"Oh, my comrades! How delightful to see you all again!” I ran to each of them in turn and threw my arms up for hugs. Celica and Anglia dropped the breakfast they were making as I approached them. Miata looked at me as though I’d eaten poisonous berries. I imagine that my furry hamster friend could curdle milk with one well-timed look if he fancied. Then again, I have an excellent imagination… so take that as you will.
“We found your donkey, in case you were worried.” Kia said.
I smiled my thanks. Not that I really cared. The donkey could’ve walked off a cliff for all I was concerned, or one of those monsters back in the wood could have gotten it. That’s what I’d been assuming happened all along.
“We’re going to battle with Mr. Evil Bad Man in less than… er…” I glanced at Miata.
He looked down at the miniature watch on his wrist. “28 hours, 34 minutes and 10 seconds.”
I nodded. “Right. So we haven’t much time. I know that if we put our minds to it we can destroy his evil plan and defeat his minions. Each of us has our own part to play and I’m confident that we’re equal to our tasks. I have faith in myself but most importantly, I have faith in all of you. Now come on, we’ve got a lot to do and not much time to do it in! Get a move on!”
They all stared at me. Camry looked as though he was about to wretch.
“What?” I asked. Had my hair suddenly fallen out or some such?
“That was positively the most annoyingly sugar-coated magical girlish thing you’ve ever said. I think I’m… no, wait.” He paused. He raised the back of his hand to his forehead and then reached over and placed it on mine. “I think we’re both sick.”
Miata snorted. “I could have told you that.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “You’ve got to power up.” Miata explained, in a not-so-much-an-explanation-but-you-should-have-known-this-already kind of way.
“Okay. How do I do that?”
He grimaced. “It’s never been accounted for. It just seems to naturally happen before the final battle. That’s all the information I could get out of the handbook. Every other Magical Girl I’ve worked with has already managed it by this point.”
Way to win me over; point out my Magical Girl deficiencies. Oh well. I grinned at him. “Weeell, what do you think might help? I’m malleable, workable, willing to do whatever needs done. Needs doing? Whatever needs to…” I trailed off and was lost in thought for a few seconds. “At any rate, you should take advantage of this, it doesn’t happen often.”
“You could try running a few laps.”
“Right, because that’ll get my heart pumping which will inadvertently cause the Magical Girl Power-Up Mechanism inside of me to be activated. You’re so clever, Miata.”
“Actually, I was just thinking of a way to get rid of you so I could think.”
Under normal circumstances I would have plotted some not-nice deed to do to Miata later for being so blatantly annoying. Revenge is an art I learned from Mastess Mio back in the day. She’s slick. I, however, was still in a dandy fine mood so I took off to jog instead. Exercise is good for the body and when one’s body is as stunning as mine, well, it’s just art in motion and you can’t argue with that. I overheard snatches of my comrades’ conversations as I passed. You’d have never thought we were preparing for some epic battle:
“One and two and three and four…”
“I’m never going to get it!” Kia screeched.
Conclusion: Camry is teaching Kia to waltz?
Meanwhile… “I’ve never done this before.”
“All you have to do is shove it in the other person.”
Conclusion: Alero is teaching Celica the finer points of… oh, that’s just beyond gross!!
And… “If we come around this way and sneak in the back door… or we could charge up and go through the front door…”
Conclusion: Anglia has unresolved jump rope issues.
At the very least we were headed in the right direction. If you wanted to look at it that way we’d just gotten off the highway to stay at one of those silly little waysides to rest all excepting we weren’t resting, we were preparing. Or maybe it’s more like when you stop at the gas station just before you meet someone to make sure that the car ride didn’t ravage your hair. At any rate, we were past the take-the-scenic-route, make-the-wrong-turn, stop-for-directions stages. I didn’t know what the future held for us but I was hopeful. There was no way we would fail… it would make for a pretty crappy ending.