Burning Bright is terrifying.

  Eyes hard as baked amber, dead-flat with possessive hate, framed by flesh too tired to live. The way she shuffles forward, each step certain as a plague victim, deaf to any heartfelt plea; not that I try to please, because words alone will not turn her aside. Morbid vitality flexes in her sagging shoulders, wilted body like a parched rose, barely hidden by baggy clothes, loose and limber with the promise of final violence. This is the most frightening kind of woman one can meet, down in the blighted isles still pretending to be Britain — a fury, courting her own death, speeding to her end in an I&O cell. A woman who has given up all appearances of normality, abandoned the pretence of being unbroken, stopped trying to fit in. Burning Bright has given herself over to her obsessions.

  She does not need to threaten, does not need to clench her fists. Her very self is a statement. If I do not roll over and show my belly, she will hurt me.

  So why am I not afraid?

  My lack of fear is more perturbing than the woman who is about to kick my teeth out if I don’t genuflect at her feet. I’m losing my mind; this must be the final proof. Without Willow at my side, the Octavia Carter of only yesterday morning would have melted away before this apparition, magical girl or not.

  I take a step back, as Bright gets in my face, but no further. Less than two feet between us, eye to eye, but I stand tall, and I don’t know why.

  Not courage. Whatever bravery I was born with has been hollowed out by ten years of being less than human, replaced by a coward’s need to survive. But the last twenty four hours have burnt out my capacity for terror. Yesterday I took a blade to the gut and three bullets to my chest. We’re on the moon and I can punch people apart.

  Burning Bright is so close I can smell her — mucus, antiseptic, isopropyl alcohol. She is beautiful too, both like and unlike her sister. Scarlet Edge is our well-watered English rose, proud and tall in the shining sun; Burning Bright is an otherworldly bloom hidden beneath the gnarled leaves of a tough old weed. Freckles dust soft cheeks and cross the bridge of her nose. Her lips are thin but plush; I briefly wonder if I could stop her next words by pressing a finger across that petulant mouth. Wasted muscles cling to her shoulders, thin and cold and greasy, in need of more layers beneath her coat. The curve of her skull peers from her half-shaven head, blonde hair fuzzy enough to touch. A hint of collarbone and pectoral muscle make themselves known through the gap between tank-top and trenchcoat.

  The hunch of her shoulders, the bags beneath her eyes, the way she’s holding herself together; I have been intimate with that pain.

  Knowledge, crystal clear and perfect true, hits me like a ray of light. Suddenly I know for an absolute fact: if I take this girl’s hand and lead her to bed, she will sleep, curled up in my lap. If I take control, wordless and without question, she will allow herself to be tucked in by some girl she’s only just met. If I only reach out, she will weep for the opportunity to rest. I can tame this woman in an instant, and she would be powerless to resist.

  I’m going insane. I must be. Burning Bright will kill me if I try any of that.

  “You hear me, dream-bait?” Bright hisses in my face. “Scarlet Edge. My sister. She’s mine. Say it. Say—”

  I raise my prosthetic fist.

  My blood is cold, my head is quiet, my arm is mere foam and fibre. Bright is too broken and pathetic to rouse anything but logic, even if she is dangerous; but then again, ‘we’ magical girls are all dangerous, aren’t we? Yet Bright is visibly and obviously unwell, obsessed with her sister in a fashion I do not care to know, vulnerable in ways that invite me to act like a fool. Clean anger is impossible here.

  But I must defend my dignity, or she’ll have me on the floor.

  “Scarlet Edge ran me through with a sword,” I say. “Whatever I did to her, I did because she was trying to kill me. If you have a problem with that, I can do the same to you, Miss Bright.”

  Grimgrave bursts into a peal of giggles, up on the table. “Ooooooh! She’s calling your fuckin’ bluff, you walking cloaca!”

  Signal sighs from her nearest skeleton. “Not in here,” she says, oh-so long suffering in her motherly voice, like we’re all naughty girls. “If we upset the table and waste this food, Tissy will be bloody furious. Bright. Bright! Octavia, you too, don’t you dare throw that punch, lass. Bright, come on, control yourself. Bright! For pity’s sake, woman. Don’t ignore me!”

  Bright stares me down, eyelids drooping, lips slack with effort. She snorts back a plug of mucus somewhere inside her face.

  “You think you can take me?” she asks.

  “I don’t care,” I say. “I’ve had enough of this, I really have. I want to go home, and you’ve put yourself in my way. I’ll hit you, just like I hit her, and I will keep hitting you until you stand aside.”

  What am I saying, where are these words coming from? I almost sound like I did on the news, like I’m about to start cackling.

  “Say it,” Bright hisses again. “Scarlet Edge. She’s mine.”

  “Yes, fine!” I hiss back. “She’s yours! I certainly don’t want her!”

  Bright takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, mucus crackling and bubbling in her lungs. “You punched her,” she croaks. “In the gut. They put that on the news.”

  “They—” I tut. “They didn’t, actually. They edited that out.”

  Bright shrugs, slow as cold honey. “I could tell by the way she carried herself after.”

  “ … excuse me?”

  “You think she knows what I am? Nah, no way, no how. I’m just her bitch of a little sister, biggest problem in her life, the one thing she can’t shake. The one thing, the only thing she can’t leave behind. So yeah, I saw her after the fight, out of her stupid monkey suit, trying to hide a bruised stomach.” Bright rolls her neck from side to side; her vertebrae make the most awful crunching sounds. “I know you punched her. But that wasn’t the only thing you did, was it? I’ve never seen her act like she did last night. Never seen her so … ” Bright’s lips curl with disgust. She swallows, wet and rough and difficult. “After you punched her. What did you do to her?”

  Signal answers on my behalf. “Octavia defended herself. Bright, the whole Trio was trying to kill her, and also snatch Nerys, by the sounds of it. There’s no need for this. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m asking dream-bait here, not you, you fat fucking nerd.” Bright doesn’t look away from me. Signal’s skeleton flashes a fresh emote on a rib-screen, but I don’t dare look away from Bright. “What happened after the punch?” she hisses. “What happened next?”

  “She stabbed me,” I say. “Ran me through. It hurt.”

  “And then?”

  Bright’s eyes are like magnets. Watery and weak, but I cannot look away.

  Tell the truth, but don’t call it what it was.

  Do not tell Bright I kissed her sister.

  “I bit her,” I admit. “On the face.”

  Grimgrave explodes, makes me flinch. “Yooooooooooo! Fucking what?! Hahahaha!” She throws her hands in the air. “Holy shit, Occy, you didn’t tell me that! Like, Nerys, hey, you didn’t say she fucking’ bit Scarlet! Hey, oh hey, we gotta get that footage! We gotta get our hands on that! Siggy, can you hack that for us? Imagine the video we could make!”

  Gamble successful; Nerys has kept her mouth shut about the details.

  Bright holds my gaze. Breathing slow, steady, laboured.

  “She’d stabbed me through the gut, diagonal through my body, so deep it came out of my back,” I say. The echo of the wound throbs once with a memory of penetration and heat and searing pain. My shoulder is getting tired, but I don’t dare lower my fist. “She had me impaled. I couldn’t throw another punch, couldn’t get myself off the sword. I was bleeding badly. Nerys was on my shoulder, Scarlet was trying to grab her. I didn’t have any other options, any other weapons. So, yes, I bit her.”

  “Fuckkkkkk,” Grimgrave squawks. “I knew it. Occy, I knew it. I knew you were a crazy bitch!”

  Bright blinks, slow like a cat. Nods once. Steps back.

  “Alright,” she grunts. “I buy it.”

  I lower my fist. “I was only protecting myself—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you’re doing, dream-bait,” says Bright. “You’ll be gone in a few weeks, one way or another. But I gotta make one thing clear. I always get first dibs on my sister, no matter what. If you’re not totally useless, if you end up out there with us, even if it’s just one time, then you get this clear in your head. Whatever else happens, I get first try at Scarlet Edge, and I get to keep trying until I can’t. If we’re in a fight and she comes for you, you back down the first chance you get, you leave her to me. She’s mine. First, last, always mine. Understand?”

  I cannot imagine this girl standing up to Scarlet Edge for five seconds. I also don’t care, and don’t want to know more. “Whatever … ‘thing’ you have about your own sister, I don’t care. I never want to see her again, let alone fight her.”

  Scarlet’s sword — the echo of her — throbs low in my gut.

  “Don’t get clever,” Bright growls. “Just say you understand. Do you?”

  Roll my eyes. “Fine, whatever. I understand.”

  “Good. Remember it. Or I’ll kill you.”

  Eeeeeeerrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkk—

  Nails down a chalkboard split the air and puncture my ears, a high-pitched squeal of bone on metal. Nobody is spared a flinch. Bright cringes, curling away from the noise. Grimgrave jerks, almost topples off the table. Even Signal’s skeleton does a weird little twitch.

  Nerys is scraping the claws of one zoog-paw across the metal tabletop.

  She keeps going. I put my hands over my ears. Bright screws her eyes shut in pain. Grimgrave starts laughing. The awful screech goes on and on and on.

  When Nerys finally stops, the silence feels unreal. We emerge, blinking, stunned.

  Nerys opens her ooze-dripping jaws.

  “No!” she rasps.

  Bright rolls her eyes, lets out a huff. “Nerys—”

  “No!” Nerys stomps over to the edge of the table, dripping phantasmal slime behind her, until she’s right next to Bright. She goes up on her claws, fur bristling from her curved back, black rat-tail sticking out stiff. “No you won’t, Bethany.”

  Bright — ‘Bethany’? — looks away. “You don’t give orders, Nerys. You can’t tell us what to do. You—”

  Eeeerrrrrkkk—

  Nerys rakes the metal tabletop again, mercifully short this time. “If you girls start killing each other, I will be very upset. Very upset! Huurrrrrk!” She makes a raspy wet noise down in her throat, coupled with a side-to-side shake of her snout, as if chasing off a fly. “Humans! You’re always finding excuses to slaughter each other, pull off each other’s limbs, put out each other’s eyes! Bethany, you are one of my girls, are you not? You’re meant to be better. Like me. All of you are like me. All of you. Look at me.” Nerys flexes her claws, does a tiny stomp with one paw. “Look at me!”

  Bright looks down at Nerys, sulky and sullen. “What?”

  “No murdering each other.”

  Bright sighs. Looks away again.

  Nerys lets out a very different kind of zoog hiss, lips peeled back, teeth clamped tight, a shivering warble wet with saliva. A chorus of half a dozen zoogs join in with her, from over in front of the television; some of them have climbed up on the back of the sofa to watch our drama. But they all hiss open-mouthed, empty threats, not like Nerys.

  Bright crosses her arms over her chest. “It was a figure of speech.”

  “Mm!” Nerys lets her hiss trail off. “Better, better. That’s what I want to hear. As long as it’s all in good faith. My girls don’t kill each other. Zoogs don’t kill zoogs. Yes? Yes?”

  “Yeah yeah,” Bright mutters. Looks at me again. “All in good faith, huh? She can take it, can’t she, if she’s one of us?” She gestures left and right with her head, at Grimgrave and Signal. “Either of you pussies put her through her paces yet?”

  Grimgrave thumps her own chest. “I shot her up when she got here. Laid her the fuck out, like. She’s tested, passed, flying colours.”

  Bright stares into my eyes, a nasty smirk curling the edges of her mouth. She uncrosses her arms, cracks her knuckles slowly, one by one; each pop sounds unhealthy, at risk of dislocation.

  “Even dream-bait needs seasoning,” she says.

  I brace for another screech of Nerys’ claws on metal — but it doesn’t come. She’s just tilting her snout, watching ‘her girls’.

  Bright points a bony finger at my face. “Outside, dream-bait.” She clears her throat with a meaty grunt. “Fifteen minutes, you and me. You run, I’ll tear you up good. You fall unconscious, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. You don’t put up a fight, I’ll—”

  “Hey, shit-cunt!” Grimgrave squawks; she kicks the air a few feet from Bright’s head, white trainer arcing by like a lonely comet. Then she hops back out of range, shoes squeaking on the tabletop, ponytail curls bouncing as she goes. “I told you just now, you dozy bitch! I shot her when she got here. We went a full round, no warning, and she totally held her own. Occy’s mine, like. I handled it myself, since you were too busy ogling Scarlet’s udders or some shit.”

  Bright loses her nasty smirk. Looks up at Grimgrave, murder in her eyes. “I’m not done with you either, giggles—”

  “Octavia,” I say. Loud. Clear. Insistent.

  Bright looks back at me. “What?”

  Good question.

  Grimgrave’s behaviour is obvious enough. What I cannot understand, what I cannot fathom, what provokes me to an act I should not have half the courage to contemplate, is why.

  Yesterday, Grimgrave took responsibility for my ‘initiation’, an attempt to deny Burning Bright the excuse. Last night, dazed and exhausted after the second-worst day of my all-too-meager life, I failed to comprehend that Grimgrave had extended me her protection. Now she is doing it again, jumping in front of me, making it clear to Bright that I am out of bounds, because I have already been subjected to the correct amount of violence. Presumably less than Bright would prefer to inflict.

  Is this her idea of an apology? Does Grimgrave feel guilty — for hurting Willow, for ruining my life? For insinuating that I am a ‘homosexual’? Is this unstable moon-clown really trying to be my friend and ally?

  Of course not. I have only one friend and ally in this life. Her name is Willow Finch.

  This is some grudge between Grim and Bright. Sordid old drama, none of my business. Grimgrave neither needs nor deserves my help. Nor do I care if Bright gets my name right. I’m just collateral damage.

  So, what the hell am I doing?

  “Octavia,” I repeat. “Not newbie, not dream-bait. You can say my name, can’t you?”

  Burning Bright stares. My heart pounds against the inside of my ribs. Sweat under my armpits. Head gone light. Grimgrave glances my way, a grimace behind her teeth, but I won’t look up. That would give the game away, wouldn’t it, Grimmy? And we are playing a game here, a very dangerous one. Disarm the violent girl.

  Aren’t we all violent girls, up here on the moon?

  I raise my prosthetic fist again, arm parallel with my torso. A statement rather than a threat.

  “Or I could hit you,” I say. “Until you can say my name.”

  I’m not even angry; where is this coming from? I sound insane.

  Bright snorts, shakes her head, turns away. “You ain’t worth the bruised knuckles.”

  Grimgrave explodes into wild cackles, trainers going up and down on the tabletop, like a celebratory dance after a goal. “More like you’re shit-scared, bitch! You know you can’t take us both, right? Me and Occy, we’d tag-team your arse so hard you’d need a fuckin’ colostomy bag!”

  Signal sighs, a crackle from her speakers. “Geegee. That’s below the belt.”

  “Fuckin’ right it is!”

  Bright’s expression darkens. She turns toward Grimgrave, squaring up her sagging shoulders. Grim’s got the height advantage, standing on the table; Bright looks like she’ll pass out if she tries to climb up there.

  “You hit my sister with a bomb, giggles,” Bright says. She snorts back a wad of mucus. “You seriously think I’m gonna let that slide?”

  Grimgrave spreads her arms wide. “She was closest! You think I gave, like, a single shit which of those bitches got the blast? Wrong place, wrong time! That’s not even against your own stupid rules. You got nothing on me. Give it up, yeah?”

  “You know the rule,” Bright growls, thick and wet. “She’s mine, first, last—”

  “Always always, up your arse!” Grimgrave chants. Her grin widens from ear to ear, showing too many teeth, manic energy vibrating down her body beneath her white athletic top and those too-tight leggings. She’s at a hundred percent now, same as when she threw the bomb, same as when she shot me. “You wanna rumble, huh? You wanna rock and roll? I’ll roll all over your cunt, Bethany. Come on. Come on!”

  “Sure,” Bright grunts. Zero energy. “Let’s go.”

  Grimgrave transforms.

  A click of her fingers triggers the magic, same as I witnessed on the moon’s surface. A halo of colour explodes around her like paint hurled at a canvas, a balloon of wild and clashing chaos blotting out the human form with dark pink, radioactive blue, oil-slick black. Splotches of chromatic iridescence bulge outward under pressure, as if a miniature detonation were trapped within. Then the whole mass snaps inward, slapping tight to Grimgrave’s petite frame.

  Twin-tails in pink and lilac, highlights in white and black, beneath her tricorn jester’s hat. Motley dress in blue-black-white, ribbon at her waist like butterfly wings. Skirt of ruffles and lace, legs striped in pink-white-blue, roller blades dancing on the tabletop.

  Face a mask in white makeup, pink hearts like eye-shadow bruises deep around her sockets, black swirls crinkling on her cheeks. Bright red nose. Pink-black lips.

  Patience Graves. Psycho clown girl.

  Grimgrave’s magical girl outfit seems no less absurd than the first time. But now I know who she is, I understand why. It’s her.

  She reaches under her skirt, pulls out a gun — a huge pistol, shiny and chrome, so big she can barely hold it with one hand. She twirls the weapon over the back of her fingers; I wince, shy away, certain she’s going to find a new and creative way to cause an accidental discharge. But then she tosses the gun high into the air, gleaming metal glinting against the rainbow backdrop of the Big Room. She spins on her roller-blades, skirt flaring outward, feet describing a neat circle on the tabletop.

  Grimgrave ends the spin, catches the massive gun in both hands, and grins like a blood-mad pixie.

  “Last time we played, you’re the one who got upside down in ditch-water!” she shrieks at Bright. “I’m gonna pin you to the wall, scale-arse shit-streak—”

  Signal’s nearest skeleton turns up the volume: “Not in here! Grimgrave, down! Bright, don’t you dare take that bait—”

  Bright raises one boot and stomps on the ground.

  Burning Bright bursts into a pillar of flame, an instant conflagration roaring so loud it drowns out Signal’s shout. The inferno deepens, from orange and red to blue and violet, air reeking of chemical fire. Bright’s clothes melt away, gone in a split-second; her flesh follows, less than an eyeblink. Charred human cinders writhe at the core of a forge-fire, blackened and twisted, bones crumbling to cremated ash.

  Flame thickens and condenses, takes on curves and angles, twists tight to a human outline.

  The fire goes out. A woman steps free.

  A split-second of pressure mounts inside my skull, echo of a migraine behind my right eye. I have no idea who I’m looking at or where she came from.

  But then the pressure passes a soul-boundary I no longer possess, just as it did when I witnessed Grimgrave’s transformation. With a softly disconcerting cranial pop, I know I’m looking at Burning Bright.

  Same hunch-shouldered posture, same belligerent glower, same sullen insult smouldering behind her eyes. But nothing else.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Hair gone red as fresh and bleeding meat, the shaven half a mane of living flame, broken by a pair of curving horns like blood-dipped coral. Eyes glowing like infra-red suns, teeth too long to fit in her mouth, each one a razored knife in gleaming bone. Dark red scale halos her body in ruby layers, baking the air with heat-haze. Not a dress, not a garment; scales grow from her skin, flush against her throat and thighs, flowing like a cloak from her shoulders, skirts of steely crimson about her legs, layers of armour over her breast and belly. Her arms and legs have packed on slabs of muscle, gloved in red scale, fingers turned to carmine talons. Her feet are avian, triple-toed, thick-clawed.

  A tail lashes from her rear, scaled in garnet, thick with muscle, tipped with spikes of bronze-red bone.

  Smoke pours from between her teeth.

  Magical girls with animalistic transformations are common enough. Cats, wolves, crows, all the most picturesque and easily digested. A bushy tail here, a pair of twitching ears there, always photogenic and presentable, ready to preen and prance for the cameras. Britain has plenty, but they’re hardly restricted to our shores. Dancer Delight over in France is a kind of werewolf, domesticated and collared; Web-Wand is an American example, a fuzzy spider from New York, nothing like the real arachnid. Even Japan has a current catgirl, Miss Nekonyan, a name of meaningless obscenity, for a magical girl dressed like a cheap imitation tiger, pretending to be fierce, purring for a crowd of perverts.

  Burning Bright is none of those. Her scales are armour, her claws razor-sharp red-dyed diamond. Her face is a visage of heat and flame, with teeth enough to rip a live bull in two.

  Burning Bright is a dragon, not to be tamed.

  Grimgrave grins wide, aiming her big shiny pistol dead centre at Bright’s chest. Zoogs scatter off the back of the sofa, diving for cover in the domesticated corner. I back away, both fists raised, coated in cold sweat.

  Signal’s skeleton stomps forward. Two more skeletons appear around the table, the pair from the entrance, flanking the stand-off.

  “Not in here!” Signal bellows from her speakers, so loud I wince. “You take this outside, both you! Not on the table, not at breakfast! If you waste all this food, Tissy will feed us nothing but raw paste for months!” A pause. “Off the table, now! Or I’ll transform too—”

  Grimgrave breaks. Kicks out with one rollerblade, zipping backward across the metal tabletop. “Come get meeeeee!”

  Bright roars like a bonfire. She leaps after Grimgrave, vaulting head-first over the table, tail whipping the air with a crackle of living flame, crimson claws outstretched for a lethal tackle. But Grimgrave tumbles off the edge of the table in a calculated pratfall; Bright sails overhead and crashes into the floor, a rolling mass of scale-armoured limbs slapping across bare concrete.

  “Hahahahaaaaa!” Grimgrave hoots, hopping back to her feet. “Couldn’t catch a cold in the Arctic, you fuckin’ dinosaur!”

  Grimgrave grabs the edge of the table and uses one arm to launch herself away at high speed — she zips toward the rear of the Big Room, twirling and spinning and hopping, followed by the contrails of her big blue bow. Bright picks herself up, shaking her head, lashing her tail, slamming it against the floor, scales slithering on concrete like chain-mail.

  Grimgrave circles a pillar, sticks her rump out at Bright, shakes her skirt.

  “Slow and steady wins you a mouthful of my shit!” she shrieks.

  Bright roars again; I try not to flinch. Grimgrave giggles like a banshee, picks up speed, and vanishes into one of the corridors which lead off into the shadowy depths. Bright gives chase, slipping into the concrete tunnel like a lit brand dropped down an empty well.

  Echoes creep back for perhaps thirty seconds — the shick-shick-shick of roller blades, the spike and stab of Grim’s mad laughter, the smoky crackle of Bright’s full fury.

  The moon swallows them up.

  Silence settles. Moon-wind whispers against the concrete shell of Plato Base, rolling down the flanks of cold lunar mountains.

  “Well then,” Signal sighs, speaking from a skeleton, volume back down. “Octavia? Look, lass, I’m so sorry you had to see that. It’s not … not what we’re always like, you know? It’s not often those two go at each other, actually. And I do have to be fair to Bright on this. Grimgrave did carry out that whole bomb-throwing thing without consulting anybody else. I’m angry with her too, though I’m not the sort to get violent like that. If only she’d come to me before, this whole thing could have been avoided.”

  Can’t get my breath. Can’t unclench my fists. Heart’s still racing, armpits wet with fresh sweat.

  Nerys trots back across the table, claws clicking on the metal. She retrieves another piece of bacon, settles down to eat.

  That seems to be the general sign to resume whatever passes for normality here in Plato Base. Zoogs snuffle and shuffle back out of their hiding places, furry little faces popping up from the gaps between sofa cushions, grey snouts nosing out of the debris, clawed paws creeping into the light. Signal pulls back the two additional skeletons; one returns to the door, but the other walks over to the hallway where Bright and Grimgrave went, then vanishes after them. The third stays close, an emote on one of the rib-screens.

  ヽ(~～~ )ノ

  “Octavia?” Signal says. “It’s alright, lass. Take a deep breath. It all seems more shocking than it really is. Go on, you can lower them fists too. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Ignore her. Lower my fists anyway, because my left hand is cramping and the stump of my right is getting sore.

  “Nerys,” I find my voice. “Nerys? Aren’t you going to … stop them?”

  Nerys looks up from her bacon. “Stop them? Hnnuuunnnh! This is good enrichment. Girls always need enrichment.”

  “ … you mean … this is just … they won’t actually … hurt each other?”

  Nerys snorts, a scratchy wet zoog-laugh. A few of the other zoogs join in, a raspy chorus of hissing giggles.

  Signal clears her throat with a crackle from her skeleton-speakers. The emote on the rib-screen changes again.

  (--_--)

  “You’re half-right there, Octavia,” she says. “They absolutely will hurt each other, but we all understand certain … ” A hesitant pause; over on the other side of the domesticated corner, I hear Signal’s fast fingers cease typing for a moment. “Certain limits,” she finishes.

  “No killing each other!” Nerys rasps.

  “Quite,” says Signal. “And don’t let appearances fool you. Grimmy will be doing most of the hurt. She knows how to handle Bright’s moods.”

  “Moods,” I echo.

  “Mmhmm! You and Bright got off on bad footing, that’s all. She’s touchy about her sister. Which is a whole tale, let me tell you. Or rather, let me tell you later, ‘cos that’s really not good breakfast conversation, you know?”

  I stare at the skeleton, then past it, at the real Signal, crouched in her chair.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, lass,” she’s saying. “They’ll both be fine. Really, put it from your mind, it’s not worth getting all twisted up about. They know what they’re doing, they both wanted to throw down. And they’re both magical girls, too. Like Nerys says, it’s not as if they’re going to kill each other. Don’t take it so seriously.”

  At least the food is intact. As is the edge of the table, and the concrete where Bright was standing when she transformed. Magical fire doesn’t seem to have blackened or burned or melted anything real, despite the way it felt.

  If I’d known Burning Bright was a dragon, I might not have stood up to her. If I’d known she was sister to Scarlet Edge, I might have prepared myself better. If I’d known she was a sadistic psychopath who wanted to haze me because I’m the ‘new girl’, I might have—

  Ambushed her first and beaten her unconscious.

  No, of course not. What am I thinking?

  “Hey, hey, Octavia?” Signal purrs, still talking at me via a nine-foot moon-skeleton; the skeleton holds my chair for me, gesturing for me to sit back down. “You’re shaking a wee bit, lass. Don’t fret, Bright’s bark is much worse than her bite. It’s alright, really, I promise it is, nothing to worry about. And if she does hold a grudge, that’s what I’m here for. Plus, Grimmy seems to have taken a real shine to you. I can’t say I know what’s going on inside her wee little messed up head, but it’s better to have Grimmy on your side than not.”

  “ … my side.”

  Should I laugh?

  “Sit down, please,” Signal says. “Finish your breakfast, really. You barely got a chance to eat yet. Aren’t you hungry, lass?”

  Shaky with adrenaline, can’t let go. Worse than a fight, because there was no real anger in my heart, not for any of this. No catharsis, no punches thrown. No enemy, just my kind of magical girl, my ‘allies’, on ‘my side’.

  “Octavia?” The skeleton won’t shut up. Signal’s voice hardens a touch. “You don’t need to worry about those two. It’s just play. It’s not even a real fight. Look, you’ve seen magical girls and Nightmares and whatnot on the news your whole life, haven’t you? We’re no different. We can ramp up to that kind of stuff too. But this? Grimmy with a single gun and Bright using her claws? It’s just mucking about, that’s all. The real thing is much worse, and we don’t do it to each other. Grimmy isn’t going to go all artillery barrage and Bright’s not going to rampage for real, not inside Plato Base, not when it’s just each other. We don’t do that—”

  “I don’t like you.”

  I’d meant to say ‘shut up’, or ‘stop talking’, but it’s too late now.

  I have no script to follow beyond those words. No role into which I can slip, no polite pattern to follow. Adrift and floundering in open waters.

  A knot unclenches deep in my gut. It’s such a relief that I actually sigh, out loud. My fists finally unclench. I stop shaking, stop sweating.

  The skeleton just stares at me, eyes blank little lenses, no emote on the screens.

  “ … wha … what?” Signal says after a moment. She tries to laugh. “Octavia, what do you mean? We’ve only just met, you and I, why—”

  “Because you’re lying.”

  I’ve lost control, but it feels so good. What’s the point in being polite, up here on the moon? Signal already sees, hears, knows everything; what more is she going to dig up on me if I’m not nice to her, if I’m not an upstanding young woman in her presence, if I refuse to take her at face value for a single moment longer? What can she possibly learn that she hasn’t already? That I’ve killed two people? That my phone is filled with pictures of Willow? That I am an outlaw and a criminal and a magical girl?

  “Lying?” Signal echoes. “Octavia, lass, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I know you’re stressed, this is all very new to you, but I’m not trying to—”

  “Lying,” I interrupt. So calm I can’t believe it, all that stress just melting away. Relief so strong it threatens to make me grin. “Falsehoods. Untruths. You are feeding me nonsense and expecting me to swallow. More importantly, I dislike you because you’re a one-woman panopticon. Are you looking up my skirt, too? Measuring my bust? Do you have cameras in our bedrooms?”

  “ … no. Octavia, I don’t spy—”

  “How can I possibly be sure of that? How are you any different to Dream Control? How is being around you any different to living in England?”

  Signal has no reply; I hear her stop typing.

  “Why am I even afraid of you?” Can’t stop myself, it just keeps coming, and I wouldn’t stop even if I could. “I know why, I know exactly why. Because this is how I was raised, down there, back in England. Always afraid that I was being watched. Always aware, always supposed to be aware, every moment of my behaviour always open to scrutiny, examination, analysis, by people I’d never met, people who I would never meet, faceless nurses, government men, worse. But I’m not in England anymore. I’m on the moon. I’m a magical girl. And apparently magical girls are all … ”

  Emotionally imbalanced? Mentally unwell? Disturbed? Insane?

  No, that’s Emotional Health and Hygiene language.

  “Octavia—”

  “Don’t you dare treat me like a child, ‘Signal’. I’m a magical girl too, and that means I am also a crazy mad bitch. Am I not? Those two, Grimgrave and Bright, they are not just playing, they are not ‘friends’. Grimgrave was drawing Bright away from me, even I could tell that much. Because Bright wants to hurt me, because I’m new, because that’s what she does, she hazes new magical girls. Am I right? Am I right, Signal? I would like you better if you stopped lying about basic things.”

  A sigh, low and apologetic. “I’m just trying not to scare you, lass.”

  “And you are failing,” I say. “You’re the creepiest thing here. You feel fake. Why don’t you talk to me in your real voice?”

  “Octavia,” she tuts, motherly tone tinged with disapproval and disappointment. “We talked about this. This is my real—”

  “Don’t weaponise my politeness. And drop the ‘yummy mummy’ act. It’s … disgusting.”

  A pause.

  Just long enough for my words to sink.

  Regret curdles in the back of my throat. Opens my mouth, starts to form that damned word, that ‘sorry’—

  Static explodes from the skeleton-speakers. Hissing, crackling, popping, the beep and buzz of an old-school dial up modem. Machine-speak, loud and unfiltered, echoing off the walls of the Big Room. Half a dozen zoogs jump out of their furry skins and scramble for cover again; another six hiss little challenges, trying to match the machine.

  A skeleton rib-screen lights up with a new emote.

  ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

  FUCK YOU

  “The sentiment is mutual,” I say.

  When the skeleton moves I half-expect Signal is going to pick a fight with me; there would be an ironic symmetry in that. Bright and Grim, Signal and I, all the magical girls of the so-called revolution locked in our own petty, pointless squabbles.

  But the skeleton ignores me. Signal grabs a plate, loads it with food — scrambled eggs on toast, lots of tomato sauce, big mug of orange juice — then carries breakfast back to her desk. Her core, the real woman behind all these machines, moves properly for the first time since I entered the room. She unfolds her legs and stands up, stretches her back, walks around her chair three times, then sits back down. She does not look at me.

  Cold sweat and panic-shakes and a hard-clenched gut have transmuted into a dull sickness at the back of my throat. I have well and truly screwed this up. I shouldn’t have said any of that, because no matter how I feel, it was not entirely fair. Now the words are out, I wish I could take half of them back. But only half.

  At least I’m not scared anymore. What’s Signal going to do to me, take more photos?

  I sit back down in my chair. May as well resume breakfast.

  The skeleton stalks back over to the table, which I wasn’t expecting. I tense up, brace for an earful, try not to show it. Signal pulls out a chair and sits the skeleton down, two places away from me. Vulcanised rubber hands rest on the tabletop, skull pointing straight forward, camera-eyes seeing in all directions. Every screen on the ribcage shows the same emote.

  (￣ヘ￣)

  Nerys still nibbles away at a piece of bacon, gripping it in her little oil-black paws. Impossible to tell where her eyes are looking.

  “Nerys,” I say. “Do you not care that ‘your girls’ are all shouting at each other, falling out, having fights?”

  Nerys pauses, raises her snout, considers me for a moment. “You girls have to work your own shit out,” she rasps. “That’s what freedom means, no? I’m not here to corral you.”

  “So, you don’t care? You don’t care that Grimgrave shot me, or whatever Bright was planning to do? You don’t care if we tear at each other like this?”

  Nerys pulls a weird grin, rueful and resigned. “I do care. Too much.”

  I sigh. “So much for the meeting, then?”

  “Ha. Meetings can wait, it’ll still happen. We have all the time we need. Grimmy and Bright will tire themselves out sooner or later. You humans always do.”

  I don’t agree. There is no bottom to how much we humans can and will hurt each other, so often over so very little.

  Nothing sensible left to do right now but eat my breakfast, alongside a zoog-god glutting herself on bacon, a very grumpy cyber-skeleton, and blessed quiet. The eggs are good. Fluffy. Moist. I help myself to a second serving. My knife and fork clink against the plate, while Signal eats in near-silence. The zoogs return to their cartoons, still whispering from the quad-screen television setup. Moon-wind strokes the outer walls of Plato Base, drowned out by the sound of my own chewing. And there is much chewing to be done; once Bright’s threat and Grimgrave’s distraction are both removed, my hunger rolls up, two-fisted, ready to fight. Three slices of bacon, two helpings of scrambled egg, four pieces of buttered toast, two mugs of coffee, one tall glass of orange juice, and I’m still not quite full. Perhaps magical girls have bottomless stomachs.

  Bright and Grimgrave are not totally absent. The echoes of several distant thumps and bangs reverberate through the bones of Plato Base, muffled by miles of concrete. Each time I look up, waiting for more. Signal — the real Signal — shifts in her seat, perhaps examining cameras from the skeleton she sent to watch. But Nerys eats on, unconcerned. Don’t feel like further conversation just yet, so I distract myself by looking up at the walls, at the rainbow artwork and illustrations.

  For a while I stare up at one particular slogan, one I spotted last night, beneath a fist smashing a helmet: ‘home is dead to me and I am dead to home.’

  Full stomach, veins flush with caffeine, shaky from yesterday’s exertions. But I’m not dead.

  Now, how do I get home?

  Remove the glove from my right hand, slip it into my skirt pocket. Peel back the shoulder of my coat, take my arm from the sleeve. Roll up the cuff of my jumper.

  My prosthetic hand and forearm, exposed at the dinner table, before I even realised what I was doing. Heat creeps into my cheeks, but nobody cares, nobody stares, nobody snaps at me or flicks me with the end of a tea-towel and tells me to put myself away. Look, look, the cripple has her parts out! My grandmother would be aghast; I can hear her in the back of my head, telling me to do that in my bedroom.

  Guilt and shame are almost too much. My ugly addition, which I would not have shown if there was another human being present at the table. But Signal is several skeletons, and Nerys is a cripple too. Perhaps they don’t care? Perhaps I’m the one who doesn’t care.

  I lay my right arm directly on the table. Another taboo broken.

  Press the battery level indicator: 100%

  “Right then,” I murmur. “Right. Okay. Signal?” I say her name, and it takes surprisingly little effort. “I have an important question, about my personal safety. I realise you might not want to talk to me, after I … after … well. Nerys, you too, you might know the answer to this, I suppose.”

  Nerys looks up. The emote on the seated skeleton’s rib-screens change: ┬┴┬┴┤(?_ ├┬┴┬┴

  “My prosthetic arm,” I say, curling and uncurling the fingers. “It uses an internal lithium-polymer battery, for powering the hand and the elbow. Mostly the hand, the elbow needs very little by comparison. My right leg actually has a small battery as well, though I’ve neglected to check that one. It lasts for days without a recharge, it’s only for the microprocessor, for the resistance piston in the knee. And, well, if it does run out, I can still walk. Normally I swap the battery in my arm every day. I have two sets of spares, so I always have one fully charged and waiting, one in the arm, and one in the charger.” I press the battery indicator again, turn it to show the skeleton, though Signal can probably see from anywhere. “This hasn’t depleted since yesterday morning, not since Nerys made me a magical girl. It’s still reading 100%. Which is impossible.”

  “Hurrrrrk,” Nerys rasps. “Magic, Octavia. Magic.”

  “Yes,” I sigh. “Magic, fine. I assumed that much. But I need to know — is magic going to blow up the battery? I don’t want to wake up with part of my body on fire. That is the last thing I need right now. On top of … well, everything.”

  Nerys tilts her head to one side, like I’m speaking in tongues. No help there.

  “Magic,” says a voice from the skeleton-speakers.

  Flat, dull, mechanical. Signal with the bubbly bounce subtracted. No motherly croon, no seductive purr, no gentle hand on my neck. Still Scottish, though.

  “ … yes?” I say. “Magic. Right.”

  “Magic,” she repeats. Each word clipped and sparse. Signal’s typing on the far side of the domesticated corner is much slower now. The skeleton’s head turns, points at me, rictus grin beneath a pair of shiny lenses. “Do you want me to explain, or will you insult me again?”

  Heat returns to my cheeks. Can’t meet her cameras, which is absurd, because those aren’t eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Did mean,” says Signal. “Don’t lie. Hypocrite.”

  I sigh. “Fine. I meant some of it, yes. But I’m not going to apologise. You are like a little panopticon, with all your cameras. I find it extremely creepy.”

  “Do you think I record everything?”

  “Do you?”

  “Do you?” she echoes.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The skeleton just stares.

  “Fine. So … why are you speaking like this now?” I ask. “You’re not a robot, no more than I am. You didn’t have to change just because I decided to be nasty.”

  “You want me to stop pretending to be meat,” says Signal. “I am not pretending to be meat.”

  “You are meat,” I say, and point at her ‘core’. “You’re right over there.”

  Silence. Emote changes: (￣x￣;)

  “Alright, I’m … I’m sorry. About specifically that part.” I’m so weak. “Is this the voice you use with Grimgrave and Bright?”

  “Sometimes,” says Signal. “Sometimes not.”

  “And which one is the real you?”

  凸(⊙▂⊙? )

  “Both?” I try.

  “Stop,” Signal says. “You are too poorly educated to understand. I do not feel like explaining right now. Do you want to know about magic?”

  Not really, I want to know if the battery in my arm is going to explode. “Yes, please.”

  “Magic is unpredictable,” she says. “But, in my experience, it plays well with most technology. Batteries, telecommunications, processors. Unless you are intentionally trying to break something.”

  “Okay, that’s a good start, thank you. But, when it comes to my own body, I’d be more comfortable if I knew exactly what ‘magic’ is doing, on a more technical level.”

  “Ha.” She says the laugh. “Same.”

  I sigh. I’ve probably pissed her off too much for a proper answer.

  Rib-screen emote changes again: ˉ\_(°_°)_/ˉ

  “Magic is primarily emotional and sympathetic,” Signal carries on. “Magic as experienced by magical girls, that is. ‘Magic’ is far too vague for a single useful category. Do we include ‘magic’ as practised by Occultists? Perhaps, but their magic is systematic and mechanical, unpredictable due to poorly understood variables and missing components, not the emotions or desires or fears of the practitioner. How about ‘magic’ as used by Dreamers? Can we call such feats magic? We should, perhaps, but that is beyond the current scope of our understanding.”

  “Okay. I think I follow, so far.”

  “You better. My point is, whatever is happening to your arm, it depends on how you feel about it.”

  I’m idly running the fingers of my left hand over my right forearm, over the carbon fibre chassis, tracing the shallow wound left by Scarlet’s sword. I lace my flesh-and-blood fingers between my mechanical ones, even if the joints can pinch. Cold and hard and bloodless, scraps of filth still stuck deep between the carbon fibre plates, an ugly and inhuman thing in the eyes of all who see.

  “How I feel about it?” I echo. “In what sense? I feel a lot of things about having a prosthetic arm.”

  “Do you resent it?” Signal asks. “If you resent it, then the battery might explode. Or it might fall off. Who knows. I do not.”

  “No,” I say, surprised to find my throat a little thick. “No, I’ve never resented it. I … ”

  This elegant yet ugly lump of carbon fibre, metal and foam, myoelectric pickups and little motors. This is the real me, with the glove off, the mask removed. Yesterday my fist saved me from Scarlet Edge. Yesterday my leg propelled me down the corridors of Dream Control Headquarters. Ten years ago Octavia Carter died beneath the rubble, but her replacements have kept me alive since then, as if biding their time to save my life.

  Signal says nothing. Nerys just watches. A distant thump echoes down the corridors of Plato Base.

  “That makes sense,” I say. Raise my arm, clench the fist. “Then no. The battery won’t explode.”

  “You’ve taken some damage,” Signal says.

  “Yes,” I sigh, lower the arm again. “Scarlet’s sword nicked the forearm sheath, but it’s just cosmetic. I can fill it with a little resin, it’ll be fine.”

  “Your thumb and middle finger are both misaligned. I can see from here.”

  “I suppose you can,” I say.

  The emote changes again: （ ；?＿?)

  “We could machine a new forearm sheath for you up here,” she says. “Carbon fibre, if you want it. I could take a look at those fingers—”

  “No, thank you.”

  “—or. Or. I could lend you my tools. We could dig up a charger for the battery in your leg as well, if you end up needing it. Do you have proprietary software on either of the limbs?”

  “On my own arm?” A smile comes from nowhere. Feels like the first time I’ve smiled in days. “No. I re-wrote the myoelectric control program myself. My leg too, though that’s a lot more simple, just the knee, so I only did it once, fire and forget. My hand though, I’ve been updating it for years.”

  I do the closest thing I can to a little flourish, tapping each fingertip against my thumb in turn, then waving the fingers.

  “Good on you.” A pause. “Lass.”

  The skeleton pushes back the chair, stands up, turns to me. Extends a rubber-coated hand, palm up.

  “I can test the battery for you, if you want to be sure,” says Signal. A little bounce returns to her voice, a touch less artificial. “It’ll take no more than a minute or two.”

  I roll my cuff back down, put my arm back in the sleeve of my coat.

  The skeleton lowers it’s hand.

  “No offence intended,” I say. “But I’m not handing you the only battery I currently have.”

  Signal sighs, like a burst of machine-static again. “I’m trying to be nice, lass—”

  “You could be the most trustworthy, beloved, open person in the world,” I say, “and I still wouldn’t hand you this battery. Stop, please. We were … I don’t know. Doing well again. Don’t spoil it.”

  Signal goes silent. Skeleton just stands there. The emote changes: (;﹏;)

  Unfair. Manipulative.

  I can be unfair and manipulative too.

  “If you want to earn my trust,” I say, “you can teach me how to translocate.”

  Another sigh, still static. “You know I can’t do that, lass. I won’t be responsible for you going to your death.”

  “I’m responsible,” I snap. “I’m responsible for what I do. And I’m not spending another night up here without seeing Willow first. I’m not. I can’t. I don’t care about the risks or the price. It’s my choice. It’s what I want.”

  “Hrrrrruk,” Nerys rasps. “Octavia.”

  “And you!” I turn on her, surprise myself with the anger in my voice, bubbling up my throat. “Stop ‘Octavia’-ing at me. You talk big about freedom, but you’re keeping me here against my will. You didn’t want to bring me here at first, don’t think I’ve forgotten that. But now I’m here, I can’t leave?”

  Nerys hisses between clenched teeth. “Humans. So eager to rush to the grave, with such shorts lives already. I won’t let you die, Octavia, not even if you beg me for it. I am in the habit of saving girls, not losing them.”

  “I am not going to die, and furthermore, you know what? I simply don’t care. I want to see Willow. I don’t even have to talk to her, one glance through a hospital window would be enough! Second-hand confirmation would be enough! Why can’t you go, Nerys? You can walk through walls, teleport wherever you want, so why can’t you look in on her for me? You want me to spend another night here, go check on Willow!”

  Nerys adopts an expression alien to the sharp snout and beady eyes of a natural zoog — unimpressed.

  “Because I am a small god,” she rasps. “Or did you forget that already?”

  “I’m done being afraid,” I say — though I have no idea what I’m saying. “Are you?”

  A zoog-chorus hisses from over in the domesticated corner, raspy little throats chattering with offence: “Nasty bitch-bitch evil magic!”, “Coward coward coward talk!”, “Say again, say again! Say say say!”

  They don’t back down when I stare at them — clinging to the arm of the sofa, peering over the edge of the animal bed, baring sharp little teeth. If I get up and stomp over, I’m sure they’ll shut up.

  “Your friend is bait,” Nerys says slowly. “I can be hooked and caught as well as you, though it may require a thicker line to reel me in. I am only a small god, how many times must I repeat that? If I walk into that trap, I will be pinned and slaughtered, fed to some stinking cat or a hound covered in its own shit. You think I am all-powerful, Octavia? You think I would not end this myself if I could? The Dream-Gods who have adopted your nasty little island in the North Sea, they will rip me limb from limb. Is that what you ask for? Hm?”

  I’m being a fool. I need to back down. Show Nerys some respect. She saved me, she saved my life, and she meant it. She deserves my allegiance, not my scorn.

  But I need to see Willow. I simply must see Willow. She overrides every other priority. She is my everything.

  “Is that why you didn’t fight Scarlet Edge?” I ask. “When she attacked me?”

  “Hrrrrrnnnn.” Nerys peels back her lips in a grimace, looks askance. “Yes. Though it pains me to admit! It really does. Hrrrrn. Yes, I can’t fight an opposing magical girl myself, not out in the light, face to face. An ambush would be a different story. Alone, somewhere in the dark, distracted and dozy. A juicy little surprise, a claw from behind. Mmmm … ”

  Nerys’ grimace turns to a smug smile. Dreaming of stabbing girls in the back. Several of the zoogs over by the sofa hiss with raspy little giggles.

  “You’re a Dream-God,” I say. “But you can’t match up to a magical girl? Is that how it works?”

  “Mmm? Tccccchhhhh,” Nerys rasps. “Pretty much. Though not in the way you might think.”

  I stand up.

  Raise my chin. Straighten my spine. Flex my naked prosthetic fist.

  Deep breath after deep breath, counting down in my head. Work my lungs like a pair of bellows. I’m not angry enough to do this off the cuff, but if I don’t do it now, I’ll lose my nerve. This is madness, but so is surrender.

  Nerys watches me, glossy black eyes widening with fascinated curiosity, lips peeling back from the obsidian needles of her teeth. A zoog zipper-smile. She knows.

  “Octavia?” Signal says. “Octavia, hey, no. I know what you’re thinking, lass. Don’t you dare, don’t you—”

  “Nerys,” I say, towering over the oil-and-ooze zoog on the metal tabletop. “I want you to teach me how to translocate, because I have to know if my Willow— if my friend, Willow, is alive and well. But you won’t. You’re keeping me here, against my will, and you won’t back down. So, I am left with one option.”

  “And what,” Nerys rasps, “might that be? Say it, Octavia. Say it out loud.”

  “Teach me how to translocate,” I say. “Or take me back to earth, or at least help me confirm that the most important person in my life is alive and well. Or … ”

  “Orrrrrrr?”

  I raise my prosthetic fist.

  “Or I’ll fight you, Nerys. I don’t care if you’re a Dream-God. For Willow, I will beat the answer out of you. For Willow, I will fight every god there is.”

  The first (by Molten Constellation!), looking very smug with that shotgun shell in her hand. And the second, titled '', (by Cera!) in which we get a little view into Octavia's worst nightmare looming over her. Thank you both for these! It's really incredible and flattering to see these characters already being brought to life!

  Maidens right away, you can: