It was… cold.

  Cold and wet, icy beads of water sticking to her skin, slowly trailing downwards as they dripped off of her body.

  “Wh… huh…?”

  “--awake now?”

  She slowly tilted her head upwards, eyelids peeling open with an upsettingly wet noise, some kind of re-moistened crust caked up over her eyes finally getting peeled away as she stirred back into consciousness.

  “The hell is… gah, my fucking head hurts…”

  “I asked if you are awake now, but I suppose that answers the question.”

  “Just… just a few more minutes then, yeah…”

  Giving up on the arduous task of opening her eye, she let it close again, leaning back in whatever seat she was in as she tried to go back to sleep, prompting an exasperated sigh from somewhere to her right.

  “Again, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  There was a moment’s pause after that voice spoke up, followed by the sound of an old faucet turning. A bst of ice-cold water struck her head on, sputtering in shock as she was doused yet again, the water firing off directly into her sleeping face as she tried to block the stream with her hands.

  All her filing attempts at dodging the surprise attack served only to knock her off of the old wn chair she’d been sat in, falling off to the side in a heap, spitting and hacking up water as she struggled right herself.

  “Ghhhhhgh… the fuck’s wrong with you…?!”

  “Ah, there we are. Good morning, Alice.”

  “How do you… who gave you my name?”

  As she spoke, her memories began trickling back in, her hand moving almost subconsciously upwards over her jawline and towards her eye.

  Fingers gingerly poked in, almost afraid of what they’d find, and found teeth.

  Her hand jerked back almost instantly, jolting backwards with a small yelp of surprise escaping her mouth.

  “…fuck, that actually happened.”

  “Correct, it did, and in the future I would ask you to not poke me every time you wake up just to verify I’m still present.”

  Legs shaky, she tried to stand, stumbling several times before her legs obeyed her, even then feeling like the act of taking a step forward would break something in her.

  The water everywhere certainly wasn’t making that any easier.

  “Careful now, I don’t wanna be cleaning up more of you off my shed. You already made enough of a mess just getting here.”

  An arm wrapped around her shoulders, almost lifting her diminutive form up entirely before guiding her forward slowly, ensuring she didn’t slip and crack something against the hard concrete sb of a floor below.

  “…t-thanks, um… who do I have the pleasure of…?”

  As she was guided up and out of the dim old shed they were in, she tried to get a good look at whoever it was that had bsted her with a hose and was now helping her not eat shit while walking.

  It was an older woman, probably in her 50s if she had to guess. She had skin with both the color and texture of untreated rosewood, jet bck hair pulled back into a messy bun with a yellow hair tie that had almost certainly kept its job for a few years too long.

  “Lonnie Ga. Don’t forget it.”

  “Okay, Ms. Lonnie, I--”

  She was cut off by a smack to the back of the head, crying out more from surprise than any actual pain, though the back of her skull remained the slightest bit raw still.

  “Just Lonnie. I ain’t old enough for grown ass adults like you to be calling me ‘Miss’ just yet.”

  “Geez, fine, just Lonnie then. Can I ask why the hell you’re keeping me in your shed and shooting me with a hose? Didn’t think that’s how old dies would be getting their kicks-- ow!”

  She’d been smacked again, harder this time, clearly not learning her lesson after the first time.

  “You got a weird way of saying ‘thanks you Lonnie!’, y’know that?”

  “Lonnie here pulled you out of that smoking crater you left yourself in earlier. The water spraying was something I requested on your behalf, after she firmly stated she didn’t wish us to utilize her indoor cleaning facilities.”

  “Blood stinks like shit, and I don’t want a plumber asking me why I got so much of it in the pipes after it clogs it shut. After you get the worst of it off of yourself, you can use my washing machine and get a shower that won’t get people asking me funny questions.”

  “Eh? C’mon, its just a little blood, it’s not that… bad…”

  Alice peered down at herself as she spoke, voice trailing off as she looked at what had, understandably, caused the concern to begin with.

  It was difficult to find where shreds of torn clothes ended and bare skin began, both so thoroughly bathed in a yer of freshened viscera that they blended together as it stuck tightly to her, outlining how small she was under her usual oversized jacket.

  “…didn’t even think I had this much blood in me, honestly.”

  “You did not, and currently your body has significantly less than even a normal person would find to be an acceptable amount. This is why you are currently feeling so thoroughly weakened after that little stunt you pulled before with your arm.”

  “…I mean it worked. And… I thought it was pretty cool, at least…”

  The being living inside her eye sighed once more, clearly cking the more refined palette required to enjoy the finer things in life, such as severed mechanical sword arms.

  Lonnie led her out of the shed, Alice having to shield her eye from the bright sunlight of the outside world as it once more burned against her retinas.

  It wasn’t all that bright out once she readjusted to it, the sun hanging low and nguid against the skyline, the hum of the city around them slowly and steadily quieting down as business wound down around them.

  “Nnngh… how long was I out…?”

  “About 5 hours or so, give or take. Lucky you don’t hardly weigh anything, or else I might not’ve gotten you all the way here as soon as I did.”

  Alice peered around again, trying to find any ndmarks for where exactly she was now. A few familiar buildings peeked over the houses around them, but all of them faced the wrong direction, the interstate winding past in the distance.

  “…this is the whole other side of the south end.”

  “You’re right, it is.”

  “How the hell did you drag me this far?! I almost can’t drive this far in 5 hours.”

  “Well it’s a good thing I don’t drive much, then.”

  Lonnie guided the weakened girl across her well-loved wn, a weathered wooden fence boxing it in against outside eyes, the woman all but dropping her a short ways before they reached her back door.

  “Now that you’re awake, you can clean yourself off before you track all of that in on my carpet.”

  The exhausted girl found herself dropped unceremoniously into an empty kiddie pool, the hose from earlier dragged over next to her.

  “There’s a towel and some clothes you can borrow by the door when you’re done. We’ll talk about the rest after that.”

  With that, she stepped over and past her, pulling the door open and stepping inside her own home, leaving the gore-soaked girl and her toothy eye alone with their questions and their viscera.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Some time ter, the sound of a gss door opening and shutting again signaled their cleanup had finished.

  There was a rustle of cloth before Alice turned the corner, head swiveling around as she took in the home around her, a towel rustling through the mess of clean but unkempt bone-white hair on top of her head.

  “You bleach that stuff?”

  “…I was a redhead a few hours ago…”

  “About the only part of you to get less red, then.”

  She didn’t bother ughing at her jab, instead just sitting herself down at the kitchen table across from her, dressed in an oversized sweater and sweatpants she’d been gifted, her own mangled clothes left in a soggy heap outside next to the blood-filled inftable pool.

  “So, you’ve got questions then.”

  “A whole hell of a lot of them, yeah.”

  Lonnie leaned back in her chair, taking a drag off a well-loved cigarette before responding to her.

  “Well go ahead then, I’ll answer whatever I can.”

  There was a long, strained, awkward pause between them both, neither of them saying anything, the younger woman’s mind racing with too many questions to pick any to lead with.”

  “…okay, well… what was that thing that was trying to kill me?”

  “Dunno.”

  Silence.

  “…that’s it?”

  “I can tell you it was probably made by QRI, but past that? Never seen anything like it before today.”

  Alice leaned backwards herself, eye squeezed shut, wracking her brain.

  “QRI… why’s that sound familiar?”

  “I’d certainly hope it sounds familiar, you can see their logo from just about anywhere in town. Queen’s Red Industrial, biggest business in town with a factory in every major district.”

  “Right! Yeah now I remember, assholes ghosted me on a job application before.”

  “For your sake, probably better you didn’t get whatever that job was.”

  “You’re telling me you think the biggest operation around is making money off what, pumping out death robots to harass people?”

  “Don’t think they do, know they do. Dealt with them for years myself, and made a pretty sizable dent in the whole gig while I was at it if I don’t say so myself.”

  “Hmm. Guess that gives me the next question, then. Who the hell are you, and why’d you drag me back here while I was out?”

  “Already told you, name’s Lonnie Ga. Though if you’d heard of me before, you’d have heard the name “Nebulonna” instead.”

  “Nebulonna, Nebulonna… that name rings a bell yeah! I remember you from when I was youn-- not that much younger.”

  That earned her an exceedingly barbed gre, tinged ever so lightly by a hint of appreciation at the merest hint of tact.

  “Retired but still wholly capable magical girl, at your service.”

  “Huh. Never would’ve guessed, looking at you. Used to seeing them in more… y’know, spandex and frills. Not… normal people clothes like you’re wearing.”

  “Kinda the point, sweetie. You think we all wanna walk around broadcasting ‘hey look, it’s me, that celebrity you saw on the news!’ all the time?”

  “Point taken. Doesn’t quite answer the second part of my question though, why’d you bring me back here here? Just wanted some nice gore stains to spice up the decor?”

  She took another drag off her increasingly stumpy cigarette.

  “Sympathy, mostly.”

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Some unidentified engineer or something sent their shiny new toy to chase after a magical girl, only to have it get ripped to hell and back by some unnamed schmuck ripping it apart with her bare hands, before she passed out all helpless-like without a soul around to intervene. I left you there, you’d be waking up strapped into some kinda vat with more probes and wires hooked into you than an extra in a bad alien abduction flick.”

  “…ah. That… yeah, that doesn’t sound very fun, when you put it like that, no.”

  “That, and… well.”

  “Well what?”

  Rather than eborating, she instead scooped up a remote and flicked the power button, the dusty old TV across from them powering on with a strained electrical groan.

  On it was a local news channel, flipping between different stories of the day. Obituary reads, weather updates, a ticker of less interesting updates, and…

  “…and now, returning to our breaking story from earlier. Several hours ago, several eye witnesses reported another magical girl-reted disturbance around Carroll and 5th Street in downtown. The magical girl involved is, as-of-yet, unidentified. However security footage and the destruction wreaked upon this neighborhood cannot be ignored, and the identity of the perpetrator has been released to the media already.”

  “Oh, good, seems like they found whoever released that fucking bug alrea--”

  The feed cut from the reporter speaking into a camera in their cushy studio, to a split pair of images, immediately silencing Alice as she leaned forward with a jolt.

  On the left was a familiar creature, an upscale of what seemed to be a fuzzy phone camera photo showing what was unmistakably the figure of the robotic praying mantis she’d encountered and left as a pile of scrap metal in a ditch.

  On the right… was a sketch clearly compiled from several different descriptions into one mostly-coherent doodle of a figure that was even less unmistakable.

  A lone, humanoid figure, limbs twisted into unnatural angles, seemingly composed of loosely-bound raw meat, bearing a single, massive sword-arm over the head proudly with an unnatural grin scribbled onto their face.

  “It is unclear who is responsible for these two entities being deployed here, or what their intended goals are at this time. However it is expected they are associated with ‘Heartbreak’ and their recent string of attacks throughout the city. Authorities have asked for any and all information reted to these two be submitted to them as soon as possible, with monetary rewards promised for anything leading to locating and stopping these monsters. And now, we return back to our earlier programming--”

  The TV sputtered off as quickly as it’d been turned on, Alice’s own dumbstruck expression staring back at her in the bnk mirror of the screen.

  “That’s why I brought you back here instead of leaving you there.”

  “I… wait, no… but… shit, I killed that fucking thing! Why the hell are the lumping me in with it like I’m the one who fucking built it?!”

  “Kid, you were a walking, talking pile of expired ground beef screaming your lungs out while shooting goddamn meat tentacles out of every limb. I was scared seeing those security videos on the news.”

  “But I was fighting it! Very fucking clearly!”

  “Not in the stuff they were showing. Media loves cherry-picking stuff like that.”

  “But… but…!”

  “But nothing. You’re wanted by the whole city now, and I don’t really think they’re gonna give you the time to expin the deeper nuances of your situation before they lock your ass in an enclosed cell, toss out the key, and win themselves some brownie points from the popuce after they tell everyone they captured a key enemy of everyone’s favorite magical girls.”

  She sputtered more, so many words trying to push out from her all at once that not a single one of them could manage to emerge in a comprehensible manner, Lonnie silently and patiently letting her get it all out of her system.

  “…fuck me.”

  Alice slid down into her chair, eyes locked on the crackling texture of the ceiling above as all the strength left her body.

  ‘Fuck me. Fucking. Fuck!!”

  “Yep, that’s about the reaction I was expecting. Just go ahead and get it all out, I’ll wait.”

  There was an unstopping cavalcade of obscenities, Alice repeatedly swapping between angrily standing and pacing and filing her arms as she swore to an uncaring and nonexistent crowd of onlookers and sitting in a heap at the kitchen table as she grumbled and bemoaned her own shitty luck, the two states swapping on and off and on again for minutes on end, until with a final sigh, she colpsed into her seat one st time, sliding down until she was basically just ying on her back, once more staring emptily at the ceiling above her.

  Having taken this time to heat up her kettle, Lonnie poured herself a cup of fresh, steaming hot tea into a well-loved mug, freeing the cigarette from her lips with her other hand as she tenderly took a sip.

  “Feeling better now?”

  “Not particurly, no.”

  “Yeah, didn’t expect you to. Believe me, I know how hard the whole magical girl thing is to take in at the start, and you got one of the roughest cases of it I’ve ever seen.”

  “Where am I even supposed to start with something like th-- wait, what’d you mean ‘magical girl thing’?”

  Lonnie raised a lone eyebrow at the other woman, another sip of her tea punctuating her previous statement before she spoke again.

  “What do you think I mean…? You made a pact with a thing and it made you a magical girl. That’s how the whole deal works, happened to me and every single other magical girl there’s ever been.”

  “No no no no no, nuh uh, I ain’t one of those dolled-up wannabe heroes they parade around and make toys of.”

  “Yeah, I can’t see much demand for a toy that just bleeds everywhere and passes out after. But not everyone has the chops to be one of those idol types.”

  Alice was bolt upright again, scowling at the other woman in the room with them with newly redirected annoyance.

  “If I wanted to be a fucking idol, then I could be-- no, that’s not… look, I don’t know what you’re assuming here, but I’m not any kind of magical girl or whatever.”

  “Sure you are, that thing living in your eye there is the only proof I need to see to know that you are.”

  Her hand yet again leapt to her newly-hollowed eye socket before pulling away again just as quickly.

  “I could have sworn I specifically requested to be prodded at less.”

  “Maybe if you’d wake up and expin that I’m not a goddamn magical girl to this lunatic, I wouldn’t have to!”

  “…well, strictly speaking…”

  “Don’t you ‘strictly speaking’ me, tell her!”

  “Must you be so aggressive all the time? It’s wholly unbecoming for a… um…”

  “For a magical girl? I told her already and she didn’t listen to me either.”

  “Gaaaaaaaah, fine, both of you are idiots then, because I’m not a--”

  “By all accounts and definitions of the term ‘magical girl’, that is strictly what you are now after accepting my pact.”

  “Told ya.”

  She cradled her head in her hands, leaning forward on the table as a complicated mess of emotions burned through her one after another, not a single thing told to her since she’d woken up making any sense whatsoever as she hoped whatever this dream was ended already.

  “There’s no use just sitting there pouting, kid. The faster you just learn to live with it, the easier it’ll all be on ya.”

  Alice’s head slowly and arduously looked upwards again, a mug of her own now sitting squarely in front of her, empty and expectantly awaiting tea of it’s own.

  “I’d prefer continuing to live without some stupid hero gig getting forced onto me without anyone even asking me beforehand.”

  “Actually if you’ll recall, I did ask you, and you seemed rather quick to respond affirmatively.”

  “Yeah, and my other option was dying, so not much a fucking choice was it?”

  “Well… you could’ve simply run the other way.”

  “Eh?”

  “When I first revived you. Nothing prevented you from simply leaving as soon as you were back up on your feet, no? Yet you instead chose to pursue those two innocents in hopes of assisting them.”

  “…I’m not that much of a prick, y’know.”

  “On the contrary, I don’t believe you to be a ‘prick’ on any level. Rather, I believe your actions were quite noble, and reassured me that I was correct in selecting you as a vessel for becoming a magi--”

  “If you don’t want me to learn how to fit a fucking muzzle on an empty eye hole, I would avoid finishing that thought of yours.”

  “…I believe your life would be a great deal simpler if you simply stopped being quite so needlessly abrasive all the time.”

  She stuck her tongue out, not dignifying them with a response.

  “Gd to see you both getting along so well already.”

  Their attention turned back to Lonnie, now holding her kettle once again tipping it sideways slowly over the empty floor to her side, a slow trickle of steam rising from the tip as hot liquid spilled free towards the floor below…

  …only to instead meet a glittery point of space an inch below, vanishing as it made contact with it and reappearing at an equally sparkling point directly above Alice’s mug, gingerly filling the container perfectly as it slipped through the space between them.

  “…huh, neat trick.”

  “I’ve always thought so. Never been much help in a fight, but it’s nice for getting things around, especially bloody and malnourished brats.”

  She ignored the pointed jab, instead lifting the mug to her lips and taking a sip, almost immediately realizing her mistake as the gulp of boiling hot tea singed her tongue raw before she could spit it back out.

  “Hot hot hot hot hot--”

  The girl rapidly sat her mug down again, leaping from her seat and rushing towards the sink for cold water to soother her burnt oral appendage… only to realize by the time she’d even stood up, the pain was already gone entirely, her tongue not even remotely raw anymore.

  “That does work pretty fast, huh?”

  “Wait, were you trying to burn me there?”

  “Well, it’s always nice to get a feel for how someone else’s powers work if you’re gonna work with them.”

  “…work with who, exactly?”

  Lonnie leaned back into her own chair, sighing with the exasperation only someone too used to dealing with thick-skulled coworkers for most of her life could express.

  “Me, who else? Kid, every st person who saw what you did out there probably wants you either dead or dissected, except for me.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t really ask for any of that to begin with, so it’s not really my business or my problem.”

  “You know that’s not how that works, listen to me--”

  “No, look, just… thanks for peeling me off the floor and cleaning me off before, I appreciate it. But this whole ‘magical girl’ stuff isn’t me, I’m not interested.”

  “Alice, you can’t just ignore all of this.”

  “Sure I can, that’s how I deal with most everything else.”

  She was already headed to the door, stopping to pull her newly cleaned but still tattered clothes out of the washing machine she’d tossed them in on her way in earlier, pulling them back on and leaving the hand-me-downs piled nearby.

  “See ya, Lonnie.”

  Without a word more, Alice stepped out the front door, shutting it gingerly behind herself, leaving the other woman standing there dumbfounded.