Magical Girl Sora, Episode/Issue 1

Above the world’s skies, star lights begin to die as a terrible darkness descends upon the world, in the form of a giant, flying battleship.  Missiles fall from the sides en masse, bursting in midair and releasing alien creatures and robots. There were so many, not even the sun’s rays could penetrate through the thick cloud.

When all hope seemed lost, though, something does penetrate the cloud with star-shaped bombs and missles. Humanity’s saviors, the Magical Girls, have arrived to stop the menace that plagues their planet! With an impressive armament and the capacity to survive blows that would easily kill a normal human being, several have risen to the occasion to protect their world from devestation. Machine gun fire, laser beams, and scarlet flames break through the ranks of these alien invaders as they make their way towards the battleship.

For a moment, there was hope. The magical girls would prevail… wouldn’t they?

And then there was a big flash of light….


In the very, very distant future, the world is bleak. The war between the girls and the aliens took its toll, leaving the planet scarred and desolate. The people have forgotten what a blue sky looks like, nevermind the sun. It is always cold, the winds sometimes blowing ashes all about the place. The remains of civilization now live in underground bunkers, using the remains of their advanced technology to create artificial food and purify their water sources. It wasn’t just for the humans, either; it was for all the livestock and animals they managed to bring with them in their migration underground.

They had to survive… but they knew that eventually, the technology may fail them. They had to reclaim the surface somehow and restore it to its former glory. And so, they began to search for a way…


The base is lively one day as a blonde girl hurries to the markets to get ingredients for dinner. Many people recognize her and wave as she passes them by. She stops to stare at some of the metal sculptures of the old Magical Girls: Altarius the Rose Maiden, Tsubaki the Blue Royal, Yumeki the Moon Angel, and Reina the Shooting Star. These four brave women rose up to the occasion and protected the world from complete anihillation. They at least gave humanity a chance to retreat and hide underground.

Sora isn’t paying attention to the long praise written on the plaque underneath: she’s paying attention to their pretty clothes: their long dresses, their hair styled in ribbons, their elaborate gloves and shoes... Her eyes sparkle as she imagines herself, frolicking in the skies in a dress, feeling the wind brush against her hair…

She’s startled right out of her daydream when someone pokes her from behind. When she hears that person giggle, she turns around to face them and sees a brown haired woman waving at her.  “Hey, don’t scare me like that, Sham!” she says, flailing her arms about.

“Aw, but you look so cute when you get flustered,” Sham chuckles. “But enough about that, Sora! How have you beeeen~?”

Sora and Sham talk about recent events and happenings back with their families. More notably, Sham mentions that her family found pictures of an old barn their ancestors had back before the invasion. She pulls it out for Sora to marvel at them: she had never seen anything so bright and vibrant, with cows, sheep, and chickens aside from in storybooks and fairy tales!

“You’re so lucky that you have anything like this, Sham,” Sora tells her friend. “My family doesn’t even have much from the past, aside from a tin can full of sewing supplies.”

Sham smiles at her friend and replies, “Well, maybe just a little lucky! I kind of wonder if it’s still out there… and if we can move back in one day. We’d have to fix everything up and bring everybody back first, though!”

Eventually, the two are approached by two women in military outfits, as well as a mysterious-woman with long, blue hair and spectacles. Sham immediately stands in front of Sora, glaring at the woman and yelling, “What do YOU guys want?”

“Your cooperation,” replies the blue haired woman, “but if you refuse, I suppose I’ll have to find someone else for my experiment.”

Sora immediately thinks of someone on a table, strapped down and screaming as this woman went to town with a scalpel. She watched enough horror movies to know what happens during experiments with humans. Sham, on the other hand, is suddenly curious.

“What experiment?”

“Oh, now you’re curious? I thought you might ask.” The woman smiles, looking at the two girls. Sora can’t tell if she’s being malicious or not. “Well, let’s get straight to the point, shall we?

Would you like to become a Magical Girl?”


Sora stood in a big, elaborate computer room, watching people monitor the surface with droids capable of withstanding the cold. She couldn’t bear to look at the desolate areas for more than a few minutes at a time. When she couldn’t handle it anymore, she just turned back to that mysterious, locked door behind her.

Sham and Sora were escorted to the base’s lab after Sham blurted out, “OF COURSE I WANT TO BE A MAGICAL GIRL!” to that weird blue-haired lady. How long had it been since Sham went into that room? Maybe an hour, two hours? How much longer would Sora have to wait for her? She still had groceries she had to get to her parents. Why didn’t she drop them off earlier?

No sooner did she wonder about that did Sham come out, holding a strange, jingle bell-shaped object as big as her palm. Sham didn’t look too happy at all, and neither did that mysterious woman. Sora couldn’t tell who was more disappointed than the other.

“Give it time,” the woman says to Sham. “I’ve heard that some girls take about three days before the artifact awakens their talents.”

Sham whirled towards her and snapped, “But we don’t have that kind of time, do we?”

“Unfortunately, no. I can’t wait more than two days before trying someone else,” the woman admits. “We need to use this power more than ever, sooner rather than later. Before our planet dies… and we die with it.”

Those words echo through Sora’s mind as she heads back home with Sham, taking a few casual glances at the strange object her friend held in her hands. Sham notices and says quietly, “I’m not really supposed to talk about this with anyone else… but it’s a really cool thing! They told me it’s an actual magical girl artifact they found years ago! They tried finding out the source of power, but… well, it wouldn’t be as MAGICAL if it wasn’t powered by magic, right? If someone could use this, they would have the power of creation at their fingertips! They could bring the planet back to life, slowly but surely… just like magic!” Sham most definitely noticed Sora staring at the object, then hands it over to her. “Here, you can look all you like! Who knows: you might even have the potential!”

When Sora finally arrives home, Sham takes her leave. After making dinner and chatting with her parents over small things, she heads to bed, holding the bell in her hands and staring at it.

This thing held so much power… the power to create. There was so much they didn’t know about it, though. What if it did something different? What if it didn’t create, but destroyed? They needed to do more studying before they shoved it onto just any girl. They sounded a bit too sure of its potential…

Even with those cynical thoughts plaguing her, though, Sora fell asleep and dreamed of flying through those dark skies, over mountains, over oceans, flying until she found where Sham’s ancestors used to live. Dreaming that with an elaborate dance, she brought the area back to life, complete with cows and sheep and chickens. And the skies… they cleared, revealing the vibrant blue beyond.

And in her sleep, the bell began to glow.


The next day, Sora and Sham met up in the local garden, Sora watching as her friend tried several different poses with the bell in hand. None of them activate the bell’s power in the least, much to Sham’s annoyance, but Sora enjoys the performance nonetheless and claps. After a few more tries, Sham admits that maybe she should have stayed up watching old videos of the Magical Girls kicking butt. After all, they came before them! They knew how to activate their artifacts’ power easily!

Before Sham could try something else, alarms blare throughout the facility. “I didn’t think my transformation sequence dance was THAT bad!” she says as she covers her ears. Reports come in and reveal that a familiar enemy has arrived and is en route to their facility: the aliens. Everyone is scrambling to get home as the military mobilizes.

“How in the world did they find us?” Sham asked nobody in particular, more than just a little worried. “Are they here to rub their victory in our face?!” She looked at the bell and frowned as she grumbled, “If only I could transform…!”

With the aliens on their way, Sora and Sham rush along with the crowds to get home. Already, they could hear thumping against the walls and the sound of something breaking through. They could hear the gunfire, the flamethrowers, the ‘SKREEEEEE’ of those creatures. Somewhere along the way, Sham drops the bell, unable to get it back as the crowds threaten to trample her if she even tries to go against the grain. Sora sees it and rushes to get it in spite of such. It hurt so much to get stepped on, but as long as that thing was safe… then humanity would have a reason to hold hope, right?

And maybe… just maybe… Sham would be able to see where her ancestors grew up.

When the crowds are gone, Sora struggles to get back on her feet and find Sham. Unfortunately, one of the aliens’ mechanical fiends has found her. The robot scans her and detects the magical energy the bell has and determines that Sora’s a magical girl. Magical girls won against them. Therefore, she must be exterminated. Sora scrambles to her feet as the robot tries blasting her with energy beams and missiles, chasing her down mercilessly in its attempts to stop her. Sora ducked under missile fire and barely avoided a giant, mechanical fist… but there was only so much running she could do.

Her stamina failed her as she collapsed to the ground, clutching the bell close to her chest as the robot approached her. As it charged up a massive beam from its hands, tears welled up and ran across Sora’s cheeks. Sham couldn’t do anything, so what good could she even do now with the bell? She’s useless. She can’t protect her friend, her family, everybody in the facility, or humanity. She wasn’t anything like the Magical Girls. She was just human.

But… if nothing else, she could protect the bell, right? Then someone would become that person. That protector. And they’d bring life back and help Sham find the broken barn and make the sky all blue again and the sun come back-

As the beam fired, the bell glowed brightly… and swallowed Sora in its bright light. A shield materialized around her and deflected the beam.

When Sora thought of transformation sequences, she thought it would be elaborate. Not just ‘light swallows you up and viola you are a magical girl!’ Nor did she think she’d just be in something plain like a pink sweater and some shorts. Granted, the sweater had the bell hanging from the middle, but still! When the robot fired again, though, Sora knew… Knew that from the moment they hit her, from the moment she didn’t feel as much pain from it as before… she was most definitely a magical girl.

“I… I’ll protect everyone. I won’t let you hurt them anymore!”

With incredible speed at her disposal, she dodged lasers and missles and mechanical fists with ease. She even managed to zip behind the robot and make the robot’s homing missiles hit itself! Then, with a flourish, she tried to conjure some super magical trademark weapon. When that didn’t work, though, she meekly asked a military officer if she could borrow their beam rifle for a bit, then zipped circles around the robot as she blasted it to heaven come.

It certainly wasn’t a very graceful first victory… but it worked. The military seized control of the robot’s control pod, hauling whatever was in it to prison for interroation. Whatever other aliens that were alive retreated completely after noticing their robot failed in their mission. Good thing, too! Sora wasn’t sure if she could handle more of them.

In the end, Sora tells Sham all about it. Sham is absolutely estatic: “Wow, my best friend is a MAGICAL GIRL!” she said a few times before giving Sora a puzzled look. “By the way, why are you still transformed?”

“Um… I don’t know? I didn’t transform back, and nothing I did changed that, so…”

“That’s weird. Maybe the scientists will know about it?”

Regardless, Sora and Sham helped themselves to a hearty meal after a victory like that. Sora was a little concerned about the power of the bell… after all, she knew only a tiny fraction of its power. One step at a time, though. She wouldn’t do much good if all she did was worry about it, right?

And in the lab…

“Ma’am, our project worked!”

“So it did. Not with the right test subject, though, but it worked. Finally, a true magical girl in several years. Now we’ll definitely have a chance against them.”

“But what about the others?”

“That… that’ll be problematic. We’ll have to deal with them when we get there. First, though… We have to help our girl with her powers.

It’ll be our first step to protecting our world.”


END.

NEXT TIME ON MAGICAL GIRL SORA:

It’s almost time for training! Sora gets ready for battle and purification! And a big ol’ shopping spree! But can Sora handle the power of the Bell? Can she figure out how to bring life back to the surface? And can she find out how to change into even cuter clothes?!?

Find out NEXT TIME on MAGICAL GIRL SORA!