An actress in our midst! (web version)

The story so far had been quite shocking. Apparently, the original magical girls and the demon lord had started out as friends. Max had a hard time reconciling that image with the regular battles magical girls got into with the demons nowadays.

“When Trish first told us that her powers were waning, we thought she was exaggerating. After all, the magical girls’ powers do actually get weaker in the opposite season.”

That was some new information as well. Max chanced a glance at Iris… the current Pretty Frost.

She nodded. “I am currently at my weakest, but my powers should get stronger again once summer comes to a close.”

“Right…”

“Unfortunately… it didn’t happen. Spring came around and Trish’s powers were only getting weaker and weaker. By the time summer came, the time when she should be the most powerful one of us, she was only a few steps away from being a normal magicless person again.”

“And I assume there wasn’t anything wrong with the sword…” Iris said.

“Nope. The problem lay within Trish. But we didn’t know why.” Green Mom shook her head before grimacing. “We still aren’t completely sure why, to be honest. We did everything to try to reverse whatever was causing it. Did a bunch of experiments, and…” She sighed. “In hindsight, we should have just let it be. Everyone else would lose their powers later on as well anyway. We were overreacting.”

Everyone had lost their powers eventually…? Was that why there were multiple generations of magical girls?

“We turned to the fifth weapon as the last resort. Modified it to still suck out the surrounding magic, but direct it into Trish instead.”

Iris’ eyes widened. “Oh no…”

“Yeah…” Green Mom cringed. “We were really dumb back then, weren’t we?”

“Of course, we knew it couldn’t be very safe to do that,” Blue Mom clarified. “But both Baugh and Trish insisted on it.” She shook her head. “It actually worked at first. Trish was reenergized after the first experiment. In fact, she was more powerful than ever. We thought the problem had been solved.”

“It wasn’t. Her newfound power faded again, this time much faster.” Green Mom closed her eyes and turned into a whisper. “So she did it again… Re-energized herself… It worked for a while… and then faded again… faster than the last time. Then again… and again… At some point, using that fu– stupid thing became her daily routine. Like taking medication.”

“Jesus…” Iris whispered.

“One day, when we entered the demon realm to check up on what those two were doing, we found Trish lying on the ground unconscious, Baugh standing over her.” Blue Mom gritted her teeth. “We thought she was dead at first. Baugh said she just collapsed out of nowhere but refused to say anything else.”

“We knew that something was up though. He was acting suspicious as all heck.” Green Mom looked to the side, uncharacteristic sorrow finding its way into her expression. “We had a shouting match. Blaming him, blaming the fifth weapon, blaming all the other demons in the world, even though they had nothing to do with it. We wanted to bring Trish back to Earth to a hospital.” She looked back at Iris with a grimace. “He disagreed.”

“He insisted that he could fix it. Bring her back, revive her. He didn’t want us to take her back to Earth for some reason.” Blue Mom paused as she closed her eyes. “And so… we fought.”

“Wha– Why?” Max squeaked out.

“Because we were stupid kids, that’s why,” Green Mom groaned into her hands. “No, I was a stupid kid. I started it. Shot Baugh with my wand while screaming obscenities. He got angry, tried to grab Trish while shooting me back, and then it all just escalated.”

“Did… Did Trish…” Iris managed while staring at the woman.

“No, Trish was totally fine. Even though she couldn’t use magic herself anymore, pumping herself with more and more of it every day had made her almost immune to magical attacks, as we found out.”

“We lost,” Blue Mom said, her gaze fixed on the floor. “Baugh beat the three of us and banished us back to Earth before closing the portal. We couldn’t go back there again… And he kept Trish.”

Max could feel his fists clench.

“Luckily, we managed to take the Cinder blade with us. It was still attuned to Trish… The connection wasn’t very strong at that point, but it was our only chance.” Green Mom’s voice was hard. “We worked day and night, trying to figure out a way to reopen the portal.” She looked at Max’s other mom. “The two of us… kind of gave up after a while. It was fruitless. Months without any progress. We simply couldn’t figure it out… But Sally was different. She kept going. She never gave up. We were starting to worry about her health. She became more and more withdrawn and agitated… But eventually did

figure it out, to our surprise.”

“I still remember her expression when she showed us the reopened portal. There was only burning fury at the demon and firm determination to get our friend back.” Blue Mom sighed. “We snuck back inside the demon realm and found Trish in his hut, Baugh nowhere to be found. She was still in a coma, still alive, despite not even being hooked up to any life support. All of the magic she had absorbed seemed to be keeping her alive somehow.”

The two then fell silent. Their expressions radiated pure pain and regret.

“We safely transported Trish back to Earth and that’s where it was supposed to end… But Sally insisted on sticking around and punching Baugh as a payback.” Green mom shook her head. “Despite our better judgment, we waited in his hut and ambushed him when he came back.”

“It was meant to just be one punch, but it somehow… escalated into a full-on battle again. Luckily for us, he was sloppy and unprepared. We caught him off guard. Granted, he was still a tough opponent, but we had the upper hand.”

“And then…?” Max muttered.

“We managed to corner him and the two of us sealed him in an attempt to calm things down… Right after he tried to use the fifth weapon against us.”

“Oh no…” Iris whispered.

“With nobody to control it, the thing went out of control. We tried stopping but it was too late. It sapped all magic around it faster and faster… And so we ran. We just left Baugh to his fate, went back to Earth through the portal, and closed it behind us.” Green Mom put her face into her hands. “I have no idea what happened after that… We might have destroyed the entire demon realm by leaving that thing active.”

A shiver ran through Max’s spine.

That was it. That was the reason why the entire demon realm was a desolate wasteland. The fifth weapon sucked out all the magic.

But… That was absurd! It killed the entire world? Just how powerful was that thing?

“We… actually went to the demon realm earlier today…” Iris carefully said.

Both moms perked up at that.

“We didn’t look around too much but… it very much felt like a dead world.”

And then they both cringed.

Max didn’t know what to think. His adoptive moms had destroyed an entire world… by accident. Sure, half the blame lay at Baugh and Sally’s feet as well, but…

Either way, this wasn’t the end of the story yet, was it?

“And then…?” Max asked.

Green Mom took a deep breath before exhaling a long sigh.

“We have no idea what exactly happened in the demon realm after that. Years passed without any portals or demons appearing. We kept acting as heroes, helping where we could, all while trying to figure out how to wake up Trish from her coma. But it couldn’t be done.” She shook her head. “Sally began growing more and more frustrated and agitated, and about a year later, she too began losing her powers as well… Which only added fuel to the fire.”

“We agreed that trying to somehow restore her powers would only lead to another disaster, so we decided to instead find successors. We still didn’t know what exactly was causing the loss, and we weren’t sure what would make a good successor, so we just looked for young girls similar to us.”

“Oh… I see…” Iris muttered.

“But before we found the right candidates, we met Baugh again.”

“Huh…?”

“That was the first time we felt this odd instinct. You know, the one that guides you to imminent demon attacks.”

Max’s eyes snapped to Iris whose eyes widened.

“Oh…”

“Baugh appeared on Earth, in an abandoned building. He was… very different. He emanated a huge amount of magical power. We think that the fifth weapon ended up pushing all that magic into him after we left.”

“He was fully clad in heavy armor this time. We didn’t recognize him at first, but after he spoke, we knew exactly who he was. The calm and level way he spoke… It was genuinely unnerving. I thought he was going to kill all of us.”

“But that didn’t seem to be his goal. For some reason, he was carrying a crying baby.”

“Uh? A baby?” Max and Iris glanced at each other.

“Yes… We still don’t know whose the baby was or what he was planning on doing with it… But we couldn’t do much to rescue it… So he took it with him.”

“He just… threatened us. Said that his newly founded army was going to take over Earth and kill us in revenge… And that’s how it all started. He created a portal on a whim and vanished… and about a week later, the first demon general would show up to cause chaos.”

“So he just… went mad with power? Is that it?” Iris asked.

“I don’t know… It doesn’t feel like it, but we can only guess nowadays.”

A moment of silence followed as Max and Iris digested everything. There were still a lot of questions left, but one particular piece of the puzzle nagged at Max.

“So, what happened to Sally and Trish?”

Both moms grimaced at that. “We don’t know…”

“What do you mean…?” Iris tried.

“Sally was in charge of taking care of the unconscious Trish. She was the one focusing all her efforts on trying to help her. But a couple of years ago, she and Trish just disappeared without a trace.” Blue Mom deflated.

“... But we do have a suspicion…” the other mom picked up.

“Michelle!” Blue Mom’s head whipped toward her wife with wide eyes.

“We think she ended up joining the demons… for whatever reason.”

“Wha--? Why would she do that? I thought she hated Baugh… the demon lord,” Iris asked, her mouth agape.

“It’s only a suspicion. I have no idea why she would switch sides like that. It wouldn’t make sense, like you said.” Blue Mom shook her head.

“It’s just that… We knew each other pretty well, you know? You don’t just forget a friend, and well…” Green Mom closed her eyes and clenched her fists. “One of the demon generals… Salem… She looks, sounds, and talks disturbingly familiar.”