Chapter Five

In the days since Fav announced that their numbers were to be cut, all the magical girls had been working extra hard. None of them wanted to be eliminated, especially not in the first week, and the only way they could avoid this fate was to pass Fav's test by increasing their candy counts to 5000 or more. This meant they often stayed out until the early hours of the morning, looking for any opportunity to net themselves a few more candies, desperately trying to meet the target which they had been set. No ordinary humans could have done this without burning themselves out, but these were magical girls; things like tiredness and hunger did not affect them.

Right now, Pilot Crimson and Pilot Cobalt were flying over the streets of K City, suspended below magical gliders. One of these gliders, the one flown by Crimson, was emblazoned with the image of a red falcon, while Cobalt's glider bore the image of a blue eagle, hence why they were called the Red Falcon and the Blue Eagle. Their manoeuvrability far exceeded that of ordinary gliders, but each glider would only respond to its designated pilot; no-one apart from Crimson could fly the Red Falcon and the same was true of Cobalt and the Blue Eagle. Even so, being able to scout from the air gave Crimson and Cobalt quite an advantage when it came to spotting opportunities to earn candies, not to mention being able to get to wherever they were needed quickly. An advantage which, of the other magical girls in K City, only Yumi Tsubasa shared.

"Hey, sis," Cobalt said at length, her voice coming through on the Red Falcon's built-in communicator, "do you think Fav was telling the truth about us losing our powers?"

"I don't know," came the reply. "But it sounded like he meant every word of it. And that means we've got to earn at least 5000 candies each by the end of the week, or . . ."

". . . no more magic for us," Cobalt concluded, adjusting her glider's trajectory. "Ami," she added, slipping into her old habit of addressing Crimson by her real name, "what do you think will happen if Fav takes our powers away from us?"

If Crimson (AKA Ami Kiriyama) could have shrugged while flying a magical glider, she would have done so. "I guess we'll just go back to being plain old Ami and Kotone. But, if it comes to that, we can still cheer the others on from the sidelines."

"Yeah," said Cobalt. "And we should still be able to play Magical Girl Raising Project on our smartphones. We just won't be real magical girls any more . . ." She trailed off, thinking of how, as Ami and Kotone, she and Crimson had discovered a game which was "completely free to play", a game in which the player character was a magical girl. Between them, they had come up with the concept of two magical glider pilots (one dressed in red, the other in blue), designed their outfits, named them after shades of their respective colours, taken their first virtual steps into the Magical Kingdom . . . Then, after they had both been playing for nearly two months, came the day Fav told them they had been chosen to become real magical girls. They had accepted without giving it too much thought, thinking they had simply unlocked a new level in the game. The next thing they knew, they had transformed into Pilot Crimson and Pilot Cobalt. They had become magical girls not only in a smartphone game, but in real life as well. And now, thanks to Fav's oversight, they were in danger of losing their powers.

"Well, we're still magical girls for now," said Crimson. "And, if we want to stay that way, we'd better get a move on and find some people to help."

Elsewhere, Lupina and the rest of Gudrun Odinsdottir's group had decided to check out K City's red light district, a place none of them would have dared venture in their civilian forms. But, while they were transformed into magical girls, they had advantages ordinary humans did not have. They were physically stronger, faster and more agile, not to mention that each of them had a unique magical talent at her disposal. Gudrun's ability to fire energy balls from her shield. Lupina's power to turn objects into weapons. Tick-tock's time manipulation. Princess Hanako's control over nearby plants. Yumi's magnificent wings which she could sprout at will. Junglegirrl, who could transform into any feline creature. So they would have little to worry about from the unsavoury characters they were likely to encounter in such a place.

Right now, they were stationed on the roof of one of the many strip clubs, keeping watch for signs of trouble. If any of them saw anything, a punter turning nasty perhaps, she was to alert the others and they would all jump (or fly in Yumi's case) down to street level and deal with whatever it was. Already tonight they had prevented three stabbings, increasing their candy counts considerably, edging ever closer to the 5000 candies they needed to earn in order to pass Fav's test.

Lupina, whose weapon tonight was a comb transformed into a pistol, switched on her magical phone and went to check her candy store: 4985. She only needed to earn another fifteen candies and she would stay a magical girl for at least another week. But what would happen after that? Would she be able to pass whatever tests Fav had in store for the girls in the coming weeks? Or would she be among those who ended up losing their powers? And just how many magical girls was Fav planning to cut anyway?

"What's on your mind?"

Lupina looked up at the sound of Tick-tock's voice. The steampunk-themed magical girl was sitting beside her as they perched on the edge of the roof, with the rest of their group nearby. "This whole business," she replied. "When Fav made me a magical girl, I thought I would be one for the rest of my life. And now he tells us we've got to pass a load of tests if we want to keep our powers."

"Yeah, this totally sucks," said Tick-tock. She looked down at the over-sized pocket watch that was part of her costume. If she could have wound time back to before it became necessary to reduce the number of magical girls in K City, she might have been able to do something to prevent their current situation. Warned Fav that he was giving powers to too many people, perhaps. But she knew that wasn't an option; her magic only allowed her to reverse time by up to an hour and she couldn't change something which had already happened. All she could do was try to pass Fav's tests. If she failed . . .

A sudden commotion from the street below cut through her train of thought. With her heightened sense of hearing, she had picked up the crude comments a group of men were making about someone, a woman. She could picture them, leering drunkenly at their victim, doubtless planning to do unspeakable things to her. Well not if she and the others could help it! They were magical girls, for now at least, and it was their job to help those in need.

"Come on!" Tick-tock jumped off the roof, closely followed by Lupina, Gudrun, Hanako and Junglegirrl, the latter transforming into the lithe and powerful form of a tiger as she landed. At the same time, a pair of wings erupted from Yumi's back; she angled them to catch the air and, with a single flap, flew down to join the others.

Three men, all of them much the worse for drink, had cornered a young woman in an alley, pinning her against a wall. The comments they were making left no doubt what their intentions towards her were and they also left no doubt that they would take it in turns to do what they planned to do. The woman was struggling to fight off her attackers, but wasn't having much luck; when she kicked out at the man nearest to her, he responded by wrapping his hands around her throat. "Listen, bitch," he hissed through clenched teeth. "You'd better shut up and do as you're told or . . ."

Before he could finish his sentence, he and his cronies suddenly found themselves confronted by five strangely dressed girls - and the biggest tiger they had ever seen. The latter sprang at one of them, knocked him to the ground and stood over him, teeth bared just inches from his throat. Taken completely by surprise, the other two had no time to even think about fighting back before one was felled by an energy ball fired from the shield carried by a girl dressed as a Viking, while the third, the one who had been threatening the young woman, found himself on the wrong end of a bullet in the shoulder, courtesy of a girl with a wolf's ears and tail. He fell to the ground, clutching his wounded shoulder, trying to ignore the burning pain of the projectile which had buried itself in his flesh.

Lupina lowered her gun, but did not take her eyes off the man she had just shot. She had not aimed to kill because that was not what magical girls were supposed to do, no matter who they were dealing with. Though her magic enabled her to transform objects into weapons, she had never used those weapons to end a life and only wounded another person if it was absolutely necessary. A bullet wound to the shoulder wasn't fatal, at least not right away. Which should give the man time to reflect on some of the choices he had made in life.

Yumi stepped forward and crouched down beside the woman. "Are you all right?"

The woman groaned, but managed to stagger to her feet, with Yumi's help. "I am now you're here," she said, relieved that the men who had cornered her had been put out of action. She was a newcomer to K City and, unfamiliar with the town's layout, had wandered into the red light district, where the men had tried to proposition her. She'd tried to explain that she was just lost, that she wasn't one of "those girls", but they'd refused to take no for an answer, had trapped her in the alley, where they'd made it all too clear that they had no intention of letting her go unless she gave them what they wanted. She dreaded to think what might have happened had these strange girls not intervened.

Strange girls. Weren't there supposed be rumours of strange girls with magical powers operating in K City? Had she just encountered a group of these . . . magical girls? She'd been somewhat sceptical when she first heard the rumours, putting the sightings down to things like over-active imaginations or even an elaborate hoax. Now, however, it looked as though magical girls were real and five of them, along with an enormous tiger which still had one of the men pinned down, had just saved her. She started to thank her rescuers, but the Viking girl, who seemed to be the leader, quickly cut her off.

"There's no need to thank us; this is all part of our job."

"Your job?"

"Yes. Earn magical candies in return for helping those in need. We're magical girls and that's what we do, us and the others like us." Gudrun tried not to think about the fact that she and the others in her group had to earn a certain amount of candy by the end of the week or lose their powers. Fav had made it clear that there was nothing he could do about that; he'd recruited more magical girls that the mana supply in K City could cope with, so some of them had to go. It was as simple as that. All any of them could do was work hard, try to pass Fav's tests and hope they got to keep their magic for a little while longer. "Anyway," she went on, "we'd better get you out of here. Don't worry; you're perfectly safe if you stick with us."

As the group of magical girls prepared to escort the woman out of the red light district, a thought occurred to Lupina. "What are we going to do about . . .?" She nodded towards the three men; the fight seemed to have gone out of them, especially the one she had shot, but there was no telling who they might go after next if they were allowed to get away. If she'd wanted to, she could have finished them off with her gun, but that would mean she was no better than they were. Magical girls were supposed to use their powers to help others, only resorting to violence if there was no other way. And they certainly weren't in the business of finishing people off, not even perverts like these men.

"Don't worry," said Tick-tock. "I'll take care of them." She reached for her watch and prepared to press the winder. "You'd better get out of there, Junglegirrl," she added, addressing the tiger which was still giving one of the men a close-up view of its teeth. Teeth which could easily tear his throat out, but Junglegirrl, like most magical girls, believed she should not use her powers to take a life. And, even in cat form, she retained all the beliefs she had as either a magical girl or an ordinary human being called Chihiro Oda.

Junglegirrl leapt off the man's chest, morphing back into a magical girl as she did so and hurrying to join the rest of the group. The instant she was clear, Tick-tock activated her magic, but not before she and the others had taken the precaution of joining hands. The girls in Gudrun's group had learned long ago that it was necessary to maintain physical contact when Tick-tock used her magic; otherwise it would affect them too and they would end up either temporarily frozen in time or being sent back or forward by up to one hour.

As the men became locked in position, Tick-tock turned to her companions, including the woman she and her fellow magical girls had saved. "Let's go," she said, wanting to get as far away as possible before she deactivated her magic. As a magical girl, she had no need to worry about what the men might do to her and neither did Lupina, Junglegirrl, Gudrun, Hanako and Yumi; any one of them could wipe the floor with all three just by using her enhanced physical abilities. The woman they had rescued, however, had no such advantages; they had to get her out of here before she got hurt - or worse.

Once they had taken the woman to safety, Gudrun and the others returned to the red light district to deal with the men. Yumi flew two of them, still frozen by Tick-tock's magic, to the roof of the nearest tall building and left them there; once Tick-tock had unfrozen them, the task of getting down should keep them busy for a while. Lupina, meanwhile, carried the man she'd shot to the local hospital and left him outside for the medical staff to find. It was more than he deserved, but a magical girl would never leave anyone, no matter who it was, to suffer.

Rescuing the woman from the three perverted men netted the girls in Gudrun's group 200 candies each, enough to put all six of them safely over the limit of 5000 candies they needed to earn in order to pass Fav's test. There was no let up to their nightly good deeds, though, and by the time the next chat session came round, each of them had at least 5500 candies. All their fellow magical girls, with the exception of Cranberry, had been working hard as well. Even Requiem, whose ability to guide the souls of the departed to their rest meant she usually hung out at funeral homes and other places where the recently deceased might be found, had helped a few living people for once. Since her kind of magic wasn't much use for this, it hadn't been easy, but she was determined not to be eliminated in the first week, so she'd made use of her enhanced physical abilities and, on the night before the chat, she finally brought her candy count over 5000.

As for Jewel, she and her group (which now consisted of Goldirocks, Fujiko and the new girl, Blizzard) had decided not to waste time picking fights with Gudrun's group and concentrated on earning candies. Perhaps, as Fav's tests progressed, she might be able to use one of them as an excuse to settle things with the Viking, but right now the important thing was to avoid getting eliminated in the first week. And that meant meeting Fav's candy quota; she could not afford to get distracted by a personal vendetta. Besides, Gudrun's group included Tick-tock and her time-manipulation abilities, a power neither Jewel nor anyone from her group could overcome.

But there had to be a way. Every magical girl had some means by which her powers could be neutralised, as Jewel had learned when her wall of light failed to deflect Tick-tock's magic. So all she had to do was find a way of getting round that problem, of making sure the steampunk magical girl couldn't freeze her in time again.

That, however, would have to wait. Right now, it was time for the weekly chat.

The moment Lupina logged into the chat, she saw that all her fellow magical girls apart from Da Vinci and Requiem were present. As always, she directed her avatar to where the other members of Gudrun's group were gathered, on the opposite side of the virtual conference centre to Jewel and her cronies. "Hi," she said. "Good to see you. Wonder what Fav's got in store for us this time?"

"Don't know," replied Junglegirrl. "But we'll find out when he shows up. And, talking of showing up, it looks like everyone's here again."

"Not quite," said Gudrun. "There's still Requiem and Da Vinci . . . And there they are," she added as the avatars representing the last two magical girls in K City appeared. Requiem was first, decked out in black and greyish purple, a hairpin shaped like a crescent moon in her twin-tailed dark hair which was so long that it almost reached her ankles. Of all the others, only Pilot Crimson had hair of a similar length. Da Vinci, wearing her artist's beret and holding her oversized paint brush, followed seconds later. Everyone greeted the pair, everyone except Cranberry who was, as usual, playing her violin in the corner and making no attempt to mingle with any of the others.

Not for the first time, Lupina wondered what Cranberry did between chats; even after several weeks, she still knew nothing about the magical girl with red roses on her costume. But, before she could think about it, a flurry of spores and the words: Fav has entered the Magical Kingdom heralded the arrival of the game's mascot. The black and white creature flapped his single wing, scattering more spores, then got straight down to business.

"Greetings, pon. Fav is pleased that all of you have been working hard all week and have brought your candy counts over 5000, pon. Well done to all of you, pon. You have passed Fav's first test, pon. However, we mustn't forget why you were given this test, pon. Last week, you were told that this area has more magical girls than the local mana supply can handle, so some of you would have to lose your powers, pon. Therefore . . ."

He was cut off at this point by an angry question from Bright Spark, who demanded to know what he planned to do about it. Everyone had passed his test, so they should all, even those who had barely scraped through, get to stay magical girls for at least another week.

"Quite simple, pon," Fav replied. "Whenever all of you pass a test, whoever has the fewest candies that week will automatically be eliminated, pon. And, with 5005 candies, the magical girl in last place this week is Requiem, pon. That means she will be the first to leave us, pon. Requiem, do you have anything to say before you go, pon?"

To Lupina's surprise, Requiem did not seem too upset by Fav's announcement. Rather than ranting at the mascot about how unfair it was that he was stripping her of her powers even though she had passed his test, she gave a short speech about what an honour it had been to be a real magical girl and how she wished each of the remaining sixteen well. "Goodbye, everyone," she said. "I'll never forget any of you."

"And we'll never forget you, pon," said Fav. "Goodbye, pon."

And, with that, Requiem's avatar disappeared.