One-Up

"And now we'd like to invite the Warmaster to the podium for her anniversary speech."

...and that's your cue. You get up from your seat and walk up to the podium.

You are a magical girl. Not just any magical girl, but one of the elite - a Warmaster, a highly capable and dangerous individual deemed fit to lead a thousand walking nukes inhabiting the bodies of teenage girls. You'd somehow lived long enough to make it to the Officio's annual anniversary party - without being impeached, and without the whole operation going under and the Incubator asking for your head on a platter. You're still not sure how you managed to keep the position this long, let alone how you got it in the first place, between an aversion to sobriety and a newfound phobia of paperwork. But you figure you could just try to relax for the night. You might even enjoy the festivities if you managed to get drunk enough.

"Good evening, ladies and mutant alien cats," you begin, clearing your throat before you continue, "I don't have speech prepared, but I'll try to make this a fast as possible."

That was a technically a lie. Sayaka's pre-written speech, badly crumpled, is stuffed haphazardly in your greatcoat.

"I think one lecture is more than enough for tonight."

This elicits a few laughs from the dining hall. One girl in particular - a guffawing redhead seated at a table closest to the stage - nearly falls off her chair. You begin to feel the keen sensation of your blue-haired equerry staring daggers at you.

"On the contrary, I'd like to start this off with a party trick."

Those idiomatic daggers begin to approximate swords. Undaunted, you press on.

"Everyone, please pass your soul gem to the girl sitting on your left."

--

You are a magical girl. Or at least, you were, until you were kidnapped by a mad scientist who tried to graft witch flesh onto your body. Since then you'd been stuck at some kind of halfway point between a witch and a magical girl - a Maerorus, you believed the term was. To be fair, there was the one time you witched out completely and came back through sheer force of will, but you’d rather not recall the whole incident.

Because remembering really hurts. And it hurts often, when everything around you serves only as a reminder of your failure.

Despite this you haven’t lost your gusto for life. No, you’d vowed never to wallow in sorrow, nor to drown yourself in selfish thoughts of despair. Not when you'd been sentenced to live - to live and to make the best of your remaining years, by the Warmaster herself.

And if you could be honest with yourself, living was worth it sometimes.

Times like this, when you sit across your outwardly undependable - but no less lovable husband - sharing a simple, home-cooked dinner in your remote Siberian outpost.

You are comfortable. Vulnerable, close and warm. Warm, despite the blizzard raging without - and the one raging within. Your eyes meet his as you look up from your plate of bear. Wordlessly, he refills your glass of orange juice a few seconds later.

You'd have preferred vodka. But he's forbidden you from taking another sip for now - something about 'fetal alcohol syndrome' and making sure your kids didn't come out ‘stupid and crazy like their mother’. Better than being ‘stupid and no-fun like their father’, you'd retorted.

But that was besides the point. The point was that you were pregnant - blessed with child. Twins, in fact - two fragile young lives growing within you, growing in strength with each passing moment. The news of their conception was the greatest surprise you’d had in years. At once it had seemed as though the world had become that much brighter, and that the Warmaster’s decree was no impossible request. You could only dream of the day you’d carry them in your own two arms. Oh, you'd make warriors of them yet.

The other huge surprise you’d been dealt was your husband’s ability to stand the morning after your joint ‘forays into science’. Sure, he complained of all manner of wimpy afflictions, from bruised flesh to backaches, but simply being able to get out of bed meant he was above the norm of all your past conquests. Maybe when the two of you finally got around to that honeymoon you could teach him to vanquish blondes. Australia, maybe. The girls there should be as wild as you remembered. And you'd be able to catch up with Lehman Russ - she probably had more advice on the whole motherhood thing.

You lick your lips at the thought, and it's here that your phone beeps. You retrieve it from your skirt pocket, with a learned dexterity that prevents you from shredding your clothes with your bladed fingers.

'1 New Message', comes the upsetting notice.

Curious. You hardly ever get messages. Any correspondence you have nowadays you are content to conduct through emails and calls. You quickly unlock the phone, anxious for the mysteries it guards.

You are soon greeted with a picture of what seems to be an Officio's worth of magical girls, their faces warped with the familiar look of orgasmic pleasure. In the foreground stands your successor, the current Warmaster. Two fingers extend across her lips, cradling a freshly-kindled cigarette, failing to conceal the smirk on her face, dyed a messy scarlet by the blood gushing from her nose.

"Beat your high score."

Your husband interrupts your laughter to ask what exactly you find so funny.

"Oh nothing," you manage to spit between cackles, "But we need to book flights to Australia soon."