two of him attacking from different angles, he could complicate his offense in this game. He summoned a portal deep into Apex Vox’s side of the arena while simultaneously flying forward. Since he could conjure another portal near himself at any moment, the animal-eared girls were forced to divide their attention between the far away portal and Ekki himself.

  The catgirl Canto flew back to deal with the portal, dispersing its magic with a spell. She swung her arms like an “X” in front of herself, attacking with a criss-crossing magic slash that left trails of light like a cat’s claw marks. However, as soon as she dealt with that portal, Ekki summoned another in a different location. Canto rushed off to get rid of that one as well.

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  With this level of distraction, DreamRise had no trouble advancing toward Apex Vox’s goal. Iris used her [Bulwark Bud] as a way to disrupt the other Apex Vox members’ movement, while Clair slowed them down with what Adah assumed were attacks on their minds. The animal-eared girls seemed ready to resist Clair, as they never fully succumbed to her spells, but the pressure still took their attention away from Ekki.

  In the end, he made it to the goal with relative ease. DreamRise scored the first point.

  In the interim period, the Apex Vox members huddled together to rethink their own strategy. From experience, Adah knew that Ekki’s portals were the kind of spell you thought you had a plan for until you actually had to deal with them. He was far more comfortable with using them than you could possibly be with defending against them. Once he showed you where the gaps in your defense were, you could start shoring those up.

  Adah had figured it out too late, but the best counter to Ekki’s mobility wasn’t to focus his portals but rather Ekki himself. If you could stick close to him, the mindgames with his portals became irrelevant. You simply needed to match someone who could handle close quarters combat against him. In that sense, it might have been better for Sunbright if Adah had tasked Ami with fighting Ekki rather than defending Izzy.

  Apex Vox appeared to have figured this out as well. When the game resumed, they had completely changed their strategy. The rabbit-eared Sheffa made a break for the ball at the start of this round, accelerating her flight with bursts of speed that must have been provided by a spell of some sorts. Although she was fast, she wasn’t fast enough to beat Ekki’s portals to the ball. However, that wasn’t her goal—she was after Ekki, not the ball.

  By the time Ekki snatched up the ball and started to conjure a portal, Sheffa was right in his face. She maneuvered all around him, switching her position every half-second thanks to the burst of speed her spell gave her. She blasted him with kicks from every angle, her rapid movement making her strikes impossible to defend against.

  Now it was Iris and Clair who were forced to scramble to deal with Apex Vox. They focused all their attention on protecting Ekki and slowing down the rabbit-eared girl, but that only left them open to attacks from Canto and Mari. DreamRise had no good answer to this all-out assault, and it wasn’t long before Sheffa kicked the ball out of Ekki’s arms and grabbed it for herself. With her overwhelming speed, she easily broke past DreamRise’s shattered formation and scored a goal for Apex Vox.

  The next two rounds proceeded in a series of adaptations by each team. DreamRise scored the next goal by baiting Sheffa into getting trapped within one of Iris’s shields. Her teammates wasted so much time trying to break her out that DreamRise were able to set up a sort of relay race formation to quickly move the ball across the arena and into the goal.

  Apex Vox struck back the next round by leveling up their offensive once again, thanks to a multi-target spell from Mari. She conjured the ghostly images of three giant foxes, which rushed forward with magical fangs bared in a pronged assault. She used the spell to great effect as an area denial tool, and managed to carve a path for her rabbit-eared teammate to reach DreamRise’s goal.

  In the final round, both teams were clearly weighed down by exhaustion. Not only had this match gone on for nearly an hour with an increasing amount of brawling, but this was their fifth duel in as many days. Every member’s movement was sluggish and their spellcasting inaccurate. The next goal would win, and both teams looked ready for this duel to be over.

  Their performance in this final round reflected that exhaustion and desperation. Rather than refined tactical plays, they battled over the ball like a caveman smashing two rocks together to create sparks. In the previous rounds, a team only needed a brief opening to successfully carry the ball through their opponent’s goal. Now the ball changed hands multiple times a minute. Sometimes it looked as though the teams were having trouble holding onto it even when they weren’t being attacked.

  Though, as the match went on, DreamRise started to gain an advantage. The whirlwind of brawling magic users slowly made its way across the arena, inching ever nearer to Apex Vox’s goal. Eventually, Clair broke out of the clump with the ball in tow and a clear path to the circular goal. Iris and Ekki were blocking Canto and Mari respectively, leaving only Sheffa to chase after Clair. It was the perfect situation for DreamRise. All they had to do was employ the same trap they had earlier to trap the rabbit-eared girl in Iris’s shield.

  Iris herself recognized that, and reached out to cast her [Bulwark Bud]. The petals appeared in the air and curled up into a perfect cocoon.

  Except Sheffa wasn’t caught within that cocoon. Under the pressure of Canto's claws, Iris had mistimed her cast and missed her target.

  Without any interruption, it was a simple task for Sheffa to catch Clair and knock her out of the sky with a series of kicks. She snatched up the fumbled ball and made a break for DreamRise’s goal.

  Still, Iris or Ekki had a chance to stop her. It was only a window of a second or two, but the opportunity was there. Maybe they were too tired, or their brains too slow to process Iris’s mistake. Whatever the cause, they were too late to respond.

  Mari mustered the last of her magic to call forth her trio of fox spirits again, unleashing them on the two DreamRise members. The attack knocked both Iris and Ekki to the arena floor. The foxgirl fell down right after them, her magic totally depleted now.

  Apex Vox scored. The duel, along with the IndieMagie, ended in their victory.

  Sheffa and Canto flew down to rejoin their exhausted comrade, helping her upright so they could celebrate together. The camera hung on their smiling faces before cutting suddenly to Iris. The girl was clinging to Ekki’s chest and crying. After a few seconds, the production team gave her the grace of cutting back to the happy faces of the Apex Vox members.

  In the Spotlight Sunbright lobby, all the girls were quiet. They watched the television screen with flat expressions until Adah picked up the remote and turned off the coverage.

  Adah stared at the black screen for a moment. When Apex Vox had scored that final goal, she had actually felt a little sad. She wasn’t sure why, but the feeling only flickered in her heart before fading away. After that, she mostly felt detached from the images that played out on the screen. Neither Apex Vox’s victory or Iris’s tears made much of an impact on her.

  Something like the IndieMagie seemed more like a distraction than a goal now.

  “I would’ve thought you’d all take more pleasure in that,” Grace said. “You seem like the types to appreciate some schadenfreude.”

  “It’s like you said,” Adah replied, “the IndieMagie was just a step for us. Our focus should be on improving ourselves, right? Besides, with Iris…”

  She was going to say that you could never know whether this was all an act or not. But, upon thinking of the girl’s teary face again, she decided that might not be true. Iris really was sad. The IndieMagie had given them both a reality check, just at different points. Still, Adah could take no pleasure in the girl’s defeat.

  That pleasure wouldn’t come until she beat Iris herself.

  “Maybe Ketzia really did turn you into soldiers,” Grace said, looking over the girls. “If you’re in such a serious mood, now is probably the right time to tell you what I needed to talk to you all about.”

  The girls all stopped eating to give their manager their full attention. Even that level of seriousness made Grace raise her eyebrows.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d react before, but maybe I was worrying over nothing,” she said. “Secretary Thibault wants to meet with us. He has another idea for how our team can help the region, and how he can help us.”

  His last grand idea had been an underhanded method of catapulting DreamRise into the IndieMagie using Sunbright as a counterweight. Adah almost respected the audacity of asking them for another favor so soon after their loss.

  At the same time, maybe this request was a sign of his need rather than his audacity. Surely he was aware that he had soured their team’s opinion of him. That meant he would only reach out to them if he had no other option, which very well could be true in this region. As such, Sunbright could have the upper hand in this meeting, and therefore force through some demands of their own.

  Adah’s ambitions would require more support and resources than her agency could provide. This was an opportunity to take what she needed from the regional government—they’d shown their willingness to throw time and money at that Unchained Underground campaign, after all.

  More importantly, she needed information. Information that only someone like Secretary Thibault had access to.

  “Let’s meet him,” she told Grace.

  This time, though, she'd be the one taking charge.