Magical Girl Trixie

This chapter is narrated by Lulu Lemon, also known as the magical girl Marrow.

I was about eight years old when I first moved to Manehattan from Las Pegasus, and the first thing that struck me was how different I seemed to be from everyone else. Back in my hometown, I had a few close friends who I'd spend most of my time with every day after school. The five of us would play games together, tell stories to each other and have sleepovers every weekend, going through a rotation where each girl brought the others to her house every five weeks.

Once I moved to Manehattan, though, I didn't have any friends, and the ones from back home quickly forgot about me, instead adapting to a four-girl group which seemed to be easier for them to handle. When I was introduced to my class, I noticed that I even dressed differently than all the other kids. I was completely out of my comfort zone, and I was so scared that I would get teased just for not knowing the social customs of Manehattan.

“Luckily for you, Lulu, we have one seat open right over here!”

As my new teacher pointed to the desk I would be sitting at, I noticed that I would be sitting between two adorable girls, which suddenly made me extremely self-conscious, but at least it was better than sitting between two boys. The girl to my left had long, pink hair that looked like a mermaid along with her fair skin and beautifully long lashes. As she waved at me, her nail polish seemed to glitter in the sunlight, dazzling me by how grownup she was. To my right was a much more humble girl with bluish-white hair, but her eyes and smile projected a sincere altruism that made me feel like maybe I wasn't such an outcast after all.

“Hi, Lulu!” the girl to my right said. “My name is Trixie! Can we be friends?”

“Yeah!” I whispered excitedly, trying not to be noticed by the teacher who had already begun class. “I'm Lulu Lemon!”

“That's such a pretty name!” said the girl to my left. “My name is Fleur de Lis, but you can call me Fleur.”

“Thanks! Your name is pretty too! Your hair is pretty too! And so are your nails!”

“Wow!” Trixie said, lifting herself from her desk to see. “Those nails really are pretty!”

“Hey!” I said excitedly, looking at the both of them as best as I could. “I just had an idea! Why don't we sit together during lunch?”

“OK!” Trixie agreed.

“Sure!” Fleur added. “Then you can tell me if you have a crush on any of the boys here.”

“Eeewwww!!!” Trixie and I said in unison, laughing hysterically and, as expected, getting my first scolding from my new teacher, but it was totally worth it. After being so scared all morning, I had already made two new friends!

The three of us then became super close, being practically inseparable whenever we were at school. After school, I only had Fleur de Lis, seeing as how Trixie's mom wanted her home as soon as school was over every day, but I still got to do all the fun stuff with Fleur that I did with all my other friends back in Las Pegasus! She showed me her makeup collection, her beautiful dolls, her favorite music, and basically everything else that screamed “this is a preteen girl's room”. I was entranced by how feminine she was, almost like a teenager already at age 8, and I was so lucky to have her and Trixie as my best friends.

The problem was, though, that neither of us really knew Trixie all that well. Fleur became friends with her the same time I did, and unlike Fleur, Trixie wasn't as much of an open book. Whenever I asked her if we could hang out at her place, she would get really distant, telling us that we wouldn't like it at her place and that her mom would just say no anyway. There was one time when I actually asked Trixie if she would ask her mom for permission for us to come play, but she said that she didn't even want to ask! It wasn't much of a problem back then, since Fleur de Lis always let me come to her house, and of course, both she and Trixie were allowed to come over to my house any time they wanted, but… Trixie never came over. Not once.

Once the school year was over, it was time for summer break, and Fleur and I had come up with an entire shopping list of things we could do over the summer! Once school let out, though, I didn't see Trixie until school was back in session the following fall. While Fleur and I were having water fights, pool parties, barbecues and slumber parties, Trixie was at home, like she didn't even exist. She wouldn't give me her phone number or give me her address to even think of getting in contact with her. Instead, we grew apart, while the friendship that Fleur and I had continued to grow even stronger.

When the summer ended and the fourth grade started up, I was lucky enough to be in the same class as both Trixie and Fleur again! Trixie, though, looked different than she did before. Physically speaking, the only thing different about her now was her bottle cap glasses, but beyond that, she just didn't have that same twinkle in her eye that she had before. Instead of skipping around the school playground with a smile on her face, she would hang her head down and stare at her feet, tilting her new glasses back every couple of minutes.

“I didn't know you couldn't see, Trixie!” I said to her on the first day back to school.

“Y-yeah!” she said with a smile that wasn't nearly as bright as the smile I once knew. “I didn't realize it either, but my mom said I kept running into stuff, so…”

“Are we still not allowed to play at your house after school?”

“Yeah… Sorry…”

“Does that mean you can't come to my house to play either?”

Suddenly, Trixie began sniffling. “I want to… but… I can't…” Then Trixie began crying out of nowhere! Teachers were all looking at me like I had just pushed her off the monkey bars, quickly coming to Trixie's aid and give her a hug.

“Lulu Lemon!” one of the teachers said in a scolding tone while giving me a nasty look. “What did you do to her?!”

“I didn't do anything! She just started crying!”

“Don't lie, Lulu. Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling the truth! Trixie, we can still be best friends, right?”

With her sobs calming down into sniffles, she nodded her head, and just like that, any friendship problem we had was taken care of. The real problem, though, was that even though we had made up, there would be several times throughout the year where our friendship would be tested.

Shortly after school began, Fleur had made friends with a few kids in our new class, Trenderhoof, Suri Polomare and Upper Crust, who all seemed to share the same elegance that she had. I quickly became friends with all of them, seeing as how Fleur and I already had so much in common, but Trixie didn't warm up to them quite as well. While the conversations I had with Fleur and her friends included things like fashion, new music, pop culture and upcoming trends, Trixie didn't have any way of relating. I would need to have separate conversations with Trixie than with the others, but not only were the conversations hard to hold up, I just didn't want to talk to her as much as Fleur and her friends. Talking to Trixie was a chore, and after a while, the two of us just stopped talking to each other.

Throughout the year, Trixie and I were never enemies, even though we definitely felt a growing awkward tension whenever we were forced to stand next to each other. It wasn't that I hated her or anything, but at the same time, I didn't want to be her friend. In fact, there would be sometimes when I would be talking with Fleur, and Trixie would become the butt of our jokes. Not only was she easy to make fun of, but Fleur and I knew all of her personal weak points, and soon enough, my bond with Fleur almost seemed to depend on making fun of Trixie in any way we could.

This isn't to say that my friendship with Fleur would have stopped if we hadn't been making fun of Trixie, though. Both of our popularities had skyrocketed to record levels, and soon enough, all the kids were beginning to idolize us as the prettiest girls at school. In fact, making fun of Trixie was just our personal way of blowing off steam and getting a good laugh. Besides, it wasn't like Trixie was going to do anything about it.

...And that's when it happened…

It was when me, Fleur, Suri, Upper Crust and another friend of ours named Le Blanc had decided to go clothes shopping with money that our parents had given us. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in March, and the temperature had risen just enough for us to be able to walk outside comfortably in shorts and tank tops. We went to this particular store all the time to try out clothes, but since we never had any money, we could never buy any of the cute outfits that we saw in the window.

This time, though, we each had enough money to buy either a skirt or pair of jeans that we liked the most, and seeing as how spring was beginning to replace the frigid temperatures of winter, we had skirts in our minds from the very beginning. Once we were inside, we didn't think twice about which direction we were heading as we all gathered around the most expensive skirts they had in the store.

“How about this one? Do you like it?”

“That pattern makes you look like an old lady!”

“Spring means bright colors. Get something yellow, okay?”

“Is this one too short?”

“You should just get it and hope you don't get any taller.”

The five of us giggled hysterically as we shopped, making heads turn all over the place, probably thinking that we were on some kind of crazy caffeine high. It was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had in my life, at least until we started walking home. Once we left the store where we did our shopping and walked down a couple blocks, a guy wearing a dirty hoodie, baggy pants and reeking of cigarette smoke approached us out of nowhere.

“Look what we have here,” the man said, giving all of us a bad feeling. “Looks like you all went shopping at that one fancy store for rich girls. Does daddy know you stole his credit card?”

“For your information,” Le Blanc said confidently while the rest of us began to tremble behind her, “we paid for these outfits with money we brought with us. We didn't use any credit cards!”

“And I'm supposed to believe that a girl like you bought that outfit there with money you earned yourself?”

“Well… No… We asked our parents for money, but that's none of your business! Now, if you'll excuse us!”

“Your parents sound pretty important.”

“They are! And they wouldn't want us talking to some stranger off the street.”

“I'll tell you what,” he said, crouching down to eye level with Le Blanc, who still stood firm in her conviction. “If your daddy's really that important, what does he do for work?”

“My dad owns the MLP Investment Firm, and he's more successful than you'll ever be!”

As soon as the words escaped her mouth, the man began to grin underneath his hood while lifting his sweatshirt and pulling something out of his baggy pants. It was a switchblade, and the second it flipped out from its locked position, he grabbed Le Blanc from around the waist, pointing the knife to her throat.

“Girls…” she said in a little more than a whisper as her confidence faded. “H-help me!”

“You all wanna live? Here's what you gotta do. Tell this girl's daddy exactly what's happening. Tell him that if he ever wants to see this girl of his again, he'll have to meet me at the Manehattan Clocktower with all the money he's got. If I think for one second that he's cheatin’ me or that the cops are gonna show up, I'll slice this girl's throat. What's your name, little girl?”

“L-L-Le Blanc.”

“Well, Le Blanc, you're gonna be comin’ with me. The rest of you kids, get movin’!”

We all dropped our bags and began running as fast as we could, praying that he wouldn't come after us too. We had no idea what to do in a situation like this, let alone what to tell her dad when we got to her house! This whole thing was crazy! We couldn't just let him get away with something like that… could we?

“Girls,” I said, halting them as we all caught our breaths, “I think we should call the police.”

“Are you crazy, Lulu?!” Upper Crust yelled. “You heard what he said! If the police show up, he’s going to kill her!”

“But what if he takes the money and kills her? Won't the police know what to do in a situation like this?”

“It's too risky, okay?” Suri added. “We just need to do what he said.”

“That…” I said, looking down and clenching my fist. “That isn't right! The bad guys shouldn't get away with hurting someone! We need to stop him and get Le Blanc back!”

“Lulu, don't be stupid,” Fleur added bluntly. “You would die if you tried rescuing her! The police will catch him eventually, and when they do, they'll give Le Blanc's dad his money back!”

“Go get Le Blanc's parents!” I said, now turning on my heels towards the Manehattan Clocktower. “I'm going to try and rescue Le Blanc.”

“Fine!” Fleur shouted with tears welling up in her eyelids. “You wanna die? Go ahead! See if I care! Come on, girls. Let's go tell Le Blanc's dad what's going on.”

I didn't hesitate. Even if I was the only one in the whole world who wanted to stop this guy, I would make it happen. The thought of anyone dying didn't even register to me. Even though I had seen his switchblade at the pit of her neck and the terrified look in her face, I didn't believe that death was a possibility, since we were the good guys, and the good guys always win!

The main problem was that I was a little girl with the logic of a fourth grader. Since I had never seen someone close to me die, I just automatically assumed that it wasn't even a possibility, like there was someone out there who would protect us no matter what. Unfortunately, despite what I may have believed, the harsh reality was that people die, whether I wanted them to or not.

Once I got to the clocktower and made it to the highest floor, I tried to be as sneaky as I could, taking any precautions I could not to be seen by the hooded figure. He had one hand in his pocket, probably holding onto the switchblade if things didn't go exactly as he said, with his other hand resting on Le Blanc's shoulder, who was crying into her hands.

“Huh?” he said over the sound of Le Blanc's sobs. “Who's there?”

I couldn't believe he saw me already! I debated with myself whether to go back to hiding or to walk out and face him, but what would I even do? My whole plan was to sneak up behind him, grab his switchblade and throw it off the tower, but now that he'd seen me, my whole plan was ruined!

“Get out here! NOW!” Out of reflex more than anything, I popped my head out of the staircase leading up to the top of the tower, apologizing to my friend with my eyes. “What are you doing here? I told you to go get her dad, didn't I?”

“Yeah… The other girls are doing that.”

“Then go join ‘em! Go on! Get outta here!”

“No!” I said, suddenly terrified of the decision I had just made. “You're a bad guy, and bad guys aren't supposed to win!”

“Look here, girly.” Suddenly, he pulled out his switchblade and pulled it from his pocket, angling to Le Blanc's jugular vein as her panicked sobs picked back up. “If you don't do as I say, you're gonna die. Either that or your friend here. Now, do as I say, AND GET THE FUCK OUT!”

“Please, don't hurt me!” Le Blanc screamed with tears streaming down her face. “I'll do anything! Just let me go-ho-hooooo!”

Nobody was going to save her. If I didn't do something, she was really going to die. Without thinking, letting my body react on its own, I ran towards the man with tears in my eye, lunging forward as I aimed at his legs. Fortunately, in that exact instant, he had completely taken his focus off of Le Blanc, who pushed herself out from the man's grip and began sprinting towards the staircase.

As he watched Le Blanc suddenly release herself from his grip, he once again shifted his attention towards the wrong person, allowing me to grab him by the legs as she ran for the exit. “Run!” I shouted. “Get out of here before he catches up!”

“GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!” he shouted, easily pushing me off of his legs and running after my terrified friend. Then, as I watched from the floor, I saw him catch up to her as if she were no match for him, but as the more she struggled, kicking her legs and wiggling her shoulders, the tighter the man held on.

“HELP ME!!!” she screamed for anyone who could hear her. “SOMEBODY! PLEASE! HE--”

Then, there was silence…

There was a slight gurgle, but sound no longer came from her mouth. Instead, a pool of blood began to pour to the ground, spraying in all directions to the beat of her heart. Again, she tried to scream, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was more blood that was beginning to overflow from the wound in her neck. Within three seconds, the entirety of the floor was soaked in red liquid, with more spraying onto the walls while simultaneously soaking the hooded man in a red shower.

Finally, dropping Le Blanc to the floor, he began wiping the blood from his face, but even though she was released from his grip, her body continued to convulse on the ground as her lifeless eyes stared into mine. My heart stopped and body froze. Even though I was seeing it happen right in front of me, I couldn't comprehend it. I couldn't believe that she was really dead, but after several more seconds of flopping on the ground like a fish out of water, she began to lay still, motionless, as the stream of blood descended into little more than a light trickle on the already blood-stained tile.

“You…” the man said, seemingly just as traumatized as I was while looking into my terrified eyes. “You motherfucker.”

“I think I heard screaming!” said a distant voice in the background.

“It sounded like a kid's voice! Come on!” another called out from behind.

Then, with panic and fury contorting his face, the man marched over to where I was lying, grabbed me by the hair and growled, “I oughtta kill you too, but you're lucky I'm so nice.”

Then, I felt something strike against the back of my head, and as I fell back onto the floor, I saw the man running down the staircase… and Le Blanc's dead eyes staring back into mine. After that, my vision went blurry, then black, and then I was gone.

***

Darkness. Never-ending darkness. I felt light-headed along with a searing pain from where I was struck, but other than that, my body was completely numb. This must have been what it was like to die. There was no other way around it. The only logical thing I could come up with was that I was dead, but then… what would happen next?

“I should have listened,” I said out loud, not even realizing that I was externalizing my thoughts. “She wouldn't have died if it weren't for me. I just wanted to help! Why…? Why?!”

Then, like the nine year-old girl I was, I began sobbing until my sobs turned into wails until my wails turned into screams!

“Why what?” called a voice, which I could only believe to be death itself as it led me to the afterlife.

“Why did she have to die? Why didn't I listen?! Now I'm dead too!”

“You're not dead, Lulu Lemon. Did you want to be?”

“But… Where am I?”

“You're still lying down where you fell. You didn't expect your body would just get up and walk away without you, did you?”

“Then… where is here?”

“Lulu, have you always asked so many questions?”

Every time I tried asking the voice a question, it just asked a question of its own. Maybe I needed to try a different approach.

“Tell me what to do.”

“I want you to make a deal with me, Lulu Lemon. I want to give you magic that only you can use. Once you have that magic, you can do whatever you want with it.”

“Why do you want to give me magic?”

“Are you saying you don't want it?”

“No, I'm saying I don't know what will happen if I take it.”

“Nobody ever knows the future consequences of their actions. You should know that better than anyone by now. I’m giving you this magic so that you can stop the man who killed Le Blanc as well as anyone else who tries to hurt anyone.”

“And I don't have to give you anything?”

“What could I possibly want from a nine year-old girl?”

I still had no idea what was going on, what would happen if I said yes or even if any of this was actually real, but when he said that I could stop people from doing what they did to my friend, I knew for sure that he was offering me exactly what I wanted.

“OK,” I said, hoping I was making the right choice. “Give me magic.”

“Your wish is my command, but first you have to tell me what you want your magic to be.”

I was stunned that he wasn't just going to give me magic like all my fairy tale books that just gave them the power to do anything. If I had to choose one magical power, it had to be something good rather than something I could only use once, but I couldn't think of anything! All I could think about was what I could use to stop people from hurting kids like Le Blanc ever again!

Then, suddenly, I knew exactly what I wanted.

“I want to be with Le Blanc again. I want to be with her forever. I never want her to die again. Can that be my magic?”

“...Are you sure that is what you want?”

“Yes. Make it to where anywhere I go, she goes. Anything she sees, I see. I want us to be connected forever! But… I still want to be able to get away from her in case I need to use the bathroom or something.”

The voice then began to laugh subtly until it grew louder and louder until it was a scary, thunderous roar. “Your wish is my command, Lulu Lemon. Just remember what they say about being careful what you wish for!”

Suddenly, my entire body gained feeling again, but it wasn't like normal. I could feel everything growing hotter, my muscles tightening, my brain stretching, all causing me to scream out in pain. Looking down, I saw my arms growing longer with bones stretching over my skin. My hair was being forced under something that was stretching around my face, covering everything but my eyes and mouth. Even my clothes were changing into a fancy black dress, which was also beginning to disappear underneath the stony, white protrusions around my body, but then, before I knew it, it was over.

I was still inside darkness, but I felt different. I felt taller and heavier, yet still nimble enough to jump higher or run faster. “Did…” I began, trying to avoid another question, but failing to see how. “Did it work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can I use my magic now?”

“Why don't you give it a try?”

I had no idea how to use magic, but the way he said it made it seem easy. Clearing my mind, I concentrated on Le Blanc's face, her voice, any small little detail I could think of, and almost immediately, my body began responding.

“Le Blanc, with my magic, I order you to come to life!” At that moment, the bones covering my body began to separate from my body before reattaching themselves in front of me in the form of a skeleton. “Wait… Is this her? No! I said I wanted to bring her back!”

“And here she is. It's not like she'll be able to die again in the state she's in. She also comes attached with all the features you mentioned before.”

Suddenly, I could see myself, but not like I was looking in a mirror. It was as if I was looking at myself through somebody else's eyes. The way I looked, though, was different. If I didn't see the body moving in complete synchronization with mine, I wouldn't have even thought that I was staring at myself. I had matured into a much older age, probably between sixteen and eighteen, and every single feature from my long legs to my curled hair was gorgeous.

“Are you ready to go back to reality now?” the voice asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, but I have one more thing to ask.”

“Fire away.”

“I want to see who you are.”

The voice chuckled.

“As you wish.”

Suddenly, the darkness disappeared, and I was now in what could only be described as a shining metropolis surrounding a grassy park, complete with a large stone fountain at its center. Then, with fear in my face, I looked up and saw a creature whose figure I couldn't even describe if I tried… but luckily for me, I wouldn't have to describe him as anything but one word.

“Nice to formally make your acquaintance, Lulu Lemon. My name is Discord.”

***

“Hey, little girl! Come on! Wake up!”

“Look! She's moving!”

Feeling groggy and still with a searing pain in the back of my head, I gradually opened my eyes, slowly lifting myself back up and spitting blood from my mouth.

“You're awake!” a voice said with happiness. “What happened? We just walked up the stairs and saw the whole place covered in blood.”

Then, looking up to see where Le Blanc had died, I saw nothing but a pool of blood where her body was supposed to be. I frantically pulled myself to my feet, looking all around the the floor, but her body had disappeared. At first I had thought that maybe the strange man had come back and taken her body, but I knew that he wouldn't have done something stupid like that. There had to be someone who had taken her body, though, and as soon as I realized that, I realized exactly who that person was.

It was me. I had taken her body. Her bones were now my magic, a magic I had to use to stop the bad guys.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Where's the man? Where did he go?!”

“What man?” someone beside me asked.

“The man in the hood! Where is he?!”

“I saw a man in a hood running down the stairs!” another chimed in. “He couldn't have made it far!”

If that was true, I would have to hurry. Without waiting another second, I took off into a sprint, racing down the stairs and doing everything I could just to keep my balance. There would probably be people trying to follow me and stop me, which meant that I had to transform right then and there. Focusing on the same feelings that I had in the void, I called upon all the magic in my body, turning me into a glowing white light before it dissipated, revealing my magical girl form.

Once I was out of the clocktower, I searched around frantically for the man in the hood, but all I saw were people pointing at me and giving me strange looks.

Bzzzt!

“What the--”

Feeling around for a pocket in my frilly dress, I pulled out a cell phone with one new message addressed to me.

“If you want to find him, just use this handy little map. There will be a glowing red dot pinpointing his exact coordinates. You can't miss him.”

I had never read a map before, but there were lines indicating every building and street corner in Manehattan, and not too far away from where I stood, there was a flashing red light, traveling away from my location. He was running. He was trying to get away, but I was not about to let that happen.

The red light made it all the way to a deserted parking garage in a part of town that was desolate of any human beings. This was where he was hiding. I just needed to find him. As I followed the red dot further, the pacing grew slower and slower until it finally stopped at the farthest end of the garage. It wasn't long before I found him leaning against a wall, covered in sweat and panting for dear life. I had never been so angry looking at another human being as I was looking at him in that moment.

Finally, he looked up from the wall, looked me from head to toe and said, “The fuck are you supposed to be?”

“You mean you don't recognize me?”

“You know, I'm not really in the mood for this right now, so why don't you be a good little girl and fuck off?”

“Is that what you told my friend when you slit her throat?”

Suddenly, his eyes began to bulge with panic struck across his face. Pulling out his switchblade once more, he said, “Look, I don't know who you are, but you'd better fuckin’ get out of here.”

“LE BLANC! COME TO LIFE!”

Then, all the bones that covered my body began to rattle themselves off my dress and put themselves back together into a perfect skeleton, causing the hooded man to begin to shake in fear.

“Y-you'd better stay away from me!” he stuttered, holding his switchblade up for protection. However, one nod towards the skeleton was all she needed before slowly approaching the hooded figure, the very man who had killed her in cold blood just minutes earlier. Once she was a little over an arm length away, the man dropped the knife and took off running towards the exit, but as I was pursuing him earlier, I noticed one more advantage from transforming: I could outspeed anyone.

I let him get a five second head start, but after that, I was right in front of him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and holding him up with a sick smile spreading across my face. Watching him struggle in fear brought back memories of how Le Blanc had struggled, but this time, it was going to be him, and who better to do the honors than the girl who he had killed with his own hands?

With no effort at all, I had his arms tied behind his back, turning him around to face the skeleton. “Now you're gonna know how it feels to be on the other end. Le Blanc! I'll leave the rest up to you.”

“Please! You gotta let me go! I'll do anything! I'll turn myself in! They can lock me up forever! Let go of me! Please!!”

Again, his pleas were the exact same as the girl he murdered, and hearing it come from his own mouth was the sweetest justice I could have possibly imagined. Without wasting any more time, the skeleton lifted the switchblade and swung it across the man's throat, creating an exact replica of the scene from earlier as blood spewed from his neck and he convulsed in my hands until I let him fall to the ground, where he twitched and gurgled pathetically until he stopped moving entirely.

This was it. Finally, he was dead. He wouldn't be able to hurt anyone ever again. I didn't feel overjoyed in having killed the man, but I surprisingly felt no remorse, either. At that time, I still didn't grasp the severity of death, and as I grew older, killing would only get easier and easier.

Le Blanc's body was never found, but the official police reports still labeled the case as a kidnapping and suicide. The strangest thing about the case, though, was that the weapon used to kill himself was never found, but then again, they never thought that maybe the person who killed him still had it.

The funeral was set for one week after the incident. Le Blanc's parents held out hope that they would eventually find their little girl, but with her kidnapper dead and no traces of her body anywhere in Manehattan, they felt that putting it off any further would just be disrespectful to her memory. Even though Le Blanc couldn't be there, she could still see the entire service through my eyes. For one last time, she could see her family again before they moved on with their lives without her.

Fortunately, nobody blamed me for what happened to her, but I had to tell somebody. I had to tell the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the world. As soon as I could, I invited Fleur to my house, pretending like it was just going to be a regular slumber party, but when the time was right, I told her about everything from Discord, becoming a magical girl, killing the hooded man and transforming right in front of her as proof.

“Is… Is that…?”

“Yes, Fleur. This is Le Blanc. This is what I can do as a magical girl.”

“So she was the one who stopped the bad guy?”

“We both did, but you're right that it was no suicide.”

“I wish I could have had magical powers. Maybe then this never would have happened.”

Then, thinking for a moment of the consequences that could come about, I asked, “Do you want to be a magical girl too?”

Thus, Night Seam was born. I had asked Discord if he could turn anyone else into a magical girl and if there were any other girls with powers like us. Apparently, though, the two of us were the only two magical girls in all of Manehattan.

“And what would you like your power to be, Miss Fleur de Lis?”

“Well, bad guys won't be able to see in the dark! So I want to be able to touch anything I want and turn it black!”

“If that is what you desire, then your wish is my command.”

Once Fleur had been given her powers, we decided that we needed to have names that differed from our regular day-to-day names, just so it would be easier to talk about it in front of others. Fleur went with “Night Seam” since her clothes were all black, and I went with “Marrow” after looking up bone anatomy in my science textbook.

The two of us made great magical girls, but the stress of keeping people safe was beginning to wear on us, even after Discord implemented a “brownie point” reward system for doing good work. When I got to school every morning, I was a happy, beautiful girl like I always was, but I found myself taking my anger out in the wrong ways.

Basically, this meant that any time Trixie did anything that required patience, such as bumping into me in the hallway or holding back the class during PE, I would take out everything I had and direct it towards her. Sure, I would do this towards any girls that pissed me off, but Trixie was the one who most visibly had so many things that she did wrong. Eventually, I stopped paying attention to the other girls at school and made Trixie my own personal punching bag.

It started out with name-calling, but once it lost its shock value, I started getting more physical, and the best part was, nobody would intervene. They all knew how pretty and popular I was, and they knew that if any of them tried anything to stop me, the same thing could happen to them. Not that anyone even wanted to stop me, though. It almost became a show where people lined up to see what Lulu Lemon would do to Trixie today. It was fun for them to watch, but only because it wasn't happening to them.

Eventually, we started adding more magical girls to the fold. At first, it was just Storm Rose, who was some girl I found on the street who had nowhere to go. I felt bad for her, so I took her into the fold and let her live in Platinum City, but not long after that, the girls started multiplying, with a new magical girl in Platinum City every couple of months.

“Hey, Discord,” I said one night when I was alone in my room. “What do you make of all these magical girls? We're up to six now, aren't we?”

“Yes, we are,” he answered, talking to me through my magical phone. “They're like rabbits, don't you think?”

“Is there any limit to magical girls?”

“Perhaps, but we can cross that bridge once we get to it. Worst case scenario we have to make a few cuts, but I'm sure you'll be fine.”

“Still, I think we should limit the number of magical girls coming in as much as we can.”

“It's a shame that you and Night Seam ended up going to different middle schools, by the way. Don't you have a friend at your new school already, though? What about that Trixie girl?”

“What about her?”

“What if she became a magical girl?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh?”

“The magical girls in Platinum City all have unique powers that help them save others who are in danger. If Trixie were to join, she would no doubt slow the group down, which could lead to innocent deaths that could have been prevented.”

“You really don't have much confidence in her, do you?”

“Discord… Le Blanc died because there was no magical girl there to save her. I can't let that happen to anyone else. I will do anything it takes to keep her from becoming a magical girl.”

“I guess that makes sense. You've already killed seven men, after all.”

“...Yeah… Just promise me you'll let me know if she goes sticking her nose in the wrong places.”

“I can promise you that, but if she ever comes to me seeking to become a magical girl, I can't promise you what will happen.”

“Fine. I'll take care of everything myself. I'm going to bed. Good night, Discord.”

“Sweet dreams.”

One year later...

“She's sticking her nose in the wrong places.”

“What are you even talking about?” I yawned, checking my clock. “It's 3 AM. Is this really that important?”

“Well, seeing as how your dreams were boring and about ponies and dragons and friendship, I decided to check out Trixie's dreams instead.”

“Why would…? Discord, it's 3 AM. Can't I just go back to bed?”

“You made me promise to tell you if Trixie ever stuck her nose in the wrong places, and I saw her dreaming that she was a magical girl, saving a small child from some kind of magical bear.”

“No!”

“Yes! That's exactly what happened!”

Pulling the sheets off of my body and rummaging through a box in my closet, I began looking for an item that I picked up one night when doing my magical girl duties. Finally, I found exactly what I was looking for: a small bag filled with cocaine.

“Umm… Lulu? What exactly are you doing?”

“I'm going to stop Trixie from becoming a magical girl no matter what it takes.”

“Soo… you plan to drug her?”

“Idiot! I'm going to plant these on her and get her arrested!”

“My, my. You are civil. Now, what will you do if she gets wind of your plan?” Then, upon digging deeper into the box, I found the second item I needed: the item that I had used in my first magical girl assignment. “Ohhhh. That old, treasure, eh?”

“Whatever it takes to protect Manehattan and the magical girls of Platinum City.”

“And you're sure she would be no good as a magical girl?”

“If she can't protect herself, how can she protect others?”

“Well, whatever you say.”

Later that night…

“I can't believe you, Discord!”

“Well, it's not like I didn't warn you that I would give her magic if she asked me. Besides, Night Seam at least tried to talk her out of it.”

“Tch.”

“Yes! That's exactly what she said!”

“Quiet! She's walking into her roo--Is that YOU talking to her?”

“Are you using Le Blanc to spy on me??”

“Shut up. I'm using her to spy on Trixie.”

“Well, this is just what happens when one of your own magical girls unknowingly foils your plans by putting you to sleep and coincidentally also brings the one person you don't want into Platinum City so that she can become a magical girl.”

“...A meeting tomorrow? Discord, when were you planning on telling me about this?”

“I just did!”

“No, you didn't! You told Trixie, and the only reason I heard was because of Le Blanc.”

“Well, I like to think of it as me telling you through Le Blanc spying on Trixie.”

“What's this meeting about?”

“Just how the number of magical girls has gotten out of hand and that we need to make cuts so that we don't end up using all of Platinum City's magic.”

“What?! What will happen if we use up all of Platinum City's magic?”

“You'll all lose your powers.”

“No…”

My worst fears were coming true. I had to do something about this. Trixie had managed to avoid me on her way back from school, probably thanks to one of the magical girls, but I would stop her at some point in the morning. If she avoided me on her way to school, I would just have to kill her when she got there. I couldn't let her ruin Platinum City.

“This girl has to die…” I said, more to myself than to Discord. “I’m sorry, Trixie, but you've gotten in my way one too many times…”