An actress in our midst!

Pretty Frost stared at their foe. Salem used to be the first Pretty Spark, or so the former magical girls had theorized. Frost wasn’t sure what to think about that.

She didn’t quite remember what first Spark had looked like back when she had handed over hers and the first Flame’s weapons. But then again, it had been years.

“Focused sunburn!” Flame shouted as her blade extended and went from glowing to radiant.

Salem, as always, swung her staff sideways and conjured a shield to block the attack.

If she really was, though… why? Why had she joined the demons? Why hadn’t she told anything to Annette and Michelle? What was the point of this fighting?

“Hmmph! Weak, as always!” Salem taunted before pointing her staff at Frost and firing off a blast of magic.

Frost pulled up her shield and conjured a defensive spell in a hurry. The blast knocked her back but she stood her ground, albeit just barely. Summertime wasn’t doing her powers any favors.

Maybe it was some kind of… training? Was she grooming the next generation of the magical girls to be able to handle whatever threat was coming to destroy the worlds? Was that why the magical girls hadn’t been told anything? So that the demons would feel like an authentic threat?

But then what about the rogue demons? Those were a real threat. How did they play into everything?

From the corner of her eye Frost noticed a civilian looking at their fight. Emilie, the band’s singer, had stuck around for some reason and was watching them from backstage.

Why was she still here? This could get dangerous for her!

Frost met the singer’s eyes. She frowned at her and gestured with her head. Thankfully, the girl seemed to have understood, and quickly disappeared behind the curtains.

Their two versus one match continued, but was quickly interrupted by Jessica – the minion – backing off, to dodge Spark’s blasts, right into their direction.

Everyone noticed and suddenly it became four versus two.

Or so Frost thought.

“Hmmph! Is that all you have, magical girls? Can’t even beat one of my minions even if you team up on her? Pathetic!” Salem spat.

She turned to Jessica with an even more intense glare than she’d been giving the magical girls.

“You there!”

Jessica startled, then turned to Salem and raised her hand to point at herself.

“Yes, you! I’m going back to base. You can handle them all, can’t you?”

Jessica’s upper body jerked back in surprise. She then brought one hand up to her chin into a thinking position, and lifted her other hand in front of her to shake it in a ‘So, so’ motion.

Salem growled. “Fine! I’ll make an exception! You’re allowed to use your weapon!”

Again, Jessica seemed to be taken aback by that.

“Don’t disappoint me, minion,” the witch said, before raising her staff and vanishing in a flash of dark magic.

Both Jessica and the magical girls stood there, looking at the empty space where Salem had been, in shock. After all, none of them had expected her to leave Jessica to solo all four of them. Who would do that?

The minion couldn’t help but sigh whilst murmuring, “Fucking Salem… What is she trying to do now?” before quickly straightening up, and putting a hand to her mouth, as if saying ‘Oops’.

“Uh…” Flame made a sound, eyeing Jessica.

The demon in question simply tilted her head and raised her arms to her sides before making an exaggerated shrugging motion. Then, she held out her hand, and in a similar manner to Salem disappearing, something instead appeared in her hand. A black crystalline spear, longer than she was tall, donned with various gems in deliberate patterns.

The magical girls couldn’t help but gasp or widen their eyes in surprise. In hindsight, it was obvious, but…

“Wait, you have a demon general weapon?!” Spark shout-asked.

Jessica shrugged with one shoulder, before gripping the spear with both hands, spinning it around herself in, what had to be, a carefully practiced motion, and ended up in a battle stance, pointing the spear at Frost. The magical girls quickly got back into their battle stance in response.

A beat passed.

Then Jessica launched herself at Frost like a torpedo, her spear jabbing into the Ice Aegis. Frost immediately pulled out another defensive spell, only for it to instantly get shattered when the spear impacted.

“Uwaah?!”

Her shield obviously held, being a magical weapon itself, but the force of the impact sent her flying back.

“Frost!” her teammates yelled in concern.

The fight resumed in full. Bloom backed off to help Frost while Spark continued to pepper Jessica with her arrows and Flame – reluctantly – engaged the demon in a melee with her sword.

At first, Jessica was handling the uneven fight well, but after Bloom quickly took care of the minor bruising Frost received, and the two rejoined the fight a minute later, it became four versus one.

Flame striking her spear and dodging or blocking her own attacks, Frost using magic to protect Flame and slow down Jessica, and Spark and Bloom providing support fire.

Obviously, the magical girls weren’t going all out at this point, but fighting this many opponents at once wasn’t easy for Jessica. Even then, somehow, she managed to last a good few minutes under the assault, albeit she was forced to be almost completely defensive.

The four surrounded her as she leaned on her spear and audibly heaved for breath. It looked like she was at her limit at this point.

“How are you so damn strong?!” Spark shouted.

Jessica shrugged with one shoulder as a reply. 

Spark continued to growl.

“Either way, it’s over. You can’t take on all of us,” Frost declared.

They had no idea whether Salem or the other demons were somehow watching the fight, but if they were, they couldn’t break character now.

Jessica locked eyes with Frost, then turned her head to look at Flame. She then took one last deep breath, and let out a sigh, before nodding.

Just like Salem, she disappeared in a flash of magic and the fight was over.

The magical girls relaxed… Except for Spark. Spark kept cursing that damn minion under her breath. Frost wasn’t sure whether that was still part of the act, or whether she really was that annoyed.

“Well, there’s that I guess…” Flame muttered, still looking conflicted.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Frost assured her. “We’ll–”

“Oh my god, you did it!” a voice interrupted her.

Everyone looked into its direction and saw Emilie, who apparently hadn’t run, sprinting in their direction with a wide smile.

“Oh, uh, you alright?” Flame asked.

“Yes! We’re all fine! Thank you, magical girls!” the singer beamed at them.

Frost couldn’t help but smile wryly. Seems like they’d run into another fan, even though they were supposed to be her fans at this concert.

Funny how that worked.

BottledChaos Next time: "All set!" or "Jessica departs for the trial and her conspirators are left wondering what to do in the meantime."