Meeting with Titans

“I can do this. I can do this!” Minny thought to herself.

She and Kaneko were in the middle of another battle. Kaneko’s third. This time, it was a giant raven with a coat of red feathers that seemed to ward off the darkness. Not as though it was just bright, but darkness seemed simply uninterested in finding any place to pool across its surface. It was currently diving from mid air, directly at Kaneko.

All according to plan.

The giant bird was close to hitting her, but Kaneko was able to throw out a length of tape that spiraled into a spring, which helped block the impact. Kaneko was sent skidding backwards on the heels of her shoes, while the raven flapped its wings in an effort to regain air.

“Now, Minny!” Kaneko yelled, slightly winded.

Minny, standing a ways behind Kaneko, had to get on the bird and try to tap it with her staff in mid air. She was positioned in a make-shift slingshot that Kaneko had managed to fashion between two trees with the tape from her dispenser. On Kaneko’s signal, Minny let the slingshot throw her in a perfect arc to meet the raven in mid air. There was one problem. She never actually figured out what to do once she got there.

“We are terrible at making plans!” Minny screamed, barely able to grab a handful of the bright feathers.

She had to squint as she got on, because, even in the fading light of evening, it was too vibrant to look at. Thankfully the bird had flabby flesh that created convenient footholds as Minny climbed up onto its back.

As soon as she thought she was somewhat secure, Minny wound up her staff for an attack. “AAAAAAAAAAAA!!…”

For some reason, the bird didn’t seem to enjoy that, screeching at the top of its lungs before swinging vigorously in an attempt to buck Minny off, mid air.

“...AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIPE!!!!!”

Minny’s attack cry turned into a yelp. She scrambled to find some piece of loose meat to grab on to, forgetting to keep holding onto her staff. It was thrown from the air, swirling brilliantly before settling on a park bench.

Kaneko saw it land, and called out, “Oh shoot. Minny!”

“Wha- Where’s my staff?” Minny squealed.

Kaneko was standing on the side of a concrete path, cupping her hands around her mouth in an attempt to amplify her voice. “Minny, I’m gonna try to get it to you! I have an idea!”

“Oh great, she has an idea!” Minny thought earnestly as she swung from side to side. “Kaneko is always coming in clutch with these things. Now all I have to do is HOLD ON!”

It took all she had for Minny to hold on to the animal as it thrashed through the air. In between swings, Minny could see Kaneko running with the staff over to the makeshift slingshot. Kaneko loaded it, aimed, then drew the simple contraption and shot the staff out. It elegantly swirled in the air. Minny was readying herself to catch it, trying to find some rhythm in the bird’s movement that would allow her an opening.

“I am so proud of Kaneko. She’s really taken to hero work. It suits her.” She thought.

She was dismayed when it fell short of her grasp by about 6 feet.

“Come on!” Both girls shouted simultaneously.

As Minny got back to a safer spot, she took handfuls of the bird’s flesh like reins on a horse, hoping that she’d be able to control it like a cowboy. And somehow it worked! A spotlight shown from above made the raven’s body blindingly bright.

“I did something?” Minny questioned under her breath.

Coming from the direction of the spotlight, a computerized voice with a nice accent called out. “Need some assistance?”

Looking up, Minny could just make out the silhouette the voice had come from, and he looked like a giant robot turtle.

In another moment, a second voice spoke to her, this time it was a lot more flat, and sounded like a girl’s. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

Minny could feel herself getting picked up, hoisted underarm by someone. And then she was falling from the raven’s back, quickly reaching the ground.

She was dropped gently on her belly and rolled around until she saw the bird being tangled up in a large net. It fell from the sky, crashing into the park's baseball field. Looking up, Minny saw who carried her to safety.

It was a girl, not much older than Kaneko or herself. She was wearing a ratty purple overcoat and a scarf. For bottoms she had dull purple cargo pants that were tucked into dark purple socks and… Well, she was wearing dark purple gloves and combat boots as well. She definitely had a motif. Even her disheveled shoulder-length bob cut was a nearly-black purple. The only thing that wasn't purple were her orange eyes. Highlighted by a purple mask that really only covered the top of her face, they were like the fading evening sun.

She didn't say anything else to Minny before jogging up to the collapsed bird. Kaneko was running back to grab Minny's staff, so it looked like Minny had to make introductions. She jolted up to her feet and ran over to where the girl was. As she ran, a faint lime-green glow shimmered around the girl's hands as arcane symbols appeared in front of her.

“So she's magic? Waitwaitwait Is she- are they?” Minny thought.

The other figure was posing with both hands on his hips. He was wearing what looked like a modern take on a medieval knight’s armor. Every surface on his body was covered with white plates with some sky blue material filling the gaps which was presumably also protective, because the regular armor didn’t do a great job of actually covering everything. His helmet was nearly featureless, without even any eye holes to see out of. The only feature on the helmet itself was a set of small holes that had to have been for a speaker of some kind. Although there was still a face of some manner.

A hologram projection of a cartoony face hovered an inch in front of the helmet. It didn’t even have a nose.

On his back, there was a pretty large pack that Minny thought had to be useful, because it was way too bulky to allow actual freedom of movement. Like most other things on his costume, it was almost completely white.

As Minny ran up to them she could hear a little bit of their conversation. The girl was saying “...don’t recognize this signature.”

“Do you think you can still break it?” The robot guy said.

The spellcaster cocked her head and smirked. “The spell? Yeah, it still follows the laws of magic.”

The guy noticed Minny first. “Oh, hi! Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah!” She said.

“That’s great to hear.” He responded, settling on the back of his heels. “We were just passing through the area, saw you two and thought you could use some help.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah! Thanks! I didn’t know what to do, to be completely honest.” Minny replied sheepishly, rubbing her neck out of nervousness. “Hey, so are you guys really– I mean you’re– You’re...”

“We’re superheroes!” The armored one threw out his arms in enthusiasm. His personality was a little much, even for Minny, but appreciated the effort.

The girl, still doing some magic with the raven, piped up. “I wouldn’t consider myself a superhero.”

“Come on, Cardinal, you’ve got the costume, the powers, and the drive to help the innocent! How could you not be a superhero?”

“Okay, sure. Whatever.” She said bluntly as she went back to whatever she was doing.

The armored one’s face changed to be more downtrodden, before it switched back to “I suppose introductions are in order; I’m Automaton and my partner in crime–”

“Co-worker.”

“Okay, well my co-worker here is Cardinal Conjury!”

Minny was about to burst from excitement! There were two superheroes, right in front of her! In order to continue the conversation, she would have to push all thoughts away and focus on her own introduction.

“Okay. Uh… I’m the Magical Girl who fights for the dreams of young people everywhere:” Minny put everything into her pose, lifting up her leg and positioning her arm above her head with her fingers in a “v” formation sharply. “I am Pastel Princess!”

As she did this, Kaneko finally ran over with Minny’s staff and handed it to her.

“Oh, and my partner, uh... Sukeban!”

Kaneko’s cheeks flushed as she glared straight at Minny, who ignored her.

Automaton nodded his head subtly as if giving a positive assessment. “I like your presentation! Very good stuff.”

“Thanks for the assist, by the way.” Kaneko said.

Auto waved her off, “Oh yeah, it’s really no biggie, we were in the area…”

“So, what is she doing exactly?” Kaneko pointed at Cardinal, still doing something magic to the raven.

“She’s just analyzing the bird. Seeing if she can dispel it.” Auto explained

“Oh, I can do that! That’s what this is for.” Minny raised her staff to display it.

Kaneko must have understood because she jumped towards Cardinal “Hey, you should probably stop.”

Cardinal turned, mildly surprised, but she continued the dispel. “What are you talking about?”

Just as Kaneko was about to grab Cardinal’s arm to force her to stop, her arcane symbol disappeared and a whooshing energy soared from the bird, flying off into the air. Slowly, the bird began its transformation back into its original form.

“Woah, what’s your damage? I just did you guys a favor.” Cardinal hissed.

“It’s not getting sucked up...” Minny said, pensively.

Both Kaneko and Minny were left in a state of shock. That isn’t how that's supposed to go.

Automaton broke the momentary silence. “What’s going on guys? We took down the bad guy. Yay us?”

Kaneko turned back to Minny, grumbling. “Ah crap. Are you feeling that too?”

Minny nodded. They could feel the scars on their wrists telling them that the monster had invaded another animal, but something was off.

Minny was the first to vocalize this, “I don’t know where it is…”

“Now we have to do that all over again!” Kaneko shouted, kicking the grass.

“Oh. Sorry.” Cardinal said, more awkward sounding than really apologetic.

“And now we don’t know where it is. It’s in another animal or something… Uhhhg… I just want to go to sleep!” Kaneko was frustrated, but not with anyone in particular.

“How about we help you track it?” Automaton’s shakily proposed, “I’m sure Cardinal could do that… Would you let us?”

Kaneko appeared like she was trying to bury her frustration as she answered. “Look, I’m sure you guys are great and all, but I’d rather–”

“We’d love your help!” Minny jumped in front of Kaneko with her arms reaching out, in an attempt to completely cover her cousin from view.

Minny couldn’t allow an opportunity like this to be passed up! They were superheroes! Real superheroes! How many more chances like this are they gonna get in their lifetime? And they had to go find that possessed animal anyways.

“Okay! Well, we should probably move up there then.” Automaton pointed upwards toward where the pair had come from. Minny hadn’t noticed it, but an aircraft hovered in the air a couple hundred feet above the ground.

“You guys have a super-jet!” She exclaimed, extremely excited. Minny hardly even noticed Kaneko stepping out from behind her.

“Yeah, I guess we’ll go.” She said.

In a matter of minutes, Automaton landed the ship and the group stepped aboard.

“Oh my gosh, this is fantastic!” Minny exclaimed as she entered.

The interior had a very industrial feel, with steel walls and grated floors. There was some mismatched furniture that was thrown anywhere with room, probably to give the space some element of homely-ness. An old ottoman and a few hammocks filled in the corners, while the walls were covered with rustic looking bookcases that had cages bolted over the front of them. Every bookshelf that Minny could see was filled with books, and considering this was an aircraft, the cages were probably added so the contents wouldn’t fall out during flight. The place felt lived-in.

Cardinal stepped away from the group without a word, and walked past a corner on the far right side of the ship which took her out of view of the entrance.

“Welcome to our ship.” Automaton said enthusiastically. “Sorry about the mess, we’ve been staying here for a while now.”

“This place is great!” Minny screamed.

Auto lit up again, “Oh! Let me give you the tour!”

Automaton matched Minny’s energy and she could tell they were going to get along.

Automaton brought Kaneko and Minny around a corner. Minny couldn't see it when she walked in, but the deck of the ship was set up as a "T", with short offshoots on both sides of the front. The ceiling sloped down harshly in both and an ill fitting workbench was shoved into the space on the left.

“So, this is my mobile workshop, where I maintain most of my tech” Automaton seemed like he was trying to actually put on the persona of a tour guide.

Then, the questionably robotic boy pointed toward the other side of the room at an old desk that Cardinal Conjury had set up at already. She was shuffling around a bunch of books, opening them to check what she was doing.

“And over there is Cardinal’s study desk.” Automaton explained.

Automaton was definitely enjoying himself because his holo-face had a grin that covered the entire length of his head. “And that’s the cockpit in there. That’s pretty boring actually. The ship runs on autopilot 99% of the time anyway, so we barely go in there.” He pointed to a heavy red mechanical door that sat in the wall right between the two heroes’ work spaces.

“...And that’s the tour. Pretty small, but we certainly make good use of it.”

“So, what’s she doing?” Standing beside Minny, Kaneko had spoken up for the first time since she came aboard, which kinda startled Minny. Kaneko was pointing over at Cardinal, still working.

“Oh, ur… She’s tracking the energy source with magic? Sorry, I couldn’t really help you with the specifics.” Automaton blushed through his hologram.

“We just wait then?” Kaneko responded.

“Yeah, pretty much... Hey! I think Cardinal had a pack of cards around here somewhere. We can play something while we wait.” Automaton walked around the corner and started to rummage around the bookcases.

Kaneko followed him, leaving Minny in the workshop area.

Kaneko chuckled. “What? Does she do card tricks?”

“Uh, no. She likes to play solitaire, but she said I could use them if somebody else came over. Of course, we usually don’t have company, so I never expected I’d get the chance!” Auto said, acting like he was stealing cookies out of a cookie jar. It was then that Minny decided for herself that he had to be human under that armor.

“You two must not be close.” Kaneko said.
Automaton answered with a strangely energetic, “I don’t even know her real name. But I like to think we’re close enough for professional colleagues or what have you.”

Then, Minny thought that she could try to make friends with the sorceress. Plus she did kinda save Minny back there.

“Hey!” Minny nearly shouted out of nervousness.

“Hi.” Cardinal said, unfazed and still flipping through her books.

Seeing this, Minny felt her stomach bubble with more nerves, but she continued anyway. “So, we’re both magical girls, huh? That’s pretty cool. I mean, a different kind but… You know…”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t really compare us. We use magic very differently.” Cardinal finally turned to Minny and then displayed her gloved palm. Without so much as a twitch from her fingers, a dark green flame appeared over her hand. It was really hot. Standing just a few feet away, Minny’s cheeks, previously chilled by the night air, instantly warmed up. The flame itself was steady, like something you’d see coming out of a propane burner, but it was thick. In another instant, it was gone, although its warmth remained.

“Yeah, I definitely can’t do that…” Minny bit her lip as she tried to think of what to say next. “So, what do you think of that Automaton guy, huh? You guys are partners or something?”

“Coworkers. I mean you could technically say that he only hired me.” Cardinal smirked, which made Minny even more nervous.

“To be a superhero?” She asked.

Cardinal almost rolled her eyes, but then stopped herself. “No, I’m an investigator.” She explained, “He brought me on for a job.”

Minny asked. “Uh, then why did you help me earlier? Thanks for that by the way.”

“Comes with the territory, I guess.” Cardinal said, her tone finally turning somewhat amiable, although she still looked back to her book to keep reading.

Minny could finally feel that she was warming up to the girl. But then she had to think of something else to say. “Oh! Actually, do you think you could help us figure something out about our powers? If it's not too much trouble.”

“Mmm. Sure.” Cardinal turned around again.

“Yeah, plus it might help with tracking it if you can like, scan me or something.” Minny said. Cardinals expression didn’t change, but Minny got nervous again and started to speed up. “Okay, so the other day, we were in our transformations and fought a bad guy and stuff, and then this girl that we both know came up to us and couldn’t recognize us. Even Kan– I mean, Sukeban. And she doesn’t even have a costume!”

“I see. That sounds to me like a pretty basic anonymity spell. It basically works like my mask.” Cardinal leaned back on her desk. “I have an enchantment on it that does the same thing as long as I'm wearing it.”

Minny felt stupid. How could she not know this stuff?! Cardinal spoke as if this was the most mundane thing, but it was all novel to Minny.

“Anyways, come here. Your signatures were similar, so ‘scanning’ you might help out. At least a little.”

Minny did as she was told, stepping close enough that the two could touch.

“Actually, me and Sukeban get this feeling in the birthmarks on our wrists, and we’re able to tell where the monsters show up. She’s still kinda new at this so I’m usually the one who leads us-”

“Sounds like what I need. Give me your hand, please.”

Minny’s heartbeat increased, but she gave the more experienced girl her hand.

“Right here?” Cardinal asked, pointing at the spot without actually touching it. Minny nodded and she said, “Hold still.”

Then Minny felt Cardinal’s leather gloved hand clench around hers along with some strange other sensation. It felt kinda like the feeling when you put a pencil to your forehead without actually touching anything.

“Cool, I’m getting something.” Cardinal said after a few seconds, her smirk returning.