Chapter 25: The True Power of the Amethyst.

  While Elias was throwing down with Rahab, and while Emma was trying to get police assistance, I was posting myself up on a balcony, trying to get a good shot at the monster myself. The problem was that because they kept moving around, I couldn’t get a good angle without risking hitting Elias. The bursts of gunfire coming from Silverback didn’t help matters either.

  I looked up to see if I could get a better angle, only to see a figure kneeling at the front of the skyscraper with a rifle. Maybe the Army or the cops had left a sniper in the building to try and help Elias? I fired off another blast, but it went wide again. Dammit. I ducked, peeking over to make sure I hadn’t been spotted.

  The sniper fired again, striking Elias’s windshield. I told Emma to hurry up and get help before I tried to find another vantage point. Another gunshot, and the sound of wind through Elias’ comms. In all the confusion, I hadn’t seen what happened to Sebastian. I squinted. It was hard to tell, but the figure in the window did have Sebastian’s long hair. I realized exactly what he was trying to do. I fired off another blast, which went whistling past Sebastian. He ducked behind something, and the window had been busted open anyway. Elias radioed through, warning everybody of the danger. Silverback’s windshield was busted, and I needed to do something fast. I radioed through.

  “I see him, Silverback. Let me handle him.”

  Rather than engage in a sniper duel, I decided to get up close and personal. I leapt from the balcony and stuck my umbrella out, letting a gust of wind carry me up. In my normal magical girl form, I could never have done that, but I guess this new form came with a power boost. I whipped through the shattered window, landing with ease before I pointed the umbrella at Sebastian. Something in me hesitated, just for a brief moment. And that moment of hesitation was all he needed to spot me. He dropped the rifle and grabbed a box cutter from the desk, charged me, screaming and shouting and trying to cut me. All my planning had gone out the window. Now, it was all a matter of dodging, striking back with my umbrella and trying desperately to keep Sebastian at a distance as he screamed at me. I should have run, got a bit more distance, but I didn’t want to lose sight of Sebastian. I struck him once more, across the face, but he wasn’t letting up. I should have charged my umbrella for a close-range blast, but I was panicking, and I needed a way to distract him. That’s when I slipped over an extension cord, dropping my umbrella as I did so. He smiled, triumphantly, before trying to stomp on my legs. I was crawling now, and he had slowed down.

  “You never should have tried to steal my boyfriend, you disgusting, fucking whore!”

  He spat in my face. I scrabbled around for something, anything to hide under or protect myself. I tried a computer desk, but he grabbed me, began trying to drag me out by the ankles. I had one option left: flail like a wild animal. I began kicking, desperately trying to avoid the knife. As I was sure that I was about to meet my maker, I got a lucky hit: I’d managed to kick him in the knees, and by the way he screamed, I’d managed to either break or dislocate it. I scrabbled forward, looking for a better angle. With as much force as I could muster, I delivered another kick, straight to Sebastian’s crotch. As he stumbled and yelped in pain, I rose to my feet and grabbed my umbrella. Before Sebastian could straighten up, I crossed away from the open window, began charging up a bolt. He looked up, eyes widening in terror.

  “You wouldn’t, would you my sweet?”

  “Fuck off. I hate that fucking nickname. You cheated on me, sent me into a spiral that lasted almost a decade, then you sent a fucking terrorist to kill Elias. You sent those letters didn’t you? You tried to smear an innocent man as a fucking murderer, you absolute fucking psycho! You betrayed this entire city and for what? FOR SOME OLD-ASS FISH MONSTER!? I have no clue what I ever saw in you. Maybe I should have listened to Elias all those years ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. Goodbye, Sebastian.”

  At the mention of Elias’ name, Sebastian’s expression twisted into a mask of hate. He staggered towards me, more like a zombie than a human being, still screaming about how he would kill me. With a smooth motion, I began charging my umbrella, one-handed, more like a very long pistol than a rifle. The point made contact with his chest. I looked Sebastian in the eyes for the last time, breathed out, then fired, blasting him across the room, out of the window to the street below. He screeched. Perhaps mercifully, I didn’t hear the sound of him hitting the ground. I stepped forward, as I began to process the magnitude of what I’d done. My ears began to ring. My heart was pounding. I stepped forward, feeling numb, moving as if I was a puppet on a string. That’s when I heard that wet rasping voice in my head.

  ““No… no… NO!!!”

  I looked out. Rahab had begun to bash Silverback, raking his claws down the back of the mech. The visor was broken. Elias was hanging limp, not moving. I snapped out of my funk. I could hear The Major and Emma yammering on comms, but between the wind and the ringing in my ears, I couldn’t make out what they were talking about. I fired another bolt at Rahab, distracting him just long enough for him to grab a streetlight and throw it at me. I managed to dodge the light itself, but it dislodged a ceiling tile that fell on my head, knocking me out like a light switch.

  I awakened to birdsong. The sky above me was open and full of stars: a skyscape that you just couldn’t get if you lived in or near a city like Port Moonstone. The landscape around me was bathed in a soft blue light. I couldn’t recognize the place. It was cold, and filled with trees. I tried sitting up, but my body felt heavy. And above me sat a creature that I thought I would never see again. On the surface, it looked like a bird, but none I could really identify. One minute, I thought it looked like a parrot, the next, an owl, or maybe an eagle. Then it spread its tail feathers: maybe some sort of peacock? The feathers, though, didn’t look right. That’s when I realized: those weren’t feathers. They were gems. Green feathers were emeralds. Red were rubies, maybe garnets. Blue had to be sapphires, or maybe lapis lazuli or turquoise. That’s when I realized that the question wasn’t what this bird was. The question was who this bird was.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The bird was graceful, peering down at me. I couldn’t move my legs, but I propped myself up on a stone using my arms. The world was coming into focus. I was sitting right outside a cave that I’d been to a couple of times when I was a kid. I recognized this place now. This was the place where my life had changed forever. It was a place where I’d made my stand, battling a slug monster that had chased me and tried to eat me. And that bird up there, is the creature who’d given me my powers, the one who had turned Emma and I into magical girls to begin with. At first I was excited, but then my heart sank. I couldn’t read the bird’s expression.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The words left my mouth, and the bird looked at me curiously. “What do you apologize for?”

  And for the first time in a long time, I began to reckon with everything I’d been and done over the past decade. So much of the misery and the pain I’d been through had fundamentally been my fault. I’d chosen to date Sebastian to begin with. I’d let myself spiral. I hadn’t reached out to the people who could have helped me. And maybe it was all in self-defence, but I had still used the powers of a Crystal Guardian to kill somebody that I used to want to spend the rest of my life with. Did somebody like that sound like a heroine who protects her city? Maybe I didn’t want to be normal, but did I deserve to be a magical girl?

  I drew my knees to my chest, curling up into a ball. “For everything. I- I wasn’t the heroine I should have been. I couldn’t keep the Crystalline Sisters together. I let myself be manipulated because I was stupid enough to care about the wrong people. Fuck, my whole city… all because I’m an absolute fuckup who can’t get her shit together, and now I’ve gone and killed someone. I failed you. I failed everyone who cared about me. I failed at being a magical girl, and I don’t deserve the power that I’ve been given. I… I’m so sorry.”

  The bird flew down from its perch, took its place on my knee. “You have come too far to be swallowed by regrets, Crystal Guardian Amethyst. A few minutes ago, you had begun to grasp the truth. Where do you think you draw your power from?”

  I shrugged, looked up at the stars. “Truth be told, bird, I never asked. Maybe it’s too late now.” I could hear crickets chirping in the background. The bird cocked its head. “Is it the end, Crystal Guardian Amethyst?”

  “Isn’t that why we’re doing this? You were there at the beginning. Now we’re at the end. It’s not what I had hoped for, but it’s poetic, at least. I think. Sebastian was always better at the poetry stuff.”

  “If you truly believe it’s the end, then it is, and we’ll say no more about it. But you didn’t answer my question. Where does a Crystal Guardian draw her strength?”

  I tried to scritch the bird’s head. The gems were hard, and it began to look up at me, looking unamused. I wondered what Feather Locklear would do without me, or whether she would survive, somehow. I began to recite, as if it was a poem I’d learned long ago. “Fine, I’ll humour you. A magical girl derives her strength from how much she cares about others. Her power is the love she has for-“

  “Wrong.”

  I looked down. “Okay, so maybe it’s all a metaphor. I don’t know. You gave me those powers. You tell me if it matters so much.”

  The bird looked satisfied. “You have forgotten so very much. The strength of your soul, the strength of your power does not only come from how much you care about others, Crystal Guardian. Have you ever considered how much they care about you?”

  “But that makes no sense. I mean, when I was dating Sebastian-“

  “I speak not of him. I speak of those you called Sisters. I speak of the city you defend and I speak of the man who commands the metal beast of war. When you feel weak, they will grant you strength to keep fighting. They are the power that drives you.”

  I sat there in the quiet. It was tempting to stay here, with the bird and the chirping of the crickets, but I knew it couldn’t last forever. "I- I don't know how I really feel about Elias. And I've been a terrible friend to the Sisters. But they care about me, and I've got to stand up and fight for them."

  “One more thing, Crystal Guardian. You are more than a warrior, capable of violence and harm. You should really explore what your powers can do, and are capable of. Now rise once more, and protect your home.”

  The world seemed to shimmer. I still didn’t know the bird’s name, and I called after him asking for his name, before awakening back in the office building, with a bump on the back of my head, a headache and a new understanding of my powers. I dragged myself to my feet. I could see lights flashing, red and blue. I could hear guns, small guns mainly, as Rahab raked his claws down Silverback’s spine. I could see something small whizzing up behind Rahab, before jumping, slicing his foot. He roared, as Emma began to skate off in the other direction. Rahab began to chase Emma, and was just about to turn a corner, when Silverback began to groan into life, before almost collapsing. Rahab looked at me, before leaving us to our fates, following Emma.

  “Amy, this is Emerald, you gotta help me! We’re outnumbered, and he’s chasing me!”

  “Roger that Emerald. Major, Silverback is down, I repeat, Silverback is down. Do we have anything that can help him?”

  The silence was eerie.

  “Major, do you copy?”

  Finally, The Major spoke. “Received, Crystal Guardian Amethyst. Return to base immediately-“

  “Hell with you, Major. If you can’t help us, put us through to somebody who can!”

  “Crystal Guardian Amethyst, be advised, Charlie Company is at the casino evacuating civilians along with Port Moonstone Police, I’m trying to get air support, but Canberra's not co-operating. Emerald, guide Rahab to the casino. Amethyst, pull out. Don’t become the Initative’s second casualty.”

  “Order received, and duly ignored, Major. I'm not leaving him behind.”

  I screamed with frustration, before floating down to Silverback’s fallen body. I could still see Elias, still held in by his seatbelt. He was breathing, at least, but it wasn’t good. I grabbed his shoulder. He looked up. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Port Moonstone, you’ve been out maybe one or two minutes.”

  He looked up. I could hear a bunch of sirens cutting in and out. He shook his head, gasped deeply. “Fuck no. We have to stop him. Emma won’t be enough.”

  I began fiddling with Elias’ harness, but he slapped my hand away. “Comms are fucked again. Did The Major say there’s air support?”

  “No. Charlie Company's evaccing civvies at the casino.”

  “Then Charlie Company’s fucked without air or Silverback. We need air support if we’re going to-“

  “We don’t have air support, Elias. The Major said that she’s trying, but Canberra's not co-operating, and Silverback needs power…”

  I remembered the words of the bird. “You are more than a warrior, capable of violence and harm. You should really explore what your powers can do, and are capable of”. I looked up at Silverback’s back. It was leaking energy, a bright purple energy, the exact same purple that my umbrella could fire. It was a long shot, but it was one we needed to take. “You remember when you told me you would be my fuel? Time to return the favour.”

  I clambered onto Silverback’s back, and knelt, before sticking my umbrella down. Instead of charging an attack, I began focusing on letting the energy flow, seeping slowly out of my umbrella, directly into Silverback’s power source.