Magical March 15
Maiden de Mer
Mark A Davis
326
"I feel like a fool," said Fairy Princess Foxglove as she flew beside Fairy Princess Bluebell. The two were nearly identical -- winged girl girls in colorful dresses with a flower theme. Bluebell's was a violet blue, while Foxglove's was magenta pink. Neither girl matched the traditional image of a flower fairy, that of a slender, nearly anorexic waif. They skimmed above the trees of a dense forrest not far from their home in Eugene OR. It was a reasonably sunny day, with just a few fluffy clouds in the sky, but something up ahead was casting a shadow over the woods.
"Perhaps," replied Bluebell, "someone shouldn't have eaten a dream pill that was not intended for them, or even to be edible. It was designed to be applied to the skin, and it was supposed to give me information and abilities which you got instead. I'm still angry about that, by the way. I need that knowledge and those abilities to fight the emissaries of the Dark Adversary. Turning you into a fairy magical girl to fight alongside me was really the only solution...."
"Becoming a magical girl is the entire problem..." Foxglove began.
"Oh, hush," said Bluebell. "You're quite cute. We look like twins! also, getting to work with my big brother/sister is...."
Foxglove came to a stop. "Hold up," she said. "It's up ahead."
"Where that shadow is?" asked Bluebell. Foxglove nodded. "You can sense it?"
"Yeah."
"Man, I wish I could," Bluebell said. "You stole that ability from me!"
"We can argue about that later," said Foxglove. "For now, concentrate."
She flew down into the trees, with Bluebell trailing after. The two of them were quite nimble flyers, able to hover or dart about like dragonflies. Their flight was, of course, magically enhanced -- such wings could never support humans, or even human-sized fairies.
In the center of the woods stood a black humanoid with no face. It was nearly twenty feet tall, and was made of a flowing, dripping black substance like India ink. Where the liquid splashed onto the ground, plants withered and died.
It had no eyes, but turned towards them as they entered the clearing. A ragged hole appeared in the head, a ragged maw where a mouth should be. The creature screamed silently.
"Ick!" Bluebell exclaimed. "What the Hades is that?"
"Fairy Princess Foxglove, Air Lance!" Foxglove called out. Silver spears appeared in the air, shimmering, only half-seen, as if they were made of glass or cellophane, formed from the air itself. They shot forward, piercing the inky creature.
"Nice one, Foxglove!" Bluebell called out. But the holes in the creature flowed together and vanished as soon as they appeared.
"Fairy Princess Bluebell, Air Pressure Handclap!" Bluebell brought her hands together as if squashing a mosquito. At the same moment, air pressure flattened the creature from two sides, as if it were caught between her palms. It looked quite painful, but moments later the creature reformed. By all appearances it was completely unaffected by the attack.
"Crap," Bluebell said. "That's one of my best attacks! Are we even hurting it?"
"No," said a new voice. Sita, their magical girl guide floated nearby. She was a floating ball of fur with brown eyes and rabbit ears. "You cannot destroy this creature by air pressure along, nor any blunt force attacks...."
"Fairy Princess Foxglove, Final Attack: Air Tornado Wings!" Foxglove called out. She flew forward and spun about, faster and faster, creating a tornado of swirling air that enveloped the inky creature. Black liquid splattered everywhere, killing plant life all throughout the clearing. It also splashed on Bluebell, where it burned like acid.
"Ow!" Bluebell exclaimed. "Crap, that hurts!"
"That scattered it!" Foxglove exclaimed in triumph. But in the next moments black ink flowed together, reforming the creature.
"Well, Bat Dung," Foxglove exclaimed. "How do we kill this thing?"
Ropy tentacles of shadowy ink whipped out, slamming into the magical girls with full force. Bluebell crashed into a tree while Foxglove was driven into the ground.
"As I said, you cannot defeat this creature with your air attacks," Sita said. "Foxglove, you have knowledge of the Dark Adversary's minions. You ought to know what this creature is."
Fairy Princess Foxglove scrambled out of a deep divot in the earth. As her sister darted around the creature, keeping it busy, she brushed leaves and soil from herself, then concentrated on the inky humanoid. Her brow furrowed. "I remember now," she said. "This one is called an enquehommein, literally a man of ink. It is impervious to smashing, cutting, and piercing attacks, but can be diluted and dissolved." She shook her head suddenly and added, "That's... weird. If I concentrate, suddenly all that information surfaces from deep within my head...."
"The bad news," said Sita, "is that all of your attacks are air-based. They do damage by smashing, by shredding, by pulling things apart or squishing them together. None of that is going to be effective.
"The good news, however, is that I brought along your new companion...."
A dark-skinned girl in an aquamarine dress charged into the clearing. "Mermaid Princess Nisha, Waterspout Blast!" she called out. Her hand came down as if she were punching the ground. Water burst upwards around the inky creature -- the enquehommein. The creature flailed as the water diluted it, washing it away bit by bit.
"Mermaid Princess Nisha, Final Attack: Localized Tsunami!" the newcomer cried out. Water rose up and enveloped the creature. It swirled about angrily, a tsunami wave confined to a single spot. Nearly a minute later the water retreated, soaking into the ground. The creature was no more.
"Wonderful job, girls!" Sita exclaimed, hovering over the clearing. "Excellent work! Now, going forward, you three must work together to...."
She paused as a bell tone chimed. A holographic image of two cats -- one white, one a tabby with wings -- appeared in the air before her. "Yes, what is it?" Sita asked. Although the fur ball that was Sita had no mouth, it was somehow clear that she was frowning and very annoyed.
"Sita!" the tabby said. "It's Icarus and Lakshmi. You remember -- your partners?"
"Yes, of course," Sita said.
"It's been two days," said Icarus. "We were wondering what was up."
"Oh..." Sita replied, glancing at the three magical girls waiting nearby. "Nothing much...." Suddenly she looked more nervous than annoyed.
"We sent you to investigate the bat and bunny show," said Icarus, "and you haven't reported back...."
"I..." said Sita. "A few things came up. I've been working with some new recruits... didn't you get my message?"
"Oh," said Sita. "Um... you... did? Without consulting me?"
"Yes, we did," Icarus said. "You'd already done all the setup work, remember? We went with the name you'd picked out: Fairy Princess Bluebell, only slightly altered to match a magical boy. But when we tried to register Fairy Prince Bluebell, we were informed that a Fairy Princess Bluebell had already been registered within the last twenty-four hours...."
Sita sighed. "Ah, yes, she said, "well, about that...."
FINI
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