(2025 Edit) Technomancer: A Magical Girl's Sidekick [Post-Apocalyptic][Mecha][Magical Girls]

Idiot.

The word pounded in my head harder than the pain in my arm.

I should have seen it. I should never have left myself open. Not against a Duke. Not against anything. But I did. And now here I was bow gone, arm screaming, body slammed into the ground and in the jaws of a massive chaos beast.

The strongest Magical Girl in the American Northeast. The shining star 'Celestial Sonata,' and I'd been torn up and ragdolled like some rookie in her first outing.

I gritted my teeth and forced air into my lungs. I could still fight. I had to still fight.

The wind rushed past me as I forced my mana into my arm, reinforcing my luminal aura as the beast thrashed and slammed me against the pavement again and again. Bone cracked somewhere in my shoulder, but I locked my jaw and held.

If I screamed, if I faltered even an instant and let my concentration slip, I was dead.

The taste of copper filled my mouth.

I poured more energy into my aura, searing away the pain until my vision blurred white. The monster's teeth scraped sparks against the barrier of light, its breath like molten iron. It wanted to drag me down, crush me, break me apart for good.

Not happening. I flared my aura again, forcing the beast's jaws open just wide enough to wrench myself free.

I hit the ground hard, stumbling on one knee, my hastily created reinforcement dissolving into useless fragments of light.

My arm was a wreck, my chest heaving, but I was still standing. Alive.

"Voix Clairvoyante."

I flared my echolocation technique, pinpointing their shouts and screams.

I'd let my guard down, just for a moment, and I wasn't about to take my eyes off the monster again. Call it luck, call it a second sense, but I knew /her/ voice anywhere. And the boy from Earth who'd been my only real friend and companion since I'd come back to Shoreline City. I'd heard the princess's shout and the boy's desperate call.

The boy. The idiot, the moron. The stupid, foolish, reckless, suicidal—

The dragon screeched, its maw gaping and fangs stained red as more balefire formed in its throat.

And it lunged.

But my bow was gone, my left arm was shattered, and I didn't have enough time or energy to conjure a new weapon. So I did the only thing I could.

I flared my aura punched the beast straight in the face.

Its head snapped back, a blast wave of heat and ichor spraying across the street. My fist burned, the reinforced aura around it shattering again like glass, but I stayed on my feet.

I sucked in air that tasted of ash and iron. My ribs screamed, my arm was dead weight, but the world narrowed to one truth: Ikki was still out there. Midori was still out there. And I wasn't done yet.

"Come on," I muttered under my breath, glaring at the dragon. My voice shook, but not from fear—no, not anymore. From rage. From refusal. "You think I'm bowing out now? Not a chance."

The Beast roared, crimson light seething in its throat again. I met it head-on, flaring my aura until the asphalt beneath me cracked. I dashed forward in a blur, closing the gap before it could unleash hell. My hands found the jagged edges of its teeth, light shielding me from the fire in its gullet.

For a moment, we were locked together - my tiny human frame against the mountain of coalesced chaos energy incarnate. My muscles screamed, aura burning away faster than I could replenish it. But I held.

Because if I didn't, Shoreline burned. The little I had left in life - gone.

So I bared my teeth and shoved, slamming its jaw shut with a crack like thunder. My aura flared outward, golden light erupting from every pore, and I drove my knee into its snout, again and again.

The pain faded into rhythm.

Breath, strike, flare, strike again. Not graceful. Not elegant. Not the shining heroine the world thought I was. Just a girl punching a nightmare come to life.

The others were nowhere near me.

Seraphina, the A-Ranks, the rookies - they were a storm of light and sound all around me, held up by the swarm of chaos beasts that'd descended on us. I caught glimpses of their spells raking the sky, heard the crash of summons colliding with lesser beasts. But none of them were here. And I couldn't afford to take my eyes off my foe again. Golden light gathered around my right hand, the only limb that still answered me. Not a bow, not anymore - just raw lumina condensed into the shape of a katar, ragged and trembling.

If it was so resistant to long range spells, then I'd have to try to get up close and personal.

I unleashed a mana burst to propel me forward, aura blazing, and drove it down into the beast's eye. It screamed, the ground trembling beneath us, the sky itself shuddering. I felt my body rattle apart under the recoil, ribs grinding, teeth cracking. My vision went black at the edges. And still I didn't let go. Not while the her voice still rang in my ears. Not while he was still alive out there. Not while anyone was counting on me.

The blade shivered, splintering into motes of light as it sank into the ruined socket. Heat blasted over me, the stench of burning ichor choking my lungs. The Duke thrashed, its skull smashing through towers like toys, but I clung on, aura welding me to its face.

"Die already, damn you!" I snarled, driving my fist deeper, ramming pure bursts of energy into the wound until my knuckles tore open.

The monster's claws raked blind across its own snout, missing me by inches, tearing through steel and stone instead. Shards of concrete and glass peppered my back. My aura faltered, sputtering in fits, but I forced it higher.

Every nerve screamed. Every bone cracked. My body wasn't built for this kind of war. But my soul didn't care.

The dragon lurched upright, whipping its head skyward with me still clinging to its brow. The world turned into a blur of burning clouds and twisted skyline. Wind screamed in my ears, tearing at my hair and skirts. My grip slipped - just for an instant.

No!

I jammed my knee against its brow ridge, aura flaring through the joint, locking myself in place. I hammered with my free hand again and again, each strike carving light into flesh, each pulse exploding like a drumbeat in my chest.

Breath. Strike. Flare aura. Strike again.

The Beast of Desolation actually buckled.

The pavement cratered beneath its weight, buildings groaning as its bulk slammed sideways. A shockwave rippled down the street, windows bursting, steel groaning.

I staggered, vision swimming, but I didn't let the opening go. My aura surged, a ragged torch, and I vaulted up the ridge of its jaw. Every movement tore something inside me, but pain didn't matter. Not now.

The Duke snapped its head back with a snarl. Suddenly I was airborne, the world spinning. Sky, ruin, sky.

Instinct screamed and I lashed out, aura-wrapped hand catching one of its fangs like a grappling line. The momentum swung me wide, my shoulder nearly torn from its socket, but I reeled myself in and slammed both feet into its face.

Light exploded from the impact. Its skull whipped sideways, carving a fresh canyon through a high-rise. Steel and glass collapsed in an avalanche, but I was already moving, clawing up the ridges of its scales.

The beast thrashed, balefire bleeding from its throat in frustrated bursts. Every blast lit the sky blood-red, reflected in the city's shattered windows.

It's shrugging it off, I thought bitterly.

Again.

Seraphina's strikes, the barrage from the others, even this. All it did was scar it, shove it, bruise it. A Duke-class didn't die easily. But even mountains could be worn down, one strike at a time.

My pulse hammered in rhythm with my strikes. Breath, strike, flare, strike again. Each one less elegant than the last, but sharper, more desperate, more alive.

The monster reared upright, wings beating hurricanes. The sudden lift tore me loose - I flung upward, weightless for a second, the ground dizzyingly far below.

It lunged to snap me out of the air.

I shouted back, twisting midfall, and propelled myself into it with a burst of mana, driving a heel straight into the crown of its skull. The crack resounded like a thunderclap, and for a heartbeat the dragon's massive body reeled, wings stuttering.

We plummeted together, locked in a spiral of fury and gravity, toward the burning streets below.

I didn't care if it killed me. So long as it hit the ground first.

It was a stupid, reckless, insane thought. But I didn't have a plan B.

The street rose up to meet us, fire and ruin yawning wide. For an instant I thought I had it. Thought I'd actually taken the damn thing down.

Then its wings snapped wide, a hurricane blast tearing the air apart. The sudden drag wrenched me loose, my body flung like a ragdoll through smoke and glass. I slammed across a rooftop, bones jarring, blood spraying from my lips. My aura flickered and died around me, leaving nothing but raw nerves and burning skin.

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The dragon roared triumph, claws raking buildings apart as it steadied itself. It wheeled in the air, eyes glowing murder-red, and dove. Its shadow swallowed the street whole, its jaws opening to erase me from existence.

I pushed myself upright. My legs wouldn't answer. My good arm barely lifted. There was nothing left - no bow, no strength, no tricks.

So this was it.

I squared my shoulders anyway, baring my teeth at the monster. If it wanted me, it would have to take me staring it dead in the eye.

My aura flared to life again, and I screamed defiance. I pulled my battered body up, leaning on what was left of a wall.

Another uppercut. Time it well.

It didn't matter if it was my last strike.

I didn't know if he would still be here when the dust settled.

Didn't know if he was safe, didn't know if she was alive.

But a Magical Girl was strongest when she had something to protect.

My body refused to rise. Every nerve was fire, every breath broken glass. The dragon circled overhead, its wings blotting out what was left of the sky.

I should've been focused - should've been planning my next strike, my next desperate gamble.

The pain blurred the edges of the present, and the past bled through.

Three years ago.

I was twelve, half my current size and twice as reckless. The air had stank of smoke then too, and screams had carried through the night. I remembered stumbling in a haze of rubble, aura flickering, bow too heavy in my hands.

And then...

A flash of green.

Not hair, not cloth - light. A girl, older, tall in my memory, standing in front of me with a blade that shone brighter than any star I'd seen since. Her movements were impossible: sharp, clean, every strike pure intent.

A holy sword cut through chaos beasts like shearing silk. Her feet planted firm, her arms steady, her aura wrapped tight around every strike until the air seemed to yield to her.

I remembered the blur of her hair - green, wild, streaming like a banner in the wind. I remembered the motifs stitched into her outfit: hard edges softened by rounded arcs. Fruits. rinds. Chrysanthemums.

She was fifteen. She was unstoppable. And everyone whispered she was meant for more.

The second coming of Izanami.

Even then, watching through smoke-choked eyes, I believed it. She wasn't just a Magical Girl. She was inevitability given form.

And then, like a candle snuffed, she was gone.

I never understood why.

I forced my eyes open now, the flashback fading as the dragon's shadow swallowed me again.

But that memory—

That impossible, blazing image—

Still burned behind my eyelids.

I'd never dreamed to ever come to ever come close to her level in her domain but...

I understood. Understanding was always my strength.

She would have fared better than any of us had with her full ability.

I channeled lumina to my arm again, creating a different blade of light. Not a bow, not the broken half-weapons I'd been flailing with.

No. This time, I forced the shape that still seared my memory after three years.

The blade hummed to life, long and thin, brighter than I could ever remember making it when I dabbled and sparred in the past. My aura screamed against the weight of maintaining it, but I lifted it anyway.

The dragon dove, maw wide, hellfire spiraling.

And I moved.

My feet struck pavement, a burst of mana exploding from the soles like a cannon shot. The world blurred. I was there, at its snout, before its jaws closed.

First cut—ascending diagonal. Blade met scale, sparks of lumina shearing away corruption.

Second cut—reversal. I twisted my hips, dragging the broken weight of my left arm across my body. Pain detonated white in my skull, but I used it, swung my whole torso with it, and the blade arced back low across the joint of its jaw. The force wrenched blood from my throat, but the strike landed, golden light tearing a jagged furrow.

Third cut—pivot and thrust. I rammed my left shoulder into the monster's snout, bones grinding like glass inside me. I anchored against it, the ruined arm bracing just long enough to hurl my right forward. The blade of light speared up through the roof of its mouth, burning a path into corrupted flesh.

The Beast of Desolation shrieked. A horrifying, unnatural sound, the noise of something that should never have been brought into this world. Its massive body shuddered, the earth itself rattling.

But that was only the start of the technique. Her technique. One of many techniques that'd bested me, the ones I'd tried and failed to learn over and over and over.

I spiraled up, forcing the blade into motion before my body could think better of it. The dragon's claw lashed at me, faster than a thunderclap, but I met it head-on.

Light against scale.

I parried with a shriek of hard light, the impact rattling my bones. The claw swept back—another parry. Sparks sprayed. Another. Another. Each blow would have caved me in, but my blade shifted just enough, my aura flaring with each deflection.

The rhythm took me.

Strike. Parry. Riposte. Parry again.

I was moving before I could breathe, deflecting swipes that should have torn me to ribbons, redirecting their weight so the beast's own force cracked stone and steel around us. My broken arm dangled, but I used it anyway, slamming shoulder-first between the claw's webbing to shove it wide, forcing my torso into the angle for the next strike.

Its tail whipped down and around, splitting the street. I vaulted along the shockwave, blade flashing, and carved a line across its throat. The recoil nearly tore the weapon from my hands, but I kept going.

One step, then another, then three in a blur. The blade shone brighter, trailing arcs of gold through the air as I slashed, reversed, thrust, slashed again. Every motion stacked into the next, each strike faster than the last, petals of light scattering around me.

It wasn't grace. It wasn't elegance. My cuts staggered, rough-edged, blood splattering with every lurch of my body. But still the pattern formed. Frozen arcs of light in the air.

I gathered everything. Every last flicker of lumina, every scrap of light, every ounce of rage and guilt and refusal. And I carved.

Three slashes in rapid succession - diagonal, diagonal, horizontal -layered into each other until they burst outward in a flare of light. A crude flower, jagged and broken, but unmistakable. A chrysanthemum etched in searing light surrounding and encasing the beast.

The chrysanthemum blazed around the Duke's head - petals of light, arcs overlapping, a cage that for one impossible heartbeat looked right. Looked like her technique. One I'd never been able to replicate.

The Duke wrenched its head back with a roar, its body erupting in a shower of ichor as the cage collapsed on it. Talons and wings alike shattered, its massive body crumpling against the pavement.

I didn't let up.

I leapt, screaming.

It was not taking my city. It was not taking my friends.

One shattered, racked claw the size of a truck scythed down, tearing the street wide open. I weaved and threw myself into it anyway, aura flaring over my knuckles, and drove a punch straight into the joint.

Bone cracked - mine or its, I couldn't tell. But the claw buckled, one talon shattering off in a spray of molten fragments.

The beast howled, a sound that made the pavement curl, and swung its other claw. I dodged late, pain sharpening my vision, the edge of a spike carving a strip of skin from my ribs. I staggered and threw myself back in, fist-first.

It was insane. It was suicide. And it was all I had.

The dragon came down on me with both claws, a rain of spikes like guillotine blades. I ducked, weaved, felt the rush of air graze my cheek as one missed by inches. My knuckles split open again as I hammered its palm, forcing its angle wide. Another spike raked the ground, shattering a crater where I'd just been standing.

We were trading blows. A girl and a dragon. My breath tearing my lungs raw, its ichor steaming the street, fists against claws, aura against scale. Somewhere in the chaos I laughed, sharp and cracked.

I'm fist-fighting a dragon.

And it hasn't killed me yet.

The thought was insane, surreal, but it kept me moving.

Adrenaline drowned everything else. Pain didn't matter. Fear didn't matter. Each second was a stolen heartbeat, each strike a refusal.

I ducked low, drove a punch up into its jaw, felt teeth rattle. It swiped back, claws shredding a car to ribbons. I rolled over shattered glass and came up swinging, aura flaring over my fist like a comet's tail.

I was going to die. That was the truth of it. But if I died here, I'd go down swinging.

The dragon reared, wings blotting out the sky. Its maw glowed, balefire swirling. I dragged myself upright one last time, legs jelly, vision swimming. My fist lifted.

The Duke pressed harder, claws carving trenches through towers and pavement alike. One swipe grazed my ribs, another shredded my shoulder guard, but I kept ducking, weaving, bursting forward to slam strikes into the cracks I'd already carved. My body was fire and ruin, but adrenaline kept me upright, kept me moving, kept me fighting.

I coiled my legs, ready to explode forward again.

One more.

Just one more.

No.

My legs failed me, buckling under my weight as I felt my ligaments cramp, and I dropped to one knee.

No, no, no.

Aura crackled and shattered, leaving me empty, exhausted, broken.

NO!

The dragon reared, jaws wide, balefire raging in its throat.

I couldn't move.

Couldn't speak.

All I could do was stare as I desperately tried to find strength in my legs.

And then—

A chime. Like a distant bell.

The street shook.

Not from the dragon. From something else. Hooves, like thunder.

A horn rang clear and terrible, shaking the battlefield. Silver light cascaded downward, and through it thundered a white horse wreathed in fire, hooves pounding the air.

And atop of it - red hair like fire, green eyes like burning emeralds, a lance leveled directly at the Beast of Desolation.

"Epona! Forward!"

The rider's spear glowed with silver light, its edges burning with a light that almost hurt to look at.

The lance struck. The dragon's head snapped back, the force carving a fault-line down the street. Epona's hooves left craters of light as they thundered past, the air breaking in shockwaves as the beast was launched like a cannonball down the street.

I blinked, vision blurred, my brain refusing to catch up.

...Radiant Rhiannon?

No.

She wasn't here. Couldn't be here. I was hallucinating. I had to be. Yes. Life flashing before my eyes a I died.

But then more trails of light. More voices.

"Grand Cross!"

Seraphina's voice. Clear, merciless.

"Impression Study: Celestia Everlasting!! Tempest Spiral!!"

"Moonlit Bindings!"

"Verdant Spiral!"

"Hammer of the Storm King!"

"Rose Éclair!"

"Soleil Levant: Requiem!"

Voices overlapped, declarations blooming like a storm. The skyline lit in every shade - crimson rings seared the air, sapphire ribbons bound the Duke's wings, emerald sigils bloomed under its claws.

The beast reeled as lances of starlight skewered its shoulders, as chains of aurora light wrapped tight around its throat. One girl's staff blossomed into a garden of spectral roses that detonated in scarlet fire. Another hurled a hammer wreathed in lightning, its impact shaking entire blocks into dust.

The Duke roared, but the chorus drowned it out.

Again, and again, the sky fell upon it.

I blinked, blood stinging my eyes. A kaleidoscope burned across the battlefield, each attack carving pieces off the nightmare, forcing it back.

I couldn't count them all anymore - every shout was another strike, another flare, another miracle colliding with corruption.

I swayed, unable to tell if I was still breathing. My own aura guttered around me, sparks flickering out into the wind.

I sagged against the rubble, lungs tearing, blood dripping warm down my arm. My head swam, half convinced this was still the hallucination. Because if she was really here - if Radiant Rhiannon had truly charged in with Epona at her side then...

This fight was no longer mine. Everything would be okay.

Smoke curled, firelight flickered, and the battlefield became something distant. I couldn't see clearly anymore. Only sparks. Only shadows.

But in the back of my mind, beneath the ringing and the blur, two threads cut sharper than everything else.

Were they alive?

Were they safe?

...Were they safe?

Him.

Her.

...If I had to be perfectly honest with myself.

I didn't care about anything else right now.

Slowly, I grabbed on to a displaced pile of rubble, and pushed myself back to my feet.