Kendra burst into tears again and collapsed back on the ground.
Is that . . . it? Chronos wondered, unsettled. Can I go now?
She felt guilty to have caused such devastation, but she didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t know if comfort would help the future or hurt it. Besides, she didn’t know what comfort would even be possible. She wasn’t going to lie to be reassuring.
Maybe she should go now. Yes, that was the best thing she could do. Chronos pulled the teleporting watch her uncle had given her out of her pocket —
She stopped.
Maybe the problem was that Kendra felt trapped. Trapped in a future she couldn’t escape. Trapped without hope or possibilities.
Chronos knew how it felt to be trapped.
That was why her uncle had given her this watch.
“Teleportation represents freedom,” he’d said. “You can go anywhere, do anything, and get away with it. Nobody can tell you what to do, and nobody can stop you.”
As a child, that had meant a lot to her. It had meant hiding from her older sister. It had meant avoiding the head of the family. It had meant escaping from the entire villain lifestyle when she’d been old enough to take care of herself.
Perhaps, to a corrupt magical girl, it would mean starting a fresh life somewhere new.
Chronos took a deep breath, and then placed the watch on the ground beside the sobbing magical girl. This had been her childhood treasure, but she no longer needed it.
“Here,” Chronos said. “My uncle made this for me when I was down one day. It teleports. It’s useful.” She hesitated. “I’ll book a flight home.”
A crowd had gathered at some point to watch them, and Chronos used her elbows to shove people aside as she walked briskly down the sidewalk. She felt naked without the watch, without a way to escape, but nobody challenged her.
She’d have to book a flight with the Deathwaves, of course, because she had no legal passport and had never bothered purchasing a fake one. But that would be easy to enough to do. It took her only a few seconds to find the future of a random Deathwave minion and to follow it to the nearest office.
Chronos turned a corner, away from the crowd, and breathed a sigh of relief. She headed toward the Deathwaves’ office.
She had a long flight home back to Greece. She wasn’t looking forward to it.
Chapter 4: The Decision
A crowd of people gathered around Kendra, and some of them started asking her if something was wrong.
Are you kidding me? Kendra thought furiously. Leave me alone! Why don’t you go chase after the born mage, if you’re so worried?
But then she realized that the born mage hadn’t looked like a villain. She’d looked like a hobo. And Kendra had been transformed. As far as they were concerned, all the magic had been hers.
For some reason, this realization left Kendra feeling even more depressed than she had been before.
My magic failed to warn me that I was doing anything wrong, she thought. Instead, a born mage had to. A born mage.
Everyone knew born mages were evil. If a born mage had needed to stop her, she’d been destined to become a nightmare indeed.
Forget being the hero, Kendra thought bitterly, I’m not even better than a villain.
She wished she could believe the born mage had been lying, but that just didn’t fit. Too many of the details had meshed with Kendra’s own plans for the future, including ones she’d never written down or told anybody.
The bloodred woman’s hairstyle.
Her costume’s shape.
The Magical Girl Union.
Well, to be fair, Kendra had joked with Florence about the need for magical girls to have their own governing body. Only magical girls could fairly judge magical girls, after all. But she had never said she’d been serious.
Unless the born mage was a mind-reader, she doubted that all of those details could have been so accurate.
For a moment, Kendra’s heart lifted at the possibility. Born mages only ever had one power, so mind-reading and illusion couldn’t happen in one person, but what if there had been a second born mage involved?
This could just be a plot to convince her to quit her powers, right before the world needed her. Kendra brightened at the idea. That was it. She’d just been lied to. It was going to be fine. The world still needed her.
That thought sustained her enough to stand up, to inform the crowd briskly that she was fine, and to start walking home.
But as she headed down the sidewalk, alone now, her pace flagged. Her shoulders grew tighter and tighter.
Be honest with yourself. Is that the most likely explanation?
The problem was . . . the problem was, there was one simple fact she couldn’t explain like that, and that was the common sense point the hobo had made.
“Do you really think those people change drastically overnight?”
If magical girls could be evil . . . if they could turn corrupt gradually and still have their powers until the process was complete . . .
Well, then it made perfect sense that Kendra might be one of them.
Kendra’s pace slowed to a dead stop. Despair washed over her.
She wasn’t like Florence. She didn’t have a moral compass born from a religion. She based her moral compass on what she had been told, and on believing that the magic system would stop her if she went corrupt. Therefore, whenever she’d done something questionable and Florence had called her on it, she’d known that she was right and Florence was wrong.
For instance, choosing to kill their first arch-nemesis instead of taking him prisoner.
Tears squeezed out of Kendra’s eyes.
It wasn’t fair. She’d always followed what she had been told. She’s always believed what she had been told. And everybody had let her down. Magic had let her down.
And that was when Kendra realized . . .
No. Magic didn’t fail me. I failed magic.
Kendra drew in a shaky breath, trying not to bawl again. Yes. She had failed magic. She didn’t deserve it anymore.
But she couldn’t bear to give it up.
Please, Kendra pleaded silently, isn’t there any way I can keep it?
All she wanted to do was save the world. All she wanted to be was a hero. Giving up couldn’t be the answer to that. It couldn’t.
But she had only two sure ways to make sure that future didn’t happen, and she would never consider suicide. That was a coward’s way out. Which meant that the only real option to make sure that, no matter how tempted she got in the future, she would never become that person was . . .
If I gave up my powers . . .
Kendra shivered, and forced herself to continue walking down the sidewalk back home.
She wasn’t ready to stop being a magical girl. She wasn’t done. She’d never intended to quit; she’d intended to keep her powers for as long as possible until magic itself abandoned her for being too old.
She’d always said she’d do the right thing, no matter what the cost. But this was not a cost she had anticipated. This was not a cost she had been willing to pay.
But if it was the right thing . . .
Kendra stopped again as another thought struck her.
Is it the right thing?
Because there was another logical conclusion to draw from what she had just learned.
“The world does need me to save it,” Kendra murmured. “I see . . .”
Florence was getting really worried. Somebody had called her after track practice to say he’d seen Kendra crying in the park. Then Florence had called Kendra’s house, and her parents had said she’d been refusing to speak to anybody. And now Kendra had skipped school all day.
We’ve fought before, Florence thought uneasily. A lot. Kendra’s never cried about it. What’s made this time so different?
She and Kendra had always had a . . . dynamic friendship. Even as kids, they’d gone from best friends to worst enemies to best friends many times in a week. They’d been fighting more
than usual lately, but that was just because Florence had been wondering whether she wanted to stay a magical girl at all, and Kendra’d had strong opinions about the matter and problems with the whole “staying out of other people’s business” thing.
But something must have been different this time. Florence must have really hurt her best friend. And she had no clue what she’d said.
She caught up to Felicity near the bleachers after she’d finished running a few laps on the track. “Any sign of Kendra?” Florence panted, pulling a handful of braids off her sweaty neck.
Felicity shook her head. Her eyes brightened. “But I gave Daniel my phone number!”
“Really?” Florence was startled. “You told him that you like him?”
Felicity giggled, turning red. “No, no! I wrote it on his backpack while he wasn’t looking!”
“Well, then I’m sure he’ll know exactly what that means and what to do about it,” Florence said, rolling her eyes.
“Kendra!” Felicity gasped, pointing behind Florence.
Florence spun around, and there was a slumped figure, standing with a wall of blonde hair covering her face.
“Kendra . . .?” Florence asked uneasily.
“Where did you come from?!” Felicity exclaimed. “You just, like, appeared out of nowhere! Where have you been?”
“Do I want to know why you skipped school?” Florence added in an accusing tone, hoping to provoke a reaction.
Kendra said nothing.
Florence felt a stab of uncertainty. What was wrong with Kendra? She never acted like this. She always had something to say, often some kind of order that drove Florence crazy.
Did I jump to the wrong conclusions yesterday? Florence wondered. I thought she was going to pester us to apply as FBI aides yet again. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she wanted to suggest that we become singing magical girls or something.
The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Kendra’s mother had been a singing magical girl, and Kendra really admired her. Kendra also knew that Florence’s favorite musician was a singing magical girl in South Africa, and she knew that Felicity loved singing along to songs on the radio.
Badly and out of tune. But most singing magical girls had autotune magic, so that wouldn’t be a big deal.
If that was the case, Florence felt awful for ignoring her. She’d assumed that Kendra was still obsessed with that whole “saving the world” schtick, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe Kendra had been trying to be unselfish, for once, and Florence had thrown it in her face.
“Kendra?” Florence asked cautiously.
Kendra finally spoke, but she did not raise her head. Her long, blonde hair was like a wall between them. “I’ve been up all night, thinking. And I think . . . we need to split up our team.”
“WHAT?!” Felicity shrieked. Loose hair clips from her ponytail went flying all over the place. She’d worn about three dozen of them today, and she’d been losing them all day.
“Well, that’s a complete 180 . . .” Florence muttered, with a flash of irritation.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so worried. Kendra was just being Kendra, it seemed. She’d high-handedly decided to fire them both from Wings of Justice without their permission.
“I’m sorry if I’ve talked too much about Daniel . . .” Felicity sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
“Who do you want to train to take our place?” Florence asked, almost as accusingly as she’d intended.
“No,” Kendra said. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
Florence noticed for the first time that Kendra was holding her halo. That was odd, because your focus item didn’t do anything unless you were transformed. You could summon it whenever, but there was no real point in doing so.
As Kendra spoke, a flutter of feathers surrounded her halo — not Kendra herself, which was even odder, because they would normally be part of her transformation scene.
“I’ve decided,” Kendra said quietly, “to become . . . a villain instead.”
Florence’s mouth fell open as the halo grew spikes. Thick iron spikes jabbed out of the gold ring.
“WHAT?!” she burst out, hearing Felicity say the same.
Kendra raised her head at last, and there were tears in her eyes. “If magical girls can betray the world, then someone has to stop them! So as of right now, I’m officially defecting!”
“Are you insane?” Florence yelped.
“Teleport!” Kendra screamed, raising the spiked halo and something else in her other hand over her head. Then, with a poof of sparkles, she was gone.
Florence stared at the empty air, unable to fathom what she had just witnessed. Kendra had said she was . . . defecting?
Kendra?
Kendra, of all people?
That didn’t even make sense! Defectors lost their powers, and their focus items crumbled! Kendra’s focus item had grown spikes, as if it had become a villain weapon instead!
“What just happened?” Florence burst out, trying to process it.
“I wanna wake up from this dreeeam!” Felicity wailed.
What the —? Florence thought. WHAT?!
Chronos was settling in with a book she’d read many times. She was glad to get back to her routine of doing not much of anything. She hadn’t had any nightmares on the plane home, which hopefully meant that she could go back to ignoring everybody.
“Hm?” A twinkle of light caught the corner of her eye, and she turned around, wondering idly what —
“Kendra?”
The corrupt magical girl was standing there, spiked ring in one hand and watch in the other, glowering fiercely.
“Um . . .” Chronos said. “I think you took a wrong turn —”
“I defected,” the magical girl said darkly. “Now I can never wreck the world, and no one can ever wreck the world in my name. But that doesn’t solve the problem permanently, does it?”
What are you talking about? Chronos stared at her, baffled. That solves the problem entirely. Granted, you could just have quit your magic, and I’m not sure why you didn’t, but . . .
“If I was going to turn evil, I won’t be the last one,” Kendra explained sharply. “So you’re going to help me fight the corrupt. We’ll form a villain team.”
“WHAT?” Chronos exploded. “I don’t do teams! And I’m not a villain — I’m neutral!”
“Not anymore,” the magical girl said. “You want to save the world? Help me stop the people who threaten it.”
“I don’t want to save the world!” Chronos protested. “I just wanted to end my nightmares about you!”
“Congratulations,” Kendra said, spinning on her heel and walking towards the door. “Where’s your guest room?”
“You’re not staying!” Chronos shouted. “Leave me alone!”
“Too late for that, oracle.”
“The name’s ‘Chronos’ —”
“Whatever you say, soothsayer.”
“CHRONOS!”
Next Book:
Chronos doesn't want to be a villain. She also doesn't want a houseguest. Unfortunately for her, Kendra is insisting on both, and the former magical girl will not listen to reason.
In desperation, Chronos goes to the one person she trusts least for help:
Her sister, Rhea.
Rhea, who is a fashion designer for villains. Rhea, whose favorite hobby is corrupting magical girls.
You can get it here.
Henina tends to irritate people. She can’t help it — she’s bad at shutting her mouth. So when a prophecy is made that someone will stop the war, she figures she’s the worst possible choice.
Too bad.
The Fates have their sights set on her, and it will take all her cleverness and quite a lot of offending the king to foist the prophecy off on somebody else instead.
But she can do it. After all, there are a lot of potentials to choose from.
You can get it here.
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