1. Beautiful Little Weapon

“…Remarkably good, and remarkably quick, at pausing a task at any given point, swapping to a different task, and then swapping back at the exact point it left and resuming without any loss of information. This is called ‘context switching,’ and while we as humans often struggle with it greatly, it’s part and parcel to how computers function, and how they give off the appearance of being able to do so many things simultaneously.”

I fail to stifle a yawn, only half paying attention as my computer science professor drones on. I know enough of this already to get the answers right on a multiple-choice test, and that happens to be the hard limit of my ability to force my brain to pay attention. The rest just starts floating past my ears, which have been tricked into ignoring real sounds by the song I’m playing in my head over and over. But when my mind wanders, my eyes inevitably wander too, always finding their way to rest on her.

Castalia.

I know I’m a bit of a rude creep for staring so much, but I can’t seem to get myself to stop. I sit a couple rows behind her, so I’m at least unlikely to be bothering her with it. She probably doesn’t know I’m doing it at all, unless she has some kind of magic that tells you if people are watching you without needing to look at them. Though if she does, I know that I’d never want to cast a spell like that even if I could. 

But I can’t, of course. I was never chosen. 

The professor calls on Castalia for a question and she stands up to answer it. As she talks, the stump of her left arm moves and wiggles in meaningless ways, only a quarter of a comprehensible gesticulation, as her entire right arm simply doesn’t exist at all. Not even as a smaller stump. It has been utterly scoured away, shoulder and all, which is easy to tell because Castalia leaves none of it to the imagination. She wears a light spaghetti strap tank top that proudly exposes the twisted scars to the air. The lingering memory of an unimaginable wound crawls all the way up the right side of her neck and face, the eye milky white and the skin red, wrinkled, and dry. 

One working eye. Zero point five arms. And yet the girl stands in front of me, in an introductory college computer science course, blandly answering the professor’s question in the same raspy, disinterested voice she seems to respond to everything in.

She’s absolutely beautiful. 

There are no reservations to that statement. I love her short brown hair, always looking only halfway combed. I love the way she dresses, simple and cute and startlingly normal, just shorts and sneakers that someone might jog in. I love her scars and I love the way she looks so small and soft despite them… and despite being fully capable of killing everyone in the room with her mind. I am enraptured by her. 

And yes, I mean that in a gay way, but if I’m being honest with myself I probably mostly mean it in a jealous way. 

I guess that might seem weird, being jealous of someone who suffered and lost so much. Yet when she sits back down, her pencil rises all on its own, taking notes without any need for a hand to hold it. For all her injuries, it would be stupid to think of her as disabled. If anything, we’re the ones that are lacking, failing to walk in her world. The world of magic.

“Hey!” someone hisses quietly at me, and I jolt a little in my seat. Shoot, did I start humming in class again? Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop, I didn’t mean to bother anyone! 

“My laptop’s getting repaired,” the voice continues. “I’m really sorry, but would you mind sharing…?”

I glance over at the voice, my whole body still coiled like a spring as I stare into the pleading eyes of the guy next to me, grinning awkwardly my way as the entire rest of the class opens the book up on their laptops to… whatever page the professor just instructed them to while I wasn’t listening. Uh. Shoot. 

“Sure,” I manage to croak out, hating the word, hating myself, as I scoot my laptop over to rest between us. I wave my arms in a way that vaguely communicates he’s allowed to use it, and the guy smiles wide and thanks me, taking the wireless mouse and flipping the textbook to the correct page. I try to do my best to read it, to listen to our professor, but It’s just… hard. I simply do not care very much. I like computers and I know a bit of programming, but this class isn’t going to be important to my major or anything. Probably. Even though I’m nearly done with my second year of college, I still don’t actually have a major picked out.

Despite my efforts, I end up spending most of the period quietly tapping my leg to the beat of the song in my head. I’m tempted to pull out some sheet music and write it down, see if I can make it into something later, but it’s probably not worth the effort. I’m really enjoying the music classes I’m taking, but I know I don’t have the talent or work ethic to actually turn a music major into a paying career. 

A soft pulse of unexpected warmth passes over me like a wave when your head’s underwater, a foreign feeling of undirected love. It’s beautiful, brightening my mood in moments, but when it passes my heart can’t help but skip a beat when I see the source. 

A white, shining cat, feathered wings sprouting from its shoulder blades, floats in the middle of the classroom. My mouth gapes. My soul yearns. Is it really… after all this time, am I…?

“Castalia,” the cat says, turning to her. 

Oh. Duh. Of course.

“…I’m retired,” Castalia says blandly to the flying, magical cat. 

“We know,” the cat answers. “We know, and we’re sorry. But it’s… this is a big one. They’re going to need your help. Please.”

The girl and the cat stare at each other, and then without a word Castalia’s laptop closes and packs itself into her backpack. She stands up, the pack slinging itself over her one fully intact shoulder, and then she continues going up, rising ever so slightly off the ground. The entire time, her expression doesn’t change in the slightest.

“I will go,” Castalia says simply.

“Thank you,” the cat answers, and the two of them vanish in a flash of light and love.

The whole classroom is silent. Haltingly, hesitantly, after a few off-color jokes, the professor determines that no sirens are blaring and so class will continue. Wherever the apparent crisis is, it isn’t here. Though obviously, I’m not the only person who seems to have trouble paying attention when the class resumes.

Castalia. She was one of the first magical girls, and is possibly the strongest, but she’s far from the last. To this day, new children are still getting chosen. I wanted to be one. If I’m being honest with myself, I still do. I want to be strong, not weak and cowardly. I want to be cute, not frumpy and awkward. I want to be loved, not hated and forgotten. But I’m well past the age where such a thing could happen to me, so like most people I suppose I’ll have to be content with that, loudly protesting the ethical abhorrence of child soldiers while secretly and stupidly wishing that one of those children had been me.

Class ends with me feeling like I wasted my time, though at least the guy next to me is appreciative. It would be the perfect opportunity to try to get even a single friend at this stupid college, but… no. I can’t even bring myself to ask his name, and soon enough he gets up and walks off after one more thank you. Nice going, Luna. Could you quit being a coward for just once in your life? 

I’m not mute. I can talk. But it never brings me anything but trouble, and I hate it so much I’ve often been tempted to learn sign language and pretend to be mute anyway. Of course, I know that’s stupid and utterly absurd, so I’ve never actually tried to do it. I probably wouldn’t be able to stick with it enough to actually learn on my own anyway. 

I sigh, shake the thoughts away, and head to my next class as well. It goes even worse than the one before, and so for my third class of the day I just ditch, trudging back to my dorm hungry from a lack of breakfast and generally feeling miserable. I know this is a bad idea, but… fuck it. It’s just some required history course. Rote memorization and regurgitation of information. Useless, annoying, and easy. I’ll miss whatever questions on the test are taught today, but who cares? My parents don’t get to micromanage my goddamn report card anymore, so I’ll survive a B or a C. 

I get that this isn’t a healthy, productive mindset, but it’s the only mindset I can muster right now as I unlock the door to my room and flop face-first onto my bed. I should eat food, but I don’t want to. Nothing sounds appealing, and I’m pretty sure I’m out of most of the food I keep in my dorm anyway. But it’s fine. It’s cool. I’ll just keep lying here and being an idiot. 

Did I take my pills this morning? Ugh, I probably… right, I definitely forgot, because I didn’t eat breakfast and I have to take my pills after I eat. That explains a thing or two. Bluh. My body sucks.

I need to get up. 

I definitely need to get up. I’m really hungry. 

I pull out my phone, and a few hours pass. The ache in my stomach is now just more dull background to the general shittiness of how I feel, but eventually, long after it would really be helpful, the pain convinces me to get out of bed and drag myself towards one of the many fast food places hogging the area around campus. It’s dark out already, despite it being barely four o’clock in late April. The clouds overhead and the sucking, clammy feeling outside seeming simultaneously unnatural and perfectly normal. The Dark World is close, but it doesn’t feel like it’s at risk of a convergence. Not here. Not right now. I know what that feels like, and it isn’t this. But I suppose that somewhere within a hundred miles or so is probably getting attacked by monsters. I idly open up a convergence tracker app to check (which just works based on people updating it manually) and… yep. That explains it. There’s a kaiju just outside of Denver. That’s hours away from here, though, and it looks like it’s rampaging in the opposite direction to us. So… no big deal, I guess. 

It’s kind of funny, thinking about it now, how people can get used to basically anything. 

I put the hood up on my baggy sweatshirt and keep walking, stomach gurgling in protest because being in the process of solving its problems doesn’t mean that the problem is solved. I wonder what I’ll actually get. Maybe a sandwich? Chicken fingers? Just something simple and inoffensive, something with a basic texture and flavor that won’t bother my mouth while it’s making its way to my stomach. I don’t have the energy to eat anything more complicated than that. 

My phone buzzes suddenly, a notification popping over the tracking app telling me that I just got a message from my best friend. 

[MeanBeanMachine]: Luna!!! I saw there’s a big attack in Denver! That’s close to you, right? Are you okay!?

I stare at the message and smile. Yep. My best friend, a person that lives in a completely different state whose real name I don’t even know. My name is actually Luna, of course, but I genuinely don’t remember if I’ve told them that; it’s just also part of my online tag. 

[LunaLightOTK]: I’m fine, Bean. The kaiju’s headed away from me. 

[MeanBeanMachine]: All of the kaiju?

[LunaLightOTK]: …There’s more than one?

That’s… wow. That hardly ever happens. I hope… I don’t know what to hope. A lot of people are definitely dead, but what can I do about it? 

[MeanBeanMachine]: Yeah there’s more than one!!! Biggest attack in three years, they said. Even Castalia is there!

[LunaLightOTK]: I know, a Preserver showed up in CS 150B to pick her up.

[MeanBeanMachine]: WHAT

[LunaLightOTK]: Yeah, it was pretty wild.

[MeanBeanMachine]: HOW ARE YOU ONLY TELLING ME ABOUT THIS NOW!?

[LunaLightOTK]: Oh. Uh. Because I forgot my pills this morning and I’ve been super depressed all day, I guess.

[MeanBeanMachine]: Oh valid. Feel better, friend! <3

I smile a little at that. 

[LunaLightOTK]: Thanks.

Bean starts typing a response, but I don’t get to see it because it is at that point that I walk face-first into someone else, nearly tripping and falling over from sheer surprise. I look up, an apology already on my lips even though the person I just headbutted didn’t stumble back at all, but the words die before I can speak them the moment I see her. 

My first thought is that I have somehow horribly miscalculated, and I am about to be mauled to death by a monster from the Dark World. But… no. It’s a person. A woman. She’s not attacking me, but she’s clearly not… I don’t even know where to start with her appearance. Her clothes, maybe? Her outfit is regal, refined, yet extremely revealing, a black and purple parody of the much more modest dresses magical girls are prone to wear. But really, I’m probably focusing on the outfit to remind myself that yes, this is a human being, because so many other aspects of her seem to suggest otherwise.

Black, feathered wings emerge from her back, wrapping around her shoulders like a cape. An enormous, lizard-like tail extends out from the bottom of her spine, slowly snaking behind me to cut off my escape. A third eye grows from her forehead, and all three of her eyes are frighteningly inhuman, with black sclera and purple irises that track my face unerringly, forcing my own gaze away from her smiling face, her lips just barely open enough to show the fangs within. 

But most inhuman of all are the jagged crystals growing all over her body, down her spine to the tip of her tail, framing the cheekbones of her face, emerging around the crown of her head like horns, and tipping her fingers with deep violet claws. The crystals are the same that grow all over the monsters that emerge from the Dark World, covering them so heavily that some of them struggle to move under the weight. The crystals can form in all sorts of different colors, but this woman’s are all purple, just like her eyes. 

I don’t know who this is. I’ve never seen her before in my life. But she. Is. Dangerous. I need to leave. I need to leave right now. 

“Are you alright, dear?” the woman asks, her voice melodic like a siren’s. 

I nod vigorously, not wanting to speak to her, needing to run from her, but when I step away I only trip on her tail and land on my butt. 

“Oh! Apologies,” she smiles at me. “That one was my fault. Do let me help you up.” 

She leans over and extends her hand down to me, and though my heart is pounding, my fight, flight, or freeze has always been more of a freezer. I stare at her, saying nothing, doing nothing. She stares back, her expression getting more and more amused before she eventually opts to lean even further down, placing her hand on top of mine and gently grabbing it. 

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, dear,” she smiles. “I’m not here to hurt you.” 

Carefully, she helps me back to my feet, and I just sort of… let her. I was already having trouble thinking straight from the depression and hunger, so the terrifying monster woman is just causing a full short-circuit here. 

“There you are, no worse for wear,” the woman hums, still staring at me with that smile. “Hmm. I thought I already knew, but looking at you… what’s your name, dear?” 

My name. My name. What do I say? What do I tell her? My real name? A fake name? I can’t bring myself to speak, to let someone like her hear me. 

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“Hmm. A quiet one, aren’t you?” she asks. “Or perhaps you’re just stunned speechless. Well, it’s no matter, I’m sure we will have plenty of time to get to know each other. I am Melpomene, and it is wonderful to meet you, dear.” 

What? ‘Plenty of time?’ What is she talking about? Am I being kidnapped?

“You see, dear,” Melpomene continues, “I’m looking to make the world a better place, and I need like-minded individuals to help me with that. You might not know it, but you’re more than qualified for what I have in mind. You’re perfect.” 

My heartbeat roars in my ears, my breath shallow as I stare up at her. Her crystalline horns glitter in the light, like the worst of the monsters from the other world. There’s something so tangibly powerful about her, so primally terrifying and instinctively alluring. But I don’t trust her. I can’t trust her. 

She’s obviously a liar. She called me perfect. 

“Ah, there’s a reaction,” she says with a smile. “You look quite suspicious of me! No wonder the Preservers passed you up. They prefer their pawns to be a bit more… credulous.” 

Okay, cool, she’s dissing the flying cats so she’s one hundred percent an enemy of the magical girls. I definitely need to get out of here and get help, but how am I going to outrun a literal monster? 

“Come on, dear,” the woman says, gently reaching out and guiding my shoulder with her claws. “Walk with me. Let’s clear that head of yours.”

Pinpricks of crystal poking into me discourage me from saying no, so I follow her, the street oddly empty and the sky oddly dark. I need to turn around, to run the other way, but her tail swishes behind my ankles, her eyes watch me closely, and I know there’s nothing I can do that she isn’t allowing me. I walk alongside her. 

She’s tall. Very tall. But looking past her imposing figure and condescending manner of speech, she doesn’t look all that much older than me. …I guess that’s probably hard to tell for people with magic powers, though. Castalia looks younger than me, but I know she’s a few years older than me, too. She just started college late because she was busy getting her arms blown off saving the world.

I wish she would save me again. But… that’s not happening, is it? She’s off solving problems far more important than my own. There’s no one here to save me. I’m alone. 

“Really, dear, you don’t need to be so frightened!” Melpomene insists. “I can feel it oozing off of you. Relax. I would never go to all this trouble just to hurt you. The opposite, in fact. I want to help you.”

Yeah that’s super believable coming from a lady with purple horns and a fishnet bra. 

“You doubt me, but it’s true,” she hums, reaching down the front of her shirt and pulling a perfectly cut crystal out between two fingers. “I want you to be a hero.”