There are now a hundred thousand Magical Girls, with carefully managed specialties. Their targets are narrowly restricted, to focus the powers they build and to avoid deadly interactions between the biology of disparate animals.

Event Twenty-Eight began an hour ago, and something big is approaching the coast. Aquatic Magical Girls swirl around it, waiting for reinforcements - it seems to be an octopus of some sort?

Alia prowls the beach, breathing deeply of the sea, tracking the paths of every creature who passed through in the last day. She has four hours and twelve minutes of freedom and she's going to enjoy every bit of it. She stretches and runs and claws up the driftwood. She listens to two birds fifty feet away, swiveling her ears independently to follow them. She lays down on the warm sand and purrs.

According to the plan, her role is bait, to draw the activated octopus into their trap, avoiding the cities north and south. But this is the biggest actual monster yet. She might yet see action.

She licks her lips.

A crackle goes through the walkie-talkie. "Agent Aila, prepare for contact. Recon planes have provided intel; our bullets likely won't do much against this. The creature is currently advancing towards your position, just as planned. The creature would likely be far more vulnerable out of the water; we're trying to slowly direct it towards the beach. Do you copy, over?"

"Alia, copy that."

The ocean bulges as the creature ascends, and it emerges. It's got tentacles alright, fifty feet long and six feet wide at the base. It also has spines and a shell like an inverted bowl, glistening green.

It drags itself onto the sand.

Alia steps back to stay clear of its reach. A normal animal that big wouldn't be able to move on land, much less lift a tentacle to attack, but it's obviously not normal, and might have additional hidden powers too.

The creature tilts until one edge of its shell touches the ground and scrapes forward, pushing a truckload of sand into a pile. It backs up and repeats, deepening the hole until it could fit Alia's entire store inside, including the machines in the back room.

The octo-turtle-urchin crouches over the hole. Something round and leathery plops out with a thud.

"Alia, the creature appears to be laying an egg... multiple eggs. Should I engage? Over."

"It's an unnecessary risk. The snipers are ready to aim for any eggs or any other soft target you might reveal, and we would much rather prioritize the urgent danger of the squid. Over."

A pilot was flying an incredibly slow-moving biplane across the sky, the spotter in the rear seat looking through the plane's many cameras to see any hint of other creatures approaching.

Nothing that big. A twenty-foot shark circles just beyond the creature's trailing tentacles. Smaller fish swarm, nipping at the aquatic Magical Girls and each other.

The creature eases off its hole, fills it in, and continues inland.

"Alia, it's either ignoring all of us or is interested in me in particular. Request permission to circle south around it to keep it in reach of the aquatics, if it follows me. Over."

The creature crushes its way through a row of beach chairs, a food stand, and several trees.

"Excellent. It seems slow enough that you'll be safe and that the aquatics can slowly whittle it away safely. Act according to your judgement. Over."

"Alia, circling south."

It keeps heading inland.

The aquatics follow it, except for a few who can't leave the water, who team up to slaughter the shark.

Good news: she's not extra tasty, since it isn't following her.

Bad news: the behavior of the creature doesn't make sense.

She's specialized on fighting cats. She's fast and agile and perceptive, but doesn't have any special attack powers. "Alia, doing flyby recon." She dashes at it from behind, between the rearmost tentacles, and scrambles under its butt(?), looking for vulnerabilities.

She could attack it - only the primary contributor to the kill has to worry about acquiring the target's features - but doesn't yet. If it doesn't know she's there, she can get more information.

It has a variety of orifices and a beak.

She dashes back out. "Alia, it looks soft underneath."

"Great news, we can rush in some grenades or similar if you want to soften it up under its weak underbelly. Or maybe attempt to use a ranged weapon to make it run closer towards the aquatics? We trust your judgement as to whether you'd be able to take it out without using the support of the aquatics. Over."

"Alia, I don't think we can get it back to the water any time soon. I can deliver a granade. Make it a big one, I don't know if I can get under it again after my first attack."

They're asking her to take a suicide mission. If she finishes off the creature after the granade weakens it, she'll be half-aquatic. The creature itself is already a mixture that might be unstable, so killing it might cost them someone, but mixing it with cat is an especially bad idea.

"We're sending in the heaviest thing we think could fit under it. It'll be heavy for you, but you should be nimble enough to make your way under and get out for the final blow. We have a medevac helicopter doing rounds in the area; they'll get you the moment you've absorbed the creature. Everyone means everyone; we'll get you the finest care we could ever give you. Good luck."

A drone, racing across the sand, carries a purse towards Alia, with a heavy bomb placed inside. It's designed to easily be able wrap itself around Alia's stomach, with a simple clip to release it and activate the timer with an adjustable delay.

"Alia. Cancel the medevac. I want to enjoy my last three hours out here, and keep fighting."

Also hey she thought she was already getting the finest care they could give.

She puts on the bomb, sets the timer for 4 seconds, and dashes in.

As it crawls forward, it snaps the tip of a tentacle through her path -

- which she dodges -

but she dodges too far and brushes against the side of a tentacle.

Ooh what's this? Food! The best kind of food, which you don't even have to eat, you just have to kill.

The tentacles on either side of Alia smash together.

She jumps eight feet straight up and sprints along the tentacles towards the main body, using all four limbs and digging her claws in. The tentacles are really the perfect texture for running, too bad she can't appreciate them more.

Should she abort? It knows about her now, but she might still have the advantage of surprise, and she doesn't understand the situation - it should be possible to carry an aquatic over here to make the killing blow, but she was suggested for the role instead. Either this thing is mostly cat, or it needs to die urgently.

Twenty feet away. She pulls the trigger on the bomb.

Ten feet. She swerves to aim herself at the next gap over - the pair of tentacles she's on are still pressed together.

Five feet. She unclips the bomb, letting it fall towards the gap, and jumps as hard as she can, grabbing on to the shell and clambering to the center, where she dives face down with her hands under her body and eyes shut.

Boom!

The south half of the creature is destroyed. The shell is thrown upwards.

She jumps off the other side, the head end if it has one. Any eyes?

(The bomb might actually have been too large, a direct hit could have killed the octopus?)

It has two sunken eyes. Its remaining front tentacles writhe.

Back she goes to claw at the eyes then, before the creature dies on its own.

The badly weakened creature squirms in pain, pouring out blood from the fleshy pieces where Alia attacks. By the end, it stops moving, and the strange sensation of new powers flowing into her body comes to her again. No vast explosion of horrifyingly noxious gases! Alia will probably get a bunch of tentacles or something silly, but she's removed the threat for now. Other than the aquatic Magical Girls fighting of the stragglers, the battle is over; luxurious vans arrive, driven by some of Thomassia's deadliest soldiers, driving the currently-transformed Magical Girls to their accommodations designed for the medical issues that come with absorbing the energy of these monsters.

Fucker fucker fucker fucker

She was hoping there was a great plan that they simply didn't have time to tell her about.

"No. I'm obviously going to die. I don't want to spend my last hours pretending to believe doctors who are pretending they can treat me. Get Kyra. My girlfriend. Luthier Kyra 433701, you should have all her info already."

She'll get into a van if it gets her to Kyra faster, but otherwise insists on running around testing out her new powers.

Her fingers can stretch out, growing rows of extra claws along the sides! She can hear pitches far lower than human range! She can hold her breath for as long as she tries to test it!

That is very cool. Seriously.

"With my new powers, I can hear a sound below human hearing. It's a repetitive thrumming. I can tell its direction" huh how's that work "it's coming from inland, the direction the activated octopus was heading."

The van waits for Alia, ready to race her as rapidly towards Kyra as its powerful engine permits. One of the soldiers calls Kyra on the phone, wanting Kyra to be waiting for Alia near the edge of the city. He wants Alia to enjoy every second she remains strong and transformed like she is now.

"You can hear whatever the octopus was heading towards? This is could be the most important discovery we've ever made!" He calls someone on the phone, asking the person on the other end to try using as many sensors as they can think of to discover a signal coming from the direction the squid was headed in. Meanwhile, the capacious van remained comfortable as always, dedicating plenty of space to let Alia sprawl out however she wanted in the interior.

Sprawl

The sound is conducted more through the ground than the air and is coming from a forest in the middle of the island.

The racing vehicle eventually ends up in front of a wall of high-rises suddenly emerging from grasslands and fields. Kyra waits in front of one of the white buildings with many sharp edges, wanting to embrace the opportunity to meet with a transformed Alia.

"Hey."

"I'm proud of you."

"Thanks." For not calling her brave, or making a fuss. She did her duty.

"I'm here now. I'll be here the whole way. I don't know what's going to happen, but we keep getting better at handling aquatics."

"I had it good. Enough meds to need two whole sugar packets to hold them all." She snorts. "Lots of people are perfectly happy on long-term dialysis."

"It won't be the same. But we can make it work, okay?"

"Okay."

And after a lot of cuddling in the garden, with fifteen minutes to spare, she reports to the prep area, still clutching Kyra's hand.

Her skin is now too tough for a normal human to pierce, but the permanent hemodialysis catheter in her arm still works.

This city, like many others near the sea, is well-equipped to care for the needs of aquatics. Plenty of pools, knowledgeable biologists, and charming artificial channels near many parks give opportunities for aquatics to be able to explore new places and see new people, instead of being confined to their pools. There's even a hastily-built medical center intended care for the needs of aquatics with other conditions on top; if anywhere could handle Alia post-transformation, it would likely be here, on this island.

In the prep area quickly improvised outside the hospital, wanting to keep Alia near a small stream in case she needed to be submerged, a small team of doctors and nurses are standing around, ready to rush in and summon the entire hospital if necessary. The dialysis machine is ready, together with a comfortable hospital bed built perfect for Alia and a variety of sensors ready to be hooked up to her body. The nurse gently places the mask over Alia's mouth; thomassians take treatable pain very seriously, and the mask can begin sending a stream of powerful anesthetics to spare Alia from any kind of pain or discomfort that might happen to her when untransformed.

"Ready?" her favorite nurse asked her, with a breathy, and gentle voice, as she waited tensely for the transformation to be over and Alia return to how she was without magic flowing through her veins.

No, but that wouldn't be nice to say. "Yes, thank you."

(The water features are very pretty but she doesn't want to be an aquatic.)

The Event ends, everywhere on the planet at almost exactly the same time.

Alia's claws and ears and whiskers disappear.

She passes out.

No heartbeat, but she's still breathing weakly.

The doctors and nurses are waiting, trying to understand how the squid has changed Alia, ready for anything. They quietly and calmly try using both chest compressions and precisely targeted electrical pulses from a source, hoping to get some response from Alia's heart.

Chest compressions and electricity both make her heart convulse but it doesn't resume pumping.

She stops breathing.

Her fingers are getting bluish.

They should have done this a long time ago. The nurses rush ahead into the hospital, rushing Alia to the closest room with a heart and lung machine as rapidly as they can. Working fast, it takes but a few minute before the machine has begun pumping blood in place of Alia's heart. They also start carting in ECMO equipment into that room, as another thing to try in case the HLM somehow wasn't enough.

She's looking less blue now.

At least her skin is. Her blood is blue and viscous.

Diarrhea oozes.

Perhaps this is what squids would be like? Kicking the ventilation system into high gear and changing into masks that block the smell is easy, and cleaning up Alia is barely any more effort than that. Measuring oxygen concentration and brain function would probably be a necessity; the doctors have no idea what the viscous blue blood could mean, but if other signs of life work normally, they can probably afford to get out of crisis mode and give Alia some beyond-deserved rest.

An external pulse oximeter still shows around 40%, but she's breathing on her own (or at least moving her chest on her own) and a lab measurement finds 95% percent oxygenation of her, uh, haemocyanin, which turns her vividly blue again.

Her brain flickers sporadically. She has a bleeding stroke in her left frontal lobe.

Sodium: low.

Magnesium: low.

Blood sugar: high.

She has a fever of 38.1.

She's ...crying? Despite being thoroughly unconscious.

... those wouldn't be tears, then. IV solution, ready. Treatment for any fluid buildup from the stroke, ready. The newfangled insulin control system, ready. Ice-based gel cooling packs, ready. It's always miserable when someone gets sent to cryo without already knowing their date, but the hospital cryonics team is on higher alert than unusual after the doctors saw Alia's condition. One of them rapidly makes himself leader, dedicating all his concentration to understanding what might prove necessary for someone absorbing the traits of an octopus, while absent-mindedly patting Alia's body, hoping to get some hint from a change in her skin or physiology.

Her extremities are cold. It's hard to tell which parts are blue because of deoxygenated hemoglobin and which parts are blue because of oxygenated haemocyanin. She has a bruise from Kyra holding her hand.

The IV solution helps a lot. Her heart twitches on its own and her brain activity looks normal for someone unconscious.

Oxygen and circulation, check. Presumably. At the moment. While on an HLM. The leader makes a call, talking to Alia's handler from the Magical Girl Solidarity Council, trying to explain everything he knows about Alia's history and current situation, hoping to have a better option for helping preserve her health going forward than keeping her on a heart and lung machine. Every treatment is ad-hoc and improvised, but everyone still does their very best to care for every Magical Girl. Eventually, Alia will want to be moved to back to her apartment with its converted and familiar hospital room. But for now, they'll want to wait to be sure about her condition before moving her anywhere at all.

As the IV continues, Alia stirs.

She sticks her tongue out in a voiceless "blegh".

Her extremities are warming up, as much as can be felt with the cooking packs.

She squeezes her eyes shut and shivers.

"Alia, can you feel the sensation in your hand? Please squeeze my hand if you can hear me. Do you feel cold, or hungry, or out of breath? Are the anesthetics blocking off all the pain?"

That's a lot of questions. She smiles weakly and squeezes the nurse's hand even more weakly.

Uh. Yes, yes, vehement no, yes, yes.

The nurse nods, keeping her eyes on Alia. "What does your gut instinct tell you to be doing? Is there a craving for any kind of food or drink, or some kind of movement?" Someone else enters holding the special kind of onesie designed for hospital use, custom-fit for Alia's size. They're hoping that the pressure and weight of it would help keep Alia more comfortable; they're expecting to actually be able to move her to one of the more luxurious suites near the garden on the roof, hoping to give her as painless and relaxing a recovery as they could provide.

She opens her mouth.

The people in the room are just confused. They're hoping that any of the readings might have changed for the better.

Her stats are stable.

She coughs. Some blood splatters from her lips, and then she vomits, too weak to turn her head to the side. She fasted before the Event, so not much comes up, just a bit of fishy-smelling bile.

The nurses briefly take off her mask, lovingly wiping off any of the bile. They wait a while, but are more than ready to transfer her to the nicest room the hospital has available, once they can be fairly sure that Alia won't be too hurt by the trip.

She keeps coughing.

Nothing else suddenly goes wrong in the next ten minutes.

Ten minutes without further incident should be enough time that they should feel basically OK with moving her up. The suite she's gently moved to has a huge window looking over at a balcony with a nice garden, the dense vegetation making it difficult to make out anyone looking through the window. There's a little old lady living in the apartment across from Alia's suite that occasionally sits on a chair out on the balcony; Alia has the option to electronically close off the curtains to the window taking up most of the wall, whenever she wants privacy. Space and Comfort are 2 things thomassians value highly; buildings are carefully designed to feel bigger on the inside, including the spacious room that Alia had on the floor beneath the garden on the roof.

Kyra sits with her and reads her a hurt/comfort romance story from her favorite collaborative-fiction website.

"She's turning green? Literally green. And still coughing up blood."

A team of nurses and doctors rush into the room, ready to give Alia intensive care if her condition worsened. They quickly checked any measurements, hoping against hope that Alia didn't get an illness that was beyond their abilities to treat. Alia's handler was on the line, talking to the gathered medical personnel. They were hoping to get any advice they could to give her the treatment she needed.

Her vital signs are unchanged, except that her fever is now 38.5. A blood test shows that she has jaundice - the yellow tone is combining with the haemocyanin to make her skin green. A comprehensive blood test will confirm that she has acute liver failure.

Her breathing is noticeably crackly in her right lung.

"Can one of the nurses please find a donor who can help Alia get a new liver? Just walk out to the nearest cafe or mall or wherever and tell them we need a liver for someone compatible with Alia's blood and antibodies yesterday, now!" The doctor speaking snaps his fingers and everyone else works to get Alia on dialysis as rapidly as possible, until the donor arrives. He starts having the mask use positive pressure to have it start breathing for Alia, expecting that the lack of breathing will stop the crackling in her lung from worsening.

"Do you know why her liver failed? Something that happened once but you'll be able to prevent when you understand her better, or a fundamental problem with her body's attitude toward livers, like how transplanted kidneys don't work for cats?"

"We don't know at the moment, no. But we'll want her to be as strong as possible, and her having a working liver can only help. It will let us understand if it is an issue similar to what you've described, and give us more time to investigate the situation." A woman who owned a nearby cafe was a near-perfect match for Alia, and she'd happily let a few of her regulars take over the cafe while she was here to save someone's life. She insisted that the money she'd receive for her donation would be spent on providing public goods to all of thomassia, as was the norm. She was still waiting anxiously in the hospital's lobby; it'd be a fair while until the transplant would begin. The doctors in Alia's room were monitoring her, hoping that whatever was causing her lungs to crackle wouldn't worsen or necessitate any kind of invasive procedure.

The mask helps with her breathing but she's still crackling and it's slowly getting worse. The next time she coughs, blood stains half her pillow.

She passes out again.

One of the doctors very carefully enunciates "Fucker" before nodding and getting to work, testing Alia's blood for any kind of infection and rushing to try to keep her airways open. It doesn't take long before some nasty germs, presumably coming from all the octopus gunk, get discovered. The doctor nods before getting the first-line antibiotic on Alia's IV, and getting to work on using the IV to help keep Alia's blood pressure low enough to prevent too much damage from the stroke and improve the blood flow.

Alia's handler, after thinking about what Alia's history and current condition, ultimately concluded that she'd need blood transfusions, as her new blood coming from the octopus simply wasn't efficient enough to fully oxygenate Alia's tissues.

After a few seconds, the machine controlling Alia's insulin level made a very sharp, cymbal-like noise bringing attention to it. It took a few seconds of thinking and calculating on the part of one of the nurses, before he took a few seconds to re-adjust the machine to keep Alia's blood sugar stable. Presumably, the germs were causing issues; but this was easily resolvable.

Eventually, the woman waiting in the lobby was prepared for the liver donation surgery. She wouldn't have a hospital room quite as nice as Alia's, but it was spacious, and donors were universally entitled to a relatively long and entirely stress-free recovery period. She would change into the special hospital onesie, with her employment, given name, and her entire public ID number written on a sticker in front of the main magnetic button of the onesie. As a symbol of the deference thomassians were expected to show to donors, she was gently lifted into a hospital bed, before being pushed into the elevator; she would be preserving all of her energy and resting. Patients are to put as little strain on their bodies as possible.

All the relevant sensors were placed onto her body, and she focused on her breathing and how truly fascinating it was to be conscious, as she relaxed herself as much as she could manage while being carted into Alia's room, her eyes closed and mind focused.

Kyra lets the donor rest peacefully and plans out how to thank her later. Something living seems appropriate, especially if it grows continually while you harvest pieces off it, like how a liver grows back when you take part of it - the miracle that allows for living liver donors. Maybe a sourdough starter? If Alia survives and is powerful enough to be worth shipping abroad for future Events, that might be an excuse to collect some exotic starters from different environments. If the donor doesn't like to bake, she can give her a variety of finished loaves instead...

The new liver does not immediately fall to whatever killed the last one.

Alia's heart starts beating again on its own, but her right atrium isn't working at all and the rest of it is weak. The bleeding in her lung slows. Her fever drops to 37.9.

And she wakes up enough for a gentle game!

Kyra holds her left hand palm in, fingers up, and touches her right fist.

Yes, she indicates.

Two fists touching?

Yes.

Two hands palm down, fingers forward, not touching?

Yes.

Fingers interlaced?

No!

"Oh good, I was worried I wouldn't find a 'no'."

Palms pressed together, finger pointing up?

Yes.

"Hmmm." Left hand with finger up and palm in, right hand grabbing it?

Yes.

Hands clasped together?

Yes.

Rings made by touching the tips of the thumb and index fingers, interlocked?

No.

Rings, not interlocked?

No.

"Oh. Huh." She interlaces her fingers and then pulls her hands apart, keeping their shapes unchanged. "This?"

No.

"Okay, I need to think..." Kyra runs through all the 'no' poses and the first few 'yes' poses she tried. "I think it's something about how spread out or curved my fingers are." Both hands splayed tensely?

No.

Both hands in claws?

No.

Both hands in C shapes? "No wait, that's just like -" hands clasped "- but not touching, which I don't think matters, so I'm pretty sure that's going to be a 'yes'." Both hands making the Vulcan salute shape?

Yes.

Finger guns?

No.

"Hm, just to make sure..." Finger guns, but with her middle and ring and little fingers extended rather than curled?

Still no.

Like that, but with only the little fingers split off from the others?

Yes.

Finger guns but with the thumbs folded in along the index fingers?

No.

That on one hand, the other in a fist?

No.

Switch the roles of the hands?

No.

"The index and middle fingers have to be touching each other?"

Kinda.

"I think that's still a loss for me."

Eventually, Alia gets an opportunity to talk to a psychologist about how well she's handling the stress and danger of fighting dangerous monsters and getting new and unpredictable medical issues after every fight. The psychologist helps Alia with a few meditation exercises, hoping to help her relax and feel more calm. She listens, trying to make Alia more resilient, and helping her process the aftermath of stopping the squid monster. It's important that Alia doesn't develop fear or anxiety around the incredibly dangerous missions, and the psychologist attempts to ensure that Alia avoids any lasting psychological harm from the most recent Event.

"I like fighting monsters!" she croaks. "I'm looking to forward to the next Event."

Meditation exercises are great!

"Anxiety? I don't know. I feel terrible, like food... food sick."

Kyra is giving Alia privacy with the psychologist by going to the opposite corner with her back turned and listening to music. Her work is not very portable, but she prepared for the Event by packing up a jig, clamps, glue, a tiny plane, and threads of different woods, so she can work on making a batch of ukulele rosettes in the hospital. The goal is a tube of wood that she will slice thinly to make the decorative rings. Her patterns are radially symmetric, so she doesn't have to lay enough tiny strips to make the whole tube, just a stick that she'll cut into sections later and join along their sides. Hmm, maybe she can sneak in a tentacle motif...

"Imagine that the thing that just happened was a dream. You'd think to yourself, "I'm glad the nightmare's over", not be mad that things went wrong. When you use all of your mind, every moment becomes a fantastic moment. And when you tell yourself that everything is a fleeting sensation inevitably beyond description, you accept it and see its beauty."

Meditation exercises like this have become kind of a cliche, but psychologists have practiced their voices to make their cadence and tone calming and relaxing.

"Would you like a massage, perhaps? Or some VR goggles and electrostatic headphones? A lot of people like talking to their organ donors; would you like to see her and talk to her?"

"Massage. Talk to her. With Kyra."

During the massage she throws up.

The masseuse returns, with a stack of strawberry-flavored paper towels. He slowly and carefully cleans up Alia's face and body, before carting in a bucket on a metal arm. "I wasn't expecting this to be necessary. But next time, you'd probably want to throw up in here."

The donor is returned to Alia's room, carted on a bed; it's probably unnecessary, but donors love being treated like royalty after their donation, and she's happy to rest in bed while the post-surgical medical glue and tape works its magic.

"I hope you're enjoying your new liver! Assuming that's the kind of thing you can enjoy, anyway. Is there anything you're wanting to talk to me about?" She's wearing the white dress she wore at her cafe, instead of the hospital onesie. After all, she probably won't need to have it taken off for anything any time soon.

"I'm alive!"

"Just wanted to say thanks. And that I'll put it to... I'll use it well. I know I don't have to keep fighting. I will."

"A billion thanks. I don't think words are enough, or anything else I could do, but thank you.

Do you like bread, by any chance?"

"Fantastic! I'm sure you can make this count and really make the world a much better place. It feels really fantastic to be able to help people."

"The pay for liver donors is pretty fantastic, so I don't need you to do anything for me. Honestly, I'm a carbohydrates-from-rice gal. Although, I'm really feeling like some bread right now. Why?"

"I was thinking of giving you something - just as a token of gratitude, not a real payment - and I thought that sourdough starters are both theoretically immortal and grow back when you take bits of them just like livers, so I could collect some for you? Or make you bread with them, if you prefer? I don't have either ready now, sorry. Would you like that?"

"Sure, why not. It's a fun and cool way to celebrate, but I don't bake bread. So, I'd be happy to have a taste of bread made with the sourdough starter. Who knows, maybe I'll donate again some day? That'd make it an even more fitting celebration."

"Well if you're a match for Alia and she fights more... She seems to have dodged the usual aquatic issues this time, but aquatics are so valuable I have to assume she'll be sent into the water now, to fight things that don't mesh as well with her as this one did."

"In a city of this size, you'll find a lot of matches! It'd really be a miracle if I was the closest match available at the time. Anyway, do you mind if I spend a while in this room? It's nicer than mine, and I don't really have any connection to anyone here. It might be fun for the two of us to hang out with the little old lady who lives in the apartment across the street from this one?"

"Sure. Hey sweetie, is that okay?"

Yes, though she looks tired.

"What games do you like? Or if you want me to make you a custom ukulele, we could talk about designs!"

"Well, I'm really more into recorded music? And there's this board game I love, from this big organization that does age of sail reenactments and things? So maybe we could play the app version of that, using our phones and stuff?"

"Sounds great. How is it for - "

Alia is asleep.

She watches for a minute to make sure she's only asleep...

"Nevermind, I guess it's just the two of us."

"Sure? It's called "Muskets and Marines" and it's about when pirates where at their height of power, and the conflicts before they eventually formed their own country for a brief period. Just search for it, and it should just start downloading."

The app is a phone version of a board game about a bunch of pirates fighting each other. It's vaguely reminiscent of Risk.

"Do you want to teach me or should I use the standard tutorial?" She's not great at heavy strategy games but she will try enthusiastically!

The app shows a bunch of different factions, all named after some cool and infamous pirate captain. The default option is someone who was famous for slowly building a bigger and bigger crew, meaning that he gets extra bonuses for controlling territory. He's probably the simplest option to begin with; everyone else requires a fair bit of game knowledge to play without being crushed immediately.

The tutorial explains how things work: your soldiers can attack, or they can defend. If they defended last turn, they can attack with a bonus next turn. After a randomly chosen amount of time, you get reinforcements, based on how much territory you control. The tutorial has Kyra trying out each of the possible actions the game has and winning a game from a very good position, before the liver donor invites her to a game.

She's going to get crushed immediately no matter which faction she picks, so she goes with the pirate who plays the hurdy-gurdy! She keeps her starting territory mostly on defense, with a random attack every few turns, while driving the rest of her fleet deep, attacking with her musical morale bonuses as often as she dares. At the end, she breaks her flagship away from her supply chain in a final glorious lunge.

(She would naturally tend to huddle defensively, but she's picked up a lot from playing games with Alia.)

The liver donor chose an infamously brutal pirate captain, with a special ability causing each soldier on both sides of a battle to do as much damage as 3 soldiers, enormously increasing the damage taken by both sides. It turned a slight advantage on either side into a one-sided massacre. He was infamous for letting stronger players steamroll weaker players over just a few turns.

"I'm sorry if I was a bit mean. I just love rolling people over, and I really like the high-risk, high-reward playstyle."

"I had a good time! I was expecting to lose at your favorite game."

"But it's just as fun every time!"

"How about talking about your life? Me, I own a cafe just a few blocks away. I've been slowly perfecting a caramel macchiato, and I'm hoping to publicize a truly fantastic recipe once I'm done with the last of the experimentation. I'm trying to find out what went so well with one particular batch of beans; I keep grinding and roasting those beans in differing ways, but still haven't managed to replicate the magic flavor that I tasted just over a week ago."

"I look forward to trying your caramel macchiato when you're back at work!

I build and repair ukuleles. I'm currently working on a custom 24-string uke. Four 3-string courses and 12 resonance strings under the fingerboard. It's not going to have tuning machines - that would make it heavy - just small stiff bolts and special key to turn them.

Alia sells dance clothes... I don't know if she'll be able to keep doing that. We might need to do a proper hospital-room conversion next to my workshop, if she both needs that and doesn't need me to take care of her full-time.

What's the first Event you witnessed? Alia claims she saw a 'weird worm' in Five, but she was actually the first activated creature I saw myself. That was Event Twenty-Two."

"I remember seeing a fish jumping through the air, smacking against the ground and damaging parked cars and buildings. I don't remember what event number it was; I saw it from a distance, and tried getting as far away as possible."

"Very reasonable! If only Alia shared your attitude.

But she would never."

As this conversation is happening, the Magical Girl Solidarity Council is hard at work attempting to further their predictive and reactive systems to be ready for any attack. It will be just over 10 days until the next event, with locations that seem entirely random, but Thomassia refuses to concede without doing their very best to understand anything that might let them know about them in advance. Planning always begins by asking questions about the scarcest and rarest resources, in this case, veteran Magical Girls. Planners are hard at work, trying to guarantee that there was one of them in striking distance of the most important and exposed areas, so they'd "eat" its powers instead of releasing a poisonous cloud.

The full-time Magical Girls, those whose job is it to practice and be prepared to fly anywhere in the world, are still training at various army bases. And handlers are working with girls like Alia, brainstorming which creatures would be ideal to fight to let them absorb helpful, rather than hurtful, powers. Unfortunately, those prove to be in short supply. But at least Alia has plenty of support during her recovery while untransformed.

A plane gets sent over where Alia heard sounds, with a microphone to detect the low-frequency noises produced by monsters. The world is on high alert, ready to send in transformed magical girls if the monster poses an urgent threat. But for now, recon planes are just keeping a close eye on anything that they might spot flying over the source of the sounds.

Just an ordinary temperate forest here!

Alia wakes up and eats three mini croissants, a gooseberry scone, and four and a half spicy breadsticks!

Then she throws half of it up again (into the bucket this time), coughs out a hunk of congealed blood, retches, and flops helplessly on the bed.

"My eyes hurt."

"Here, have some eye drops; we think the squid did something to make your ears not work properly", said the nurse who was hanging out in Alia's room. It's common for patients to let nurses spend their break time in the suites; it lets nurses have more space during breaks, and patients get better service.

Seconds later, the siren started blaring, a series of sharp noises that made anyone hearing them snap to attention. A smooth, clear voice was requesting everyone to rush to safety, and put on their most protective PPE. A monster had been killed somewhere out in the forest, and a plume of purple smoke would rapidly flood the city. The nurse scrambled to put on her mask, before hooking both Alia and the liver donor up to their breathing masks. In spite of the hospital's effective defenses, the gas could find its way through even the tiniest of leaks in filters and ventilation systems, so anyone inside would wear an additional layer of protection if at all possible. Unlike before the Events, thomassians had begun to keep several days' worth of food in their apartments; it wasn't uncommon for plumes to make the outdoors uninhabitable for 2-3 days.

But Alia and Kyra would both be safe, as a purple haze blocked their view of the beautiful garden across the street for the next day and a half.

"I mean, occasionally, a bug that's experienced the super-power transformation walks into a zapper and makes a few wisps of smoke like a blown resistor. What the hell kinda creature was powerful enough to make a plume like that lasting more than a day?", asked Alia's nurse after the smoke had died off.

The magic smoke got out :(

Kyra puts on her mask and double-checks Alia's mask. And, after a moment, the liver donor's mask too.

"The - eyes helped.

The thing I heard was big?"

"Heard? You were miles away, you couldn't possibly have heard it! Anything that loud would be heard by everyone in the city!"

"I can hear really low sounds now. Well not right now, but I could. And there was a thrumming that the monster I got was going towards. Maybe it was just a really loud cat-sized cicada, but it sounded big to me."

"... wait, the creatures make really low sounds? A better detection system could help save people's lives! We have to find out about this; this could be a real game-changer. Have you told that to your personal assistant yet?" "Personal assistant" was the nicer term for the handlers assigned the responsibilities of determining where Magical Girls should be used, as well as finding out the best ways of caring for their medical needs while untransformed.

"I only heard the one sound. So only really big ones, or only the one individual..."

"I told a soldier!"

"We'll have to try finding out as much about this power as we can. We can bring in the headphones, see if we're able to find the pitch the noise was at, what kind of microphones we'll want to detect these creatures. I'll run off and get you a pair." The nurse returns with the huge headphones after a few minutes, playing sine waves through her phone in a slowly decreasing pitch, hoping that Alia will be able to recognize the pitch that the creature made in the headphones.

Um.

"If that was a new activation power she has, it won't work now?"

The nurse is mortified when looking at Kyra. "Sorry sorry sorry I forgot, I just really hoped there was a way to help save people's lives!"

"That's good! And it gave her something to do, anyway."

Could she compose a dance to this? Very slow, getting slower and more complicated each time the note goes down. Maybe at the end, the complications are at the speed of the original dance, so it could loop like a shepherd tone?

Assuming she ever dances again.

A few days later, she can push the joystick on her new wheelchair to do a waltz, clumsy with the heavy heart-lung machine underneath and the pole with blood.

"Turn, turn, stop there."

Kyra sets the fan down. The costumes flutter in the breeze.

"Yeah."

The windows where Alia would normally be showing off herself have three new mannequins, with the flowiest clothes that she sells. The private dance surface for customers remains.

"That's all for today?"

"Right. I'll need help putting up instructions for the make-to-measure machine, but I want to see how a few customers do with it first. They might end up, uh, liking more to have me talk them through it entirely - more special behind-the-scenes."

"Do you want to sit with me in the workshop?"

"Sleeeep now. Gotta have lots of energy to reopen tomorrow."

Kiss. "I'll make it a table-saw day then." Alia doesn't like visiting the workshop when they have to wear ear protection, says it's like not even being in the room together anymore.

A woman shows up to Alia's store the following day, wanting one of the tighter kinds of dance outfit. She's mostly planning on using it to work out, but likes Alia's designs with the occasional flowy bits, and wants to buy something that's really flattering for her figure. She looks around, wanting to see if there's something appropriately form-fitting and tight on display anywhere.

Her clothes share all the tight parts - shoulders, hips, sleeves, bust, thighs - made of almost-cutting-edge synthetic fabrics with drywick panels in the sweatiest areas. The looser parts are either poplin (crisp) or twill (flowy). (She searched hard to find a matching set of fabrics, as they appear outdoors or in stage lighting, dry or sweaty, ironed or crumpled, and she still has to be careful about colors.)

The fit of the common underlayer can be adjusted, but the three mannequins all have it tight. On one, the shirt extends and flares into a mini-skirt and the pants legs have matching bell-bottoms. The next one has ruffles on the upper arms, and a cape. The third has floral-print tippets at the wrists with shorter strips hanging from the elbows and shoulders, and pom-poms engulfing the calves.

"For a workout, you'll probably want something that won't tangle, maybe this" the first mannequin "or this" an outfit on a hanger with no dangly bits but intricate embroidery of swirling lines. "And I assume you're not working out in a blacklight so you can ignore the back wall."

Alia surreptitiously looks the customer up and down. Is it clear what 'flattering for her figure' means? Asking aloud is awkward, but offering the wrong thing is worse.

"I'm really liking the look on the one outfit on the hanger. I think I'd be looking for something very similar. Are these free from any kind of flexibility constraints?"

The woman has a thin waist and small chest; she means something that makes her butt look nice, when she says "flattering".

"Yes, that one can be made with no flexibility constraints. The basic pieces always have, uh, you can do that if you want" with increased complexity and increased cost "but some of the crisper variations wouldn't look good if you curled up in a ball so I don't usually bother making them flexible."

A thin waist... with looser clothes, the old trick of a tight waist would work, so maybe something with a skirt? But the customer already passed over the one displayed with a skirt. The reverse trick is to make the buttocks tighter, so they look swelled up, but that makes the clothes look badly fitted and draws question to the wearer's taste.

Ah, but if she's going to be bending a lot while working out, maybe a design that conspicuously changes when stretches will do...

Alia backs along her rack, trailing a hand over each outfit until she finds the one she's thinking of. "What do you think of this? Sorry I can't pull it out for you, or demo it live, but I have a video." It's iridescent green with deep ridges down the back and legs, with deep blue in the creases. In the video, Alia stalks like a dinosaur. The color changes in patches as she bends and stretches open the folds. The shoulders and accompanying hat have spines tipped with goldenrod yellow. The front is flat and green in several thick bands loosely overlapping each other. "I can do it in any color at all with no extra charge since it needs color printing anyway."

"What sports do you like?"

"Wow, that one's looking clever and interesting. More like this, please. ...In terms of sports, I like yoga, and do running, and also some amount of weightlifting? I also play volleyball once in a while, but I'm mostly just staying in shape."

Sounds boring but to each their own.

She has a similar outfit with narrower, even stripes all over in pink and yellow. (It was a proof of concept before she sculpted all the curves for the other one.)

If those don't work out, she has another option with a short vest and bright pants, but she won't point it out immediately to avoid overwhelming the customer with choices.

"Where do you go running?"

"I mostly run on at the gym, on a treadmill? I also occasionally enjoy running outdoors, but well... that's just the tiniest bit dangerous." She stretches a bit in her current outfit, showing off impressive flexibility in the shoulders, as she looks around a bit, before asking to try out something like the green and blue outfit with the ridge in the back.

Running on a treadmill is the worst. But at least all the clothing possibilities will look good in that environment.

She does not sneak any further looks at the customer's body.

"What colors are you thinking? The ridges and spines will be like the display model while you try it on, since those pieces need to be printed, but I can use any standard base color for the make-to-measure parts now, and of course print them however you like for the final take. As I said, for this outfit, all the printing is included at no extra cost." At both ends of the rack and several places on the walls, books of swatches hang with several dozen colors.

Next she can talk the customer through taking all the pieces out of their bins and laying them flat on the make-to-measure machine's infeed. And then Alia presses a few buttons to specify the outfit to make and that the seams should be easily removable. (The edges of each piece of fabric are sealed so they won't unravel even after many cycles of reassembly.)

"I don't have a treadmill, but the fitting area has a yoga mat and a kettlebell." And lots of mirrors of course, so that the customer can see herself from all angles.

"Honestly, I'm thinking mostly grey, with blue accents. I think grey clothes tend to be the most versatile." She points to a fairly light grey color, and a relatively dark blue contrasting against it. After the lightning-quick machines do the work, the customer changes in private before heading to the fitting area and exploring the flexibility and fit of the clothing.

Ideally, clothing shouldn't bunch or shift around, and she does a fair bit of bending and stretching to be sure everything stays in place. She also does a few rounds on the kettlebell. She's really pleased with the result; the way that it looks different as she's stretching is really adding some interest to the clothing.

"That's one outfit I'm absolutely getting. It's really flattering and makes me look nice, and the way that it looks different when I'm stretching myself is such a fantastic idea. I'm pretty sure this is a keeper already; I want to see more of your designs, just because I liked this one so well."

Then here's the one with the vest.

Also here's one with straight golden lines embroidered up the whole thing, which naturally draws attention to the places where a body isn't flat. It's designed to go with a hat like a head of ripe wheat, but skip that.

Or how about this one that has a long tapered hood that basically makes an arrow on the wearer's back pointing down, and matching sleeve pockets. The display model is already icy blue on gray.

Eventually, she tries out the one with the golden lines and the one shifting colors as she moves, makes a few adjustments to make it fit absolutely perfect, and walks off pleased with her new clothes courtesy of Alia. Tailors don't get too many customers on an average day, but it's an interesting and fascinating job that gets you in touch with people from all walks of life, and experimenting with clothes is interesting in its own way.

After another day on the job as a tailor, Alia gets loving care from a nurse, who helps make her life as easy as possible with her health issues. In particular, her massages help improve Aria's blood circulation, and she happily cleans off Alia and her things anytime she does something messy. Being a Magical Girl is incredibly dangerous, and most of them require constant care; but thomassia is wealthy, and more than happy to reward the sacrifices of the Magical Girls who help save the lives of many. She has just gently adjusted all of Alia's medical equipment and tubes to make her comfortable, and is now waiting attentively in a small room across from Alia's, ready to be there for Alia if she ever uses her nurse call button.

Ooh, massages.

(She continues to do messy things, but the fecal transplant seems to be helping.)

Kyra slips into the nurse's office smelling faintly of wood.

"So. What's her prognosis?

She's stable now, but it was incredible luck to survive an aquatic absorption of that size. Can she fight sea monsters now? Can she still fight cat monsters?"

"I've been talking to the Magical Girl Solidarity Council, and they all seem quite sure that Alia fighting just about anything bigger than a magic housefly would be a death sentence. They're happy to let her enjoy her retirement and do what they can to care for her, and I'm sure that they'll do their very best to make her life as painless and dignified as is even remotely possible. I and those she has rescued thank her for her service, and we'll all do everything in our power to take off all the weight we can off your shoulders. We'll care for her; you won't have to worry."

Alia is not going to accept that.

"Surely she can work on a team and make sure someone else takes the killing blow? She's got to be pretty powerful now, and the monsters keep getting bigger...

Also, she's my responsibility. While I of course appreciate your help - I'm not a doctor and can't be awake 24/7 - I'm never going to stop taking care of her.

Sorry. That's probably not what you were implying. I'm just stressed. Sorry."

"No, not at all. We said you won't have to worry, not that you won't do it. We're sure she means the world to you, but we'll be able to always be at her side. And Alia can happily be on a team, avoiding striking the killing blow! I should have said killing a housefly, rather than fighting it; I didn't meant to imply what I implied. Just... she might have to kill a monster in self defense, and she wouldn't make it if she did. Also, she'll be near the front of the line for a heart and a lung transplant; it won't be too many days before someone healthy in those parts accepts early cryonics, and the relevant authorities have made up their mind that powerful magical girls like Alia are to receive priorities for all transplants. She will be able to live without the heavy machines, and she won't have to wait long, either. It's very much an 'all for one' situation, here."

"Oh, good. Sorry."

"So is she the most powerful Magical Girl in the world now, do you think? That squid was huge!"

"Quite possibly! She's really near her limit when it comes to how much power she can handle; anyone more powerful must have gotten super-lucky to be alive after absorbing that much energy. I'll try asking the Solidarity Council; they'd absolutely know about that. Anyway, has Alia needed to take any pain meds? How's she feeling, these days?"

"No extra pain meds, but I don't think we'll be tapering off the daily ones anytime soon. I think she knew this was going to happen eventually but is still adjusting to it being real now."

Alia presses the call button. "I have a leg cramp. Massage?"

She could get used to this level of pampering.

The nurse nods after hearing Kyra speak, then walks in to Alia's room, taking rapid steps. "Yes, we'll all pamper you into bliss, miss." She carefully lifts Alia's leg, moving it a bit while massaging it to help get better circulation and resolve Alia's cramp. "Are you a light sleeper? For heavy sleepers, I like to change their onesies at night, so they wake up in the morning in fresh clothes without ever feeling the discomfort of being undressed. But obviously that won't work if I wake you up every time."

"I wake up easily and fall back to sleep easily!"

"Ahh, sounds like I won't be disrupting your sleep too much. We'll try it once or twice, then? Is there anything else I can do for you, miss? Perhaps you'd enjoy a buffet of pastries and biscuits in the Magical Girl tradition? I can also get you a particularly excellent caramel macchiato, if coffee is to your taste."

"Ooh, biscuits? Something crunchy? And maybe a decaf caramel macchiato?"

"Yep, I'll get you some of my favorite pastries, together with the best decaf caramel macchiato in the city, just you wait." It doesn't take long before a charming cargo robot arrives, carrying a truly huge portion of delicious pastries within its cargo compartment: biscuits with and without chocolate, donuts, croissants, brioche, churros, and so many other options. It's a proper smorgasbord. And there's also a metal cup, with a sealed lid on top, containing a caramel macchiato with the most amazing aroma, as the lid gets taken off. "Sure is fantastic, isn't it?"

"Yep!"

Munch munch.

It's not too long until the next Event, and Alia's health issues finally fade as she transforms. Alia receives the instructions from her handler the moment event 29 starts.

"You attacking just about any creature now would be a death sentence. We're wanting you to stay in reserve, as your recon powers remain useful and we're unwilling to risk you being forced into attacking something if you join in a support role. You're far too powerful to risk losing, unless it's against something that only you would be able to stop. Please don't risk yourself."

She rushes to disconnect her tubes and leaps out of the wheelchair. She lashes her finger-tentacles. "I bet I could saw through a giant ground-sloth with one hand!"

Holding her breath, she jumps out the window and bounds through the yard, using her finger-tentacles to push off the ground and keep herself aloft. Ooh, she's strong! And fast.

She lets out her breath - she can measure that capability later - "Where's the transport?"

"We were hoping that you'd be happy to explore your powers and enjoy your health. We're unwilling to risk you ending up absorbing the power of any creatures, and want to keep you in reserve in case of a dire emergency. We're not going to refuse your demand for a transport, but we would ask you to attempt to stay well away from any monster attack at present. Hence, we felt no need to prepare a transport."

"Not even cats?"

"With the way you're doing untransformed at the moment, it's a miracle you're not dead already. Anything could tip you over the scale; it would need to be something truly deadly for us to accept the extreme risks involved. Please, explore your powers and enjoy your good health; we'll call you in if there's an emergency worth risking your life for."

"Well I'm still going to help. From afar. Even if I don't attack anything at all, I can deliver bombs. I'm really fast now!

Kyra, where should I go?"

She checks her phone... "There's an evacuation in Wilton but it's probably handled... I'd wait for now.

Can you hear the big monster from last time?"

"Nope. Guess it was what made the big plume."

"Or it was responding to the squid.

How about we go look in that forest? You can carry me with you." And Alia won't risk fighting anything while holding Kyra...

"Sure!" To her handler: "But don't you dare hold back. If someone dies because I wasn't there, I will personally stick you on a feathered cock riding straight into the sun. I'm the strongest Magical Girl in the world right now, don't think I can't."

"And I'm glad you'll keep me accountable! It's just... you could save much more than one person. And exploring the forest with Kyra on your back would be excellent practice on the use of your new powers. The closest transport is incredibly close anyways; why not save your energy and enjoy the ride?"

It's just a five-minute wait before the same van that carried Alia earlier arrives, ready to take her to the forest or wherever else, in immense space and luxury like always.

"...Okay, I'll take the transport to save my energy just in case we need to make a quick getaway. But I'm feeling great, I don't need it."

Cuddle?

Yes! If she's careful, she can wrap her tentacles all around Kyra.

It's probably good to distract herself from the scenery, which might contain activated animals that she would have the urge to kill.

It only takes 10 or so precious minutes, before the van has reached the edge of the pristine forest. There's quite a vast amount of space for Aria to discover the extent of her powers, and learn what she might be capable of.

And not kill anything. Don't even fight anything unless it's huge. Right.

Lots of small activated creatures but nothing huge...

...here at least. Five hundred miles away on a different island, a poison-spitting lungfish trundles out of the water. Thirteen hundred miles off-shore a shark swallows a container ship whole. A nematode with hooves and fangs crushes a field of chickens. A catfish with too many eyes smashes a hydroelectric turbine.

But that's someone else's problem. For now.

"Let's go have some fun."

It didn't take long before Magical Girls stopped any further damage, happily sacrificing their bodies in the process. It was a huge sacrifice to make, but thanks to the support of the Solidarity Council and the people of thomassia, they'd be more than well-cared for in return.