#anthony...

December YX, 20ZX - Six Months After HQ Disbanded

At the heart of the recent Mitikihara Skyscraper construction site

"Gh-ack!"

Flying through the air into a soft pile of plywood and steel poles was a magical girl. She was part of the new generation of the Mahou Shoujo in Japan, part of a team of MGs that were well into their teens and closing in on adulthood. She never really liked working with other MGs, regardless if they were rookies in need or veterans offering assistance. Still, she found herself being forcibly wedged into this found family of girls plus one boy.

Pulling herself out of the pile of broken pride and splinters, the disgruntled lone wolf girl looked at the warzone she was personally punted out of. Surrounding some weird Witch-Familiar thing were the rest of her friends team. The leader, in a fancy ballerina tutu and long red coat, was currently supporting her right-hand gal in blue spandex and kevlar, a thoroughly terrified and haunted look in her eyes. Behind them was the kid in a purple suit - which she remembered was once a pink skirt, so POG for him - nursing a wound in goldilocks' stomach, where a sword had ripped through the silky ball gown and left bloody tears.

The thing they were fighting was hell-bent on killing Goldie, swinging its remaining sword down on Red's own katana while trying to poke through Blue's bare-handed parries with a flaming spear in its other hand. Grabbing a thin piece of rebar the Dark Mahou Shoujo loaded it in one of the pipes she landed on.

Aiming the pipe at the monster, she looked for any sort of exposed flesh or weak spot to hit. She couldn't see much under the gigantic black coat the thing wore, but from what little she saw through the dark and crossing blades she saw armor. An armored helm laid on top of its head underneath the hood, a large breastplate covering its chest. The coat covered its arms but she could see that it had webbed hands of sorts, underneath leather gloves that gripped the weapons it used. From the below the torso there looked to be scaled leggings covering whatever appendages the thing used to walk, and there seemed to be a tail hiding under a second cloak underneath the first black coat.

Figuring that everything has to have some sort of brain in its head, the Wolf aimed her pipe and charged her magic in the palm of her other hand; gravity warped around the girl as she placed her palm at the loaded end of her makeshift railgun, holding the magnetic charge in her hand and fueling even more potential kinetic energy into her hand.

When she saw the Thing raise its blade to strike an open Red and stabbed Blue in the shoulder, Wolf released her magic; all of the shrapnel fell back to the ground for a split second before they were blown back by the magnetic power that launched the small piece of rebar. The pipe exploded in her hand, but Wolf wouldn't care if her gambit paid off. Striking true the small piece of metal pierced the armored head of the Thing and knocked off its hood. Its body was flung back by the sheer force of the metal and it laid a crumpled mess.

Raising herself from the even messier pile she laid in, Wolf trotted over to the team she was supposed to be babysitting. Red pulled the spear out of Blue's shoulder, and a grateful look tinged with a hint of something was sent to the leader. Purple was currently fixing a tourniquet onto Goldie's belly, trying her-his dammit! His best not to stare at the chiseled body underneath the frilly dress; his loss.

"Thank you, Sempai! We can always count on you to save us!" Cheered the leader, hands clasped together as if she were offering prayer to a god, which actually kinda helped Wolf's ego.

"You shouldn't thank me, you should do what any leader should and take stock of what just happened." Glancing down at the unconscious girl below them, a real veteran by the looks of her, Wolf eyed the leader. "So, mind telling me why you were outnumbered 1 to 4 by a familiar when you were supposed to have returned an hour ago?"

It was routine for MGs to meet up at warehouses or penthouses to plan out their Witch Hunts, the local MG Base being one by the docks of Mitikihara. Wolf had ended up in this city - town, as the locals like to remind her - by sheer accident, sleeping on a train that took her here all the way from Yokohama. It's been a rough two months but she doesn't mind her new hole-in-the-wall hideaway here, Mitikihara was pretty alright with her.

She could do without all the MGs though...

"We're sorry superior, we had taken down the witch that was impersonating another MG born and raise here, but we were ambushed by that Familiar." Ugh, superior. Makes her shrivel up and die on the inside, her minimum-wage days not kind to her as a green MG. "When the barrier vanished, we were assaulted by a loud orchestra of noise. The next thing we know, Hideki-chan is impaled and out for the count. That's when you showed up..."

Anything else that Blue would've said Mitsuko, her name was Yoshimura Mitsuko was lost to the all as her Soul Gem, located just under her collar bone exploded into shards of glass, the ringing of a flintlock rifle left in the air. That Familiar was standing again, hunched over with a gloved hand on its face where Wolf's railgun hit and held an empty musket in the other hand.

"Mitsuko!" Red cried out, tears pouring down her face as she cradled the dead body of her partner, her lover her friend. Retaliating, either out of fear or anger, Purple Shima, Shima-san, no name given or learned leaped at the Familiar with a kick, twin short swords ready to be swung with freezing frost.

The Familiar let out a low chuckle, still facing the ground as it tossed aside the musket. Replacing it was a cutlass with a crossguard covered in music notes, the blade engraved with runes. The Familiar sprinted forward to meet the boy halfway, pulling back its sword for an impaling thrust. They crossed attacks, the boy sporting a new nub instead of a leg, the monster spinning mid-strike and launching the blade from its hilt. The blade soared through the air and caught aflame, striking the boy's other leg.

The laughing grew, a melody playing out from somewhere on the construction site with rock playing during the two MGs falls, punctuated by a choir during Blue's death. A grunt came from behind Wolf and she saw Goldie Takei Yasuko, the pacifist of their group pulled herself onto her elbows and stared on at the battle.

"Shinju-kun!" Raising a palm, light gathered in her hand. Before long shining rays of golden light launched out and struck the Familiar. Unperturbed by the light show, it crept towards the boy, seemingly savoring the moments of utter and sheer panic exuded from the kid; as he tried to pry the fiery blade out of his other leg, Purple looked desperately at Gold's eyes, something said between the two without any words.

Deciding to do something right for once in her life, Wolf sprinted into combat and gathered magnetic force into her hands. A pole flung itself into her left hand just as she smacked the Familiar's armored face with her other, the charge in the metal shaking as it tried to escape from the presence of the charged weapon in Wolf's possession.

Swinging the pole into the armored face Wolf let out a nonstop barrage of strikes, disorienting and hopefully stunning the monster just long enough for Red to grab her friends and get out of here. A hearty chuckle escaped from the ringing metal and soon the Pole was snatched out of Wolf's hands.

"Tsk tsk." A webbed finger waggled before her. "That won't work anymore." Before she could react Wolf felt her insides churn as a metal fist entered through her back. From the puddle of melted ice she stood on, a Witch was reflected on the surface, its gauntlet rippling through the water. "You should be careful where you step. Wouldn't want to slip after all."

Wait a second... that voice... no... it couldn't be...

Feeling a weight lift off her shoulders, Wolf felt her body trying to rapidly heal around the metal fist; she was never any good at mastering healing, her magic often did it fast enough for her that she never noticed herself ever get hurt. A constant feeling of dread and relief coursed through her until she felt herself lurching off to the side. She saw the ground rushing up to her before she blacked out.

Minami Hideko was crying. This thing, this creature kept hunting her down. She always saw it out of the corner of her eyes whenever she walked around the mall, out the windows in class, and she swore she saw it once while she was in the bathroom of her own home. This monster just kept following her everywhere, and she didn't know why it did.

But now she knew. It followed her to kill her. Her and her friends.

Unable to let go of her lover's body, Hideko could only watch as her Soul Gem filled with despair, her team all being slain by this laughing monster.

When she heard wet feet approaching her - it must have killed Yasuko and Shin-kun fast - she raised her head to look the Familiar in the mask. She gasped when she saw a green eye glare down at her with undisguised hatred, its hands hoisting her friends up by their necks. She saw her friends give out pitiful whimpers as it crushed their windpipe, tossing their bodies before her. Hideko thought that had been the end but no, the monster threw a spear into her shoulder at lighting speed and pinned her sword arm to the floor.

The monster laughed even louder as the music got louder, it falling into a soft melody before picking up tempo and volume.

"You took her from me... You took an innocent person's life... You made me feel such... indescribable despair..." The Familiar - no the mad laughed, a terrible shrill cackle piercing the silence as it manifest two more swords in his hands. "You turned me into this, it's only right I return the favor, Minami-san."

With that he sliced Shun-kun into two between the eyes, shattering his Soul Gem kept in his navel. Aiming his other blade, the Familiar pierced Yasuko's hand, destroying the Soul Gem embedded within the back of her hand. After that he kept stabbing her friend's corpses, laughing giddily as his movements become sloppier and faster.

Resigning herself to her fate, Hideko came up with her next and final plan as leader of the New Holy Quintet. Palming her Soul Gem underneath herself, Hideko charged up a single, city rending Zantetsuken Ztrike into her blade. When she heard the footsteps get closer to her she steeled herself. With her final move, she'd wipe out the demon that killed her team. Her katana formed in her off-hand, poised to strike and-

She stopped herself as she saw the face that looked down at her. Those emerald eyes filled with hate, the curly purple hair that was tied back into a tail, and the fangs that protruded out of his snarling smile.

"A-Anthony-kun...?! AUGH!"

She felt her arms be sliced off from her body, left writhing on the ground in pain as two spears pinned her legs.

"This is for my mother, Oktavia von Seckendorff. Or, as you disgusting humans only knew her as, Miki Sayaka." Grabbing her own blade off the ground, Hideko only stared at a loss for words as she felt her katana - Sakura Storm - pierce her heart and narrowly miss her gem.

"W-wait, where are y-ou going!?" She saw the boy, the child she once knew, walk away from her, leaving her to turn into a Witch as her Soul Gem darkened trying to heal her. "You can't l-leave me here! You can't!"

"Oh but I can Minami-san, and I shall. You see, after you and those wretched whores decided to take my mother's life, you didn't grant her any mercy. You just entered our home and attacked us all, without prejudice might I add." His voice was calm and quiet, just like it was so long ago.

"We wanted to live our lives in peace, with the happy ending we earned for ourselves. But you didn't let that happen. You got cozy with us all, got to know us all, in a ploy to kill my mother and my sister.

"Now I'm going to do as you had done to us. Infiltrate my enemies' homes, and their lives, and kill them all. Without any mercy just like you five lacked.

You were the third, as I'm no doubt sure you've heard about the other two disappearances, hmm~?"

"An-Anthony, no, please, come back! I'm sorry! I never wanted to do it! They said if we didn't they'd...

... please... come back... I don't want to turn...

I don't... wanna die... alone... hic...

Mitsuko. . . Sempai. . . Everyone . . . I'm. . . sor. . . ry. . ."

Anthony, post bad timeline invasion: this is my villain origin story.

oh, also, i was playing this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6ruwD6sWs when I wrote everything past the first girl's death, if you wanna immerse urself in the ficlet.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼