First Arc - St. Louis

1: Make Taut Their Slack Minds and Bodies

A coyote darted between the orange groves. Clownmuffle only saw it a moment, its eyes went white in the moonlight. "Doggie," she called, but it did not come back. Too bad, she had a bag of bones to feed it.

She dragged the corpse to the center and planted her shovel. In summer the sun baked the soil solid, but in lukewarm December it churned beneath her spade. The pit deepened. Worms and roots wriggled. She climbed out the hole, shoved the corpse inside, and buried it. She patted down the dirt, stomped her feet, and swung the shovel over her shoulder.

Before her sat Kyubey. You're in trouble, Miss Vizcarra.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

Two Magical Girls have arrived. They intend to kill you.

Clownmuffle scooped Kyubey onto her shoulder and surveyed all directions down the orange groves. Four immense radio antennae blinked beyond.

She plucked a ripe fruit and bounced it on her palm. "They know me?"

Miss Leyva and Miss Vo. You mentored both. I apologize for this inconvenience, as under normal conditions I would have terminated their contracts before their grievances reached this severity, but I have recently relocated one of my specialists to Minneapolis—

"Blup blup, blup." Nobody used their real names, but Kyubey insisted on it, so Clownmuffle never knew who he talked about.

I prefer to avoid fatalities outside of proper termination protocol, so please flee before there's a confrontation.

"There won't be fatalities."

I do not trust your assessment.

Clownmuffle stroked his head with two fingers. He had velvety fur, like a real bunny rabbit. "Gootchie-goo, you're a cutie." She stuck her tongue at him. "I'm no murderer. We'll talk and resolve things like real Magical Girls, you'll see."

Sigh...

This "sigh," who knew what meant it. Kyubey felt no emotion, he feigned even disappointment for tactical purpose. Ah well, it didn't matter. Her once and future friends had arrived.

One, already transformed, emerged seven rows ahead. The newest girl in the area. She had a witch hat with a buckle and a bend at the tip. Her fellow, more veteran, appeared seven rows behind Clownmuffle in an elegant old gown. Silver bells jingled from her fichu and the puffy cuffs that bound her otherwise skintight sleeves. The costumes of other girls fascinated Clownmuffle, she digested for hours images online, the unique personalization each added to familiar archetypes. The rookie girl a prime example of exactly this point: A cliché witch costume, no? Several similar girls existed, Clownmuffle could rattle five or six off her head. Yet only this rookie girl's hat had the little bend at the tip. Why the bend? Why'd her subconscious desires, when they designed her uniform the moment she extracted her soul from her heart, why'd they give her this bend downward?

"Why the little bend?" Clownmuffle pointed.

"Eh?" said the witch. "Fuck your non sequiturs Bernie. Kyubey say why we're here yeah?"

Miss Leyva. If you don't abandon your irrational course of action, I have no choice but to terminate your contract.

"Shut it Kyubey. You're complicit in this bullshit ya know? That girl murders people you don't say shit. But the moment someone even thinks about killing a Magical Girl—"

Calm down, said the veteran girl with the bells.

"—Suddenly it's a huge fucking kerfuffle, crank the air raid sirens, fire the artillery, call the thought police—"

Clownmuffle pondered the orange in her hand. "You want to kill me because I killed humans?"

"Humans she says—Humans, like a different species. Unbelievable, mindboggling, fucking unfathomable. This is why, Kyubey, this is why we're here. Your whole Magical Girl system is fucked beyond repair. It manufactures maniacs—psychopaths!"

Calm down, said the girl with bells. How many times did you promise you wouldn't freak out?

"This isn't about one girl Kyubey." The witch gesticulated so emphatically the little bend on her hat flopped up and down. "This is a statement. A statement against your fucked-up system. Hemet and I agree—"

"If you want to kill me." Clownmuffle bounced the orange. "Do it because you want to kill me." Nonetheless, she liked these stupid girls. They were funny and passionate. She'd trounce them, then lecture them until their brains bent like the tip of the witch's hat.

The witch opened her mouth to spout more vitriol but before she uttered a single scratchy-throat syllable Clownmuffle dropped the orange and slammed her foot against it. It shot between the groves and exploded in pulp against the witch's face. She fell, ker-thump.

Clownmuffle turned to Hemet the bells girl. She could never remember these geography names Magical Girls gave themselves. "You two made a poor decision."

Hemet, unamused, swung her hands together, her clap resounded with a metallic twang. On either side of Clownmuffle manifested the halves of an iron maiden; they slammed shut, she bounced forward on a heel, nothing touched her.

"I won't even transform to demolish you," said Clownmuffle. "Then you'll abandon this goofy vigilante scheme and never bother me again."

Hemet swung down her hand and an iron maiden half appeared above. Its spikes crashed down, Clownmuffle ducked her head a smidge and stepped out of the descent. Against slow moving wraiths Hemet's attack never failed. But Clownmuffle? Kwekwekwe. Another maiden and another maiden, Clownmuffle sidestepped. The groves rustled, the soil sifted, two more maiden halves manifested longwise beside her to constrict her maneuverability. So Clownmuffle kicked up her legs and landed atop them after they shut beneath her. She slid off the maiden's sleek side and propelled herself toward Hemet like an Olympian long jumper, dipped to the ground as another spikecage swung at her face, struck the soil at a crouch and kicked a spray of dust into Hemet's eyes. Hemet recoiled, Clownmuffle bounced up and slammed the shovel against her skull.

A ribbon of blood flashed from the split in Hemet's scalp. She ricocheted off an orange-laden branch and swayed in a lazy diagonal. Clownmuffle's second blow clanged against her stomach and doubled her into a kick in the teeth. Magical Girls could dampen the pain their bodies experienced, so you always had to rough them pretty hard. Speaking of which! She glanced over her shoulder at the witch, who should have been sneaking up by then, but she was still facedown in the dirt many rows away. Unconscious from a single fruit to the face.

Overconfidence led to irony, but cautiousness led to overestimation.

This moment of distraction allowed Hemet to manifest another iron maiden; Clownmuffle stepped aside to avoid it as easily as all the others and clobbered her with a third shovel strike. Hemet had a much harder head than her friend, but the blow brought her to her knees and she spat blood on the leaves.

"Enough yet?" Clownmuffle propped the dripping shovel on her shoulder. It was the same shoulder Kyubey sat on—she had forgotten about him actually—so he hopped off to avoid a shaft to the face.

"Kkkhhhh," said Hemet.

"You seem relatively reasonable. Your comrade drag you in? That's okay, I'm not mad. This has been a creative expression of your feelings, I think that's super fun."

You're so full of shit, said Hemet. Everything about you disgusts me. I planned this, not Murrie.

It's true, said Kyubey. And quite irresponsible. Miss Leyva is an impressionable young Magical Girl that you've irrevocably tainted, Miss Vo. I'm disappointed, although unsurprised.

"Kyubey, you said exactly what I was thinking." Clownmuffle made some practice swings with the shovel that whooshed over Hemet's head. "Minus the irrevocable part. We're Magical Girls, empathy is what we do. So let's sort things out, starting with the big elephant. You accused me of murder. Bold claim, hey?"

Despite her ragged breathing, despite the hand pressed to her lips to stanch the blood, Hemet emitted a glare. Don't act innocent. Murrie tracks magic, we tailed you for days. We know what you do for money.

"Well now, let's be empathetic. I must pay rent somehow. Don't you live with your parents?"

Hemet's eyes blazed.

There are over seven billion humans on this planet, said Kyubey. And those Miss Vizcarra eliminates are often detrimental to your society. Her actions being even mildly controversial makes no sense to me.

A deluge of blood slopped from Hemet's mouth as she slammed a maiden onto a Kyubey unfortunately less nimble than Clownmuffle. His soft, fluffy alien body flattened beneath the slab of spiked metal, only a semicircle of gore remained.

"Ah." Clownmuffle shook her head and pointed a finger at Hemet's face. "You have to relax. Allow things to happen naturally, ebb and flow with the pulse of life. We Magical Girls are instruments of fate, and fate annihilates those who struggle against it—"

Hemet clamped her teeth around Clownmuffle's extended finger.

The teeth did not dig into her skin, did not tear against the bone, did not even register as a physical sensation. Because Hemet did not bite Clownmuffle's finger. She bit the finger's small metal ring. The ring that contained Clownmuffle's soul.

The radio antennae in the distance blinked.

Hemet's jaw locked against the metal band. An unbearable pain encompassed Clownmuffle's body like it was her whole being in the pinfold grip of Hemet's lips, like some Satan chewed her endlessly, she screamed, she resisted the urge to pull back, if she pulled back the ring would come off in Hemet's mouth and then—and then—and then—and then—

All the while Hemet's mind spouted: You murder human beings and don't even consider it wrong in fact you laugh about it and no police will find you no court will try you there's only one way for you to pay for your crimes and that is—

Hemet's Soul Gem hung from her neck, embedded in the largest silver bell of her jangly uniform. The teeth dug deeper, Clownmuffle's ring cracked, her insides started to disintegrate and a white lava poured over her vision—

—She raised the shovel and slashed. Hemet's eyes turned to blank glass and her jaw dropped and Clownmuffle fell onto her back and kicked at Hemet whose body entangled with her. She extricated herself and staggered through the silt to an upright position while her bones burned with the same sharp agony and she said FUCK a thousand times in five seconds. She considered the ring, bent and twisted around her finger, deep gouges in the metal, a white aura emanating from the splinters.

And facedown in the dirt lay Hemet. Clownmuffle had not shattered the gem, her shovel had struck Hemet's skull and knocked her senseless, that was what happened. She fell to her knees and crawled to Hemet and turned her face from the dirt and it was a dead face with dead eyes and Clownmuffle recoiled and didn't know what to do. She didn't—didn't mean to—It wasn't her fault, you know, it wasn't what she wanted or intended, it was—it was—her heart throbbed, the pain coursed. All the iron maidens vanished, only crushed fruit and the Incubator's flattened corpse remained, and the witch girl far away.

"No, I didn't, no."

But.

A mound grew in the ground two rows past Hemet's body. The grave where Clownmuffle buried her bag of bones.

It rose, inexplicably. A bigger and bigger bubble in the dirt that cascaded lines of soil in sifting patterns. The roots uprooted. The trees bent away.

The air grew stale and gray and cold. Flakes of skin on Clownmuffle's arms came off as ash, she rose using the shovel as a prop and stepped back. Oranges rotted on their branches, dark mist filtered through the decaying leaves. Clownmuffle recognized this, knew well enough what was happening, but here? Now? In this empty grove where nobody went? It made no sense, it—

From the mound sprouted a thick stalk that rose above the groves. It split into two thin long legs and they slammed back into the dirt. The spindly legs strained against the ground and from the soil rose the body of a monstrous, mammoth spider.

Its remaining legs skittered frenziedly to break out the ground. Clownmuffle backed away, at first slowly, then quickly. The spider had the head of a human, but part of its skull had disintegrated into pixels. A wraith, a greater wraith, one of the largest Clownmuffle had seen in six years as a Magical Girl.

But—but that didn't matter, she had seen larger, she had even killed them and when she was much newer, less experienced. She backpedaled anyway. The spider, still half submerged, funneled messily the corpse of Hemet into its infinite-fanged maw. An arm came off and flopped into the dirt.

Clownmuffle tripped over something and landed hard on her ass. The witch girl, whose face leaked blood. She was no longer transformed, no little bend anymore, nothing but dismal jeans and jacket, which meant she had definitely lost consciousness—but when Clownmuffle fell over her she started to rouse. One eye opened and the girl groaned. "Wh... eh?"

The spider scrambled forward on its eight legs. Its bulbous abdomen dredged a trench through the soil, the witch had time to scream and clutch Clownmuffle's sweater before the spider seized her legs in its jaw. Its fangs gnashed, the shins snapped.

Clownmuffle, Clownmuffle, she was a Magical Girl, she had to protect—

This thought galvanized her, whatever mental block had formed this unknown emotion of fear dispersed, she extended her hand with the ring and transformed.

Or tried to transform. The moment she activated her magic, utter and ineffable agony seared her body. She shut down at once, nothing happened, she remained without miracle vestments and whimsical armaments, only a shovel still bloodsmirched. The spider's fangs drove into the witch's stomach, the blood splattered across Clownmuffle's body.

No magic. Okay. Okay.

Clownmuffle planted the shovel into the spider's face, into the hollow of its skull from which the pixelated distortion spread. She drew back her palm to strike the handle and dig the spade deep into its brain, but before she connected the spider reared back. The witch's body flapped from its open mouth as its barbed front legs swiped at Clownmuffle. She rolled away from the first but the second snagged her sweater and ripped through her skin.

Blood rushed from Clownmuffle's gash. The spider brought down its forelegs to gore her through the skull, but not all her senses had departed and she somersaulted forward, leapt out of the roll, seized the witch's dangling hands, and tried to pull her down. But the spider's maw was too strong, it tilted back its head and slurped.

The shovel remained embedded in its face. Clownmuffle knew her opportunity, she held onto the witch's hands and shot upward as more and more of the witch disappeared into the creature. At the highest point, when only head and arms remained uneaten, Clownmuffle swung. The upward momentum carried her, she passed between the clawing forelegs, she bent one leg and sent the knee into the handle of the shovel.

The shovel went in. Deep. The spider's eldritch form seized up, its legs ossified, the abdomen sagged. The entire spade passed through the sickly gray static of its skull, only the handle jutted out.

The spider-wraith remained frozen in this position. Then it dissolved.

Clownmuffle, the witch, the mangled remains of Hemet, and the corpse of the man she had buried spilled to the ground. Plus, as a glittery prize, a pile of grief cubes.

The witch, although a bloody husk with a head and arms, thrashed amid the soot toward Hemet's body. Steph Steph oh fuck oh my fucking god Steph Steph, Steph Steph Steph. Then she looked at Clownmuffle, a terrible glint in a maddened eyeball that roved within a deep-set socket. You I'll kill you I'll kill you you'll die, I'll kill you to fucking hell you'll fucking DIE!

Hooked fingers dug into the ground, she dragged herself Clownmuffle's way and seized her foot. Clownmuffle had no capacity to deal with her, her entire body shook and would not stop, she brought the shovel down on the witch's head and knocked her senseless in a single blow. Then she dropped onto her back and stared at a murky sky for many minutes until she mustered the will to move again.

—

She deposited the witch on the porch of a local Magical Girl who could heal. The witch would live, she would be fine, she would live, Clownmuffle saved her life. Clownmuffle was a good Magical Girl, she always had been, Kyubey never complained about her unlike the other Magical Girls, who were lazy. Six years—six years! Kyubey said less than one percent of Magical Girls survive that long. Clownmuffle was special, she was good, and she was special. She saved far more people than she killed, tally them up, count the people she killed and weigh it against the people she saved, the scales shifted, they clanged against the ground resoundingly in her favor.

Hemet—Stephanie Vo, Clownmuffle remembered her name now—

Clownmuffle ran home to her garage and locked herself inside. All her favorite things rose to meet her, from all walls hung a thick paste of posters, they showed everything: Magical Girl anime, children's cartoons, talking animated animals, cool optical illusions, M.C. Escher homes, fluorescent stickers, cubist artwork. Pretty pastel colors and stark black and white, many smiling faces, many warm images. Clownmuffle went straight to the bathroom and vomited.

Afterward, she felt better. She calmed down. She rolled on the hard stone floor (even the floor had posters, but beneath them was still hard stone) and her senses returned one by one. The pain lingered in her body, but dull now, forgettable if she thought of anything else. She pried the mangled ring from her finger and suffered a sharp pang to shift its form to Fabergé egg shape.

She crawled onto her mattress, placed the egg beside her, and burrowed deep into her blankets. She took out her phone, she needed a distraction, she went to MagNet.

MagNet was a forum for Magical Girls. Rumor claimed it would upgrade soon to a chatroom/social media interface, but back in 2008 when it went live free template message boards were popular and easy to administrate. Clownmuffle had been there from the getgo. Now it had a thousand users, fifty different boards. Boards for news, advice, romance, memes. Clownmuffle needed only one board, the one where Magical Girls posted pictures of themselves.

Six new threads. Four were more recent images of girls she had reviewed before (including a team shot of the Seattle girls—always a treat!), two were newcomers. Clownmuffle liked to build suspense, so she critiqued the veterans first. It was impossible for Magical Girls to change how their outfits looked, but sometimes better lighting or a more mature figure helped. Tradeoffs, though. Older girls gained sharpness, definition, angularity. But they also lost that joyous charm, that buoyant innocence, that cuteness. Overall, Clownmuffle appreciated Magical Girls of all shapes, sizes, ages, forms. She never made a critique such as, "I'm not fond of the 'White Mage' archetype as a concept." Always something more constructive, such as too much uniformity in design, too much fear to deviate.

It appears your Soul Gem has been damaged, said a somewhere Kyubey.

"Mm." Clownmuffle tapped her phone: While I find the palette a bold deviation from the traditional pastels of the 'Cotton Candy' archetype, what you gain in originality you sacrifice in legibility. This costume—

With this much damage, Miss Vizcarra, it'll be extremely painful for you to transform. In addition, even if you do transform, you risk damaging the gem—perhaps to a fatal extent. I don't recommend transforming for more than a few minutes per day.

—In addition, while the costume itself is a solid 5 out of 10, I have concerns about how well it fits your physique and complexion. Your sharp, arched cheekbones clash against the puffy, friendly arrangement, and your—

I'm trying to help you, Miss Vizcarra. If you don't formulate a strategy to deal with this handicap, you'll die.

Clownmuffle flung up her blankets and hurled her phone at Kyubey. She missed, it struck the floor beside him and bounced into oblivion. "I'll deal with it the way I always have!"

Sigh...

Her phone had landed in the corner. She crawled across the room to retrieve it. "If you're so concerned, tell me a Magical Girl who can fix it. There's gotta be someone somewhere who can heal a soul."

It's rare for a Soul Gem to be significantly damaged without breaking altogether, so it's also rare for a Magical Girl to have that kind of ability.

"Rare—but it exists. Someone."

There is one Magical Girl currently stationed in North America with the power to repair damaged Soul Gems. While it's not my policy to freely provide information about other Magical Girls, given your long record of model performance I would be willing to make an exception. However...

The however made Clownmuffle slump, she let the coldness of her hard stone posters seep into her face.

...The Magical Girl in question is also a veteran in good standing. I would jeopardize my relationship with her if I provided her information to a stranger.

"I assure you. You're jeopardizing. Your relationship with me. If you don't. Tell me."

Miss Vizcarra, you're highly likely to die soon, especially with your current attitude. It's illogical to sacrifice my ability to cooperate with a healthy and valuable Magical Girl over a damaged one.

Clownmuffle curled up.

Additionally, there's no guarantee this Magical Girl—who is something of a misanthrope—would agree to help even if I did tell you her location. And you've far surpassed the average life expectancy of a Magical Girl, so it's uncertain how much longer you would last even if you did repair your Soul Gem. No, the risks simply outweigh the benefits...

He talked more. He exhorted her to develop strategies for combat either untransformed or that only required her to transform a short time. He offered suggestions and described how Magical Girls in the past had dealt with such injuries. He was detailed, helpful, and totally useless.

Eventually he went away.

She deleted the fashion critique she had left half-finished on the cracked screen of her cellphone. Somewhere in North America existed a Magical Girl who could save her. Might this mystery girl frequent MagNet? Had Clownmuffle ever met her online? If she was a "misanthrope," maybe not. But maybe yes.

She left the Selfie board and for the first time ever opened the Help board. Even if the girl herself wasn't online, maybe someone who knew her was. She glanced over the existing topics. The most recent was by the main girl in Minneapolis, who had a 1 out of 10 hyper bland outfit, among the worst Clownmuffle had ever critiqued. Guh! Forget it, bad idea to post here. Besides, vultures circled this board. San Bernardino was crap territory but it was territory and girls not so fortunate would pique their ears if they heard a whispered cry for help.

And the witch girl. With the bend in her hat. She used MagNet too. Best not to broadcast weakness.

Clownmuffle had friends. People like her who liked to talk about costumes and the nice things Magical Girls did. She had a whole cadre, people she met on MagNet, all with beautiful outfits. She loved her friends, they were bright and passionate people, but could she trust them not to spread rumors?

After she stared paralyzed at the cracked screen an indeterminate period, she shook her head. Fear again. Who cared if vultures dropped, who cared if the bent-hat witch appeared in the shadow of her mirror? Clownmuffle was a spectacular Magical Girl. She didn't need to transform to trounce them all.

But every tendon under her skin had stretched to the point of snapping.

She said "Fuck it" out loud and almost opened a new topic on the Help board before she realized one other person she could ask, one person who knew everyone and what they did and where they lived.

Denver.

The girl in Denver owned and administrated MagNet. She had a dull costume but not the worst. She made announcement posts Clownmuffle never read and everyone apparently liked her. But come on. She ran a site with a thousand Magical Girls chatting about Magical Girl stuff, where they lived, what powers they had. No way benevolent Denver didn't Big Brother that intel into a spreadsheet somewhere. No way.

Clownmuffle sent Denver a simple message. She explained her situation and asked if Denver knew any Magical Girls who could repair a Soul Gem. The moment she hit Send, everything inside her erased and she felt as though the problem was already resolved. She had utmost faith in Denver. They rarely spoke, granted, but they knew each other's reputations. The veteran Magical Girls would help one another out. At their core, despite everything, Magical Girls were good people. Even the ones who did bad things—they had a harsh hand dealt. Clownmuffle had faith.

She critiqued the remaining new images and went to sleep.

—

Denver responded five days later, the day after Christmas. Clownmuffle made it through the days alive, the witch girl never showed up. Maybe Kyubey had terminated her, but he never confirmed it.

The message read: Dear San Bernardino, I may be able to find the girl you need, but for security reasons I would prefer to discuss in person. If it's not too inconvenient, would you visit me this weekend? I'll pay for transportation and provide grief cubes if necessary.

The river of providence speaking. She answered affirmative.

But when Denver sent her a plane ticket, the ticket didn't go to Denver. It went to St. Louis.

Note: I hope you enjoy. If you feel like it, follow IMBavitz on Twitter for updates, Fargo fan art, hot takes, and hotter drama.