This Magical Girl is Mine 6.4 This Magical Girl is Mine

Hahahaha this can’t be real. I have to be dreaming, right? One of those “dream inside a dream” situations? Because, co on, this simply can’t be real.

Oh god, I think it is. It feels real. It looks real. The blood, the death, the screams.

How am I supposed to process this? I can’t.

I made a deal with the Jovians, so they sent a fucking Catastrophe to save from Venus. They sent Echidna, and it’s because of . Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Striga and I—another pang in my chest, a pain where my heart used to be, and oh, oh the things I’ll do to Venus when I get my hands on her—we talked about our worries, that night together. We talked about what we thought the Jovians might do with the gift I’d given them, and how they might try to backstab and sneak their way out of the deal.

Sophie thought the Jovians would stay out of the conflict as much as possible, letting their enemies blood each other. She thought they’d be content to let our team take out Venus for them. She assud—and I believed her—that the Jovians would, at most, try to interfere with the ceremony through so form of spell. They couldn’t possibly want to actually claim the powers of Venus, and helping too actively would lessen the chances that Venus dealt with Striga in the ensuing conflict.

But they sent the Queen of Beasts into the ceremony directly. The fake Sophia—Glamour, the priestess—didn’t seem to expect Echidna’s presence. She talked about a barrier like it should have held the Catastrophe back. That must have been the counterasure that Venus had been talking about when she dismissed Echidna’s imminent attack.

I did this. I gave them the ans. This is all my doing. All those lives. I—I let Echidna in.

My stomach churns again and I have to choke back the urge to vomit. I wobble in place and have to be steadied by Echidna, by the monster, by the horrible thing of muscle and fat and sinew with a childlike face and that crooning voice.

She strokes my hair and I want to scream, but how could I risk antagonizing this thing? I can feel in my bones with absolute certainty that this woman—no, this abomination—could snuff my life without needing to blink. So I stiffen and I lean away, but I don’t dare tell her to stop.

“Shhh, shhh,” she soothes . “It’s okay. I promised, rember? Hey, Rachie, are you listening? Talk to , Rachie. We don’t have a lot of ti before the egregore gets here. I want to talk to you.”

Suppressing a shiver, I look Echidna in the eyes and ask her, “Why? What do you want from ? What am I to you?” I can’t tell if my tone is defensive, deferential, or scared shitless.

The Catastrophe giggles. “Well, that depends… what do you want to be, Rachie?”

Her eyes glitter and gleam, taking on more of a red hue as she speaks. The strands of flesh holding her up snap and recoil until only one is left, connected at the base of her neck. Her body shifts—at wriggling, bone cracking, skin spreading like mold across raw flesh. The baby fat lts from her cheeks, her face taking on a sharper, more malevolent cast. Her naked form is put on display for only a mont before her fresh skin begins to sweat blood that quickly drenches her nude body in rich red. She circles , naked and bloody, and she speaks to in a deeper, hungrier voice.

“Mm, from all the scurrilous rumors that I’ve heard, you’re trying to be like the thing that took your heart. Well, I’d be quite interested to et a new goddess, but… I don’t think that’s the only thing you could be, if you really tried. You’ve got such an interesting power, my dearest Rachel. Do you know why?” She cocks her head to the side.

I hesitate. Is this a trick? She’s one of the pri agents of the Jovians, she has to know exactly why they gave this mantle. What is this ga she’s playing? “It was to ss with Striga,” I say slowly. “They gave a really strong mantle so I’d stand a better chance against Striga when we eventually fought. Am I wrong?”

Echidna clicks her tongue. Her fingers are warm and wet as she trails them down the back of my head—surely getting blood in my hair—and curls them there, holding for a mont before releasing with a laugh and continuing her predatory pacing.

“Oh, Rachel, is that really as far as you can think? Is your imagination that starved? They could have given you any big bad superpower, but they gave you sothing special. Sothing they didn’t get from the egregores.”

My mind races. I don’t understand. What’s so special about my power? Everyone I’ve t with a smidgen of insight has comnted on its unique potential, but I thought that just ant it was on the upper end of the power budget, like Striga’s or Lilith’s. The way Echidna’s talking about it…

Not from the egregores. That can only an one thing. One person.

One demiurge.

Hastur sculpted my mantle with her own hands. This superpower—Protheus—was passed from the King in Yellow to the Jovians to , all according to so grand design. Hastur always ant for to inherit this power. Hastur kept Sophia in the dark and let our relationship simr in mutually unrequited yearning for years, just waiting for the right mont to send the Jovians to with this specific mantle. Is that it? Is that what this Catastrophe is saying?

Hastur’s had an interest in you and Rachel since before the egregores were a twinkle in her eye. You’re not the only ball she’s juggling, but you’ve both got starring roles in the play she’s putting on.

Mordacity’s words echo in my mind. How far does Hastur’s foresight extend? How much of my life did that thing plan out in order to arrive at this mont? To what end?

“Why?” I ask Echidna, feeling numb. “Why give that mantle? Why that power?”

Echidna’s smile stretches wide, threatening to tear. “Welllllll, I can’t really speak to Grandmother’s motivations, but as for my cousins? I think I have an idea.”

Grandmother??? Cousins??? What the hell are the Catastrophes?

Echidna leans in, her breath hot and rancid against my face. “See, what I think they wanted you for… is exactly what you did for Pandora, granting it freedom from all the rules. Because now… because now… at long fucking last, we get to move on to stage two. We have to thank you, Rachie. We’ve been waiting for you for a very, very long ti. Seven years we’ve been waiting for permission to give you that mantle. And I’ve been such a good girl, keeping your city alive so you and Sophie could play your cute little pining ga. Haven’t I?”

Stolen from , this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She lurches back suddenly, looking up at with big, round eyes as she holds her hands behind her back in a shy, girlish pose. From any other naked woman I wouldn’t be able to resist admiring her assets with that framing, but the pouring blood does a lot to restrain my libido. She stinks of death.

I ignore her taunting flirtation and drown in the vastness of it all.

My whole adult life has been a waiting ga for the demons that are trying to eat my world. The King in Yellow made the keystone of the invasion, and I didn’t know it until it was too late. I gave the Jovians exactly what they wanted while thinking it was my idea. Sophia and I have been actors in a cosmic play since the day we first t. They’ve been watching us all along. They knew everything.

They knew about our love for each other and they knew we’d find out and confess to each other. They knew I’d co to them—challenge them—to make a deal with the new use of my power—a use I only discovered thanks to help from Mordacity, the wizard that hated Hastur.

God, of course she was another pawn in Hastur’s ga. She’s probably so arrogant she didn’t even realize how the King in Yellow was playing her.

“It was the price of it,” I realize as I murmur the words aloud, staring off into space. “Hastur extorted the Jovians into bringing us to this point—to this narrative, this tragic romance—and paid them with the promise of a change to the pact they suffered under. Freedom, for whoever long they need it to do… to do what? What have they done, Echidna? What have the Jovians done with my gift?”

“Join us and find out.”

My gaze snaps back to the monster in front of . For a mont, I refuse to believe my ears. I can’t have heard that right. Is she—I must be misunderstanding. “What do you an?” I ask, certain I can’t have interpreted that correctly. I must be wrong.

But Echidna smiles at , sweet like poison, and she leans in. Her hands wander across her body, one gripping her thigh while the other cups her breast. “You could be like a sister to ,” she says breathily, managing to make the word “sister” sound more perverse and grotesque than anything I’ve heard in my life. “I love my sisters. I love them more than I love anyone—and I love everyone, Rachel. Share in the love. Join us. Be like .”

“A Catastrophe,” I whisper, stunned. “You’re offering to make into a Catastrophe?”

Echidna wrinkles her nose and crosses her arms, her body creaking and bubbling again as skin sloughs away and her face regains the innocent softness of before. “Catastrophe is such an ugly na,” she pouts. “People are always confusing it for cataclysm or calamity or calumny, and it just doesn’t sing, you know?”

“What would you rather be called?” I ask, buying myself ti just to think. I wasn’t prepared for any of this. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

Echidna taps her chin, musing. “I think… yes, I think that’s it. That sounds pleasing.”

She moves her hands behind herself again, jabs her thumbs brutally into her upper back, and pushes down. She tears her skin open, making two long lines, and then she flicks the excess blood away. From the wounds she created erge—

It looks like string, almost, when I first see it. Pallor white, a flush of pink. Silly string, almost, but too… organic. Lines of strange tissue sprout from her back and split, split again, thick lines into thin lines into thinner lines, and it’s only when the first crackle of electricity spreads across the web that I realize what I’m looking at.

Nerves. Two wings of human nervous tissue flexing and curling around their nude and bleeding maker. A horrifically anatomical tableau.

“Call an angel,” she says, face lit up in rapture. “Yes, call us angels.”

I freeze up. I’m supposed to have better control than this, but I am frayed just being around Echidna. She’s turning into a frightened animal just by proximity, flaring up all my instincts to run from the predator staring down.

She notices my reaction, of course. She laughs and drifts a little farther away from . “It’s okay,” she reassures . “You’re safe. I promised, rember? And, I confess, I didn’t expect you to agree right away. It’s because of love, isn’t it? Love for your Sophia. I could teach you a great deal about love, if you let , but I understand. I can be patient.”

“What do you know about love?” I ask. I almost snap at her, but the quaver in my voice dulls its edge. I kick myself anyway, and flinch, but I don’t take my words back. If her promise ans anything to her, she’s not going to hurt just for asking a question.

I almost laugh. I’m at the rcy of a Catastrophe—an angel, hahaha—and my only hope is to trust in her twisted sense of values.

The nerve-winged angel smiles at benevolently. “Human lives… are defined by fear and loneliness. We yearn for communion, yet flinch from another’s touch. We cling to each other from across an infinite barrier. Humans need love, but we run from the conditions that create it. We run from the vulnerability that love requires. Even together, we are apart. Even entwined, our hearts are kept separate. Two can never beco one. Love is real, but impossible for humans to attain in its fullness. Unless…”

She reaches out a hand and touches the wall of the cocoon encasing us. The stretched skin of the womb-like wall ripples and contorts. Three shapes appear—three holes—two eyes and a mouth. A human face. And then another, and another, and another. Dozens of human faces all over the inside of Echidna’s flesh-and-bone barrier.

And they speak. Different faces, different expressions, different voices. But one word from every set of lips, one word from every recreated cluster of vocal chords.

“Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.” “Love.”

Echidna sighs dreamily. “Can you hear it? Can you hear the love that they’ve found? I’ve brought them together. I’ve removed the separation that keeps humans from attaining love.”

Oh, okay, so I’m trapped in a cocoon with a freak trying to Instruntality everyone. Aweso. Cool. This is great. I’m so happy about the deal I made.

“Let show you,” Echidna says, and suddenly my panic is a thousand tis stronger.

“No, that’s fine, I’m good!” I insist. I want to back away from her, but where? Everything around is her body. The pool of gore, the undulating tendrils, the walls of the false womb. The angel of blood and nerve. I can’t escape.

She laughs. “It won’t hurt. I promise.” And she reaches for with hand and with tendrils, with the vastness of herself, and I—

“ENOUGH!” roars the voice of a goddess. “Begone, you miserable wretch!”

In a flash of golden light, Echidna vanishes. The tendrils, the gore, the angel, all of it banished. The platform above the Spire is left stripped clean. All the flesh monsters are gone, and the dragon, and any trace of the Catastrophe.

So of the magical girls are gone, too, and everyone that was in the crowd. Mako is absent, and Glamour, and so are Narcissa and Sonata. The culled ranks of the Visage lineup float around the stage in dishevelnt.

The image of Venus overlays the form of Pearl Princess, golden and glowing. She’s breathing heavily, which fills with a ssy blend of relief and concern; did it really take that much out of her to get rid of Echidna? Or was her delayed arrival because of Striga?

Where are you, love? Is the plan working?

For a tense heartbeat—or lack of one—Venus turns her wrathful gaze on . I reach for the fla inside , ready to defend myself from her attention… but then she looks away. Her fury settles on another figure, one I didn’t notice until she pointed it out.

“Pandora,” she hisses. “You shouldn’t be here.”

The black-and-purple cat sits calmly in the middle of the empty space where the crowd used to be. Its tail swishes gently from side to side. Cats can’t smile, but there’s sothing undeniably smug about the way its silver eyes stare up at the goddess.

“Salutations,” it greets her with a dip of its feline head. “My invitation to this party seems to have been misplaced, so I had to find my own way past security. Now that we’re all gathered, please, do continue.” Pandora tilts its head. “I’m ever so curious to hear what lies you’re about to tell this planet.”