Chapter Text
'Black Ice'
If Sheila Godot had a magical girl title that would be it. Her powers were ice and her outfit was a flowing black dress with streaks of white in it, to match her hair.
But Sheila Godot didn't care about such nonsense.
"Monsters northward" She told herself as she quickly but unenthusiatically made her way in the same direction.
The monsters were several. Small. They took on the loose appearance of crawling insects. Cockroaches.
To Sheila all monsters were cockroaches.
"Tedious." This is the only thought that passed through her mind as she raised her hands and conjured the power the Founder blessed upon her. A massive cone of winter wind and ice flowed from her being, freezing the monsters solid and staining the ground with black ice. And then with the snap of her fingers the frozen monuments that used to be terrifying beasts shattered into a thousand pieces and were no more.
"Insufficient." The only thought that passed her mind as she effortlessly walked across the ice crusted alley. At the end she closed her eyes and focused solely upon the sense that all magical girls were blessed with that allowed them to feel the presence of monsters. More west.
"It's never enough." Frustration was Sheila's constant companion. She was always a practical, goal oriented child, somewhat disturbingly so by those who taught her and those who raised her, the latter being her father. She had friends but seldom wanted to play and always seemed like an outsider amongst them. She seemed to prefer homework and 'projects'; things her childish mind thought were productive pursuits. When she couldn't get her friends on board with her machinations she was content to do them herself. She was loving towards her father, the only person who saw that side of her. Even if he hadn't died in a barrier breach she still likely would have grown up to live a life fixated on ambition and accomplishment.
But he did die. And with that all of her thoughts focused upon a singular goal.
"This is pointless. We kill them every night, they come back every night. A battle against the tide. This is ridiculous. A permanent solution must be found."
It wasn't simple vengeance. In Sheila's mind the monsters who killed her father died the same night. There was little vengeance to be had. There was simply a problem. There was simply 'The Problem' and her frustration at her inability to solve it.
Monsters were found. Their shapes were irrelevant. A cone, a snap, a feeling of emptiness.
"What will it take? Clearly power beyond whatever any individual walking this city had. I can not find it on this Earth. I must look beyond." As she progressed into her teenage years Sheila found herself turning to Foundationism for answers. It would seem obvious given that she went to Founders' blessing, but Sheila felt like the lessons and the scripture and the codified behaviors put forth by the priests to be wasteful gibberish. The Founder was not a person to be worshiped; she was a font of power that was poorly tapped. Every magical girl knew her touch, but it was insufficient. To each magical girl only a drop of power was granted.
"There is something missing. The monsters within the city are a mistake. Surely the Founder wishes them expunged. But there is something missing. Something flawed."
And thus did she take to consuming all scripture of the Founder, whether the priests taught it or not. She sought apocrypha, shunned by the church. There had to be something in those words. She sought history, to try to make sense of the muddied origins of the city. Somewhere within those pages an answer had to be found. Something overlooked, something hidden.
She could sense no more monsters. She did however see a team of girls. Happy and polychromatic. Traipsing along with their cameraman in pursuit of footage and other shallow goals.
"Vulgar" was the only word Sheila could muster to describe them. Do they not see "The Problem"? Do they not care? Is this wretched state of things an opportunity to achieve fame and riches?
To Sheila there was no fame or riches. There was no faith or duty. There was no love or vengeance. There was only "The Problem" and her need to solve it.