Chapter Twenty-Eight

The two Black Hawks hovered in wide circles, keeping at least a hundred meters between each other as they flew relatively slow circles over the smoking ground below. They’d fired a pair of missiles each, then peppered the area in smaller rockets that had sounded almost like popcorn going off compared to the first blasts.

Now the area around the monster’s lair was filled with a dozen scorched craters. The few fires that had started had gone away fairly quickly, and there was still plenty of greenery around and even in the blast area. Those few explosives hadn’t destroyed everything.

“It’s not as blown up as I thought it would be,” Evalyn said. She’d stood up, a hand gripping a rail above for balance.

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Amber admitted.

Cecilia nodded. “For soft targets like Boogiemen, especially without any civvies around, we use fragmentation rockets. Not as much fire and a weaker bang, but everything within fifty yards gets peppered in shrapnel.”

Amber nodded. It made sense. Boogiemen, she knew from grisly experience, weren’t all that strong. Not if a normal girl with a Louiseville Slugger could take one out. A big explosion would probably do the trick.

Cecilia tapped her headset. “We’re doing two drops. Can you give us a synched countdown with Goofy Oh-Two?”

“Roger that,” the co-pilot said. “Timing things now. I’ll be starting on ten in a moment.”

Cecilia nodded and turned towards the other aboard the helicopter. “I won’t be able to hear the countdown, I’ll need one of you to wave me and Jess off. Once we’re down, we’ll look around, then signal the choppers back. Shouldn’t take more than five.”

“Do you have a parachute?” Victoria asked.

“Nah, we’re doing a LANO drop,” the older magical girl said.

“A what?” Evalyn asked.

“A Low-Altitude, No Opening. We’re jumping straight to the ground with no equipment,” Cecilia said. “It’s standard stuff.”

“The air-force boys call them ‘lol no’s because there’s no way they’d try it,” Jess added.

They continued to turn around the burned craters, but were slowing down until the co-pilot spoke up. “Ready for deployment on my mark. Three, two, one... mark!”

Cecilia placed a foot right on the very edge of the cabin, then stepped forward. Her foot rolled over the edge, her knees bending until it looked as if she was squatting perpendicular to those sitting within.

Her legs shot out, and the girl blurred forwards even as the helicopter rocked a little.

“Show off!” Jess said as she tossed her headset to Evalyn, then leapt out after her teammate. The girl waved her wand in the air and created a platform that she jumped off of, then another, then another, like a magical, OSHA-violating spiral staircase.

Amber felt Jade’s grip on her hand tighten. “I don’t think I could do that,” she said.

“You mean, um, jump out of a perfectly usable vehicle without any ropes or parachutes or anything?” Amber asked.

“We’re at least thirty meters off the ground,” Jade said. “Any normal person would splatter on landing.”

“I’m sure team Glasir had training for that. Jess seemed to have her own landing technique. Maybe you could work out something like that?”

“I suppose. Given enough room I could turn my scarf into a parachute,” Jade said. She squeezed Amber’s hand again, then visibly shivered. “Just the thought of it is giving me goosebumps.”

“I don’t know, it seems kind of fun,” Evalyn said.

“You would say that,” Victoria shot back. “I’m with, uh... Jade? Yeah, jumping from this high is suicide.”

“Come on,” Evalyn said. “It’s not that bad. We’re magical girls! Where’s your sense of adventure and your love for action?”

“It’s buried under a healthy respect for Newtonian physics and their interaction with my body,” Jade said.

“Bah, we’ve got magic. Tell physics to take a break.”

“Do you have magic that would help you survive a fall like that?” Amber asked. “I sure don’t.”

Evalyn shook her head, then paused and seemed to think about it. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

The twin Black Hawks continued to circle around, and Amber leaned a little to the side–still holding onto Jade–to see the ground below. She could make out Jess and Oli and Emilia on the ground, then Cecilia’s costume flashed yellow and she was able to spot her too.

The four girls of team Glasir were moving in pairs around the spot they’d bombed. Oli raised something that looked disturbingly like an arm, then flung it out into the woods. They looked fairly relaxed, poking at something so dangerous.

“Magical girls are weird,” Amber said.

There was some laughter over the headsets. “You just noticed?” Evalyn asked.

“No, but... well, it’s not always super obvious,” Amber said. “Sometimes you all act so normal.”

“You?” Jade repeated. “You’re one of us.”

“Oh, right.” Did I just forget that I was a magical girl too?

Evalyn laughed, and Amber noticed the other two girls smiling. She felt her ears warming a little. “That’s precious. Did you fail to notice that you were in a costume too?”

“Shut up,” Amber said rather petulantly. There was no bite to it though.

“Hey, looks like they’re done,” Victoria said.

Below, team Glasir had regrouped in the centre of the new clearing, and Oli was waving her arms up at the helicopters.

Their Black Hawk moved back a ways, and the other slid in over the group, a pair of black cords dropping down onto the ground where Oli and Emalia grabbed on. They were soon whisked up into their chopper.

Cecilia and Jess were next.

They hovered over the smoking craters and something buzzed as a pair of cords dropped down from the edge of the helicopter, right above the door. A little while after, they reversed and Cecilia and Jess appeared, holding onto the cord with one hand, a foot in the loop at the bottom. “Hey,” Cecilia shouted as she stepped in.

Jess grabbed her headphones and snapped them on, then sat down across from Amber and Jade. “That was boring.”

“Did you find anything?” Amber asked.

“Nothing interesting,” Cecilia said. “There was an ice cooler, or what was left of one, near the centre of the target area, but I think the boogiemen just dragged it over from an outpost or something.”

“Oli found some body-bits. But they were all really dead,” Jess said. “Boring.”

“Boring is good,” Cecilia said.

Amber agreed. Though I kinda wish we’d gotten to do more than sit back here and watch. Doing patrols like this every day must be kind of boring.

The headphones crackled. “Welcome back aboard,” the copilot said. “We caught something on IR to the south. We’re going to set our side that way, could you take a look? Object is about two kilometers out, due south-south-east.

The helicopter turned and faced the huge forests of Agartha. In the distance, Amber thought she could make out some water, the ocean, maybe.

Cecilia tapped her headset. “Acknowledged. Give us a minute.”

Jess rolled her eyes, shifted, and flicked her wand out again. She drew a circle in the air and Amber watched as it warped and wavered, and then the air about a meter ahead of Jess became almost like a solid piece of glass.

Everything in the surface was warped and deformed on the edges, but in the centre the distant woods were made wider and easier to see.

“Which direction?” Jess asked.

Cecilia talked to the co-pilot a bit, then pointed off towards the back a little. “That way. About two klicks out, so... see that ridge over there? That’s way more than two, so between us and that.”

Jess moved her wand a little, the glass dome moving with it.

“What kind of magic is that? If you don’t mind me asking,” Jade asked.

“It’s ice magic,” Jess said. “It’s what I do. Undeniable proof that I really am a cold-hearted bitch.”

“You wish,” Cecilia said. “I saw you crying while watching Shrek.”

“That’s a very emotional movie for me!” Jess said.

Amber grinned and leaned forwards to see out of the ice dome. It was nearly crystal clear, but she could see a bit of frosting on the very edges. The helicopter was holding steady, but even so it swayed a bit, and Jess’s motions made the ice move too.

Amber was looking, just out of curiosity, then she saw Jess’s magnifying pane move over something. “Wait, to the left,” she said. “Yeah, a bit higher.”

Jess complied, walking the image in the magic dome over more trees and little streams and rocky outcrops until she flashed past something grey. She brought it back. “Well, that’s different.”

Amber agreed. The forest was pretty much all the same, only Jess’s ice was zoomed into what looked like an old pill-box. A small cement bump, covered in branches and leaves and a layer of dirt, but one that looked like it had been washed off.

Cecilia tapped her headset. “We see something. Looks like a bunker. Old. Abandoned looking.”

“We caught heat from that way. Thought it might be a big nasty,” the co-pilot said. “Do you want to check it out?”

“Let’s do a fly-by, at least,” Cecilia said. “Get the grid coordinates, and ping base. It could be some old base or outpost or something.”

“Roger that, pinging base now.”

Cecilia shifted to look back at them all. “Sorry about that, girls. You never know when this kind of stuff pops up.”

“Have you been on a lot of patrols?” Jade asked.

Cecilia nodded. “Oh yeah. Starting in year two, especially the second half, you get to go out on team patrols at least once a week. It earns you some good money too, especially if you see combat.”

“Combat?” Jade repeated.

Jess scoffed. “It’s mostly boogiemen, sometimes rats. The rats are worse. Oh, there was that one time with the slender men, and the Nalusa Falaya that ambushed us.”

“Wait, slenderman?” Amber asked.

“They’re these lanky guys that live in the woods,” Jess said.

“Like the meme?”

“Yeah, but scarier cause they’re real,” was Jess’ reply.

Their helicopter shifted and started heading out towards the south. Amber saw the other chopper, Goofy Two, moving out a bit ahead of them. They turned and started to run circles around something on the ground. All of the girls leaned down and forwards, looking at the little base half-hidden in the foliage.

Someone stepped out of the front of the base. A person wearing long, black robes.

“Is that...” Jess began.

“Shit! Evasive!”

The person with the black robes raised something. A long tube with a plaque on the front and a trigger under it. Amber wasn’t an expert with weapons or anything, but she recognized a rocket launcher when she saw one.

There was a flash.

A bright ball zipped through the sky, too fast to follow.

The world turned to fire before Amber could blink.

One moment she was hanging onto Jade, the shorter girl screaming, the next she was in the air, fire and metal falling around her, the trees approaching–

Amber gasped and sat up in her seat.

The other in the helicopter looked at her, most of them, at least. Jess was still holding up her ice pane, they were just hovering.

“Oh, shit,” Amber said.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked.

Amber looked at her, took in the face that was, a moment ago, screaming.

Amber started breathing hard. “Oh, oh, wow,” she said.

“You okay?” Cecilia asked.

“We were attacked,” Amber said. “Uh, some person, black robes, with a rocket launcher.”

“What are you on about?” Jess asked. Evalyn and Victoria were looking at her, just as confused.

“Uh,” Amber said. How do I even begin to explain this? “Jade, you know how my power works?”

“Yeah,” Jade said.

“We went to some base, over, um, there. That way. We were flying over when someone shot us out of the sky. I think I died?”

Jade’s grip on Amber’s hand became almost crushing, but it was a point of contact, a reassurance. “Amber can kinda see the future,” she said. “If she says we were attacked, I believe her. Um... not were... but will be.”

Cecilia and Jess looked to each other. “I think we need to report this.”

***