by Kayla Bashe
The thing is, you know you can fight them. You know you can defend yourself. You know you’re not alone.
You know that, as scary as your enemies may seem, you can fight back.
And you can win.
You’ll use…
* * *
(1/3) Courage
* * *
(2/3) Love
* * *
(3/3) Knowledge
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
You turn around when the screaming and yelling starts.
A portal’s opened in the sky, right where the wards begin. Monsters swarm from the portal, looking eldritch and creepy and wrong in all the worst ways.
Ordinary kids would freak, scream and run and drop their disposable forks and scatter leaving biodegradable paper plates in their wake, trampled into the ground and dirty.
But you’re no ordinary kids. You’re magical.
All around you, students unsheath swords or put arrows to bowstrings. One girl clicks her fingers, and fire springs to life in her palm; another closes her eyes, and vines sprout up from the ground to answer her call. Cybernetic armor unfolds to cover tanned arms.
And then you get a good look at your enemies.
Humanoid monsters with too-large smiles and too-many teeth. A creature that looks like an enormous red centipede, crawling along the ground and clicking its fangs and eyeing you suspiciously. A gorilla with extra legs all up its back—it doesn’t walk, it bounces. A giant three-headed pillbug that somehow curls up and rolls towards you.
“I rename myself! Love Angel Transformation!”
Your skirt puffs up, wings unfold from your back, and your school-issue pendant is replaced by a ribbon choker with a pretty crystal, the perfect thing to hold onto and take comfort from. Something—moving so fast that you can barely make out any of its features, except for a pair of thin bug-wings the color and texture of an old man’s hands—zooms in to bite a chunk out of your upper arm, but you swat it away.
In an instant, acting purely on reflex, you’re glowing with a sunlit aura; when the creature darts in for another nip, it sizzles away to ashes within an instant.
Smiling clay masks with shadow-bodies, knee-high and running at a startlingly fast gallop. A giant inchworm-thing made out of what looks like intestines—it has a mouth, and that mouth is drooling. No way are you going to let these uglies pick on your friends.
The thing is, you know you can fight them. You know you can defend yourself. You know you’re not alone.
You know that, as scary as your enemies may seem, you can fight back.
And you can win.
You’ll use…
* * *
(1/3) Courage
* * *
(2/3) Love
* * *
(3/3) Knowledge
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
You’re a warrior, fierce and fearless and indestructible. That’s why, when you sense that your friends on the battlefield are struggling, you draw your sword and charge into the chaos. Let enemies stand against you—no matter how large and powerful they are, you’ll take them down, one after another.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
Your love and kindness inspire others. That’s why, floating into the air, you form bubbles of healing, protective light around your classmates.
How many can you create? Is there a limit? In this headspace, you’re not even sure. Maybe your power is limitless.
You can protect everyone. You can inspire everyone and shield their hearts with your happiness. You will glow so brightly that everyone will see you, and your power will shine.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
You’re a warrior, fierce and fearless and indestructible. That’s why, when you sense that your friends on the battlefield are struggling, you draw your sword and charge into the chaos. Let enemies stand against you—no matter how large and powerful they are, you’ll take them down, one after another.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
Your love and kindness inspire others. That’s why, floating into the air, you form bubbles of healing, protective light around your classmates.
How many can you create? Is there a limit? In this headspace, you’re not even sure. Maybe your power is limitless.
You can protect everyone. You can inspire everyone and shield their hearts with your happiness. You will glow so brightly that everyone will see you, and your power will shine.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
“We’re doing ‘Hold the Line,’ Chant calls from the porch, where she’s gathered with a small group of students who have music-based powers.”Lucy, I need you to cover us—can you do that?"
You nod—“I will.”
Fighting, unstoppable, you let the music carry you.
“Hold the line…”
It starts out simple—a harmony that makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up, your fingers feel like you’re touching an electric field or the powerful magical aura of crystals—and a powerful drumbeat—one two three four, one two three. Another girl puts bow to violin. The song splits into a round, braids back into four-part harmony, a cadenza in unison, a perfect chord. It’s pure choir-kid virtuosity, and they know it.
This is do-or-die, and you’re bitterly, sickeningly outnumbered, in a way that makes your stomach twist sharply. Hold the line, Lucy Angel.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
(bad shit. but then)
“We need to sing Elysian Gauntlet!”
Really, you only need three voices to pull off an Elysian Gauntlet—even the tambourine is optional if you’re choosing to focus more on melody as opposed to (tempo/rhythym. )
But they’re doing the full version, and the full version is for choir and tambourine and harp and a trio of solos, your essence leaps with happiness when you hear Chant’s beautiful voice taking the highest one.
An entire orchestra of accompaniment swells from the air; it’s part operatic,
part soundtrack, the sort of thing you use to get a ragtag, struggling army back on its feet again. The music synchronizes perfectly with your heartbeat, speeding you up.
Your body is energized, your senses are at their sharpest, and a sense of absolute calm, determination, and focus suffuses you.
For now, at least, your friends are brave and beautiful and valiant and fighting, and you’re shimmering like a sun, glowing with love, protecting everyone.
Will you really be able to keep this up indefinitely?
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
You levitate above the battlefield, and imagine a green glowing grid below you. Each person or object is a square—and, with a mere thought, you can switch the squares’ positions.
When a younger student gets cornered by monsters, you move one of her attackers to the edge of the battlefield and swap in one of her squadmates.
You play off your allies’ strengths and your opponent’s weaknesses, remembering everything that you’ve ever learned in your lessons—and in your own research—to give the side of good the advantage. When a brilliant idea strikes you, you even move two monsters so that their attacks damage only each other.
It’s logic, it’s innovative quick thinking, it’s a clever game. And you’re winning.
Your friends believe in you, and they trust you, and you trust then right back. You’re the one directing this battle. You’re the one who can change its course, and you’re too innovative and inventive for anyone to even think of stopping you.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
“We’re doing ‘Hold the Line,’ Chant calls from the porch, where she’s gathered with a small group of students who have music-based powers.”Lucy, I need you to cover us—can you do that?"
You nod—“I will.”
Fighting, unstoppable, you let the music carry you.
“Hold the line…”
It starts out simple—a harmony that makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up, your fingers feel like you’re touching an electric field or the powerful magical aura of crystals—and a powerful drumbeat—one two three four, one two three. Another girl puts bow to violin. The song splits into a round, braids back into four-part harmony, a cadenza in unison, a perfect chord. It’s pure choir-kid virtuosity, and they know it.
This is do-or-die, and you’re bitterly, sickeningly outnumbered, in a way that makes your stomach twist sharply. Hold the line, Lucy Angel.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
(bad shit. but then)
“We need to sing Elysian Gauntlet!”
Really, you only need three voices to pull off an Elysian Gauntlet—even the tambourine is optional if you’re choosing to focus more on melody as opposed to (tempo/rhythym. )
But they’re doing the full version, and the full version is for choir and tambourine and harp and a trio of solos, your essence leaps with happiness when you hear Chant’s beautiful voice taking the highest one.
An entire orchestra of accompaniment swells from the air; it’s part operatic, part soundtrack, the sort of thing you use to get a ragtag, struggling army back on its feet again. The music synchronizes perfectly with your heartbeat, speeding you up.
Your body is energized, your senses are at their sharpest, and a sense of absolute calm, determination, and focus suffuses you.
For now, at least, your friends are brave and beautiful and valiant and fighting, and you’re shimmering like a sun, glowing with love, protecting everyone.
Will you really be able to keep this up indefinitely?
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
You levitate above the battlefield, and imagine a green glowing grid below you. Each person or object is a square—and, with a mere thought, you can switch the squares’ positions.
When a younger student gets cornered by monsters, you move one of her attackers to the edge of the battlefield and swap in one of her squadmates.
You play off your allies’ strengths and your opponent’s weaknesses, remembering everything that you’ve ever learned in your lessons—and in your own research—to give the side of good the advantage. When a brilliant idea strikes you, you even move two monsters so that their attacks damage only each other.
It’s logic, it’s innovative quick thinking, it’s a clever game. And you’re winning.
Your friends believe in you, and they trust you, and you trust then right back. You’re the one directing this battle. You’re the one who can change its course, and you’re too innovative and inventive for anyone to even think of stopping you.
* * *
(1/1) >>
* * *
* * *
* * *
Please turn back a page
* * *
* * *
Please turn forward a page
* * *
Magical Girl Academy: Awakening Magic, by Kayla Bashe
* * *
Slowly but steadily, you’re losing ground, moving closer to the house. If you retreated to the upper story, called up the emergency wards thrumming with old magic, how long could you hold out before your friends started dying?
And how long would it be before the endless stream of monsters, deprived of their playthings, headed to the Academy to wreak havoc on another group of unsuspecting students? How long would it be before they made their way to the city? To the nearby towns?
How long would it be before the planet was marked uninhabitable?
Running away won’t help. You have a sense that the tide of the battle’s going to change. Something’s going to happen, something good, and then you’ll win.
Until it happens, though, you’ll channel all your hope and your happiness and keep smiling. You’ll keep going. You won’t give up!
“Hey! Heard you needed some help.”