First Time On the Job

Holly's character sheet: http://pastebin.com/wDt9hm96

First Time On the Job

I glare at the condemned building's front door. It doesn't noticeably react. Maybe the faded white paint on the wood panels flakes a little more, but it's still locked.

I can sense the monster inside, vaguely. It's like squinting but using your "third eye", whatever Puuchu meant by that. In actual terms and not magic ESP bullshit, it's like seeing a blob of malevolence and evil out of the corner of your vision, except that it's actually right in front of you and a bit to the left.

Point is, it's there, I'm here, and it probably isn't going to come out and leave quietly if I knock.

"Come on, Holly." I mutter to myself, head lowered and voice coming out as more of a shaky, quavery mumble. There's nothing wrong with the magically implanted name- my name, now- but I still haven't managed to shake that momentary disconnect where I feel like I'm giving the wrong answer by using it. I still can't quite get my head around this whole thing, or that this IS my life now. I'd probably be lost without Puuchu's help, and isn't that a joke after what happened?

Not helping. One problem at a time. The door. The monster inside this abandoned old house. Stopping it before it hurts anyone. Superhero stuff.

"You've got this." I tell myself, voice still quiet. "Think superhero thoughts. Superhero."

That helps, a bit.

Head lowered and looking down at myself, I have to admit that "Amelia Earhart" meets "schoolgirl uniform" wasn't quite the first thing to come to mind when I thought "superhero", but hey, close enough, right? And between this and wearing a cape with my underwear on the outside? This is slightly less embarrassing to walk around in when I look like this. Slightly. I wouldn't have turned down body armor instead even if it isn't "heroic". Or keeping my original body, for that matter.

That's not helping. I need to focus. That monster's probably still in there, and Puuchu says it'll EAT people if someone doesn't do something. I really don't need to know that I let that happen. It's not like this is really breaking and entering anyway.

Enough stalling. It's showtime. Think superhero thoughts. Superhero. Holly Ward, Superhero.

I put my bag down to pull on my goggles. Yes, goggles. Don't laugh, they really do work. The world takes on a faint yellow tint, but details seem slightly sharper and clearer.

"O-okay, jackass! Hope you're ready in there! Because I'm coming in!" I start to say, managing to force myself to yell as loudly as I can manage. Which, judging by the way the shouting echoes up and down the street, is actually pretty loud. Huh. Good thing this neighborhood's one where you don't want to draw too much attention to yourself, and no one's around to hear it. Or maybe everyone in the area's been been eaten already.

I'm not really trying to give it a warning so much as hype myself up, but it's not really working. Screw it, enough mind games. Let's get this over with.

"Knock knock!"

I kick the door. I'm not sure why I thought that was a good idea, since the door's still there and now my foot hurts. A lot. The next three seconds are spent hopping on one foot, making incoherent pained noises.

The second time, I do the smart thing, step back, and just blast the door with my magic. There's a crackle of ozone and a zapping noise, and the door vanishes in a cloud of black smoke and splinters as a bright fork of lightning burns it away. My goggles mean I don't need to look away, but a mouthful of the black smoke sends me coughing.

As soon as I'm done hacking up my lungs (paint and smoke taste vile, by the way), I'm rushing in before my nerves can kick in again, lightning rod in hand. I grip the metal rod a bit tighter as I stumble down the dusty, dimly-lit hallway. For a welded-together clump of tarnished metal that I can hold one-handed, the lightning rod Puuchu called my "focus" packs quite a punch. Puuchu helped me practice for a while. Wonder how they'll explain away the craters in the car park pavement? The practice was actually pretty fun, but the important part is that I'd figured out how to zap things and leave craters in them. Hopefully, that'll at least annoy whatever this thing is.

This one's the right door. The signal's so strong that I can feel it pulsing, constantly. Feed me. Hungry. Kill. Eat.

I swallow a sudden surge of nausea, and get ready for the fun part. No more games. No more screw ups. I'm going to stop my first monster and do it right.

I take a second look at the door, point my lightning conductor at it, and yell out my party trick's nickname.

"Saint Elmo's Light!"

A ball of blue lightning streaks out of the rod, crackling and burning as it explodes against the door, burning it away and flying into the room inside.

There's a scream inside, and for one second my blood freezes as I think I've made a horrible mistake right after what got me into this mess. Then the scream continues, the pitch too high and inhuman to ever have come from a human throat, and carrying on for far too long. My legs shake, and for a second, I want to run. If you want to judge me for that, you should try listening to one of those things sometime. Humans just KNOW that something like that shouldn't exist in their universe, and it spooks them. Magical girls aren't entirely immune either.

The monster scuttles out from out of the darkness before I can do anything but stand there. From the waist up, it looks like a person, if a person was made from clockwork cogs and cloth and had a porcelain mask where their face should be. Blood's dripping from the mouthpiece, and it's still wailing as it scuttles forwards on too many legs. Probably not a monstergirl. Just a monster. A "normal" monster.

Good. I'm here to kill monsters.

I hurt it, I think. Its jointed legs are carrying it towards me-and fast- but two or three of them are hanging limply at its side. It has someone's half-eaten, visibly-gnawed head in its hands, so savaged I can't even tell who it might have belonged to. I notice that detail last, somehow. I won't even think about it again until much later.

It's wearing a grubby, off-white shawl that has some nice singe marks after my door call, and its still visibly smoldering. It has two extra arms ending in metallic crab-like pincers, but one of them's missing its claw entirely and is a useless stump. That's the good news.

The bad news is that its still alive, its angry, and it wants to kill me. And in this narrow corridor, there's no room for me to dodge. In short, I should probably run. But that's not why I'm here.

"Hi! I'm the exterminator!" I smile brightly, and raise my rod as it lunges. I don't bother with a called attack this time. Just regular lightning, and lots of it.

The air splits open, and blue-white arcs of magical electricity surge into the creature. It jerks, flailing wildly. I have to duck under a spasm of its crab clawed arm, and feel a tug at my hair. I don't have time to worry about that now. I need to kill this thing, fast.

I throw myself back with inhuman speed as it starts to recover, and the breath leaves my body in a gasp as I hit the wall at my back. It's still twitching when I start shocking it again, faster this time. It hasn't stopped screaming since the first attack.

"Saint Elmo's Light! Saint Elmo's light!" I scream right back, then add a phrase that seemed fitting just because. "POWER! ABSOLUTE POWER!"

The clockwork drider twitches, its spasming becoming continuous, then slowing. The air's suddenly filled with a foul, plastic smell that has nothing to do with the ozone. Its shawl is on fire now, and its stopped moving. There's a loud pop, and the porcelain mask shatters to reveal half-melted clockwork underneath.

Abruptly, I feel my magic run out. I waver, then collapse against the wall, panting for breath. I struggle to look up. If the monster's still alive...If it can still MOVE...

It's not moving. It's in a gently steaming pile of gears and ashes on the floor. As I watch, there's a liquid, sloshing noise, and the heap collapses into formless, black sludge...and then nothing. It's gone. It's dead. I've done it.

Holly Ward's just killed her first monster.

"Ha! Not...not so tough now, are ya?" I gasp, trying to cheer. It feels righteous. Justified. Like I'm doing something that matters.

Its a good feeling.