It had been a quiet few days, as Enormita kept to the shadows, but Hiiragi Utena khat couldn’t st.

  Korisu hadn’t been answering any of her texts; it seemed she’d chosen her side. Kiwi was really worried about it. Could her mother really have power over the mind a? It was reasonable for Korisu to be mad at Kiwi for starting a fight, sure, but to seemingly be pletely okay with this situation after everything her mother had done…

  Her mother. The person that Utena o save. Even from herself.

  The Tres Magia’s mascot, Vatz, cimed that her mother’s very soul is in danger if this keeps up! She has to find a way to save her, no matter what!

  A, she just feels so drained.

  She’s given up on toying with the magical girls. She’s decided to turn over a new leaf, for the sake of good. Maybe after this, she even quit Enormita! Or even bee a magical girl…

  What would she call herself? Magia Vio? Magia Lilás? Purple would be a good colht? Especially paired with a blonde! (Utena briefly siders whether Kiwi has ever sidered putting pile drivers on her arms, but then realizes it has too much overp with Magia Sulfur.)

  But the training is taking a lot out of her. She feels weaker. Maybe this is the arc-before-the-redemption-and-being-a-new-allied-magical girl?! Utena only hope.

  Really, the only satisfa is after the training.

  When she goes home with Kiwi…they do *****, and *****, and even *****! (E-even Utena didn’t know they could do *****!) And that helps a little. But even then, Kiwi seems a bit unsatisfied with it all. With not being able to see Magia Baiser go all out. There’s no way they could do it, without getting caught. Without the support of Venalita, they only rely on Vatz’s barrier devices to hide from Enormita, and there’s not enough to go around for Utena to frivolously spend on ‘leisure’.

  Even Utena has to admit she’s going mad. She doesn’t want to be Magia Baiser, a…

  A –

  “Utena?”

  “Oh, Sayo.” Utena looks up from her textbook, which is hiding her notebook full of sketches of what her prical girl form might look like. “Um, do you need anything?”

  “I just wao che you,” says Sayo, as she leans fainst the back of her chair. As…as her chest presses against it. And the nape of her neck, exposed through her uniform. “You seem worried about something. Haruka’s trying not to fuss over you, but I know she’s worried too.”

  Is…is Utena staring at Sayo? At a normal girl, not even a magical girl? Utena ’t…she ’t trol herself. Without the magical girls to toy with, she’s going crazy.

  God, was Sayo always this pretty? She’s really tall and graceful. Utena really regrets doing all those horrible things to Magia Azul in Sayo’s shrine, and making her up after…maybe she make it up to her? Like with a massage? She’s certain Sayo’s butt must hurt, it’d look great if –

  “Utena…”

  “O-oh. Um. Sorry. I guess I do have something on my mind…” Utena shakes her head, trying to dispel these thoughts, even as her legs squirm together. “I’m worried about my mother.”

  “Your mother? Is she sick?” Sayo gets su intense look on her face. Even for someone she isn’t that close with, she be so kind…and so pretty.

  “No, I think…I think she’s involved in something really bad.” How do you tell someone about this, really? It’s not like Utena just tell Sayo she’s the power behind Enormita’s throne. Even with anti-reition magic, it’d be just admitting she’s Magia Baiser! “I think she’s involved with, um, some criminals? And they might be making her do bad things…”

  “Have you told anyone else?” Sayo tips her head to the side. “That sounds like a job for, y’know. The proper authorities.”

  “I guess, but…she’s still my mother, you know? I want to believe everything will work out.”

  “If you’re troubled, you ’t simply let it lie. I think there es a time in anyone’s life where they start to realize their parents aren’t quite who they thought they were.” There’s just the tiny flick of Sayo’s tongue, just a little reflex, and Utena ’t help but notice. She’s so pretty, she could easily be a magical girl! A-and then maybe fantasizing about her would be okay? “It might not be easy, but you should front her about it.”

  “front her…”

  That’s right, Utena thinks, managing to shake off her lust as she focuses on what’s important. I’ve been staying with Kiwi all this time. Her mother hasn’t asked anything about it, but I ’t just keep going on indefinitely.

  “Just remember, there are people cheering for you, Utena. Me, and Haruka, and Kaoruko too! And your friend Kiwi! If you need anything from us, just let us know. No matter what’s going on, if you don’t face it alone, I’m certain you’ll be able to get through it.”

  “That’s right, I have friends…” And Utena so dearly hopes that the Tres Magia be her friends, too. Even after she’s done such horrible things to them. To their nubile, vulnerable bodies and pale skin. To their beautiful te’s up to her to help them fight against Enormita and stop her mother’s madness! She ’t be thinking about this as a viliness anymore!

  Yes, ionight’s the night. As Enormita tio split their forces, they ’t let the people go without hope any longer. And with their training starting to bear fruit, they o strike while the iron is hot.

  For the sake of her preagical girls, Utena will fight. Even her own mother.

  She’ll front her. She’ll save her.

  She has to.

  Baiser had p all, for their assault after css. It was a dangerous tactic, but it was a gamble they had to take. They’d recovered, trained, and toughened up, but the Tres Magia and their relut allies khey would still have trouble. Instead, they’d take advantage of the way Enormita had beeing since Lord Enorme’s arrival.

  Anything to slow the tide. Anything to restore the people’s hope. Anything to keep them from losing faith ires Magia.

  Three groups appeared uhe light of the moon to strike terrainst their small town, and the Tres Magia, alongside Enormita’s twades, split their forces to take advantage of their divided assault.

  Sister Gigant marched through the streets in her giganti, ripping up billboards of the Tres Magia a businesses, and Azul and Magenta used their ons and acrobatics to battle the titanian head-on.

  Nero Alice created an illusionary world to spread Enormita’s propaganda, and Baiser faced her down, the only one who could resist her mental pollution and uaactid toys.

  And that left Lord Enorme herself…

  “I ’t believe I drew the short straw and got stuck with you, dumpling head,” says Sulfur, as she and Leoparde fly through the air toward the mass of bck mohat were menag the citizens downtown. “I thought you and Baiser were surgically glued together, anyway.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, ft-chest! If it weren’t fia Baiser, I’d knock you down in a heartbeat!”

  “Ft-chest? At least I ain’t showin’ my ass to the entire try all the time. You an exhibitionist or something? Is being a pervert in Enormita’s job description, hon, or are you all just crazy bitches over there?”

  Leoparde blows a huge raspberry at Sulfur. “You’re just jealous I have a great ass~ But anyway, it has to be us, y’know? You’re the only one who stand up to Enormous Lady’s attacks –”

  “Lord Enorme.”

  “– Enormous Lady, and…heheh. I’ve still got my a the hole.”

  “And if Auntie shows up, we’ve got the best ce at defending ourselves. Here I thought Magia Baiser was just the queen of turnin’ tail, but she’s pretty sharp when it gets down to brass tacks.”

  “Ugh. Do you always talk like that? Seriously, I bet you’re not even from Osak–”

  “Oh? What do we have here? The starless traitor and the useless pung bag! What a fine pair you make!”

  As if to make her dramatitrance, Lord Enorme appears on a massive jumbotron, as the real thing stares up at the flying heroines.

  “Leoparde! I’ll give you one ce! Lay down your arms and surrender yourself to me and my beloved advisor, and I may deign tive you. I know Victricia has been dying to get her cables in you~”

  Leoparde and Sulfur swoop down into the alleys, both of them bsting through the bck creatures, Leo pulling out a megaphoo yell at Enorme as they approach. “Heh. A my girlfriend’s mom try to mess with my head again? Fat ce, Giant Woman!”

  “Know your pce, starless! It’s Lord Enorme!”

  “Ain’t iatin’ with that one, ‘Lord’,” Sulfur says as they get close enough to talk without a ridiegaphone, sighing as she unleashes her fists – because even if people are watg, she absolutely ’t afford to lose. “Her brain’s totally fried.”

  Leoparde rolls her eyes. “You’re not helping, ft-chest.”

  “You two must realize you have no hope of winning.” Enorme’s monsters reach out and strike, the drowning tide of bck being blown through by a battering of yellow energy and exploding shells. “Fools. Who are you? No one. Nothing.”

  It’s true. Lord Enorme was the killer of tless magical girls across the try. She was the siroransformed heroine anyone knew of. Even Victricia Baiser, monstrous as she aled in parison to Enorme’s might. The stars on her forehead marked the most powerful viliness, her self-decred right to rulership over the p.

  But there were two things. Two things that the unlikely pair had noticed. The first…

  “You act so high and mighty, Big McLargeHuge, but it’s obvious to anyone you aren’t the oting ohrone!” yells Leoparde, hefting fatling guns under her arms and using rockets attached to them to dash around, cutting through the monstrous horde even as Enorme absorbed the bullets with a wave of her hand. “Just admit it to yourself! Victricia Baiser’s clearly been lovingly washing and scrubbing your brain on your days off! Sooner or ter she’s gonray you, just like she did me and Magia Baiser!”

  “I know who I am!” Enorme’s inky tide seemed all but imperable to Leoparde’s menagerie of explosives and guns. “You dare to believe that Victricia has done anything but what I wanted most? Her endless pleasures are unimaginable to plebians like you!”

  “Whew. And I thought I was down bad for a Baiser. Guess sexiness runs in the family. Tell me, do you also call her ‘Mommy’? Do you let her spank you for being a bad girl~?”

  “You fug bitbsp;Once I drag you back to Nacht Base, I’ll have you crucified, starless!”

  “Sorry~ I’ve got a fiancee who’ll do that to me way better than you ever could, thank you very much.”

  The sed, though, was much more important. And it was something Sulfur’d noticed after they’d made o review of the terror that Enormita had brought to their small town. Sulfur hadn’t said it ht, but…

  Is it just me, or are they easier than I thought they’d be? Leoparde says to Sulfur through telepathy. She’s still really tough, but I find it hard to believe she’s the big bad bogeywoman we’ve heard so much about…it’s almost like…

  Heh. You’ve seen it too? o see you have at least one braincell, dumpling head.

  Enorme was getting weaker.

  Every time she appeared, the numbers of her monsters got less and less. They seemed smaller. Lesser. It wasn’t something that’d be obvious to a a transf heroine, but Enorme was clearly falling from grace. Evears on her forehead looked like they were fading, little by little.

  And Sulfur knew, in her bohat Enorme would never bee this world’s Lord.

  After all…

  “Dont you know, Lord Enorme? No matter how strong you think you are, in the end, a heroine will alrevail! My fists and my life – both will never five evil!” Sulfur yells, jumping and leaping from building to building, before she dives down and transforms once more…

  LA VERITà – MAGIA SULFUR BLITZ-ENGEL

  A woman ot kill a god.~

  “La Verità?!” Enorme seems briefly taken aback, but quickly recovers herself, a pedestal of bess f aing her rise from beh as Sulfur’s true form slices through the goop. “Don’t make me ugh! I’ve seen it all before! You think that sedary transformation of yours is going to save you?”

  “No, it ain’t.” Indeed, even as the awakened Sulfur unleashes her Thunder Fist Barrage, Enorme keeps dodging every single blow. “But aren’t you fettin’ someone, hon?”

  “That’s right!” Leoparde pants, her clothes ripped apart as the monsters finally break through her defenses. “I’m just gettin’ started, Big Boss!”

  And that’s when Enorme realizes.

  Leoparde isn’t starless.

  Three smouldering bck stars burn on her chest, and bck clouds form around her, giving her a tehat matches her name – a hunting cat, brimming with unbridled strength.

  “Look what you made me do!” Leoparde yells, as her newfound strength, cws ah and all, rip through the goop, even swallowing it down without any effect at all. “There’s only one girl who should get to see me like this! And you, Large Hadron Collider, had to fug ruin it!”

  “Oh? So Leopardon does have some modesty after all. Sho’.” The bickeriweewo fades into a friendly rivalry, as both Sulfur and Leoparde focus oing their stro enemy. “You haven’t even realized it yet, have you? That you’re runnin’ on borrowed time?”

  And then.

  Then, it hit Enorme.

  Her powers, the powers she had been so proud of, the strength that made her worthy of the , had been fading.

  She’d dismissed the signs. She didn’t her whole strength to bear, after all. And she could rely on her beloved advisor and her subordinates. If it seemed like she was having more trouble summoning monsters, well, it robably just her imagination.

  A. And yet.

  Maybe Enorme could have handled one of their powered up forms alone. Maybe she could have eked out a victory for her beloved advisor. But both of them…

  She could barely feel her stars.

  She tried to summon more, stronger monsters. Tried to create more eo dey those girls. But they just got thinner and thinner. And the more she pahe weaker she got. Her resolve for world domination…

  It was gone.

  There was only ohing keeping her up. Ohing. One person, who she couldn’t allow to see her weak. Lord Enorme had to win…or she’d let Victricia Baiser down!

  “To stand above the magical girls.” Sulfur easily punches and kicks her way through the st of her slime. “To bee the world’s Lord. What a sad state of affairs~”

  “You’ve got spunk, but oh well! Guess you aren’t making yourself Queen Bitch of the Earth, huh?”

  A, she would.

  The fire fades. The passion in Enorme’s heart isn’t enough. Her stars smoulder and burn out. Unfit even to be der. And as her sea of bess shrinks into a puddle, and then into nothing…

  the two rival heroines crash right into Enorme, and knock her down onto the ground.

  “…did I get that line right, dumpling head?” says Leoparde, as she pins Enorme down with her paws. “I practiced, since I knew Magia Baiser would wan!”

  “Not even remotely, ft-chest.” Sulfur chuckles, as she presses her foot against the fallen Enorme, crag her knuckles. “But maybe I’ll let you off. Just this once.”

  Defeated.

  Humiliated.

  Ended.

  A Lord no longer.

  At that moment, at that moment, Lord Enorme could remember. The way she stepped on the magical girls she’d defeated at the moment of their greatest despair. At how she crushed their transformers beh her. At how weak they were. How pathetic. How they could never possibly stand before her. She even remembers that white-e, the one so weak she didn’t even bother to end her life – a rare gift of clemency for the crime of standing against Enormita.

  A…

  as Leoparde Eransformation star with her foot, she ’t help but feel, like she finally uands the fear in their eyes, and what she’d done –

  “Kept you waiting, huh?”

  and then, you e. Her devil, and her angel alongside her.

  Enorme’s body is utterly paralyzed, but vines shoot out toward your enemy heroines, as you and your beloved Lilienschwalbe swoop down from the sky. You hang back, letting your precious Lili show off, little flowers floating in the air around her and shooting beams of light at the two who dared to defile your precious Lord Enorme.

  “A new recruit?” says Sulfur as she dodges the sers, staring ily at your new right-hand woman. “Nero Alice’s mom, I re. You know, it’s pretty unseemly that you three are hangin’ out with little girls like us.”

  “Oh? Really? Should I show mercy to you when you’ll simply point a wand in my face?” you say, as you grin madly at the foolish magical girls. A swoop of Lilienschwalbe’s vine knocks Leoparde away, and you reach down to grasp Enorme in your cables, bringing her into your arms to carry off. “A few fancy tricks and upgrades aren’t going to be enough to save you, you know.”

  (…sorry I’m te, you whisper to Enorme in telepathy, clutg her so tightly to your body as she stares into the sky in shock. You uimated your daughter’s ability to resist Alice’s spell, and had to bail her and Gigant out…)

  “That’s right.” Lilienschwalbe licks her lips, and oh god do you just adore the bloodlust in her eyes! You wao step on those girls so badly! “Don’t you think it’s cruel of you to teach kids that they do anything if they believe? Ohey realize what the adult world is like, they’ll wish they had the ability to deal with defeat…oh well~ I’ll just have to demonstrate!”

  A flourish of flowers aals and vines. A dance of death ay. A temptress without pare, whose beauty tempt any mortal into kneeling for Enormita. You do so adore the way Lilienschwalbe’s thorns draw blood. They look so tasty that way…

  God. You want them. You want them betweewo of you! You won’t stop, until the magical girls of this world are defeated beh you!

  “Ugh. Does Victricia brainwash everyone who joins Enormita, or is it just the people she’s obviously sleeping with?” Leets a look of disgust on her face. “Seriously, they call me horny?”

  “This way to the egress, dumpling head!” As Leoparde runs toward Sulfur, the tter tosses a strange looking device, dispersing an anti-perception mist. “We ’t take the new Auntie like this!”

  Aah, you could still reach, but…you shouldn’t. It’s not ideal, but even if they’re vulnerable, you absolutely ot fight with Enorme in such a fragile state. She es first, no matter what.

  If you ’t proted cherish your subordinates, after all, what kind of viliness are you?

  “That smoke bomb…it looks like one of Venalita’s prototypes,” you say. “Heh. Even the mascot’s turraitor, has she? Fine by me. We’ve got a girl to take back to base, but in the meantime…why don’t you introduce yourself, precious one?”

  “Gdly, Victricia,” your beloved Lilienschwalbe says, lig her lips, as she attaches a vio the jumbotron above, knowing that Leoparde and Sulfur will still be watg…

  “I am Lilienschwalbe. Bde of Victricia. And I have never know.”

  It’s probably pretty unusual to see transformed heroines on a bus, but needs must.

  Clutg the stealth devices the mascots provided them, Sulfur and Leoparde, barely ging to their transformations, lean against one another. No matter how badly Sulfur wao show those perverted lolis a thing or two, it just wasn’t doable. The two of them could barely trol their powered up forms. Sulfur’s resolve was still fragile, and Leoparde’s stars were unstable. It wasn’t a total defeat, but…

  How embarrassing. But it was a good sign, right? Ohe rest of them started p up – especially, Sulfur hated to say, Magia Baiser herself – they’d absolutely stand a ce against the forces of Enormita.

  All she had to do was remember the truth: a magical girl ever be defeated! And, besides which, as they sit o each other on the bus, Sulfur ’t help but think…

  “Hey, you, dumpling head.”

  “Hm?”

  “You’re still dangerous…heh.” Sulfur sighs to herself, and smiles. “But you be my wingman anytime.”

  “No way!” Leoparde leaps ba shock. “Me, your wingman?! You be my wingman instead, ft-chested bitch!”

  “…fuck, you ’t just get the line right once, you?”

  Maybe the two of them could get along a bit after all.

  (…)

  (…)

  (“…of course she’s never know,” Kaoruko mutters to herself that night, brow twitg, when she grabs a soda from the fridge. “That’s the first time we were in a dang fight in the first pce!”)

  queenfiona