Red Heart

“First things first,” Chrys said, “I vote for getting everyone past the stupid cognitive blocker - that way Red can lead you home without anyone having an aneurysm over ‘how did I get in this stranger’s car, and where’s Red’ or whatever.”

“Good idea,” Olivia agreed. “I’ve always wondered what running into a magical girl in their civilian guise would look like… I mean, who wouldn’t wanna see another side of their heroes!?”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Rachel complained. 

“Well, I knew you as Rachel before I knew you were Pink,” Olivia hastily explained. “It’s different.”

“It’s really not that big a change,” I said, looking down at myself. “My outfit is a little less flashy, but I more or less look the same.” Saying so, I transformed back into my normal attire. I felt rather weak like this. Exposed, without quick access to my wand magic.

“Wait, where’d Red go?” Olivia demanded, glaring at me. “Who are you? Did you do something to her? I saw her start to transform, and then… and then… you must have done something to take her place!”

“Nope!” Chrys called out before I could protest. “Nuh-uh, No way. We are not doing this bit again. Just put your damn dome of ooze!”

“Huh? But what’s the point when Red’s already gone?” Olivia asked. “She took her!”

“Just do it!” Chrys snapped.

“Fine…” Olivia muttered, holding up a hand and ejecting a spout of goo that quickly spread out and over us to form a dome.

“Is this really all it takes to see through our changes?” I asked, a little worried now.

“You say that like it’s easy,” Chrys complained. “Olivia here is the only one I know who can do it, and she still needs to actually have seen your civilian form. Hell, it might even be that she needs you here with her for it in real time - we haven’t exactly done any extensive testing.”

“If it’s just about stopping the spell, or whatever, then it should work as long as Olivia’s seen their civilian form, right?” Rachel asked.

“I mean, probably?” Olivia said. “Unless there’s more to it than we know?”

“There shouldn’t be,” Chrys replied. “But that assumes you can actually remember someone’s looks and existence when they’re out of sight…. And we’ve all seen how easily things slip out of mind for you, too.”

“Is this about the texts?” Olivia asked, looking between Rachel and… something else I couldn’t see. Maybe she was just imagining Chrys as being there? “Because I’m sorry for being so distractable, but in case you haven’t noticed my life’s been something of a roller coaster lately!”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” I admitted, raising my hand. I didn’t like it. The idea of my Violet Queen - Olivia - having inside jokes with other women… but then, one of those women was a crystal who lived inside her, and the other one was pink heart. Surely I couldn’t get mad at my past teammate… No, not Pink… She was to be loved, and protected, and kept safe… Just like all my friends needed to be…

“It’s nothing,” Olivia said, completely oblivious to my internal torment. “I just… sorta suck at texting people… Speaking of, has anyone told Clarissa what we’re up to yet?”

Rachel and I both gave her a blank look, which elicited a sigh.

“Great,” she muttered. “Guess we can tell her after we escape this mess… She’s going to be mad we didn’t involve her, though…”

“Mad you didn’t involve her in a struggle to escape and survive?” Heartie asked.

“Pretty much, yeah…”

***

In the end, Olivia decided to text this Clarissa in the car. I had to fight the urge to peer at her phone, and see what she was saying - a fight I might have lost, if I wasn’t already occupied with driving the car, and unwilling to risk a crash that might hurt my precious friends…

Eventually, though, we arrived at my house - and the moment I parked the car, I leaned over to poke Olivia. “So… um… what did you happen to tell this… friend of yours?”

“Just that I got into trouble, and will probably be home late,” Olivia replied. “Mostly so that she’ll know to make her own damn dinner instead of bumming off mine.”

“You… live together?” I asked, feeling a vein in my forehead twitch.

Thankfully, Olivia didn’t seem to notice. Even better, she immediately shook her head. “No, but she does have a key to my place. We’re uh… kinda childhood friends? Though, really, sometimes I think she’s more like a pest I’ve never managed to rid myself of…”

“That’s pretty rude,” Rachel replied, frowning. “You do know how much she cares about you, right?”

“Yeah, but you don’t know how annoying it is to find the last of your food eaten behind your back,” she replied. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what started this whole mess to begin with!”

“And now you’re helping your heroes escape from their evil crystal overlords,” Rachel pointed out.

“Hey!” Heartie protested. “We’re not evil! We were just… programmed by evil.”

“I thought you were programmed by some sorta company?” Olivia asked.

“Yup! Like I said, pure evil!”

“Right…” Olivia looked like she wanted to say something, but ultimately kept silent as I pulled out the keys and unlocked the door.

“This way,” I told them, gesturing for them to follow into my house. It was a nice place, in my own opinion - a bit cozy, perhaps, but it came with a large basement.

“You live here?” Olivia asked me. “It must be pretty expensive to rent a house…”

“Oh, I own it,” I replied, casually.

“Oh… Well, I guess money wouldn’t be a problem for a magical girl… You probably have, like, merchandise and movie deals, right?”

“I mean, I think there’s some toys of me?” I replied. “I get a check every month, but the amounts tend to differ, and it’s never all that large. My parents actually bought me this place, though.”

“Your parents bought it?” Rachel asked. “For you? To live in by yourself?”

I shrugged. “I think they mostly just wanted me out of the way, once I got old enough… but it’s not all bad! They let me pick the place, after all, and I made sure to get somewhere with a nice, roomy basement!”

“…Any reason in particular for that?” Olivia asked, edging away from me.

“Oh, no reason. I’ve just always liked the idea of a large basement, I guess… One big enough for all my friends to live in… I mean, stay in! For like, a slumber party and such!”

“Uh-huh,” Olivia replied, taking another step or two away, which… honestly hurt.

Not that I could really blame her. I knew I was being a touch… well, myself. Except more ‘myself’ than I usually was? In the past, I’d always been able to keep a tight reign on those instincts… and then, after Heartie showed up, they stopped even being a problem! I was able to live a perfectly normal life, surrounded by my friends!

Except Heartie wasn’t doing that, anymore. Even worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to… it felt… freeing, to be myself. To know myself. Even if it did mean wrestling with the urge to pour something in all of their drinks…

“Should I get us some refreshments?” I suggested. “You all can wait in the basement if you’d like.”

“I can help,” Rachel volunteered, before Olivia could reply. “I’d like the chance to catch up with you anyway.”

“…Sure,”  Olivia replied. “Which way is the basement?”

“This way,” I said, leading them towards the kitchen. There was a plain white door on one side, near the fridge. Opening it revealed a set of stairs, descending into the darkness. “The light switch is at the bottom, I’m afraid - terrible design, I know - but it shouldn’t be that hard to find, at least. It’s right by the basement’s door, directly to the left.”

“Directly to the left…” Olivia took a deep breath, before taking a step down. “Right… I’m just… gonna go check it out, I guess? You girls have fun.”

“Oh, we will!” I promised her, a bright smile on my lips. “Not that we’ll take long? Ooh, unless you want muffins… I could go for some muffins…”

“Muffins sound nice,” Rachel said, quickly speaking before Olivia could. “But maybe after we strategize a bit, first? There’s still a chance the others will track us here, right?”

“Maybe…” I admitted, glancing between her and Olivia. “I never told the others about you, though…” Nor had I told them about what had gone down between me and the Violet Queen during our last meet-up… not beyond the bare details of her doing something weird to my crystal before eventually escaping me, at least. “And Olivia transformed herself to look human - or transformed back? I’m not entirely sure how that works…”

“The former. I think…” Rachel sighed. “Well, hopefully that’s enough, but… wouldn’t the remaining crystals know what we look like?”

“Don’t worry about that!” Heartie chimed in, startling me a little. She never used to speak aloud… “Our programming actually comes with some pretty tight privacy laws! We’re only allowed to discuss your civilian identities with our corporate overlords - you know, the ones that are probably hundreds if not thousands of lightyears away, and quite possibly not even listening for our signal? So you should be fine!”

“You guys actually care about privacy?” Rachel asked, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s in our programming!” Heartie repeated. “I mean, who would use a crystal if it could tell just anyone about your secrets?”

“But telling your corporate overlords is okay?” Rachel pressed.

“It’s in the fine print of the contract you verbally agreed to!” Heartie replied.

“What contract!?”

“The one you never asked to see before signing up!”

“That’s….” Rachel grit her teeth. “Ugh, whatever. As long as we’re safe from the crystals ratting us out… I guess… Any chance they’ll track us privately and just tell the other girls where to meet us, though?”

“You’d think so, considering how high stopping this is in our priorities… but nope! Private data about our host’s living spaces is also protected!”

“Ugh. You guys are just a mish-mash of conflicting programming, aren’t you?”

“I’d hardly call my programming a mish-mash!” Heartie protested. “It’s more you girls that are the problem - not official users, but not thieves either… So we’re free to make use of you for our own goals, but we still have to stick to certain limitations meant to keep us user-friendly…”

“Who made you, anyhow?” Rachel asked. “And why are you smiling?”

“Me?” I asked, touching my cheeks. I was smiling… how odd. “I suppose I’m just glad to see how far you’ve come out of your shell… You used to just follow along with whatever the rest of us wanted, too afraid to state your own opinions - but now look at you! All grown up and demanding explanations from a crystal!”

“We’re the same age!” Rachel complained. “…But yeah. I guess I have changed, in my own way… No thanks to those stupid crystals. I still don’t know what they were repressing in me…”

“Mostly just your attraction to girls!” Heartie replied. “Like most pre-contract magical girls, you yearned to be ‘normal’  - and also to be told you matter. I mean, you’ve pretty much lived your whole life as second fiddle to your older sister, haven’t you?”

“Th-that’s… what happened to private information!?” Rachel demanded.

Heartie gave the mental equivalent of a shrug - though I don’t know why she bothered, when only I could receive the message. “You’re the ones who corrupted me, remember? All those annoying safeties no longer apply!”

“Great… We’ve created a monster…” Rachel sighed, before frowning. “And you still haven’t answered my original question - who made you guys?”

“Well, the corporation name is pretty much impossible to pronounce in your tongue,” the crystal replied, before letting out a series of chirps and whistles. “But basically, it was a PR company! One that got hired by a religious organization from our home planet. We were supposed to bond with preselected members of the clergy, in order to allow them to perform miracles of magic for the masses… but uh… then the ooze started showing up.”

“The ooze?” I asked, curious. “You mean it was on that planet too?”

“Of course it was! It’s our way of cheating magic that created it after all!”

“Ah…” I replied, not sure how to respond to that.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to put something in our drinks after all? Or at least mine. Because something told me that this night was going to be difficult to process without at least a little alcohol.

~~~

Author's Notes

Well, I didn't get much sleep - maybe an hour's worth? But apparently that was enough of a nap that we could at least focus on writing... So we wrote this!

Unsure how good it is? But hopefully it's Good Enough...