The fun and games have run their course

“Gotta say, pumpkin, that was one hell of a move. If I hadn’t gotten the full upgrade kit, I’d be dead meat right now.”

Z placed her left hand over the hole left in her mechanical body by my blade. There was no blood leaking from the wound. Nothing more than wires and metal plating.

“You… lunatic…” I panted, trying to get the wind back in my lungs.

“I’m the lunatic? Says the girl who fights swords and guns with a body made of weak flesh and bone. You suicidal or something, poppet?”

“Oh, believe me. It’s not myself I want dead.” I stood back up and raised my sword. “I can’t cut out your heart? Fine. Your head will make a nicer trophy.”

“Oh, sweetie. I dare you to try and take it.”

All six of us stood still. Z and I stared each other in the eyes. Fuji and W locked in a stalemate against the wall. Ryou still guarding the wounded Nabiki.

We all held our breath, waiting for anyone else to make the first move.

Z and I collided like ice and fire.

Dead in the middle of where we both had stood, my sword met her hammer with the force of an asteroid strike. The raw power was enough to numb my arms, and the sound created a shockwave that blew us both back a couple feet.

We met again. This time she changed her hammer for a flail aimed at my face. I cut clean through the chain and the head sailed harmlessly past me.

Temporarily disarmed, she was forced to dodge backwards as I cut sideways at neck level. I missed her throat by millimetres.

Premonition.

My follow up was cut short as I barely dodged a stab at my side.

W was covered in blood and cuts, but had evaded a fatal blow from Fujiko and switched her attention to me.

She cut at my throat with a butcher’s knife.

I ducked it.

She stabbed at my gut with a chef’s knife.

I sidestepped.

She wound up for another cut.

We both leapt backwards as a thrown longsword skimmed between us. A flash of light later, Ryou appeared and caught her sword in mid air, turning her whole body and cutting a gash diagonally down across W’s face.

“Gah-!” W let out a subdued shriek of pain.

“W! Bastard-“

Z tried to interrupt Ryou’s continued assault on W, but I forced her attention back on me with another attack. I damn near cut her right arm off.

“You seem a little shaken, Z.”

“Shaken? Don’t be daft, sweet cheeks.” Her signature enormous hammer materialised in her hand. “I ain’t shaken. I’m pissed off.”

She swung at me with might and speed that surpassed any others that I had seen before. It took everything I had, movement and precognition, just to avoid being flattened.

Then, for a split second, she stopped.

She adjusted her stance just slightly and threw her left arm out behind her, catching Fujiko by the throat and dodging the blade aimed at her back.

“And here I thought sneak attacks were bad form, hun.”

Z hurled Fuji’s body at me and we both went crashing to the ground. Christ, this girl is heavy.

“Trying to save your little girlfriend, only to be the thing that takes her down. What a pity,” said Z in her most mocking tone of voice. “Though, what can be expected from the tetrarch of team killing?”

Despite the pain we were both in, the taunt seemed to relight the fire in Fujiko. She threw herself to her feet and pointed her sword at the foe who had overwhelmed her just moments before.

“How many times do I gotta say it…” a dull buzzing sounded out around the opera house. “The name…” every speaker in the building began sparking, “is Princess Of Electric Power!”

Streams of lightning flowed into Fuji’s body from every speaker. A moment later, she blitzed towards Z with speed greater than the eye could see.

I knew exactly what she was doing. Instead of using electricity as a weapon, she was controlling it so precisely that she could manipulate her own bioelectricity to move with superhuman strength and speed, even compared to other magical girls. The electricity she had absorbed ensured she had enough energy to keep it up for a short while, but it was incredibly taxing on her body.

But this was the electric princess. She only needed a few seconds.

The speed was overwhelming even for the lightning-fast Z, and in a movement so quick and surgical it was hard to tell it had even happened, her left arm was cleanly severed from her body.

“Arghhhh, bitch!”

Z’s weapon dematerialised and she held the stub of her left arm with her remaining right one. She avoided the last second of Fuji’s onslaught and scrambled away to the far side of the opera house.

Z reconvened with the bloodied and beaten W, who had herself narrowly escaped death at Ryou’s hands.

Ryou, Fujiko and I grouped up to face them. They were cornered.

“…think we’re in over our heads here, W.”

“Please don’t state the obvious.”

“Think it’s time to call her in?”

“It’s long past that time.”

My momentary relaxation came crashing down with those words.

Every spotlight in the building pointed to the stage. In walked a hauntingly beautiful girl, with a hauntingly beautiful voice.

Her.

Graviton.

There was no time to react. She didn’t need the speakers Fujiko had ruined. Her voice was omnipresent.

Beautiful. Soulful. Sad.

Crushing.

“Ahhhhh!”

I wasn’t even sure which of us was screaming. My entire body was pressed against the floor, as if the roof had collapsed in on me. My bones felt ready to give out. My consciousness seemed soon to follow. In one moment, the tides had turned from certain victory to overwhelming defeat.

This was the power of Graviton.

“Not so tough are ya now, ey honeybu-” Z’s taunt was cut off by a breathtaking shift in atmosphere. “...the fuck?”

Ryou, Fujiko and I all returned to our feet. The crushing force had disappeared. In fact, I felt light. Lighter than I ever had. Like gravity itself had weakened.

And that feeling was accompanied by a song full of joy. As soulful as before, but unmistakably kinder. More loving.

“The hell are you doing, you green prat, crush them!” yelled Z. But Graviton took no heed of her.

Her senses were ensnared.

“I don’t know how long I can hold her, finish this!”

The heavily injured Nabiki, still bleeding profusely, was using all her remaining strength to keep eye contact with Graviton. Her metal spine was bursting out of cheongsam. She must have forcibly curled her spine back just to overpower the gravity for a split second.

“Looks like the pervert’s given us a second wind,” sneered Fujiko, picking her sword back up off the ground, “and you two just had your fates sealed by your own damn teammate. Funny, ain’t it?”

The three of us pounced forth at the same time. The lightened load of gravity made every movement easier than it had ever been.

Z deflected my sword away, but couldn’t dodge Fujiko’s fist. Her nose broken, she swung desperately with her hammer and forced Fujiko back. This only allowed me a second swing that cut a deep gash in her side.

Z and W were forced back to back as Ryou threatened to take another chunk out of W. The second their backs touched, they switched positions. I dodged the skewer aimed for my gut by a hair’s breadth. W was running out of steam.

“I can’t do this much longer!” Nabiki yelled.

I responded to W’s cleaver slice with a risky counter that could spell my death if it failed.

I managed to avoid that gruesome fate and leave another skin-deep cut on W’s face, but once again failed to cause substantial damage.

I needed a decisive blow, at all costs.

“I’m about to lose her!”

“Dammit, Fuji, kill the green one!”

“Hyah!”

Fujiko hurled her sword at Graviton’s chest.

Ryou stabbed at the disarmed Z’s throat.

I thrust my katana at W’s head.

And… connected with nothing.

“I think the fun and games have run their course. Wouldn’t you agree, dear Tokiko?”

I was isolated, an expanse of black surrounding me. Far off in the distance stood my allies and enemies, frozen completely in place. A freezeframe taken milliseconds before the deaths of our foes.

And from behind me, heralded by the clacking of heels on a floor of nothing but empty space, a tall woman in white approached me. A glowing halo atop her head. A pure white cat on her shoulder.

I had no idea who she was or what she had done, but I knew exactly who that cat was. All because of a voice that had stayed silent until now.