luck and a smile

Shitty little dive bar. That was new. Never been much for drinking, and this sure as hell didn’t look like somewhere I’d been dragged to before. It had that kind of personal, old timey touch you can’t find in Santa Destroy. It was comforting. Warm. Maybe not pristine, with the heavy burn of old smoke and cheap liquor in the air, but…untouched. Three phantoms sat on the stools, talking and laughing in old and distorted voices, memories washed away by time. …It was easy to pick Kharn out. It’d always be easy to pick Kharn out. Next to her was Kong. Was probably a pretty old memory, she didn’t seem anything like Kong as I’d seen her. And on Kong’s other side was Malal. …I could believe that. Malal probably found this place. Serving the three of them was a reedy shadow, almost human, with a long, beaklike nose. Its eyes pulsed an eerie red as it craned its neck toward me, and we exchanged a silent nod.

…That one was mine.

My knife was in my hand in an instant – more out of habit than concern. If there was a reason to be concerned, I’d know. The floor was soundless under me as I made my way to the bar and took a seat next to ‘Kharn’. The voices didn’t get any louder or clearer, and filtering it through Japanese was a pain, but I could recognize her barking, unintelligible accent, at least.

Jumped a little when the bartender grabbed my wrist. She jumped, too, when I stabbed hers a second later. …Didn’t have the patience for their bullshit. Something was about to go down, I could feel it, and that warranted my attention a fuckload more than the same old night-to-night game of cat and asshole. The bartender’s scream filled the air, piercing and inhuman, like every other time Eversor Diplomacy had invaded my dreams, and the whole bar seemed to break apart, the memories next to me fizzling and dying. The smoky smell was replaced by an all-too-familiar rotting stench. Blood and death. With accompaniment by about a hundred flies.

Told her to get me some fucking whiskey if she wanted to stick around, and found a drink in my hand a second later. Not like it mattered. Couldn’t even get buzzed in a dream, not that I wanted to anyway. …It was pretty good whiskey, though. And the only thing the damn place seemed to have.

After a nice, long drag, I took a look at the suddenly-fucked bar. The quiet melody of the old jukebox in the corner had lapsed into eerie silence, and its cheerful light flickered, barely powered. The whole place had turned…dusty, I guess. It wasn’t natural light. Sort of like staring at the world through an old, dirty TV screen.  The scuffed wood flooring wasn’t visible at all, though in clear view, as if each had its own dim spotlight, were…bodies. Corpses, lots of them.

Wish I could say I didn’t recognize a few. …It’d always be easy to pick Kharn out. There was Mickey Blueberry, with some girl in red clutching her. …Maybe she’d hugged her to death or something. And…there was also Miss Tomoe’s costume, filled out by Miss Tomoe’s chest. …Looked like her head was gone, though. Like somebody cut it off to make a statement. Sounds like something we’d do.

Or kept it as a trophy. She had a nice head, I guess.
I heard the door open about then. …But it was probably just a noise. Doubt the door there even opened. It was pretty obvious who it was just by the less-than-subtle signs her mind was giving me, but I figured I’d have to wait around until things got worse to hear from her. If she even showed at all. Kind of a nice surprise.

So I did the ladylike thing and offered to buy her a drink. I was a little relieved just to hang around someone who wasn’t completely batfuck crazy or way, way too energetic, anyway.

“Anyone can buy me a drink,” she mumbled back. Didn’t take her eyes off me for a second, like she already thought I was going to open her up. “but they should at least have the courtesy to tell me who the hell they are, and where the hell this is.”

Cheeky bitch. …Kind of reminds me of me. That probably shouldn’t be a surprise, though. I gave her my name and called the shady bartender over again.

I couldn’t help but laugh as she mumbled out her astonishment at her drink’s sudden appearance. Kid wasn’t a dreamer. Or maybe normal people don’t have dreams like this. Hell if I know.

Told her not to worry about it. Trying to figure out dream logic is probably the quickest way to give yourself a seizure, anyway. I did my best to lay it out for her – we were in one of our dreams, God knows whose. …I could tell by the way she looked that she didn’t remember me, but apparently she was to amnesia what Annie was to shitty nerd conventions. Least, that’s what they said about her. She pretty much confirmed it a second later.

It’s alright, I told her. Job’s tough on all of us. Harder than most on us. Heh. We had a little toast, to a reunion.

…Thought I caught a sweet scent in the air. Smelled like death and a flower field, and it was…fresher, somehow, than the rest of the room. Might have been the Lady poking her head in to check on her Shieldmaiden. Might have been her keeping tabs on me. …Might have just been an old, stupid memory springing up, the kind you think of whenever you meet someone like you. A fellow monster.
Warmaster Marigold asked me three questions the first day I became a magical girl. Guess she asked anyone she thought might be promising. They’re questions I answered pretty easily back then, but lately I’ve been thinking about them again. I had a hunch about the new Kong, too. Seemed like she had to sort her shit out.

Asked her if she liked hurting people. …It was a requirement to get into the Warmaster’s Special School. She only took in a special kind of crazy bitch. Someone bloodthirsty, someone who’d come hunting for her later. Someone who would get off on it like she did. Someone who would sit and drool at the idea of carving her fucking chest open.

Yeah. I like hurting people.

…The second…Heh. The second question Marigold asked us was whether we understood flowers. I didn’t. …Always thought there might be more to it, but the only person I’d ever seen think about it was Malal. …She was like that. Ten steps ahead and five feet deeper than anyone else in the room.  I remembered Kong’s phone from other dreams – little flashes of using it, struggling with a diary app. Used to be Malal’s, see. Probably set it up with a bunch of riddle bullshit. Wouldn’t be surprised if she was still trying to cover asses from way past six feet under. Yeah. I had a better question than…flowers. Least I could do, after all the time we spent in shitty dives like this one, dragging our bosses’ drunk, bleeding bodies home together.

When the Warmaster asked the third question, it was a threat. …So that’s how I asked it, too. I needed to know about her. About the Shieldmaiden, about the Blessed Lady’s Chosen One. …Needed to know if we were really just an offering for their moonlit blood-orgy hate date.

A Mexican standoff is like sex. It’s amazing when it’s happening. …Then a few minutes afterward, it’s just messy and awkward. My knife cried out as it sunk into her throat, in that special way only a weapon you’ve got a long, dirty history with can. …I was impressed at her speed. Vindicares are usually slower up close. Usually just try to put some distance between you. She really was a Warmaster, and I couldn’t help but smile as her desert eagle took out most of my head.

Wasn’t my first Vindicare Makeover in recent memory, and I could only hope it’d be my last. I could still feel it as I crashed into the jukebox, shorting the whole damn thing out. Everything was dark, and sort of wet, and the phantom pain I knew from my dreams overwhelmed my body. I tried to talk, but all that came out was a wet hiss, and as the air lightened around us, I knew she was gone.

…Managed to push myself to my feet, and that was when the jukebox started to sputter.

...pillars in the night…

I recognized Annie’s ringtone. Glanced around, though it didn’t do any good. Pretty sure another chunk of my brain fell out. It was a decidedly weird feeling, even for a dream.

…guide your way…endless trial…

---

Always tempt your fate with luck and a smi-

“Goddammit, how d’ya even answer this friggin’ thing?” Something soft under my head…and as I opened my eyes, I saw some big blobby looking thing with a ribbon - the design on one of Annie’s shirts. Seemed like she’d dressed down for a change.

…Felt nice, just laying there. Still felt like my head had been blown off, in a distant, airy way. I rolled over a little so I wouldn’t have to look at the weird blob thing. Sounded like she was talking with Nakajima – I could hear her giggling at Annie swearing into the phone, and her voice. Guess they needed to talk about a trip to Siberia.

Right at that moment, though, it was really hard to care. Knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep, but I wanted to pretend a little while longer.