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“I’m sorry…what?” Amelia choked out in confusion as she stared at Calli.
“Just what I said, this isn’t the first time we’ve run into each other” Calli repeated herself in growing irritation.
“You mean like we met somewhere else? Sorry, I don’t remember any pink-haired girls before I started working at the coffee shop.” Amelia hurried to apologize, but only received a groan as Calli brought a hand up to her forehead.
“Kiara please handle this, I can’t deal with how dense this Amelia is” Calli stated as she turned away, mumbling something to herself about needing a drink. She was immediately chastised by Fauna in the other room that this was a “dry party.”
Amelia was even more confused about being referred to as “this Amelia,” which made her wonder if Calli ran into a lot of people named Amelia.
Kiara bounced forward with a bright grin on her face “Okay so…you know how some religions believe in reincarnation Ame?” She gave a tentative nod to the orange-haired girl.
“Well I know this might be hard to believe, but this isn’t the first time we all have encountered an Amelia H. Watson.”
“You all? That seems incredibly unlikely that you’ve all met someone with the exact same name as me before” Amelia tried to argue, before she remembered what Kiara had just said about reincarnation “Wait a second, you mean?”
“Ding ding ding we have a winner!” Gura chimed in with a bright grin on her face that felt condescending “this isn’t the first time we’ve met an Amelia Watson in history!”
Amelia spluttered in disbelief at the idea of that, and tried to argue her case “but you guys hardly look older than your twenties, sure maybe Kronii and Fauna look a bit older, but they can’t be older than their thirties.”
“Wow, thanks Ame” Kronii mumbled from the couch with an affectionate eye roll, but was promptly ignored by the blonde having an existential crisis.
Ina laughed quietly, embarrassed “that’s a bit more of a complicated story than the reincarnation part.”
“There’s nothing complicated about it” Gura argued with the purple-haired girl “what’s so hard about saying we’re all mythical beings?”
At this point Amelia was sure she was having a panic attack or a fever dream. Mythical beings made her think of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, and she was pretty sure none of the girls looked like that.
“Might be easier to believe if you took off your glamours” Bae offered cheekily, resting her head on the back of the couch and watching the madness with a grin. Ina and Gura shared a look while Kiara was practically glowing with a bright smile.
“She has a point…” Ina agreed, though Gura looked a bit annoyed about it.
It felt like the room shifted for a moment and Ame worried she was suffering from an aneurysm now, but her brain went completely blank when she looked at Kiara, intending to ask her for a ride home.
Kiara had wings…bright orange like her hair, with teal tips. An analytical part of Amelia’s brain noticed that her wingspan was huge, and she almost slapped Gura in the face with one of them when she flexed them out across the room, earning an annoyed “watch it!”
That was when Amelia’s brain decided it had reached capacity and blue-screened for its own protection.
Amelia returned to consciousness slowly, groaning in pain as her head throbbed with the beginnings of a migraine, but appreciated the soft hands that were running through her hair.
“Told you we shouldn’t have dropped the news on her all at once” an annoyingly chipper voice chirped that Amelia took a moment to realize was probably Bae.
“Oh shut up rat, this whole thing was because of your dumb idea” Kronii’s voice, she sounded irritated.
“You sure I can’t get a drink? I’m way too sober for this.” Calli.
“Cawwi you promised to stay sober when we told her.” Kiara, of course she’d make Calli promise to stay sober for a party.
Wait.
Amelia’s eyes snapped open, though she instantly regretted it when the light overhead blinded her and sent sharp spikes of pain to her brain that made her hiss. A hand immediately moved to cover her eyes again, and she realized she could smell Fauna’s perfume from way too close. “Easy Ame, you passed out and almost hit your head” she reported in a soft tone.
“You did manage to headbutt Gura when she tried to catch you!” Bae chimed in again with an accompanying laugh.
“Yeah thanks for that by the way bozo,” Gura grumbled, sounding like she was on the other couch in the living room.
“She didn’t mean to Gura” Ina tried to mediate. Amelia made an immediate mental note to apologize to Gura when it didn’t feel like her brain was going to explode.
“Sorry for ruining the party Fauna” Amelia groaned. She was surprised they hadn’t thrown her out for ruining the mood.
“Don’t worry about a thing dear, some of us were expecting this kind of outcome” Fauna hurried to reassure the blonde, but Ame figured she was just being nice. She overheard a pair of indignant cries and could imagine one of them was Gura.
“Should have waited until Ame was sitting down,” Kronii added.
“And I’m sure that I’ve told you not to flex your wings in the house Kiara” Fauna continued in that motherly tone that sounded disappointed more than angry. Kiara was quick to apologize, and Ame overheard Fauna mumble “It took years to get Mumei to stop doing it.”
“Wait a second…wings…Kiara has wings” Amelia repeated to herself trying to make herself believe what she had seen. She could hear a group of the girls in a heated whisper debate on the other side of the room.
“No sweetie, that was probably just a dream you had after you passed out” Fauna’s soothing voice made it hard to argue, and Ame’s own brain agreed that it was ridiculous to think that a human had wings.
“Fauna?” Kronii whispered from nearby. She sounded concerned, but Fauna didn’t reply to her wife.
“You were probably just overwhelmed from the party and your brain conjured up this silly idea” Fauna continued, her voice gaining confidence and sounding really nice to listen to.
“Mmm…Think I’m going to get a bit more rest” Amelia mumbled quietly, feeling the exhaustion creeping back into her body.
“Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll have Kronii make up the guest room for you.”
“Don’t wanna impose…” Ame tried to argue weakly, but doubted she’d even be able to get up at this point with how heavy her body felt. She finally drifted off with another quiet grunt.
“You chickened out” Mumei mumbled as Kronii and Fauna returned from transporting the blonde into the guest room. It was more of a statement than an accusation, but Fauna still felt terrible.
“You saw how badly she reacted when Kiara revealed her wings,” Kronii argued with her wife. “How do you think she’d take it if we told her ‘hey you’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy’ and told her everything?”
“Of course when we’re close to cracking the code of saving her and have to reveal everything we get the reincarnation that can’t handle the truth” Bae grumbled in annoyance, earning glares from some of the girls.
“Again, it was your bright idea to start her reincarnation cycle Baelz” Calli countered the aspect of Chaos.
“What was I supposed to do? You guys looked so sad when your Amelia passed” Bae threw out her hands in exasperation.
“But this isn’t the same Amelia that we knew” Ina stated in a quiet voice that made the growing argument pause “She’s never the same Amelia that we knew.”
A silence hung over the room for a few minutes at the heavy truth behind that statement, no one sure what to say.
“Do you still care about her?” Mumei asked, referring to everyone in the room.
The unanimous answer was the same as it had always been.
“Yes.”
In another city, a woman with reddish-pink hair heard her phone notification go off as she was getting ready for her concert.
Taking a glance over at it, her mood dropped a little at the brief message she’d received from her wife.
“Couldn’t do it.”
She unfortunately didn’t have time to dwell on the news and put on her brightest smile as she left the dressing room, preparing to go out and greet her fans.
…..
A group of girls stood at a street corner of the busy city, one with two-toned white and black hair busy checking her phone as they waited for the crossing light to change.
A much smaller purple-haired girl was bouncing on her feet next to her in excitement “You two are sure that you can smell her in this city?” She asked a pair of blonde girls with their noses up in the air. One had a blue streak in her hair, while the other had a pink streak.
“Bau bau, no worries Biboo, this isn’t going to be a false alarm like last time!” The pink twin assured her friend.
“Trust FuwaMoco’s noses!” the blue twin agreed, the pair smiling bright with absolute confidence.
The last member of their group, and also the tallest smiled and placed her hands on the heads of the twins. “Of course we trust you guys, you just sometimes happen to get us into trouble with those noses.”
“Bau bau” they both mumbled sheepishly.
“Actually I did a bit of investigation work when the twins started pointing us in this direction and found a match at a local college” The two-toned woman stated, earning an amused look from the tallest girl.
“Oh really Shiori? And did finding this information happen to involve doing anything illegal?” Nerissa asked her friend, grinning when Shiori wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Bijou interrupted the two with a cheerful cry “guys the light changed!”
FuwaMoco were already running off ahead again like a pair of bloodhounds on the trail, earning an amused sigh from Nerissa. She took a moment to reach out and pat Shiori’s head “don’t worry, it’ll all be worth it in the end when we get to see her again” before Nerissa took Bijou’s hand and chased after the twins.
Shiori couldn’t decide between being embarrassed by Nerissa treating her like a child, or flustered by the softness she showed. Pushing those thoughts away for now, she pocketed her phone and hurried after her friends, all of them thinking about a blonde-haired girl who had changed their lives.
…..
“And you’re sure they came to this city?” A tall woman with bright red hair once again asked her green-haired companion.
“For the hundredth time she’s sure Liz” a short brunette snapped before the green-haired girl could answer, having grown tired of hearing her leader ask the same question constantly.
Seemingly caught off-guard at being called out, the red-haired woman faltered “err, right, sorry Cecilia.”
“Cut her some slack Gigi, we’ve been hunting them for a while now” A pink-haired girl chimed in with an easygoing grin. She thought about it for a moment and added “wonder what brought them here though.”
“I’m sensing a lot of powerful entities in this city” The green-haired girl reported, “maybe they’re planning to ask for protection?”
“Doesn’t matter, our orders were to bring them in no matter what, and we don’t disappoint the boss” Liz stated, earning nods from the other girls. They began making their way down from the hill they had been standing on overlooking the city.
“But y’know, it’d be nice if we could go back and visit that nice blonde girl we met after our last fight with them after this job is finished” the brunette suggested with a grin, hands folded behind her head.
A tense moment passed between them at that idea, and it was Cecilia who broke the news “Gigi, that was centuries ago. That girl has probably grown old and passed on by now.”
Another beat passed. “Aw man.” Gigi mumbled.