Origin: How I Became A Magical Girl’s Hapless Sidekick In A Craptastic World

A/N: If you like what you've read so far, please do drop a rating / comments. I'd love to know that the Scribblehub people think. You guys are very quiet here :p

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I came to with someone placing a washcloth across my forehead. I tried to open my eyes, but they seemed to be welded shut. I groaned.

 

"Geeze..."

 

It registered in my brain that I was lying in bed, and my head throbbed painfully.

"He's awake," said a familiar voice nearby. "Thank goodness..."

I opened my eyes, spotting a distinctly unfamiliar face above me.

She had a soft face, cute almond-shaped green eyes, and long, platinum, silver hair. Her eyes were bright and a kind, calm shade of green that reminded me of grass. The girl's hair was partially tied back, and the rest cascaded down her shoulders. She looked right around my age, and she wore a pretty, elegant navy blue dress and white gloves.

"W-what...?"

"Shhh, easy now," the girl spoke, patting me on the forehead with a kind smile.

"It's alright, Ikki," a voice spoke nearby, her voice soft and soothing. "You're fine. Just take it easy."

"Midori...?" My throat felt rough and dry.

I looked at Midori and saw her smiling gently at me. She held a glass of water, which she handed to the other girl. "Here you are, Talia. He needs to get hydrated."

I took the glass of water, the cool liquid feeling like a blessing on my dry throat. "Thanks..."

The girl, Talia, took the glass back.

"Try not to talk too much. You're still pretty beat up. Mimi's told your friends you're alive and kicking, so they should come by later."

"You're...?"

She smiled, "A friend. Um..."

"This is my house," Midori gently patted my shoulder. "Talia lives here with me. You were pretty banged up, and well, you blacked out on me, so I carried you back here."

Oh. Talia. Talia Maavi.

I nodded, taking a deep breath. "Thanks. I'm sorry." I sighed. "I'm really sorry about... this."

"Please, this is nothing when it comes to Mimi, Ikki," the girl spoke with a gentle smile. "At least it was nothing serious, and you're awake now."

Talia handed me a couple pills. "Time for some pain relievers. It'll help with the swelling as well."

I was about to complain, but the bumps and bruises killed me. I glowered at the pills for a second before knocking back the Acetaminophen and settling back down. Ow! What the heck?

I felt something nip at the back of my head, but I was too tired to pay much attention to it.

"Thanks a bunch, by the way," I flashed a weary smile at her.

"I'll see about making you something to eat." Talia gave me a warm smile before heading out of the room.

Talia left the room, leaving me alone with Midori.

I looked over at her. "Seriously. Thanks a lot. For everything."

She smiled and patted my shoulder. "Not a problem. Just try not to get your skull bashed in next time?"

I couldn't move my head without killer neck pain, but I looked around my surroundings. We were in one of the bedrooms. I looked out the window through a crack in the curtain. Rain was still pouring down.

"So... how long was I out?"

Midori took a seat on the bed. "Well, a good thirteen hours now. It's seven o' clock in the morning."

"Seven?! Oh man, I have to get to school. I'm going to be so dead..."

She giggled again. "You don't have school today, don't worry. Keeping the school open after the Chaos Event two weeks ago was already an unpopular call, but this just made it untenable. School's out until Monday, which is why a couple of the other scholarship kids are going to drop by later."

I slumped back into my pillow. "Oh... thanks for letting me sleep, though... Ow!"

"Don't sweat it," she giggled.

I rubbed my hair with my hand, wincing at how much it hurt as my hand traced through rough bumps.

Wait.

I looked around, taking in the environment around me. I was in what looked like a guest room. The walls were decorated with lace curtains, potted plants, and flowers everywhere. The furniture looked expensive and well-maintained. The walls were white, and there was a dresser and a bedside table. There was also a mirror on the opposite side of the room on a makeup stand.

I got up as Midori watched me with amusement, pushing aside the covers, and walked over to the mirror.

I usually wore my short, straight black hair in a slightly tapered fade and kept things simple up top. I didn't like spending money on outrageous things like gel or mousse.

I had a rainbow of scrunchies randomly tied all over my hair and three cat whiskers drawn on each cheek in permanent marker. A giant pink bow adorned the top of my head.

Midori stifled a giggle, and then she started guffawing. "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. The markings aren't permanent markers or anything, by the way. It's just makeup and it'll wash right out in a jiffy."

I grinned, feeling my cheeks turn bright red, and plucked a couple scrunchies out of my hair. "I'm going to get changed."

Midori laughed. "The bathroom's down the hall. Go get cleaned up."

I went down the hall and into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I looked at myself in the mirror and groaned.

I was a mess. I was still in my school uniform, with a few cuts and scrapes here and there. I looked like I had just walked through hell. Sighing, I began to pluck the scrunchies out of my hair one by one as well as the pink bow.

I picked up a hairbrush, brushed it out, and tried to neaten it. Ugh, I was a mess. I really needed a shower.

I also noticed that my school uniform was dirty, scuffed from my encounter at the museum, and smudged with dirt and mud. I'd just gotten my previous one replaced, too.

I blinked as I noticed a set of my clothes from my apartment sitting neatly folded on the bathroom vanity with my phone, wallet, and keys on the top.

How did she...? Oh yeah. Right. My apartment keys were in my pockets.

Grinning, I checked out the attire on the counter.

My go-to light blue hoodie with a pair of dark grey sweatpants, socks, and underwear. I picked them up and checked the pockets. The battery of my phone was in there. Well, that was one thing settled.

Had Midori done this?

Sighing, I stripped out of my clothes and gathered them up. Then, hopped into the shower to clean up. The hot water felt like a blessing as I sighed and allowed it to hit me. As I let the hot water run down my body, washing away all the mud and sweat, I couldn't help but think that it was very different from the shower at my apartment.

I always did my best to have showers as quickly as possible to keep warm. My apartment's heating system was perpetually on the fritz, and there was no telling when it'd stopped working. I was glad it was fully functional during the night of the Chaos Event.

It was usually a nice, warm shower in the morning or a freezing cold one in the evening.

I took a deep breath, trying to relax as I scrubbed my hair. Then, I washed the silly cat whisker makeup off my skin and cleaned my body. This was powerful. It felt like an absolute luxury. I usually showered with a low-pressure water jet that barely washed over me.

This was a whole other kind of experience.

Slowly, I felt my muscles begin to loosen up. The water burned some of my cuts and bruises, but it felt good to be clean again. I didn't feel as woozy.

Midori seemed like a really good person. She was caring and gentle, and she treated me like a friend. Her partner had given me one heck of a good impression too.

As I finished dressing up and drying out my hair, I smiled, taking hold of my phone. Thankfully the battery wasn't dead. In fact, the battery gauge was all the way up to 98%.

I'd started to worry about that.

I left the bathroom. Midori was still in the guest room, quietly talking on her own phone.

"-Okay! I'll see you soon," she said into the phone before she finished and put it down as she noticed me.

"Hey! You feeling better?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I am! Thanks a lot for everything, once again. It's nice to freshen up a bit."

She smiled, nodding back with a cheeky pout. "Aww, you looked so much cuter as a poodle, though."

I rolled my eyes, laughing.

"Yeah, okay."

She snickered. "Anyway, Talia has breakfast ready. Come on downstairs and get some."

I nodded as I followed her out, closing the door behind me.

We descended the stairs, and I joined Midori in the kitchen, balking at the spread. There was practically a breakfast feast on a circular dining room table that could probably seat ten people around it. I could hear the sound of something being fried the room over, and there was a plate with sesame-seed bread bagels, figs, cheese, brined olives, cucumbers, and tomatoes. There was an assortment of fruit preserves, jams, and fresh-cut fruit.

The table was also stacked with several Japanese breakfast staples, including grilled fish, pickled vegetables, miso soup with green onion, and omelets with shredded pork.

Holy crap.

"You've got one heck of a breakfast going on here," I said to Midori as I sat down near the middle.

"Well, Talia is really good at what she does," she said. "I appreciate her a lot."

"Um," I looked over the sheer volume of food in front of us again. "You said people would come by later. By later did you mean..."

The doorbell rang, interrupting me.

I slumped back into my chair. "Oh. So... it's them?"

Midori jumped up and went to answer it. "That'll be them right now!"

I felt my heart hammering in my chest. I don't know why, but I felt a fluttering in my chest. I swallowed, trying to get rid of a sudden surge of social anxiety.

"Remember! Shoes off in this household!" Midori yelled from the other room as I heard some shuffling.

Midori returned a few moments later, followed by Dior, Ranjika, Spencer, and Morada. I had only seen them dressed according to the stuffy school dress code, so I was surprised at how different they looked from their usual uniforms.

Dior, who was relatively short at a few inches shy of five feet, wore a white t-shirt and jeans that looked too big for her. She was also wearing an oversized yellow cardigan and olive green beret.

She zoomed over and settled into a seat without a word, flashing Talia a happy smile and wave. Talia immediately rushed over from the other room, cooing in delight at Dior.

Ranjika followed, looking stylish as usual in a denim skirt and a coordinated striped, red wool top.

Spencer stood next to her, wearing cargo pants and a graphic comic book tee under a black sleeveless jacket with sunglasses pushed back on his head.

Finally, Morada trailed behind them, wearing a beautiful violet-purple velvet skirt with a lacy black dress covered in tiny blue clouds. She had her long, silvery-brown hair plaited in intricate braids and a brass locket encircled her neck with a single small sapphire engraved on it.

She was dressed in a gothic-inspired outfit with black and violet striped leggings. I swear this girl was in a getup more intricate than most magical girl transformations. How did she find the time to put all this together?

Morada smiled warmly at me, her yellow eyes sparkling in the morning light. It was such a stark contrast to how she looked back at the school that it was kind of nuts.

"Glad to see you're doing better, Ikki," said Ranjika with her usual devilish smirk.

Midori and Ranjika made eye contact and shared a simultaneous nod of acknowledgment. It felt like they'd just communicated something between them, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what.

"Holy macaroni this is a real breakfast," Spencer said. "Where are we getting all of this from?"

"That would be Talia's doing," Midori said. "She's a fantastic cook. The damned girl got to me through my stomach, I swear.

"Aww, you're too sweet!" Talia said, giving her a thumbs-up as she set a plate with a stack of steaming hot pancakes in front of Spencer.

"Dude, you have the power of God and pancakes now. You are TOTALLY the best, Talia," Spencer said as he dove in, taking a massive bite out of one of the pancakes as he sat down. "Yo, these are fucking amazing."

"Hey! Share some of those Spence! Dior loves pancakes!" Dior shouted as Talia quickly scurried into the kitchen. Then, she also dropped a plate of pancakes and a bottle of syrup in front of her.

Dior immediately started pouring her plate with syrup and began shoveling them in. Her tiny limbs moved rapidly, filling her plate with syrup and pancakes. Her small mouth chewed quickly, and her little cheeks filled with pancakes. I could see with each bite that she was shoveling in as many pancakes as she could into her mouth. Her hands moved like lightning as she snapped egg after egg on her plate.

She had a wild look in her eyes and was focused on her food.

Dior could eat two of me under the table.

"Dior eats like a beast," I said. "Wow."

Dior puffed her cheeks out in irritation and waved at me dismissively.

"Well, she's growing," Midori said. "A growing girl needs her nourishment."

"Oh, you guys are all so colorful," Talia said with a smile as she set a plate of food in front of me with pancakes and bacon on it. Then, she placed a steaming hot teapot in the middle of the table.

"So. How do you feel, Ikki?" Morada asked as she picked up a plate and poured the two of us some tea.

I shrugged. "I'm okay. Recovering. I'm still a bit woozy in the head. Talia and Midori gave me some medicine or something for it so I'm feeling way better."

Ranjika smiled, taking a sip from her cup. "Well, good thing you're feeling better. The hostage situation at the museum is blowing up right now, you know. We're talking national headlines. That was a mighty mess."

I blinked. "Really? Wow. That's... that's actually pretty surreal."

"I'm glad you're okay," Morada said, giving me a gentle smile, "I really am. Things could have been..."

"Yeah," Spencer muttered. "I've never been in a situation like that, but I think it could've turned out really badly. What if those guys had started taking people out?"

Dior suddenly shuddered, "It would have been okay. Dior has seen worse. Handled worse people. Worse situations. Dior has handled far, far worse."

Everyone stared at her for a brief moment.

Spencer blanched, "Wait, how old are you again, Dior? Dude, that was a freaking hostage situation at gunpoint."

Ranjika suddenly snapped, pounding a fist on the table, "Dior is fourteen, Spencer. You're new to the game but don't presume to know what anyone in our world has gone through. What Dior herself has gone through, in fact."

Wait a minute.

I looked at her in shock, gears turning in my head. I'd brushed off her first outburst in the cafeteria as a weird group in-joke, but this was more than eyebrow-raising.

Spencer looked very surprised. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

I looked at Dior, and she looked down at her feet. "D-Dior cares about her friends. She won't leave them. She'll come back for them. Dior always comes back as she promises. Always comes back..." Dior said, tears welling in her eyes.

Silence fell on the table as I processed what she'd just said. I felt a lump form in my throat. What had happened to Dior? Did she have any family? Who took care of her? What did she go through?

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you," Spencer said, looking guilty.

Morada placed a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder, giving her a hug. "It's okay, Dior," she said softly, "We're all here for you, okay?"

What was going on?

"Forgive him. He just doesn't understand." Midori sighed, turning toward me. "Anyway, so hey, Ikki. We figured it'd be a good time to tell you something now that erm, I brought you back here to keep an eye on you."

"What?" I asked, morbidly curious, doing my best to ignore Dior as she quietly blew her nose before she started to dig into her food again.

"What do you know about the history of St. Antonia's Academy?"

I thought about it for a hard minute. I didn't know much about the history of St. Antonia's - just that it was established by the Vatican in the early to mid-1900s.

Midori sat down, taking a seat at the table before she began to give me a short lecture.

"St. Antonia's has a long and colored history, but fundamentally, it traces back to its namesake. Antonia Bertucci Girelli was one of the earliest recorded Magical Girls in the west. Separating fact from legend is fuzzy, but in the late 1800s, an Aberration horde carved a path through the Kingdom of Tuscany. Eventually, they laid siege to the capital city of Turin. It was said that during the siege, a young girl prayed to God for a week without sleep or food as the city fell under siege, its barriers barely withstanding the assault from the air. Her brothers were wounded in the siege, and her father was slain, but she'd never lost hope in her heart, crying for salvation. On the seventh day, she swore she heard God's voice say, 'I shall protect thee even if I must smite the earth with mine own divine hand. Antonia, my daughter, be the shield of thine brothers, and I shall raise thee in honor and glory.' She was said to have stood alone in flames and darkness for three days, wearing a nun's habit and wielding a massive crucifix as a weapon as the city behind her evacuated. Antonia fell in the end, and the Vatican took her as a martyr and dubbed her Saint Antonia - the Patron Saint of Magical Girls."

Midori gave me a sad smile. "The story of St. Antonia's Academy is a little more involved, but that's the general gist: The Holy See fell in love with the idea and imagery. Having a badass magical nun swinging a giant cross around to symbolize the battle against these otherworldly demons we call Aberrations was too perfect of an idea. Over the last century, the Three Great Ancestral Courts and the Vatican established private academies across the world to mesh young talent that could one day prove critical to mankind's survival."

The gears were really spinning in my head now with this little history lecture, headache aside.

"So wait. Are you implying that the entire point of St. Antonia's and the other schools like it is to groom talent to fight the Aberrations then?" I asked.

This was starting to make sense. That is, if I wasn't barking up the wrong tree with that guess.

"Not just directly in combat, but also through political, economical, social, and technological means," I muttered. "So, that's why the robotics club seems to have a bottomless pit of funding. And, if Midori has a scholarship, and Ms. Roth is a Magical Girl too, that means..."

"Each and everyone in this room is either a Magical Girl, affiliated with a Magical Girl, or private faction that deals with them," Ranjika answered. "I'm not sure exactly what the ratios are, but a good number of the people in this school are either actively fighting the Aberrations on the front line, or supporting their work. Our resident fencing star Michael Lane comes to mind, with his family's fleet of supply and transport ships."

She took another sip of her tea before continuing, "Sure, the education and facilities are top-notch, but rankings and stats for private academies that groom the effort's future are intentionally inflated so that wealthy moguls will subsidize the war. Young Magical Girls that have shown valor and excellent merit are granted early pensions and scholarships from charities that fall under an international network called Babylon."

Silence fell on the table.

I sat there staring at her.

Morada sighed, "It's a lot to take in, but there you go. That's the situation. Now, I'm sure you have questions.

I blinked, looking around the table. "So wait, w-why are you telling me this?"

"We probably wouldn't have done this, ordinarily. Even if we were already curious and wanted to befriend you when you stuck your head in for Natasha," Ranjika answered honestly. "Then well, as we all know Midori is a retired Magical Girl here, but she blew her cover to fight with you on the night of the Chaos Event. You took a hit that should have had you snarling and mutating in seconds, and not only that, you were still fully lucid and even helped her take down a Mikado. The two of you took down Marquis-class Chaos Beast mind you, with only a touch of Lumina that Midori could draw from. That in itself turned a few heads. And before you ask, only the people in this room know."

"Helping her take down a Marquis is a bit of a stretch. I just strobed its ugly tentacle-y eyes with a flashlight for a few seconds," I said, voice weak, shuddering at the memory of that monstrosity.

"Well, it was still a Marquis class monster. And — you thought on your feet and helped neutralize it," Spencer said, shaking his head. "That in itself is the key here, and even most Magical Girls wouldn't be able to shake off a Mikado's concentrated Chaos venom like you did. There are a bunch of Magical Girls like Midori that have an ability to convert Chaos energy to Lumina — the special form of mana used by Magical Girls, but tons of people would question why you're even still breathing. That shit is more lethal than Sarin and that's saying something. I was watching the girls battle the manticore on my recon drones but I kept tabs on you and Midori."

"So wait, you're telling me most Magical Girls wouldn't be able to even shrug off the venom either?" I muttered incredulously.

"Yeah, I know. Damn interesting, isn't it?" Spencer said, nodding as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm still not sure if it's a fluke, but here you are, and you haven't gone all 28 Days Later on us yet. We haven't told anyone and don't plan to. Hell, we signed a magical contract with each other and literally can't. We just wanted to find a time to sit down for this talk. Put our heads together and fill you in."

"Wait, why?" I asked. "Why all the secrecy and why hide all this then?"

"Let's just say that the system is all screwed up, and this small incident puts a big question mark at the top of the board. It's political, and complicated, and we have our own ethos. You've grown on us in a short amount of time, and none of us want to see our new friend tossed into the back of a van and hauled off to some black-site research lab." Morada answered. "Call us anxious, but we're a bunch of bleeding hearts here. Nobody wanted to raise a big fuss about it."

"I just, kind of wanted to put our heads together and figure out what to do," Midori confessed. "But that's going to largely depend on you, Ikki."

"I mean, we were going to be honest with you. But, to be blunt, we're a bit of a crew here. We were going to talk about ways to let you know about the world, and we were going to see if there was a spot for you in our little afterschool club. Because, we like you, and you're proving damned handy around the workshop and I feel like this is something you'd be into," Spencer admitted.

"So, you guys have some sort of secret school club or something that's fighting against the Aberrations?" I continued.

"That's the gist of it," Spencer said, nodding. "Use whatever filters and labels you need, but that's us. We're not the only ones. I'm pretty sure there are eight to twelve little cells like us on campus alone. Some of the expanded robotics club members support other groups, but we respect each others' privacies."

"Like I said, we're not trying to pressure you. Take some time to think about it, but we're open to seeing you around. And, if you do want to hang out, we can have some more fun under the guise of class projects! There's a lot of projects in the college that are actually clandestine magitech projects to help juice up the Magical Girls," Morada said, winking.

"It's not too big of a deal at the end of the day, Ikki. I just wanted to emphasize the Mikado thing, today. Try not to let that get out," Midori insisted. "Zuri also knows about this group, but she's been good about keeping her lips tight as well and is in no way involved with the week on week stuff. She has her own issues going on."

I thought about it for a minute, processing everything they'd just said. Everyone here was a Magical Girl or affiliated with a Magical Girl.

I thought about being scared and afraid as a child. Of fuzzy memories as my mother had called out to me to come back to her as the living dead snarled all around us. Images of her walking at the end of a dark corridor as I ran away from her. Of the fear, I felt while huddling in the corner of an abandoned home that night. Of the family, I still had at home on Earth.

They were all in this fight, and they were all here to help, and if I was being honest with myself, I was interested in being on the same side. I wanted to know and learn more.

I wanted to be able to help and protect.

And I wanted to be friends.

There would be no hesitation from me.

"I'm in," I said, voice firm. "I'll keep everything hush hush. Sign any magic contract I need. I've always wanted a damned chance to do something about the Aberrations, and I guess this would be one way to start. How do I erm, get started?"

"With a lot of time spent in the workshop making shit and crying ourselves to sleep after it gets eaten by a monster in five minutes," Spencer said with a forced smile.

I blinked before chuckling. "Sounds like a typical school club, I suppose."

"Yeah," Midori agreed. "Just with a lot more violence and explosions. Not the life for me anymore! Nope!"

I gulped at her, wondering if I had made the right call.

"And if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask us," Ranjika said with a smirk.

"Okay, it's settled. We're going to get Ikki set up with a Magic Side ID," Spencer said before turning to me. "Say, I don't suppose you've operated a multi-axis utility platform before?"

"I'm going to go ahead and say no," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, no matter. I was just about to say we might want to get you set up with a spin on the framework that we're eventually going to help integrate Project Raiju into," Spencer said, shrugging.

"I don't follow?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"You'll see, eventually!" Spencer chirped.

...

Now, why did that statement make me feel so uneasy?