The Magical Girl Folk Hero

A lender works at his desk. City lights twinkle through the blinds of the office. The door hits the wall and a girl jumps in.

She’s a young adult wearing a pastel pink hat that resembles a jester’s, a giant, golden star on the forehead and two long, zigzag tendrils that extend to her waist. Her flared shirt is the same pastel pink and has a pair of extremely fluffy shorts beneath it.

Reddish pink bangs pop out from beneath the hat and she points a wand at him with a fierce face. The wand is lavender and has a star on top that matches the outfit.

“Mr. Loan Shark! I’m very disappointed in you for stealing innocent people’s money!” She says.

He shoots up from his chair. “Who are you?! How did you get in here?! You don’t have any right to call me a loan shark!”

An energy beam strikes the wall with a ZAP. Chunks of plaster fall to the ground. The lender’s tough facade immediately disappears. She pouts.

“Don’t you know that lying’s bad?” She scolds. She’s innocent, like a child.

The lender pulls together the courage to speak again, mustering a cocky, yet very nervous smile. “W-Who says I’m lying?” He asserts. “Who are you to talk? What do you know about running a business?”

“I’m Miracle and you need to stop this! You’re hurting people and ruining their finances!”

“Who am I hurting? Did you bring evidence of this accusation?” His grin grows, feeling that he’s her backed into a corner.

“Oh my…” She sighs, then raises her wand

“Kululu kulula… Piico piico la li lu. Magic wand, help my words reach this loan shark’s heart!” The wand glows blindingly bright. It shoots multiple energy beams from all angles, striking all the furniture in the room.

It takes chunks out of every wall and splits his desk in half. He ducks to dodge one heading straight for his head. It grazes his scalp and takes off half of his hair, leaving behind a burnt, balding mess.

He screams and scrambles to the ground for cover. He trips, bashing his shoulder into a side table with his entire weight. He holds his arm and cries in pain.

The beams stop. She stands over him with her hands on her hips. “Now… You’re going to say you’re sorry and forgive everyone’s debt!”

He forces a panicked, wide-eyed, don’t kill me kind of smile. “Y-yes, ma’am!”

“Yay!” She says, jumping in joy. “Talking things out always works!”

⟡

It’s ironic considering its name, but Angelina is the most corrupt city on Nue.

Very little is regulated. Those in power do what they want without consequence. Walking down mainstreet, Asa has spotted multiple xenosect servents.

A xenosect is a hybrid created by gene splicing human DNA with the genetic material of insects found on Nue. Their creators argued that they were good for use in manual labor, claiming that they were much stronger than the normal human and also non sentient, eliminating any moral concerns.

The first part was true, but the second was an outright lie. Xenosects have nearly every marker of sentience that humans do. Their creation and enslavement was outlawed in most cities shortly after their invention, the primary exception being Angelina.

Given Angelina’s reputation, it was no surprise. Money ruled above all else.

(I forgot to add the part where they get attacked by muggers, and the Litorian Knight “Perona” saves them :c)

Down the street, a huge group of people are making a commotion in front of a bar.

“Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hip! Hip! Hooray!” They cheer.

“What’s going on?” Asks Asa. A muscular, bronze skinned man with a mohawk and goggles answers.

“This lady got our debts forgiven!” He says with a giant smile and tears streaming down his face. He runs down the street, yelling. “I’m a free man!”

The lady in question is a girl in a pink hat. The group throws her up into the air. “Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hip! Hip! Hooray!”

A microphone crackles. A suited man with wavy, blond hair and conniving eyes stands on a stage nearby.

“I’m so grateful to you folks for joining me.” He says. The crowd by the stage isn’t very enthusiastic. He continues.

“I’m proud to announce Angelina’s very first… Oil drill!” Some guy who’s not paid enough pulls a sheet off the drill, presenting it to the crowd. Only two people clap. A few moan. One guy boos.

“It’s small, but the start of a promising future for Angelina’s economy. Oil is an underutilized fuel source on Nue and we can corner the market!” He assures.

The group of people holding Miracle have stopped throwing her. She glares at the man on stage. “Let me down, guys.”

They put her down, and she stomps up to the stage.

“We don’t want any smelly oil here! We left that behind for a reason!” She says, jabbing the wand at him.

A gruff, nasally voice somewhere in the crowd chimes in. “Yeah! We might be criminals, but that doesn’t mean we like pollution!”

The crowd agrees. He struggles to speak over them. “There’s… no evidence that the oil drills on Nue cause pollution.”

“Kululu kulula… Piico piico la li lu. Help this dumb, greedy guy understand!” The beams destroy the stage, sending the man clambering across broken wood to get off the stage before it falls out from under his feet. He lands on his butt, sweating and panting.

She towers over him. “You’re going to get that thing uninstalled! The clean way!”

“Y-yes, ma’am. R-right away!” He says, shivering.

“Yay! Love and communication saves the day again!” She cheers. The crowd goes wild.

“Hey! What are you doing!” Shouts Asa. He stops in front of her. “You’re not supposed to use a guard that way!”

“That was dangerous!” Says Mint, worried. Luna watches, also a bit worried, but only because Mint and Asa are.

“Do you even have training?!” Asa asks. “You shouldn’t even have a guard if you just shoot whatever you want with it!”

She frowns as she’s scolded and tilts her head down, but maintains eye contact. She digs her toe in the dirt and points at the man.

“But we talked about it and he said he’d uninstall it.” She says. The man nods his head rapidly and repetitively, feigning passionate support of her words.

“I say he had it coming!” Growls an older man, crossing his arms. The audience agrees unanimously, overpowering anything Asa could say.

☼

Luna and Mint wash dishes in the back of the bar. Construction equipment clanks and whirs outside as the oil rig is being uninstalled.

“This is so boring…” Luna complains while Mint works diligently beside her.

“Well, suck it up.” Says Asa, holding a tray of beers in each hand. “We do this or it’s no food and no shelter.”

Luna looks at the cupboards like she’s gazing into the clear sky above.

“I miss food…” She longingly cries, then scrubs the dishes with laser focus and four times the speed. At least she’s motivated.

Asa carries the trays into the dining room. The girl from earlier is sitting on a table, holding an empty pint and telling a story. The other patrons guffaw and cheer.

He interrupts her to serve her beer.

“Why, thank you.” Miracle hiccups, red faced.

“You’re the girl from earlier.” He states flatly.

“Do I know you?” She asks, genuinely not remembering.

“If you pulled that anywhere else, you would’ve been arrested and had your Animaguard confiscated. I’ll admit that violence can be a helpful tool, sometimes, but if you don’t use it sparingly you’ll hurt someone!”

She blinks, then looks down. She’s thinking about her actions and looks regretful. There’s a slam near the entrance. A woman screams.

The lender stands in the front of the dining room with a hulking xenosect. The xenosect totes a firearm.

“You. Little girl.” He says, pointing to Miracle. “You planned my downfall.”

He waves his finger, pointing at everyone in the bar. “All of you did! You all planned my downfall and laughed while you were sabotaging me! My business I worked my life for is going to go under and it’s all your fault!”

“You thought you were sooo smart.” He grins, manic. “But I’ll have the last laugh! Chumby, do it!”

Chumby, the xenosect, steps forward, their large, flat finger pressing the trigger. For Miracle, the world moves in slow motion.

I could die. My friends could die. Something inside her snaps and she yells as she lets loose, her wand shooting the most beams anyone had ever seen.

It tears apart the tables, and the counter, and the walls. People run, screaming and ducking for cover. The bottles in the alcohol cabinet shatter and shards of glass fly through the air. The assault lasts for what feels like an eternity.

The lender and Chumby retreat, tumbling out the door with no grace. When it comes to an end, the dining room is destroyed. The customers tremble and cry, the floors are filled with scorch marks, and not a single piece of furniture is intact.

Most of them have been turned into smoking, singed mulch. Miracle gawks at the destruction she caused. “Mama’s bar…”

Mama, the owner, a sturdy woman in her 50s with her light brown hair tucked into a loose ponytail, staggers out of the kitchen with a shocked expression.

“What happened out here?” She asks in her deep, raspy voice. She’s stunned by the devastated condition of the dining room.

Miracle’s eyes snap to Mama. Then to a man hiding behind a table, and to a woman crying in a man’s arms. They’re all staring at me…

Miracle bursts into tears and runs out of the building.

☼

Miracle sulks on the bench outside Mama’s bar. Asa is standing in the doorway, not sure if he should intervene, when Mint passes him.

He sits next to her.

“You aren’t bad, you know. You made a mistake, but your heart was in the right place.” He says with a smile. Asa follows behind him.

“I know it can be frustrating to put up with people who hurt others. Sometimes you just want to force them to stop, but if you aren’t careful about it, they’ll want vengeance. You could start a vicious cycle of violence and get innocent people hurt.” Asa reasons. He thinks this is a hard lesson, but an important one.

Mama comes out of the bar with an ash-smudged face and a broom and sees Miracle hunched over.

“Aww, kid.” She says. “Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re not?” Says Miracle.

“It’s Angelina. You think that was my first shoot out? If a scuffle could stop me, then Mama’s Bar wouldn’t have been around so long. It’s been 25 years!”

“But, I feel so bad… I destroyed all of your stuff. You want me to pay you back, right?”

Mama puts a warm hand on her shoulder. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re the reason me and my son are debt-free.”

She then squeezes. “Thanks for cleaning up the dirt.”

Miracle makes a relieved smile. “I thought you guys were going to kick me out of town and I’d lose all my new friends, but you’re so resilient and honest that you see who I am as a person instead of my mistakes.”

“I came to Angelina because it seemed like a bleak, scary place that needed desperate help, but the people here are actually great! You’re so tough and you don’t take any nonsense. You beat the bullies up instead of tolerating them!”

“I think you’ll fit in here, kid. And if you like beating people up, how about you work at my bar? Nobody’ll give me crap when you’ve got that scary wand!” Mama laughs. Miracle laughs, too.

Asa wants to be happy they’ve made amends, but doesn’t know if it’s an entirely good thing.

“Remy! Remy!” Calls a blonde haired woman in a long dress.

“Mama?” Says Miracle.

“What are you doing here? You have school tomorrow and I was worried sick!” The woman grabs her hand.

“Please don’t call me Remy in front of my friends! I’m Miracle! And how did you get here?”

“It’s gonna be a miracle if you graduate 9th grade. You’re gonna get held back! Come on!” Miracle’s mom totes her away and throws her into a solar powered minivan. She drives away. Everyone is stunned.

“Moms are scary…” Says Asa.

☼

Chumby and the lender stand on the edge of Angelina. They hold hands and look into each other’s eyes.

“These people don’t appreciate us!” Says the lender. Chumby nods.

“They aren’t worth our time!” Chumby nods.

“I don’t want revenge anymore. I want to be an artesian candy craftsman!” Chumby nods.

“Let’s live our dreams together!” Chumby nods. The two run off into the sunrise.

⟡

Luna snaps out of her trance-like focus, scrubbing hands slowing to a stop. The kitchen around her is broken and burnt. She tilts her head.

“Huh?”