The Thrill of Victory
Seventeen Mains.
Dusick and Sohee.
Keru.
Myself, and Kabe.
Twenty-one people and one beast. A modest force, all told.
On the rattling minibus I left Kabe in Dusick and Sohee's care, closed my eyes, and idly turned the ring on the ring finger of my left hand.
The Vespredel Rifle — the piece that completed the set — used a ring as its summoning medium. And not just any ring: it had to be worn on the ring finger of the left hand. South Korea being a country with strict gun control, carrying Bespredel around in public was out of the question, and hauling a rifle through the streets was a considerable hassle besides. Just as the summoning medium for my uniform, the Vespredel Amori, was a pair of earrings, the medium for the Vespredel Rifle was this ring.
Press the earring and I transformed. Press the raised setting of the ring and the rifle appeared. Simple as that.
The catch was the placement. Left ring finger. When I asked why it had to be that finger of all places, I got some rambling explanation about it being directly connected to the heart — I didn't really follow. I just said, "So it's the best spot for sharing an emotional bond with its master?" and left it there.
None of that mattered now, anyway.
The unit organization was already finished. Kabe and I were Unit One, with three Mains. Dusick was Unit Two, with seven. Sohee was Unit Three, with seven. I planned to use Pangyo Station as our starting point and turn the department store and the buildings above it into the battlefield.
How many magical girls would they send today? If they committed seven like last time, how was I supposed to answer that? And who would come out as their commander?
I didn't think Frilly would show again. Precure? I'd heard Precure wasn't high enough rank for a commander's slot. Then Eve herself — no, surely not. There were still plenty of magical girls I didn't know. One of them would probably take the field.
Someone was shaking me. I blinked my eyes open, groggy, and found the bus had already stopped.
"Oh, Sohee. We're here?"
I must have dozed off while running through the operation in my head. I sat up, still half-asleep, and Sohee wiped the corner of my mouth with the back of her hand.
"You slept most soundly. You even drooled."
"That's disgusting — you didn't have to wipe it yourself. You could've just told me and I'd have done it."
"It is not disgusting in the slightest. It is Unni's, after all."
Sohee's bright little smile made me too embarrassed to look at her, so I deliberately turned away and scanned the inside of the bus.
Empty. Nobody else was here.
Sohee watched me look around, smiling the whole time.
"Everyone has already disembarked and is waiting for you. Dusick is gathering the Mains, so please, Unni — go forth and show them your majesty."
Majesty? Please.
I yawned and stepped down from the bus. A cold wind swept through the parking lot, sending dry leaves tumbling this way and that.
Parking was twenty-five hundred won an hour...
"Hey, why'd we have to park somewhere this expensive..."
I started to complain, then stopped. A lot of eyes on us.
Even for a Saturday in Pangyo, men in jeans and striped shirts were wandering past in twos and threes, sneaking glances at our little gathering as they went. Come to think of it, there were still people around, and the neon signs were still blazing away.
"The Two-sided Barrier isn't up yet?"
"No. The magical girls haven't arrived."
"Perfect. Dusick, pull that out."
While Dusick rummaged through her bag, I pressed my earring and transformed.
In an instant, shouts erupted from every direction.
"It's Mother!"
"Hey, it's Mother!"
"Noona, you look amazing!"
That was a man who was clearly in his thirties no matter how you looked at him, calling me noona. What kind of nonsense was that.
Not that I could let it show on my face. Fan service mattered, after all.
"Noona, show us your daughter!"
"Your daughter's so cute!"
The most dangerous person here was standing right over there.
Well. Anyway. I scooped up Kabe, who had been hiding behind me — frightened, I supposed, by the size of the crowd.
"Kabe. They say you're pretty."
"Me?"
"Mhm. Want to wave for them?"
But Kabe was too shy. She buried her face against my neck and just stuck out one little hand, waving it gently back and forth. The sight of that tiny fern-bud of a hand fluttering the way a baby waves bye-bye set off a chorus of She's so cute! from the crowd, punctuated by the rapid-fire click of camera shutters from every direction.
Hmm. Photos of me were one thing, but pictures of Kabe felt a little risky. I set her down and tucked her back behind me.
Pedophiles, after all, existed everywhere.
"Unni, here."
A small camcorder sat in Dusick's hand.
My plan was this. Once the fighting started, the broadcast would follow anyway. The footage they showed from the outside was one thing — but what if I clipped a camcorder to my collar and streamed the whole thing live? And what if I put a little donation account number along the bottom of the feed?
Today's fight would double as an experiment.
My uniform had a decorative cord that crossed the center of my chest, and I clipped the camcorder to it. It dangled a bit, but as long as I didn't move too violently, it should be fine. I stuck a slip of paper with the donation account number along the bottom of the screen so it would stay in frame.
"Unni, do we really have to go this far?"
"If this works, we're going to hit it big. Dusick, I'll have you eating hanwoo beef three meals a day. Just trust your Unni."
"Hanwoo beef three meals a day...!"
I thought I saw Dusick's eyes light up. Probably my imagination.
That aside, what was taking them so long? At this rate we were nothing but a tourist attraction. I'd even given them a designated time. What was the point if they were going to be this late?
Whoever showed up, I was going to give them an earful later — and that was when I felt it.
A massive surge of magical power erupted from near the enormous building visible in the distance.
"Unni. They're here. The Two-sided Barrier is going up."
Deploying
Come to think of it, this was the first time I had ever watched a Two-sided Barrier being raised with my own eyes.
The magic burst forth, then silently shot high into the sky. From there it spread in every direction, fanning outward the way water from a fountain blooms and falls, rounding into a vast dome. And then it became an enormous hemisphere, swallowing Pangyo whole — the battlefield that would now be ours.
The people standing around us vanished in a rushing cascade. The buildings caught beneath the hemisphere dimmed as their brilliant lights and neon signs flickered out one by one—
"Whoa. It's like a fire being swallowed by water."
Wherever the magic touched, the lights died. The neon signs went dark. The people disappeared, one after another.
"Good."
I covered my face with my hand. Slowly, I drew it down. I opened my eyes wide and stared straight ahead.
Now it was time to fight.
"Cam's coming through clear."
Dusick glanced at her phone and gave me an okay sign.
Good. It had better. If this worked, I was doing it for every fight from now on. I'd even made a channel under my own name on a streaming site just for this. The broadcast would already be going out on that channel. I wanted to check the reactions, but there was no time for that.
I took a deep breath — in, out — and walked slowly toward the platform.
It was quiet. A deep silence had settled over everything.
The Mains, already changed into their dark black combat suits, looked up at me — their creator, their mother. I stood on the platform and let my gaze travel over them. They had performed well in the last battle, and they had tasted the thrill of fighting under my command. They looked at me now with a respect and devotion far deeper than they had shown in that first fight.
Below the platform, Dusick and Sohee came to stand side by side.
A swelling pride ignited in my chest like a wildfire. On the brink of battle, a strange excitement and a hunger to win were stirring inside me. A restless itch settled low in my belly as I looked over them all.
"My children."
"Yes!"
"How was it? What did you think of fighting under this mother's command?"
"It was good!"
"Is that so. And yet, in the last battle, there was one thing I failed to give you."
I paused and looked over the Mains. Their faces were curious — what was it I hadn't given them? Yes. Of course they wanted to know.
To my children, who had not tasted the thrill of victory even once since the disappearance of Cyclone, their first boss.
"Today, without fail, I will teach you that feeling."
What it meant to win. The electricity of standing victorious. Today, they would know.
"Here and now, I declare the start of battle!"
I thrust the arm that had been hidden beneath my coat high into the air.
The curtain rises.
A white flash burst from my fist and split the sky. The light soared higher and higher, as if it would punch through the heavens themselves — and before long, a golden flash rose to meet it from far in the distance.
The curtain had risen on the battle.
"Three?"
Thinking I must have misread it, I zoomed the map in, then zoomed it out for a bird's-eye view. But the blue markers indicating magical girls numbered only three.
Arranged in a triangle. One was Precure, a name I already knew well. That was a surprise. I hadn't expected Precure to show. One was a name I'd never seen before: Evangeline. And one was...
"Aquamarine..."
I knew the name. The money-obsessed magical girl, Aquamarine. She'd made a brief appearance in the last battle, but this time it looked like she'd come out for the commander match.
"Dusick."
"Yes, Boss."
"Aquamarine. You know her?"
"Yes. She's the Vice President of the Association. Water-attribute magical girl, and... ah. This is bad."
Dusick scratched her head, then clicked her tongue. Her face was tightly drawn — something was clearly wrong.
"What?"
"The terrain is really working against us. She's water-attribute, so she's especially strong with area attacks, and a place like this — wide gaps between the buildings, sloped ground... we're positioned downhill, and the magical girls are uphill. That puts us at a disadvantage."
"Hmm."
Think of a waterfall and it made sense enough. She could use water like a flood to control a wide stretch of ground all at once, and she could exploit the way liquid flows from high ground to low. That was probably the idea.
"All the more reason to move fast. Children, are you listening?"
"Yes!"
"Loud and clear!"
"Organization is as I briefed you. From this point on, every direction I give is relative to Pangyo Station at your backs. Understood?"
"Understood!"
"Good. That's my good children. First — Unit Two, move with Dusick and swing around to the nine o'clock position. Unit Three, Sohee, move to four o'clock. Flank them. Sohee, you take Precure. Dusick, you take Evangeline. Keep your vision linked with mine at all times. What's Evangeline's specialty?"
"Lightning-type."
Damn it.
Water attribute plus lightning attribute.
We were screwed.
But I wasn't about to just sit here and take it. If that was their game, we would use the same strategy right back at them.
"Sohee."
"Yes, Unni! You called?"
"Right. The Precure on your end is a close-combat martial artist type... will you be all right?"
"A close-combat type? And does that mean her neck cannot be cut? Please do not trouble yourself."
"Good. I'm counting on you. Stall for as long as you can. Forcing a retreat would be even better. Oh — and don't kill her. Understood? If you tell her to retreat when she's on the brink of death, she'll take care of the rest herself."
"I understand."
Good. From here on out, this was an assault.