Tiffany grinned and summoned her wand.
“We were only helping the FBI in our first year,” Kendra explained. “We quit after we killed the drug lord.”
Or more specifically, after Kendra had killed the drug lord instead of taking him prisoner, like they’d agreed to do. And after Florence had taken it upon herself to scream at their handler for having secretly encouraged Kendra to do that because there were no investigations over kills by magical girls.
“Can I fix the handler?” Tiffany asked.
“It’s not here,” Kendra said. I’m pretty sure he’d never work with us again, even if I begged him. Which she wouldn’t do, because she’d said some pretty choice words herself after he had yelled right back at Florence about her being too naive.
Overall, that had been a really bad day. And even though she’d quit being a magical girl, it still rankled that she’d never gotten a second chance to go back there because Florence had been stubborn about it.
Florence. Kendra’s stomach clenched. She still couldn’t believe her best friend had turned her down.
Was there something else she could have said to persuade her? Kendra had had it all worked out. Maybe if Florence had just listened to the details and known that she’d have a secret identity and be able to live at home and just be on call whenever needed . . .
No, Kendra thought. She felt sick. She thought I was exactly the same as Lute Deathwave. That look of betrayal on her face — it was exactly the same. There was nothing I could have said to persuade her.
Perhaps she should have anticipated that, but she hadn’t. To Kendra, the choice to become a villain had been clear and necessary, the only logical conclusion to reach. She’d naturally assumed that once Florence heard the reasons, she would see what had to be done.
Apparently not.
“We started out as aides for the local police,” Kendra said, remembering the good times with wistfulness. “We wound up going back to that afterwards. Well, sometimes. That wasn’t all we did.”
“Wow!” Tiffany cried. “My team never even registered!”
Kendra blinked and stared at her. “They didn’t?”
“Nuh uh.” Tiffany shook her head.
Kendra rubbed her forehead. “That’s illegal if you’re going to fight humans, you know. Please tell me they weren’t fighters.”
“They beat up a bully at school once,” Tiffany said eagerly. “Does that count?”
“Yes.”
Tiffany’s eyes brightened. “You mean I could get my team in trouble?!”
Kendra snorted. “Not as long as everyone thinks you’re dead.”
Tiffany pouted deeply. “Awwwwww . . .”
Kendra stared at the ten-year-old girl with exasperation. That was the only reason she would be tempted to go back home? “Haven’t you ever heard of ‘team loyalty’?”
“I’m not being loyal to them!” Tiffany burst out indignantly. “Every chance they got, they made fun of me!”
“Why would they do that?” Kendra asked.
“I dunnooooooooo!” Tiffany wailed. “I became a magical girl because they were, but then they still didn’t like me!”
In other words, Kendra thought, you weren’t invited onto the team, and yet, you insisted on horning your way in anyway?
“Well, you probably deserved it,” Kendra said.
“Nuh uh!” Tiffany wailed, her eyes filling with tears. “I was the victim! They were ten, and I was only four, and no one ever wanted to include me!”
“No doubt because you were a pest.”
“I wasn’t a pest! I was adorable!” Tiffany shouted.
The ten-year-old proceeded to begin a rant about how everything was unfair and Chronos had made her take some of her dangerous machine-friends apart and Chronos had gone hiding in the dungeons and she hadn’t even invited Tiffany to play there with her —
The dungeons, Kendra thought. Great!
She shoved her hand in her pocket, pulled out the watch, and teleported out of the overstuffed hallway outside of Tiffany’s room, landing in the middle of the dungeons.
She looked around at the now bare and empty room. Apart from posters and a bit of clutter their former prisoner hadn’t bothered to clear out, it now looked uninhabited. The cavernous space of cages looked enormous, the emptiness beyond the bars gaping to be filled.
Kendra shivered. k'12
She walked around, checking every corner of the room, but it was empty. If Chronos had been hiding here, she had since left. Kendra teleported back upstairs, looking around for her next clue, and caught a glimpse of movement at the corner of her eye in the plotting room.
Aha! Kendra thought.
“So . . .” she said, walking right in and flopping into a chair across the table from Chronos, who was reading a book. “When are you going to tell me who we’re fighting?”
Chronos looked up, her expression irritable. “For one thing, there is no ‘we.’ I don’t fight anybody.”
“Right, right,” Kendra said, waving her hand. “So tell me who I’m fighting.”
“I never said you were going to be fighting,” Chronos said, drumming her fingers on the table. “Just because I had a bad dream doesn’t mean there’s anything for you do to about it.”
Kendra brushed that objection aside. “Please. You saw a nightmare future, and you don’t want me to fix it? Get real.”
“Most of the futures I see have nothing to do with your people!” Chronos snapped. “Good or bad! This might amaze you to hear, but magical girls aren’t at the center of everything!”
“Duh,” Kendra said. “But you said ‘Sonnenkinder’ last night. I speak German. That means ‘magical girl.’”
Chronos rubbed her forehead.
Bingo, Kendra thought, leaning forward with eagerness.
“You speak German?” Chronos asked.
Kendra sat back in annoyance, putting her feet back on the table and crossing her legs. That wasn’t the point here. “Sure. We lived in a year in Hamburg while Mom was writing Sunny’s biography.”
“And that was enough to be fluent?” Chronos asked.
“I was in first grade,” Kendra shrugged. “I cared about schoolwork back then. Duh.”
For some reason, Chronos looked exasperated.
“Now, stop dodging the question,” Kendra said. “What was your nightmare about?”
Chronos shook her head slowly, displaying both sides of her messily unbrushed hair. “You seem to think violence is a solution. There are some things it can’t fix.”
“Not things that you have nightmares about,” Kendra said.
“Oh, do you think?” Chronos asked acidly. “It’s good to know that when I foresee natural disasters, marital infidelities, outbreaks of diseases, or food shortages in poor countries, all I’ll ever need to do is call upon you to go slice-and-dice somebody.”
Kendra was silent for a moment.
Chronos picked up her book.
“Which one of those was it?” Kendra asked.
Chronos opened her book with determination.
“I mean, you mentioned something about a magical girl,” Kendra said. “Does one cause a natural disaster, disease outbreak, food shortage, or marital infidelity?”
Chronos put the book in front of her face and didn’t answer.
“Right,” Kendra said, getting up. “I guess I’ll just have to go attack a magical girl who has strong earth-based powers in case she’s about to cause an earthquake. Since you said Sonnenkinder, that means she’s probably German. Schönwasser lives in Berlin, doesn’t she?”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Chronos exploded. “It’s nothing like that!”
“Yes?” Kendra said.
Chronos shut her book and glowered.
Kendra waited, grinning.
“It’s . . . it’s just a child. A bully,” Chronos muttered. She held out her left hand to display a girl with black, curly hair. The girl wore a blouse with a rounded collar in the front that fell in a long,
rounded piece in the back. There was a ruffled skirt with bows on either side, too. “I don’t like bullies, that’s all. She’s no threat. Just arrogant. The world doesn’t need saving —”
“Huh. That’s a Rouen Académie des Saintes uniform,” Kendra interrupted. “The school for magical girls in France.”
Chronos blinked. “Well —”
Kendra pushed back her chair, stood up, and got to her feet.
“See ya!”
“Kendra!” Chronos shouted. “She’s seven years old!”
Not caring, Kendra was already teleporting away.
Chapter 3: The Mission
Given that she didn’t speak French, Kendra’s first action was to teleport back to her home library to steal a French-English dictionary. She’d need to construct a few sentences to be able to communicate. She couldn’t assume that a seven-year-old would speak English.
Running her finger along the spines in the reference section, ducking down and hoping nobody walked past and saw her face, Kendra grabbed the book and was about to teleport out.
“Are you sure it’ll work?” a voice giggled.
Kendra froze. What was Felicity doing here? As far as she knew, her ditzy third teammate had never set food in a library.
“Trust me,” another girl’s voice said confidently. “All you need is a makeover, and this book on makeup tips is just the thing.”
Kendra snorted, but otherwise stayed frozen and tense.
“Thank you so much for helping me!” Felicity’s voice effused as two pairs of feet walked past the bookcase Kendra was hiding behind.
Kendra held her breath, but neither set of footsteps slowed.
“Of course,” the other girl said. “What are best friends for?”
Best friends? Kendra’s brow wrinkled. Since when? Who is that girl?
She crawled to the edge of the bookcase and peered over the corner. She caught sight of a pair of purple sneakers disappearing into another room.
Oh, Kendra realized. Right. It was Tess, one of Felicity’s friends from elementary school. Kendra knew the two of them had been hanging out together a lot since Tess had moved back into town over summer vacation. She hadn’t known that they called each other best friends, though.
What else has changed? Kendra thought. Indignation swelled in her chest. I’ve only been gone a week!
What if this was why Florence hadn’t wanted to join her? What if she’d waited too long, and Florence had already found a new best friend?
No, no, no, Kendra told herself firmly. Florence is ridiculously cautious, especially after Lute Deathwave. She wouldn’t make a new friend that easily, especially not one that could replace me.
But what if?
What if nobody missed her at all?
Did I do the wrong thing? Kendra wondered, squeezing the dictionary. If Florence thinks so . . .
But no. Florence was wrong. It was just like their FBI handler had said: she was too naive, and had too little understanding of the sacrifices that had to be made for the greater good. Sometimes you had to kill a bad guy to make sure his lawyers wouldn’t keep him out of prison again. Sometimes you had to be a villain to save the world from overpowered magical girls.
She heard another pair of footsteps coming towards her, and Kendra quickly teleported out. If it had been her parents acting normal, as if nothing had changed, she didn’t think she could have borne it.
Kendra sat on the roof of the Rouen Académie des Saintes building, hidden in a nook between one of the towers and one of the small chimney tubes that had probably once been functional, but was now only decorative.
She’d been here for hours, trying to puzzle out French sentence structure and the grammar, which made no sense to her. And what was with all of those extra letters? Were they supposed to be silent or what? Not to mention the pronunciation. She was certain she’d butcher that.
Okay, Kendra thought, reviewing the three sentences she’d planned out. I think I can say those. That should make it clear. Now, when the kids arrive . . .
She held onto the skinny chimney and leaned forward to peer around the side of the tower. There were children arriving outside the school now, elementary-aged girls wearing the same ruffled uniform.
Bingo, Kendra thought. Now which one is the one I need?
She wished this had been the Berlin Schüle für Sonnenkinder. She would have known her way around there. She’d considered asking her parents to move to Berlin during her high school years so that she could attend it, which was why she had kept her German in practice. Those plans had dissipated after Florence had decided to become a magical girl and they’d formed a team together, but still.
Why had Chronos said “Sonnenkinder” if the bully was in France, anyway? The French word for “magical girl” was the incredibly pretentious “sainte,” which also meant “saint.” The German language was far more practical. “Sonnenkinder” meant “sun children,” a reference to the first magical girl, Sunny.
Of course, “sainte” at least had the feminine “the,” while “Sonnenkind” used the neuter one, which was almost as annoying as the fact that “Mädchen” (girl) was a neuter word . . .
Focus, Kendra told herself sternly.
She didn’t see any girls down below who had shoulder length, dark, curly hair, but it suddenly occurred to her that Chronos had been showing her the future, not the present — the girl could have a completely different hairstyle now.
It probably would’ve helped if she had gotten the girl’s name, but going back for more information hadn’t been an option, not after making such a cool exit. Besides, Chronos would’ve refused.
Great, Kendra thought, shielding her eyes. The sun was shining right in her field of vision. They all look alike from here. Which one is the bully? And does she speak a word of English?
She refused to go home as a failure. This was her first mission. She had to make it spectacular.
Maybe Chronos said “Sonnenkinder” because she was dreaming about the rivalry between the two schools! Kendra realized.
If that was true, the dream about this particular magical girl had probably before or after that point, which meant Kendra had been lucky to hear the word at all.
How many other dreams has the oracle had that she’s been hiding from me? Kendra thought irritably. How am I supposed to know when there’s something important?
She envied Chronos’s power. If she’d had the ability to see the future, she would have used it long ago to fix all of the world’s problems. Imagine having access to that kind of information all day every day!
Of course, if she’d had Chronos’s power, that would have made her a born mage. Kendra shuddered at the idea. She was very glad she wasn’t one of those things. She had known she wasn’t, of course, but she had been very relieved when the FBI had tested her at the beginning and found her clean.
Was Sunny a born mage? Kendra wondered.
She hoped not. Everyone knew that born mages were evil. But then again, it was indisputable that most of the early magical girls had been born mages, probably because small children who already knew how to use magic were the ones who had first grasped the idea of using a new magic system.
So clearly not all born mages were evil. Just most of them. She was fairly certain Chronos wasn’t, for instance.
Still, the thought of Sunny having been a born mage made Kendra uncomfortable. It was one of the leading theories about the mysterious first magical girl, about whom very little was known, but it was definitely not the theory Kendra preferred.
Another leading theory was that Sunny had come from another world. Kendra didn’t mind that one, though it wasn’t her favorite.
Her favorite theory was the idea that the world itself had conceived magical girls as a response to the corruptions of born mages, a way to make magic something open and virtuous rather than corrupt and secret. The magic system had been created to end the Great War, after all, the War to End All Wars, in 1915.
Most of the other
theories revolved around particular religions, and Kendra dismissed most of those. Muslims and Jews both believed Sunny had been a messenger from God, which was now they both got along. Buddhists tended to consider her a bodhisattva. Some Catholics had argued that she should be made a saint, despite having been Lutheran. Pagans believed that she had been a god herself.
Kendra had once asked Florence what she thought Sunny had been. Florence’s response had been a succinct: “How the heck should I know? Does it really matter, anyway?”
It matters, Kendra thought. Of course it matters. Especially now that I know the magic system isn’t as incorruptible as I used to believe.
A little girl with shoulder-length, curly dark hair walked onto the school grounds below, waving goodbye to a dark, curly-haired mother.
Ahhh, Kendra thought, standing up and dropping the dictionary. Now to wait for the perfect opening.
Ellen trudged onto the playground where half the other girls were currently playing, clutching her huge heart-shaped wand for emotional support.
She’d begged her parents to let her go to a school for magies back home, but there hadn’t been one in Perth, and her parents hadn’t been willing to let her go to boarding school in Brisbane. But then her dad had gotten news that he was going to be sent to Rouen for work. Rouen, where the very first school for magical girls had started!
Ellen’s begging had immediately switched into overdrive.
“Please, Mum! Please, Dad! I have to go to Rouen Académie des Saintes! Please, Mum! Please, Dad! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!”
Despite the fact that her French had been horrible, the school had taken her in, on the condition that she attend summer school and take remedial classes until she was up to the same level as the other girls her age. Ellen had been thrilled.
But no one wanted to be friends with her.
Ellen held on to the huge plastic wand tightly. That was why she’d bought this at a toy store with her birthday money. That was why she going to pretend she’d powered up and this was her new focus item, so all the other girls would “ooh” and “ahh,” and it wouldn’t matter that she spoke French so horribly.
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