The towers of the city and its unburied dead sank out of view behind them.
“There’s a visitor center, but it’s been closed since last year,” Grandview said, turning down the radio. She seemed to have cooled down after inhaling some cigarettes, filling the interior of her old car with noxious fumes. “I visited once when I was a kid, back before I contracted. There’s actually a lot of cool stuff there, some historical sites, a cemetery—”
“Don’t care,” Overland Park shut her down. “We’re not going to sightsee.”
Grandview clenched her right fist around something small. After a few seconds, she visibly relaxed and settled for turning the radio back up. A modest tenor floated out of the failing speakers.
... I picked up my bag
I went lookin’ for a place to hide
When I saw Carmen and the Devil
Walkin' side-by-side.
“What’s this shit?” Overland Park sneered. “Put on something good,” she reached for the dial.
I said, "Hey, Carmen. C'mon, let's go downtown."
She said, "I gotta go, but my friend can stick around."
Grandview’s dagger materialized right in front of the brat’s soul gem, like it’d been there all along. “After everything else, the least you could do is not touch the fucking radio,” she said calmly.
Take a load off, Fanny.
Take a load for free.
Take a load off, Fanny.
The car jostled roughly over a pothole and the knife actually tapped her gem, the only result a little clink . Overland Park laughed. “Well, you still got some spit in you. Alright, it’s your car,” she shrugged and went back to watching out the window. “Better get there soon, s’all I can say.”
And you put the load right on me.
It ended up being soon enough. Coasting up 73 highway, light woodland gave way to the sleepy town of Lansing, and a token few minutes after that they were on the outskirts of Leavenworth.
The town outside the fort was a place like many others in this part of the country, with old brickwork buildings from the last couple centuries lazily squatting around. Chopped streets all converged around a central square, with the county courthouse situated neatly in the middle. Odd bits of purposeful graffiti were littered here and there, a couple tight alleyways had sprawling murals.
In the midst of her stupor, Syracuse felt oddly attracted to a pair of spray painted butterfly wings shiny in the fresh rain. They were sized up for a human being to pose with, but before she could get a closer look, Grandview’s car rounded the corner and they were gone. She sank further into her seat and closed her eyes, wondering why the Cycles had refused to take her yet.
Trundling up the main artery of the town, the Missouri River swelled with the torrent. It was just obscured on their right by an occasional building and the levee. For a hefty enough town, it was eerily quiet. Even at this time of night, with this weather, you expected to see at least one person staggering into a bar or getting pulled over for a rolling stop. There was just nothing here, an undeserved destitution that begged for inspection.
Turning left, Grandview pointed at an upcoming one way. “The visitor control center is right up this road,” she remarked with certainty that reminded Syracuse oddly of a tour guide.
“Wake up country girl,” Overland Park snapped her fingers. It’d be so simple to shrink her heart down to the size of an acorn. “We comin’ up.” Maybe the magical expenditure would finally let her die, too.
The road in question had a couple signs indicating the visitor center was indeed just ahead, plastered over with tenfold more that said no one was permitted to enter at this time. Grandview swiveled on without pausing, ignoring the myriad of signs on the shoulder claiming “NO ENTRY,” “TURN BACK,” “US GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL ONLY,” and so on.
Turning down the radio to a whisper, Grandview finally did slow down as they came up on a huge brickwork building that towered over anything in the town proper. The visitor center, she assumed, with a sloped green roof and a conspicuous rectangular fade against the brickwork where a sign once hung.
The road they were on continued to a couple gates with booths next to them, almost like a toll center. The road in this area was enclosed by a thick stand of trees on each side, nature’s bollards. Closer inspection revealed a couple of soldiers within, pretending to be bored and inattentive. They slouched at their desks but their eyes scanned the road without pause. It was almost mechanical, certainly unnatural.
“It was like this the last time I took a peek,” Grandview whispered unnecessarily. “I parked in the visitor lot and watched for a while. Neither of those guards moved for like six hours.” She squinted her eyes. “I’m pretty sure those are the same guys as before, too. Who knows how long they’ve been sitting there.”
All three of them watched for a few minutes, peering at the stalwart soldiers in their booths. Aside from their eyes and the rise and fall of their chests, neither moved a muscle. Over the radio, King Harvest’s Dancing in the Moonlight faded out, only to be replaced by Chuck Nasty’s grotesque wailing and gnashing. Before he could even finish saying his name, Grandview literally punched the dial and silence consumed them.
A few more minutes passed by with no change. “It’s always like this,” Grandview said quietly. “They can’t see the car, but they’ll notice if we move the gate and there’s too many trees to go around. I’ve always had to go in on foot at this point, but I can’t enchant people.”
“So just fucking kill the guards,” Overland Park shrugged. She was tapping her fingers on the armrest, clearly agitated.
“Idiot, the guards have alarms placed on them. The whole base’ll be in an uproar if they get hurt. I’m sure you could muscle in if you really wanted, but even for someone like you, once the perimeter defenses are up it’ll be hard to get through it all. We want to be inside first, then the fun can start.” Grandview mouthed the word ‘dipshit’ to herself.
Turning around awkwardly in her seat to look at Syracuse she continued, “It’s actually good you came with. I know you’ve got one foot in Madoka’s ass already but we could use you for a bit longer if we want to get in there. You got size powers or some shit, yeah?” She nodded weakly. “I need you to change the car so we can pass through the gate without touching anything. Think you can manage that?”
Syracuse’s eyes swiveled around to look at Grandview, dried but still puffy. Without saying anything, she breathed in and focused, drawing on some of the last reserves of strength she had left. The dark blue patina covering the car was slowly suffused with a gentle green, and the world around them expanded as the Buick LeSabre shrank down.
It wasn’t as big as her Shed had been but she wasn’t used to reducing things, especially not things as complicated as a car. With special attention to the engine and the fuel line, she clenched her eyes shut and fed more of her soul into the vehicle. Sweat began pouring down her face, but within the span of a minute they were inside something roughly the size of a Tonka truck.
“Not bad,” Grandview appraised. “Let’s give it a shot.” Overland Park continued fidgeting as she put the car back in drive and swiveled it out onto the road, towards the gate booths. The light coming in through the windows was skewed, hurting their eyes if they stared. They approached the gate arm, painted in chipped yellow and white. The roof of the car was very close, seemed like it would tap the arm.
Grandview stopped a few feet away, peering nervously up through the front window. The booths on either side of them were blocky skyscrapers now, making her dizzy. “Can you put a little more juice into it?”
Syracuse grit her teeth and looked at her cloudy soul gem, growing darker practically by the second. “If you need more from me later, I don’t think so.”
“God damn it. Here,” the driver pulled a few grief cubes out of the glove box and fed them to her, like her soul gem was some kind of fucking petting zoo goat. “Hold on, let’s see if we can finagle this.” She backed the car up and moved it over as close as it could go to where the bar was being held up by the lifter; it was scratched and warped here, offering a tiny bit more space. Enough, she surmised, and inched the car forward. The arm passed over the roof and they felt nothing scrape the top of the car.
But the antenna was poking up behind them, and all three tensed involuntarily as they felt a tap when it snagged and pulled through. Grandview gripped the wheel, staring at the long arm on either side of them to see if it had jostled enough to draw attention.
If the soldiers had noticed anything they gave no sign of it, continuing their creepy vigil without interruption.
Grandview sped away from the gatehouse, and after a hundred feet or so she told Syracuse to drop the enchantment. The bending of the light disappeared as they snapped back to their proper size, and the country girl’s head lolled back in her exhaustion.
“Can I pretty please get out now?” Overland Park joked through a false smile. Her left arm was twitching furiously, and her breath was labored like she was compressing her lungs somehow. She looked on the verge of cracking.
“Just a few more minutes. Try to focus your powers in the right spot, once we’re out you can go hog wild all you want.” She snapped the radio back up a bit, catching some folksy sounding shit emitting from the speakers.
... I've been to Hollywood,
I've been to Redwood.
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold.
Grandview frowned. “They added some new buildings last year that they’ve been steadily expanding. One of them’s the barracks for all the girls that enlisted in the Magic Force, over here.” They swerved through various rigid streets, past the commissary and—strangely enough—a Holiday Inn that was obviously deserted.
I've been in my mind,
It’s such a fine line.
They rolled steadily northwest towards some large housing on the outskirts of the complex. Emblazoned in plain gray stone on an archway in the front were the initials U.S.M.F., unadorned besides.
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold.
“When you open the door, the effect will be broken and people’ll be able to see in here. Close the door quickly—” with a whoosh that sucked the air out of her mouth for a second, the door of her Buick ripped right off its hinges. There was no accompanying bang or clatter, it simply disappeared. Overland Park was gone with it, a matching hole exposing the inside of the barracks.
And I'm gettin’ old.
She clapped her mouth shut. “God damn that stupid slut. Change of plans,” she threw the gear back into drive. “Stealth is a bust. We need to be quick.”
Not letting herself relish in finally getting out of the smoke-stained car (so gross so gross she could still feel the nicotine and tar on her fingers), Overland Park pushed all of her rage and irritation into her legs, speeding through the corridors past adjutants and various late night personnel, too quick for their eyes to register what was happening. Nonetheless, she saw a few of them immediately spur to action at the speed of cold honey. She had to figure most of the girls would be in bed, which should make things easy to start.
Sure enough, a mote of effort over the span of three or four seconds was enough for her to find the dormitories, a long series of doorless rooms with bunk beds inside of them, all plain sheets, most filled with girls snoozing.
There was no real goal in her mind. Somewhere in there, she dimly registered that this sort of impulsiveness was why she had ended up here in the first place. She touched at her dress with a gentleness reserved for no human being, really examining it for the first time in months. Lenexa’s blood was there, had dried and darkened so that she could finally tell it apart from the brighter hue of her outfit.
Regret was pointless.
There could be no further consideration, the past and future both fell away into the extremes of her simmering rage. Reason melted in the face of offense, it demanded a response of decidedly disproportionate size.
Physically vibrating so hard she was barely able to contain it, she reoriented herself so the dorm rooms all lay in a straight line ahead of her. The first alarmed shouts from the soldiers she'd passed began to penetrate her ears, she dimly registered a vague force that attempted to stop her entry. Probably one of the myriad of enchantments they had put on the place for security reasons.
It didn’t possess anything like the strength it needed to actually restrict her entry, that stuff was probably reserved for the outer perimeter of the base. She didn’t particularly care either way. To their credit, a siren started up immediately outside. It was practically automatic, maybe even actually was somehow. Fast response time, but not fast enough for her.
She allowed herself another second to think on the injustices of the day. Reflecting her anger in on itself, a flame was being fed more and more fuel until it swelled into a bonfire, a raging conflagration that was booming out of control.
You know, when she thought enough, maybe she did feel a little bad though.
She had already been on the brink, her strength threatening to overwhelm without an outlet, and just when she thought she would physically burst with it, she let herself loose.
She had refused to apologize, but a minuscule part of her deep down knew that was just her pride talking. It was just too hard to say she had been wrong. She hated to lose face.
The barracks exploded, cinder blocks and drywall disintegrating as she launched herself through every room in front of her. She felt concrete and wood and fabric and flesh and bone smash against her chest and face and limbs, she was consecrated in the blood of a couple dozen magical girls who had no idea they had gone to sleep for the last time a couple hours ago.
Man, she basically fucked up the entire city. It would be one thing if it had just been a girl or two, but she doubted there was much room for them to come back at this point. End of an era.
The entire dormitory collapsed as its support beams and walls were obliterated in a fraction of a second. She stood outside in the night air for a second, where sirens had reached the peak of their clarion call. Lights were flickering on in buildings all around, a few people had somehow already run outside. Just for good measure, she turned around and ran back through the rubble that was still falling in on itself. Got a few more girls on the way into the barracks, probably a mercy compared to suffocating or slowly getting crushed.
Underneath all that boundless fury, a little hole had been growing for quite some time. As limitless as her strength seemed to be, now she could feel all that energy and willpower being drawn into it.
She could feel the slight sting of bullets on her back, of the non-magical variety. Man, they were quick. She spied a few girls transformed into their outfits, pounding through the hallway towards her. Thirty milliseconds later the crumbling fragments of their soul gems slipped through her fingers, onto the ground at her feet as their bodies crumpled behind her like so much common trash.
She was doing what had been asked of her, and yet the hole beckoned. None of that satisfaction she reveled in was forthcoming. As quickly as it came, she could feel the vast reserves of her strength depleting. Distantly she felt small arms fire actually begin to have some effect on her, shredding through her legs and arms and upper torso. Dried blood was obscured by fresh, the lace of her dress was joined by stringy bits of her own body.
She felt her heart explode in her chest as a bullet or two ripped through the striated muscle, blood immediately filling her chest cavity and beginning to pour out of her in crimson streams. The exhaustion was somehow worse.
Maybe she was done. She tugged at her soul gem and lifted it away from her navel, cradling it in her left palm. Couldn’t see it properly, needed to wipe some game out of the corner of her eye.
Yeah, that looked pretty bad. She had never been very good at actually collecting cubes and using them, didn’t have enough patience for the routine, but she had usually managed to keep her head above water.
She looked into her ruby egg and idly watched the torrent of black that pitched and rolled around inside it. That pleasant hue she took so much pride in was all but gone.
Nyla Aaron had used so much magic and energy today, she bet she had minutes at most. If she wanted , minutes was all she needed to fix it back up like new. Problem was, she was going through her mental calculus and, wouldn’t you know it, it didn’t feel like that’s what she wanted to do. Goodness knew she never did what she didn’t want to.
Her tongue rolled around in her mouth unpleasantly just as another projectile passed through her cheeks and obliterated it. She felt the last flecks of gem shards stuck in the back of her throat.
Yeah. She was done. Not one to mull things over, Nyla raised her right hand, formed it into a fist, and brought it down on her own soul like a sledgehammer.
For an instant she barely felt the silver casing deforming, twisting, snapping and melting at the tips from the raw energy of hand meeting hand. Another instant passed and her life bled from between her fingers.
“Jesus FUCK,” Grandview screamed. They had pulled away from the barracks not ten seconds ago and already it was reduced to a smoldering ruin. She was supposed to draw attention away from them, not level the entire fucking base. Grandview hurled every obscenity in the world at Overland Park for her lack of control and at herself for thinking this would go even remotely according to plan.
Whatever. She tried not to wince as dust and the occasional bit of brick showered her through the gaping hole in her car. She steered her injured steed up the blacktop towards another building in the complex, squat and unadorned with anything which might give its purpose away. If she remembered correctly, this was in fact the prison. The door was no doubt firmly locked; Overland Park’s rampage had conveniently launched some debris through the wall next to it, large enough for her to squeeze through.
“You need to get the hell out now, ” Grandview yelled over the cacophony surrounding them. Sirens and the crashing, breaking of brick and wood threatened to overwhelm. “I’m leaving in ten minutes with or without you or anyone else, you got that? If I don’t get fucking crushed first.” The brick and mortar buildings around them were starting to stretch and contort unpleasantly, the telltale warping of miasma fog curling around them. “Make it five.”
Syracuse didn’t even look as she bounded out of the Buick, worming her way through the hole. Even as she left the car, it faded from her vision, but for a couple glints in the air where the door had been ripped away.
The sounds of fighting and gunshots muffled as she fell into the hallway. Half-expecting to get shot on sight, her eyesight adjusted and revealed a conspicuous lack of guards. Probably ran outside when Overland Park had tripped the alarm, no sense in worrying about it now. She looked back and forth, taking in a lengthy row of prison cells on either side of her. Plain cinder block housing with stereotypical steel bars, it looked about as cramped and miserable as she expected.
In front of her was, in fact, a little girl who couldn’t have been older than 10. She was absolutely terrified, her eyes big and round, showing entirely too much white. Her little chest heaved with panic, and she had long black hair which was stained with white dust from the debris crashing in. A quick scan to either side revealed others too, one sleeping on her cot like it was business as usual and another actively pulling at her bars.
There were so many of them, portioned out one or two to a cell. The building was huge, and looking everywhere would take too long. Cathy might not even be here. She wanted to wail, it was all such a horrible waste of time, a risk which could accomplish nothing but put her literal soul in mortal fucking peril.
Her feet were frozen to the ground for a precious few seconds, and then something inside her slid into place. Things had quieted down near them aside from the occasional rumble, and with shaking fingers she laid her hands on the bars, preparing to shrink them down.
If I were you, I would leave immediately. The facility is in sufficient disarray that you might even escape unnoticed, if you manage to avoid the archon’s path.
“Fuck off, cat.” Something was wrong; the bars weren’t changing. Probably enchanted; even as the concrete around them began to twist and take on a bit of that sickening wraight-light, the bars themselves remained unmolested. She bent to look closer.
I don’t see why you’re trying so hard to help these girls, frankly. Most of them will get captured again if you do succeed in freeing them. Some of them are even quite dangerous!
There was a thin patina on top of the gray steel, like someone had brushed oil on them. Definitely some sort of protection here, but the question was how strong. Could she overcome it, as weak as she was now? Syracuse squeezed her eyes shut for a second, a sense of panic rising in her throat like she would vomit it up all over herself. She just needed to ignore him, this was senseless.
I agree, it is senseless. I don’t understand why you would put yourself in a position of harm to free others you don’t already know.
“I’m already dead, Kyubey,” she sighed and leaned her aching head to rest between two bars. The girl inside regarded her with suspicion. “I lost everything in less than three days. If Aimee were still here then it’d be fine. All I want is to see her again.”
Then why bother with this course? If you simply allow your grief to overcome you, then you’ll inevitably be with Miss Townsend again by virtue of the Law of Cycles. Engaging in this behavior jeopardizes that chance significantly.
She KNEW that. This was absurd. And yet there she was, fiddling with the door’s mechanisms again. Once she figured out the first one, the rest would be easier. “I don’t know. I don’t know, okay?” That wasn’t quite true. This was the dumbest fucking shit she had ever done, aside from contracting in the first place, but she couldn’t get that girl’s scrawny, acne-ridden face out of her mind. Just thinking about how stupid it was made her angry, converted some of that raw shame and sadness into anger, filled the emptiness of her belly a little bit.
“One of the girls staying at my place got taken away. It’s a long shot, but I thought she might have been brought here.”
Yes, young Miss Renshaw. Syracuse whipped her head around to glare at him. Figures that the little asshole had known all along. But you can see inside the cell, that is clearly not her.
“Well, I don’t know where she is, and I’m already here.” Her hands were steadying as purpose clarified inside her, crystallizing into some calm. “Doesn’t feel right to leave the rest behind and just take her.”
A noble goal, though foolish.
Something was weird here, something maneuverable, but she couldn’t figure it out while he was taking up her fucking attention like this. “If you don’t want to help, just let me get this done. Everything we do is foolish, Kyubey.”
An astute observation. The Incubator studied her for a few seconds, a scientist examining a bacterium under a microscope. It made her skin crawl but she forced her eyes to lock with his, verdancy clashing with blood.
The Cycles will take you if you try to open more than a couple of these. Try the cell block four to your left, containing one Miss Garnill. She is more than amenable to your cause and will be far quicker than you.
She didn’t even question it, sprinting to the specified block. Inside was an older girl, maybe older than Syracuse. Easily over six feet tall and brawny in a way that would cow most gym rats, she was pacing back and forth in her mean little cell, getting about three steps in before having to turn around again. Miss Garnill looked ready to rip her guts out as soon as help.
Ignore the bars themselves, they and the walls inside the cell are magically inert. The walls around the frame are unfortified.
He was being unusually helpful, but Syracuse had no time to ponder that oddity. Grandview could already have left for all she knew, which would obviate the point. Focusing on the cinder blocks containing the pins which held up the frame of the cell door, she shrank them each down until with a powdery crack they separated from the cinder blocks around them. A round dozen later and the entire door fell to the ground, scattering dust in a limp puff.
“FINALLY,” the towering girl bellowed, as if she had been waiting for this exact thing for days. Without wasting even a second on thank yous, Miss Garnill transformed into her outfit–-a brawler’s uniform, loose shorts and a wifebeater that would have made Syracuse blush to look closely-–she started sprinting down the hallway away from her, pulverizing the walls with her meaty fists. The sound of collapsing walls swiftly rose to a thundering din and the foundation itself seemed to shake with the girl’s passing. Each cell door was open in a handful of seconds. Smaller girls with a fine coat of dust on them were poking their frightened heads out, rabbits scanning for passing predators.
You’re wasting time, Kyubey admonished her. Miss Renshaw is in another block. Follow me.
Syracuse’s heart leaped into her mouth at the faint taste of hope. Kyubey proved quick and he had to stop for her to catch up a few times. The prison continued for several hallways–only one or two guards remained in the building, laggards or cowards who didn’t want to be outside, heedless of the wraiths that would soon prey upon them inside. They paid her no mind as she raced along, passing one, two, three cell blocks in a labyrinth layout that made her head spin trying to keep track of it. She wanted to ask him why, but had no time for it. It didn’t really matter anyway, as long as they made it in time.
Finally, the cat blurred into cell block E (the miasma giving it another six trailing Es), another dismal row of cells just like the rest.
Seven down on the left.
A stitch had formed in her side and jabbed at her angrily as she sprinted down the hallway. She dared not entertain the thought that Kyubey was leading her astray in some sick prank, other nameless girls blurred around her as she dashed and her face edged around to peer in–-
–-and there was Cathy in the same ratty Mickey Mouse shirt, even dirtier now than when Syracuse had last seen her. Syracuse didn’t allow herself the pleasure of a hello before starting at the frame. She didn’t have to glance to know her soul gem was teetering on the brink, the swirling dark encroaching fast.
As the cinder blocks snapped away from their neighbors, Cathy looked up first in confusion and then shock. Syracuse resisted the urge to reach through the bars as she continued working at each pin. Inside her, exhaustion and excitement were fighting as each pin separated. Her damsel gawped openly at her for a few seconds before getting up and battering stupidly at the bars, presumably trying to help.
Three left.
Two.
One.
None, and the bars fell.
Before they reached the ground, the Homesteader was gone.
Cathy blinked, too confused to really register what had happened. She clapped her hands over her ears as a sharp bang sounded from somewhere outside the prison.
“What is that?” she asked no one in particular.
The fort has grown very dangerous, Kyubey startled her. He twitched an ear, as calm here as in someone’s lap. Miss Wilds has freed you. I recommend you follow me if you want to avoid wasting her effort.
“So that was actually her? Where did she go?”
We should avoid wasting time, Kyubey insisted. There’s transportation just outside: Miss Walsh will leave in mere seconds, if you’re not in the car with her you will certainly die here.
Cathy stifled her questions and followed Kyubey back to the hole in the wall that Syracuse had entered from, rent wider at some point by Miss Garnill’s efforts.
An assortment of magical girls was wandering the road, some clearly confused what to do now. Others sprinted as hard as possible in every direction, clearing out as quickly as possible. A couple lifted into the air or disappeared in subtle flashes of light, graced by the magic of whatever wish they had been lucky enough to request. They would survive, probably; the rest took off on foot, several with supernatural speed that took them out on the road or into the woods around the fort. Their fate was not quite as certain.
Cathy was even less assured, pumping her legs as quickly as her lungs could sustain them in this maelstrom. The sounds of destruction were more pronounced now, wailing alarms and echoing booms, crashes clashing with the rapid pops of gunfire spreading around them. Rain splattered Cathy’s face, and she wiped grime out of her eyes as lightning flashed overhead.
Miss Walsh is parked a few meters down this way. You may rest soon Miss Renshaw.
Dutifully jogging behind, Kyubey led her south down the road which was now littered with large chunks of twisted iron and splintered wood. Screams started to join the din around them, battering her ears. Before Kyubey could warn her, she stumbled into something clearly not there and tumbled back into the ground, gasping for breath.
Miss Walsh, please open the rear driver door. This is the young girl that Miss Wilds was trying to find. I urge you to leave immediately.
A hole in the air opened and the sickening smell of nicotine smoke poured out, making her gag. A mountain of cigarette butts spilled out onto the asphalt from the back seat, scattering in the wind. “Don’t gotta tell me twice. Get in kid,” she shouted like a fucking New York taxi cab driver. She had a smoke in her right hand, was puffing on it like she wanted to eat it and the only thing stopping her was God.
Cathy fell in awkwardly, kneeling on the seat as she tried to worm into the invisible car. The door in the front passenger side had been blown out, probably would have been easier if she had just gone around.
As soon as her feet left the ground, the girl in the driver’s seat stomped on the gas and the door swung shut from momentum alone, slapping the soles of her feet painfully. Squealing tires added their own voice to everything else, and lightning flashed again to promise thunder on top. Her head and legs and lungs ached. Above all she was petrified.
“Just in time, I was two fucking seconds away from punching it. I take it Syracuse is gone?” she asked without taking her eyes off the road. The girl formerly known as Winterset didn’t know how to answer, either from being uncertain or being distracted.
They were too late to avoid the miasma’s effects taking root, and the road ahead of them stretched interminably. Wavering buildings lined the road to the southward horizon, forming a nauseating Droste effect that made her want to be sick all over the back seat. Lightning struck again, shuttering Cathy’s eyes in the dark like a polaroid. A gale was encroaching from the east. Lightning flashed so much now, it was a strobe light going off inside her own eyeballs.
Light spread across the sky, illuminating them not much less than if it were day. To their right, it revealed something strange and unearthly, so strange that Cathy had no idea what to make of it.
A lumpen mass of crimson had risen above the blocky housing of the fort, crushing anything unlucky enough to fall beneath its girth. It writhed and pulsed like a living thing. The surface swirled with red gas, vaporous protrusions whorling and twisting in the approaching storm. It reached far above, a swelling cyst ready to burst and disgorge foulness.
Cathy had never been taught the word “archon,” but her flesh rippled into goosebumps like it already knew the meaning.
“We probably should have thought this through a little more,” the girl in the front seat said to no one in particular. She glanced up at the massive thing periodically, despite her attention to the road. Without showing any outward signs of it, she reeked of nervousness.
An odd screeching noise pierced the night around them, louder by far than everything else that already assaulted their ears. Cathy’s heart pounded in her chest, an over-wound clock whose springs threatened to snap. The screeching resolved itself, attempting to form words which failed to coalesce and settled for a grinding that she could feel directly in the folds of her brain.
What in the actual fuck was going on? She had her head bent awkwardly to watch as warehouses, penitentiaries, housing all crumbled around them. People were crushed by falling debris or shooting at the maroon specter which reared above them now. The radio no longer emitted anything but a horrid electric crackle. The driver didn't bother shutting it off.
Her heart somehow beat even faster, a hammer threatening to fracture her ribcage. The driver swerved to narrowly avoid hitting anyone--human or wraith--still on the road even as the rain plastered the windshield and splashed through the gaping hole in the side of the stinking car.
There was an exquisite feeling of panic that was suffusing her whole body, looking up at this thing. Somewhere in her brain she registered that it was responsible for the violence and the sounds that vibrated in her bones. Even as she watched it reach skyward, amorphous and mountainous, a rupture in the mass formed. A slit widened in the red, cleaving it in two.
The gap convulsed, giving form to a gargantuan eye that shone like freshly oxygenated blood. It looked out towards the east, absorbing the flashes of the lightning, unwavering. A slick of rain cascaded down its glossy surface, and a mouth began forming underneath to match. Granite teeth the size of people gnashed and crushed each other, doing little to dampen the issuance of a small whining which built inside.
The eye blinked once, way too quick for how big it was, offering a wet smack that thudded in her chest. Lightning was so quick now that the light had no time to fade, saturating them in a sharp glow. Without warning, that light began to churn from white to a sickening, fiery red. They were suffused with it, everything outside and inside the car turning to a rosy shimmer. The whine turned into a throaty scream, rattling the bricks and window panes of every building on the base.
The cyclopean concretion gathered energy in its bloody pupil until it was almost blinding to look at. A cyclone shriek surrounded them, rocking the car and deafening them. The ground underneath was shaking so hard that she was afraid they would turn over, and for a wonder the driver let up on the gas just a hair.
Ozone suddenly filled her nostrils: in a microsecond burst all of that energy launched out eastward into the sky, a ruby pillar that split the storm, piercing it like a spear delivered by a god. Cathy hid her face from the heat and the light, lest death take her just for daring to steal a glance.
It disappeared just as quickly and left silence in its wake. She rubbed at her eyes to try and get the imprint of the beam to fade from her battered retinas.
The lightning abated, drowning them all in blackness… but only for a few precious seconds. As if offended at the interruption it returned to fill the gap, to double in intensity. It spread, blanketed the sky, a shimmering net threatening to ensnare them in its folds.
The mammoth beast shivered and its awful mouth gaped. Another shriek rocked them, a terrible mewling like a colicky baby clamoring for mother’s milk. Infant rage was magnified a billion times into the engined whine of untethered rage.
Cathy felt her ears pop in protest. Her hair was standing up on the back of her neck, and she could feel static building in her fingertips. She was going to die here, she just knew it. She should never have left Iowa, this place was fucking mad.
“ALMOST OUT,” her chauffeur screamed over the furor. Crimson light began to gather again, but the lightning was so thick that the brightness and sound of it rolled over them like water, deafening everything.
As she watched through blurry eyes, heaven’s fury collected together in one giant fork. In one instant it lanced from miles away down towards the base, skewering the monster, spilling its crimson gore and drowning those unlucky enough to be near. A wicked screaming even worse than before rose around them as it began to pulsate and flail, the earth beneath them was shaking like it was going to rip itself apart.
Cathy rocked violently as the wretched Buick slammed through and shattered the same gate it had crept under not ten minutes ago. The storm grew behind them, the wind howling as a falling star collided with the towering creature, thrashing it over and over with light and rainbows. Themis clashed with Phoebe and rent the world in their rage.
The trees of the road leading in and out of the fort surrounded them, and she did not dare look back at the destruction of the miasma as they fled into the night.
An hour later saw them pulling up in front of The Shack. The front passenger seat was soaked through, and both Kailey and the new kid shivered with unseasonable cold. Instinctively she popped open her box of ciggies, only to find it empty. She really needed to cut back, she thought as she parked randomly in the lot. The Doobie Brothers were just finishing up a song, telling her it was better than nothing. She told them to fucking stuff it and shut the car off, hoping the water hadn’t damaged it too badly. She might need to dip into the coffers and get another beater after tonight.
She gestured to the chick in the back to come on in with her, and to be honest she was just too damn tired to try and keep the rain off her. She walked to the door dripping like she was fresh out of the shower and muscled it open into the overly warm joint, stumbling in on Liberty and Perry. The former’s sunshiny dress was stained all over with drying blood, and Perry was kneeling down to tend to the younger girl’s missing eye.
More nonsense. She just wanted to go home to her crappy apartment and die. She was so tired of this bullshit.
“Good fuckin’ Lord, Kailey!” Perry gave a low shout, clambering to her feet. “Where you been? We ain’t been gettin’ a hold of anyone all night, what happened? ” A man’s dulcet tones warbled out over an antenna radio on the countertop, formless words failing to grip any of them.
“Everyone is dead, Perry.” Both the girl and the woman gasped, but she didn’t want to get peppered with questions and preempted them: “I almost got killed rescuing this one,” she nodded limply to the pimply newcomer, “and I am dead tired. I’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay? Just let me go home.”
“Hell, you’re lucky I don’t beat you raw this second,” Perry’s screams filled the room. “You come in like that and expect me to jus’ let it go? You’re out of your damn mind ,” she summoned her spatula, its gleaming edge jabbing forth violently. “What the everlovin’ shit you talkin’ about, everyone’s dead? ”
“I mean,” Kailey tried and failed not to grit her teeth together, “everyone’s dead. Kaycee is dead, Blue Springs, Lee, Raytown, the country chicks that came in yesterday. Even the Kansas chicks are all dead now. They’re DEAD, ALRIGHT?” Her blood was pounding in her temples and it was taking all of her effort not to stab the fuck out of her friend. She was dangerously close to busting out in tears and she would rather kill something than do that in front of anyone.
Before it could actually come to blows, Liberty was suddenly between them, her golden spear in hand. The yellow and red mixed violently on her outfit, sunshine and coagulated blood fighting each other for dominance. It gave her a weird feeling of menace that hadn’t been there before. What had happened to her , anyway?
“The last thing we need is both of you fighting too,” she said, her knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip. “Kaycee is really dead?”
“... Yeah. Yes,” Grandview backed down. The voice on the radio became sharper to her, something about the freak storm coming through. She tuned it out. “The rest are gone too. It’s complicated,” she bitched out, exhaustion consuming her again. “Just… I don’t have it in me right now.”
Liberty’s gaze hardened, the arch of her brows coming down as she considered. There was a new hardness there, something refined which had not been there the last time Grandview saw her. There was no light in her remaining eye. “Fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Perry planted her fists on her hips, pursed her lips, but said nothing.
“Um,” Cathy peeped. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who any of you are. What is this place?”
Perry squawked, having forgotten all about their awkward guest. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry dear,” the tension evaporated from her prodigious body. “You came with Grandview here?”
“Yeah,” she scratched the back of her head, not knowing what else to say.
“Well, let’s get you put up. We have some beds in the back…” Perry gripped her softly but firmly at the arm and guided the hapless girl into the back, towards the cots. She sent one venomous glance back at Grandview, who pretended to ignore it.
Liberty’s spear vanished, and the younger girl seemed suddenly very tired. That ragged hole in her face... “You were out hunting?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly.
Both of them stood in relative silence for a bit. The reality of the situation would soak in eventually, but for now they both wanted merely to sleep. The evening did not feel real, and so reality would have to catch up with them in the morning.
“So, what now?” Liberty said almost to herself. She had always known that her mentor would be gone someday, but she had been with her a scant few hours ago. Dead? Really? She didn’t really want to process it, or couldn’t. The words just didn’t coalesce properly.
“I don’t know,” Grandview sighed. “I doubt this kind of shit came up while you both did your thing.”
“Well… sort of. We talked about Kansas,” Liberty offered limply. “What happened after DuPage.”
“Well? What should we do now, Kaycee?”
Liberty visibly startled. “Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry,” Grandview fell more than sat at the picnic table. “I’m just nervous is all.”
Liberty didn’t have anything to say to that. She didn’t need to, as the nameless radio announcer increased his volume and snagged their attention at the same time: “This is a KCUR special news bulletin, coming to you live,” the formless voice crooned. “The President is expected to deliver remarks on a presumed magical attack which occurred at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas roughly one hour ago.” Liberty turned wordlessly, staring daggers at the older girl, who merely shrugged. “Please standby while we wait for clarification. Again, this is a special news bulletin…” the man continued his spiel for a bit. Perry emerged from the back of the shop, her new guest no doubt chowing down on some leftovers.
After fifteen minutes of waiting, a mellifluous voice ushered forth from the speakers.
“Hm-hm.”
The snapping sounds of camera shutters intensified somewhere in the background.
“My fellow Americans,” the President began, “Today is a grave day for our beautiful nation. There has been a terror attack, which has been confirmed to me to be magical in nature, in the very heart of our country.
“Fort Leavenworth, a critical military and intelligence center in eastern Kansas, was assaulted by a rogue Magical Girl of unknown origin. Though we do not know her motives, what I can tell you with certainty, now, is that the threat has been neutralized.”
Well, at least that rotten bitch was gone. Had to hand it to her: Grandview could only have dreamed of causing this kind of damage.
“Thanks to the brave men and women stationed at the fort, and my own daughter Malia, the attack was ended before it could spread beyond the confines of the fort and affect civilians. I repeat: you are safe once more.
“But,” he asterisked, “the destruction we did suffer is far too great. My associate Miss Hong and her taskforce are investigating and will provide an estimate of the damages, the loss of life, as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have taken steps to bolster our defenses against anything of this nature happening on United States soil again.
“Following the crisis in Georgia last year, I announced plans to establish a garrison for the United States Magic Force in every major city across the country. I want to emphasize that despite their proximity to this attack, no such garrison exists in Lincoln, Des Moines, or Kansas City. If the Magic Force had developed a presence in these areas, this tragedy may have been stopped before it ever had a chance to begin.
“In the coming weeks, I will be working directly with Miss Hong and senior members of the military to quicken this process, to be more aggressive in our approach to threat assessment, and ensure the safety of our home from the possibility of further threats like this one.”
There was a brief pause, punctuated only by the staccato of clicking cameras.
“We have clawed our way back from the senseless horrors of 2014, making great strides in the last year. Many of you still lack the stability and comforts from before the Magical Catastrophe, but I promise you this, all of you, here and now: we shall never return to that darkness. I will not allow this nation to stumble again.
“I ask of you only this: be strong. Stand tall and proud. America shall never fall as long as we remain together, united.
“I will provide further updates as my administration collects information and makes decisions. I will not be taking any questions at this time.”
An incredible clamor rose up as reporters vied for his attention, but they were quickly quieted, artificially muted as the news reporter returned to the fore to begin his deep dive.
“Well,” Grandview said after a moment’s lazy contemplation, “that was a big load of nothing.”
“What?” Liberty whipped her head around, wincing as the movement caused a blossoming sting in her eye hole. “They’re going to start moving troops into the city. You heard him, right?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Grandview leaned back on the picnic table, working a little too hard to look like she was breathing softly. “I heard. They’ve already been trying to do that for ages. No sense in worrying about it, genie’s out of the bottle and all that.”
“Grandview’s got a point,” Perry piped up. She leaned on her countertop, worry more plainly written on her face. “For better or worse, this is what we’ve got to deal with now. Only God and time’ll tell how it shakes out.”
“I admit,” Grandview grunted, “it’s looking rough. We didn’t lose this many people even back during the Unveiling. We’ve got some work ahead of us.”
Liberty started rubbing at one temple. Grandview couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now. The young girl’s shoulders sagged with the weight now on top of them, like bricks stacking higher and higher. Eventually she would be forced to strike her plans and lay them down. “I don’t want any of this,” she said quickly. “Kaycee had a lot more to show me.” Liberty’s face twisted into a grimace. She was going to fucking blow chunks at this rate.
Perry clucked her tongue, a weirdly sharp sound in the gloom. “That’s what all the rest before you said too. Nothing ever happens when it should, and no one has all the answers. That’s why you got us, baby.”
“Don’t worry too much,” Grandview reassured her. The words rang hollow even in her own ears. “We’ll try to find if anyone from Kansas is left, and you’ve still got me and Perry after all. We saw Kaycee through before you, and she saw us through too. She chose you for a reason, and we trust that.” Fine words, yet it did nothing to set herself at ease.
Their new leader couldn’t stop herself from frowning. It wasn’t hard to imagine what was going through her head: the world was turned upside down, and her cohorts told her everything was fine even as they dangled over the void. She opened her mouth to argue some more.
Grandview didn’t give her the chance to squeak anything out. “Nah, don’t say anything else right now,” she yawned, exhaustion flooding her every muscle. She reached forward, offering a limp touch on the shoulder and a tiny smile. “Trust me. You’ll be fine, kid.”
If only she knew that to be true.
Chapter End Notes
"... and felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss."
Leavenworth the town has a lovely Korean restaurant called the Hyundai Market I haven't been to in a few years. I posed with the butterfly graffiti last time I went.
I wanted to take a tour of the fort in the course of writing this, but never got the chance to. I think COVID might have made it a bit more difficult, and my free time always seems to be taken up by other things anyway.
Originally this story was not going to have an archon in it, I felt like that might be kind of predictable. I don't actually know how I ended up working around to putting one in there, but I feel like it shakes out fine. Originally she was going to talk and was taunting Malia Obama, but I realized that idea was just a really lame version of DuPage in Chicago and removed it. Overland Park is a more directionless, aimless fury anyway.
A pretty significant theme I wanted for this story as a whole is to make most of the central characters feel somewhat small and unimportant. The Midwest is not generally a grand place, and overall that is a good thing. I consider humility to be one of our best traits as a region and a species, and accordingly arrogance is one of the worst. Another theme I cared about a lot was the idea of disrupting or destroying communities.