Chapter Text
"So have you made a decision?" Pali Sura struck a majestic figure in her crimson and gold Khadi magical girl costume. She was a tall girl, among the tallest at Founder's Blessing. Even among those of greater height she seemed somehow larger. She was lean but muscular and her facial features looked to be sculpted from stone. An ace among students and magical girls alike in Founder's Blessing, many called her their idol.
Omnipotence Smith called her 'Exalted'. More often she called her 'her best friend'.
"About what?"
"Your new name."
"I haven't given it much thought. It will be years before I can change it legally."
"Not if you get a caretaker's consent."
"Who at the school would care enough to help?"
"I'm sure you could find somebody Ommi." Pali was one of only a small handful of people who could call her 'Ommi'. Everybody else either addressed her by her magical girl title or as O. Save for a handful of vindictive teachers who called her Omnipotence. "A lot of teachers absolutely love you, you know that right? You've been a model repentant since your enrollment. Which is amazing given the circumstances you found yourself under.
Omnipotence used to be bitter about the circumstances. Horribly abused and isolated by her parents, once she got her powers she severed the only way she knew how. She used her power to break the barrier and let the monsters finish them off. It would have worked. Nobody would ever expected that a 13 year old girl could do that, much less would. If only there wasn't a witness...
"I mean I guess. My circumstances weren't that different from the others. Everybody's just more sympathetic to me for some reason. I mean Agatha did the same thing and people arn't half as sympathetic to her."
Pali paused for a moment. "Agatha...grew up in a world where she was taught the different between right and wrong. You didn't know what your parents was doing was wrong or illegal. And even if you understood you wouldn't have known what to do or who to go to. We all grew up with and were given choices. You weren't."
The one thing that bristled Omnipotence about Pali was her belief that the world was ultimately fair.
"But," Pali continued "I do agree that sometimes people forget that repentants are supposed to be reformed, no castigated. Reformation starts with sympathy. Otherwise it's just punishment. And you're right, most of you girls have been punished enough."
"Like getting Prudence as an Exalted." Omnipotence said this without an ounce of humor.
"She is still an exemplary example of what it means to be a magical girl Ommi."
"No she isn't. She just looks the part. I would not be the 'model repentant' I am today if I had her as my exalted instead of you. I don't know how Agatha keeps it together."
Pali sighed..."I know. That girl is exasperating."
As much as Omnipotence would have loved to bashed Prudence all night a sensation in her brain caused a significant shift in her priorities.
"I got a hit. A big one. Due south."
Pali didn't sense anything but didn't doubt Omnipotence. She has the strongest monster sense of anybody she knew.
"Don't run out too far. Don't engage without assessing the situation." Because of Pali's powers she and Omnipotence stuck to the rooftops. Neither had the ability to fly but both were strong jumpers. This put them in an excellent position to scout without engaging. If the monster they found seemed too strong for them to safely take out together, they knew where to get backup.
"Don't worry I won't." Omnipotence said without stopping.
It was a few hundred yards before Pali's senses picked up the monster. It was big. Pali was powerful but prudent. She had no intention of fighting this thing with just Omnipotence, not for her own sake but for her repentants'. Unlike Pali she was an upfront fighter with little concern for her own well-being. Though it was never stated Pali knew Omnipotence would die for her without a second thought regardless of their dynamic as exalted/repentant.
It was nearly a mile before Omnipotence came to an abrupt halt.
"It's bad Pali."
Pali was still a building behind. "Don't engage. I'll get backup"
"No don't. Another team is already fighting it. We are the backup."
When Pali reached the building Omnipotence was on she saw it. She would have seen it 5 building away if it wasn't covered by taller multi-story buildings. It was almost 20 feet tall. It looked like a human, several humans, their upper torsos at least. A half dozen of them. It was obviously fighting but neither Pali or Omnipotence could see who it was.
"Ok Ommi, hit the street but don't advance until you see the arrows hit. Then attack from the front. Help the magical girls engaging it. Keep the monster's body between you and me to give me a clear shot."
"Got it." Omnipotence jumped down to ground level. As she did she saw a trace of something from the other side of the monster. "is that a swarm of insects? Is there a bug magical girl fighting that thing?" Pushing mild feelings of disgust out of her mind she pulled a chain out of her left sleeve.
Seeing Omnipotence in position Pali got to work. First, a second set of magical arms manifested below her normal arms. Then for each set of arms a magical bow manifested. She drew both arrows back as she had done a thousand times before. This time it would be easy, her target was the size of a building. With complete confidence she fired the arrows.
As soon as Omnipotence had seen the two golden arrows strike their target she went into action. Sticking to the flanks to allow Pali to fire without concern she lept up wrapped and wrapped her chain around the neck around one of the sideways facing torsos. Using the chain to swing around to the front she got a quick glance of her allies. There were 3 of them, one of them looked very plain for a magical girl but her blue hair was unmistakably a magical girl trait. Another girl was pinning the arms of the frontmost body to the ground with some kind of brown goop. A third looked to be on her back several feet behind them. She hoped she was ok. She didn't have much time to worry about her though as the situation quickly turned against her. She had intended to use her momentum to pull the head to the ground where she'd decapitate it with a boxcutter but she didn't think of what would happen if the plan didn't work because the monster was too strong. Which this monster was. Consequently Omnipotence found herself hanging several feet up in the air with a set of the monster's arms coming for her. Thinking quickly she pulled a boxcutter out of her sleeve and unsheathed it in a single slice like one would with a sword, cleanly severing the leftmost arm at the hand. But she couldn't account for the right hand which quickly wrapped itself around her head. Despite not being able to see, breathe and the monster's hand squeezing her skull tightly Olivia still tried to strike once more with the boxcutter. But before she could start the motion she felt herself being pushed downward. The chain slipped from her hand and she felt a sharp and sudden pain through her skull as the monster drove her head into the ground. Omnipotence tried again with the boxcutter only to realize she had dropped it on impact. She flailed around, trying to reach into her sleeve for another weapon but the impact had disoriented her too much. On top of that she felt herself being lifted again.
"Shit. Shit." Omnipotence thought, desperately trying to free herself from the situation. Not for a moment hoping she'd be saved.
But she was.
Omnipotence fell to the ground once more. She wasn't driven downward and did not fall as far. A moment after she could see again as the hand grasping her skull dissipated to smoke. Looking upward she saw the torso now bereft of both hands and a magical girl standing next to her. She was a squat girl, her magical girl outfit resembling that of an old timey barber. Appropriately her weapons were an oversized straight razor in her right hand and a somewhat anachronistic can of shaving cream in the other. Omnipotence's view of the monster was once again obscured as the barber girl used the shaving cream to create what she guessed was supposed to be a shield in thin air, but not before seeing two golden arrows crash into the torso.
"Can you fight?" The girl asked her, holstering her shaving cream and offering her a hand up.
"I can still move so...yes." Omnipotence was shakey on her feet and found her vision blurring slightly. She pulled a golf club out of her sleeve.
"You know where those arrows are coming from?"
"My partner. She's perched on a building 50 feet away. Keep to this side of the monster. She's really leery of friendly fire."Omnipotence got a closer look at the girl. Her nose looked to be broken.
"I think Shard might have this in the bag anyway." The girl pointed in the air and Omnipotence's eyes followed. She saw the swarm she saw when she approached the monster. Ever through her blurring eyes she realized it wasn't bugs she saw. It was glass. A cloud of glass in various shapes and colors. The largest were approximately the size of her forearm, the smallest were the size of her fingertip. And right now they looked to be lining up for a shot at the beast's proverbial 'heart'. She looked downward slightly to realize that the torso above the centermost torso was stuck fast with the same brown goop that bound the one directly below it. Suddenly the mass lunged forward, burying itself into the skull of that part of the model. Apparently that was the final blow as the giant monster collapsed into smoke. Omnipotence saw the swarm of glass fall back to ground level where it covered the body of the plain-looking girl Omnipotence had briefly seen earlier. She didn't see what happened next as her vision blurred once again and she found herself very dizzy. She desperately tried to retain consciousness as she fell onto her face. Omnipotence once again brought herself to her hands and knees when she saw a shadow loom over her.
"Oh my goodness are you ok?" Said the most angelic voice Omnipotence had ever heard.