“So, like, what’s this big bad thingy we’re supposed to not do like? Is it, uhhh, that weird not-theocracy that’s going on in… what’s that place called, Pterosaur? No, that’s something else, uhhhhh, but, like, I always thought it was weird. It is weird, right?” Bro asked. It seemed he had a penchant for just going on tangents that none of the three magical girls had any wish to listen to. Well, except for one.

“Indeed. As well-worshipped as that false idol of a God is, you can’t deny her grip on the Kingdom of Pteria. She’s more of a ruler than its actual king is. You can only wonder why she hasn’t decided to openly usurp the throne yet,” Helio said, actually replying to whatever Bro had been trying to say. The other two magical girls could only stare on. Sikrat, a combination of a knucklehead and a knucklehead, had no idea where Pteria was on the map. Lily might have been completely uninterested, but the weebness inside of her forced her to at least listen in just a little.

“Riiiiight?? Like, ‘make up your mind’, girl! And, like, what even is the Primum Mobile?? I know it’s like a God or something, but I don’t think it got any worshippers or nothing so I don’t see the poi-,”

“As interesting as this discussion you two are having is, our goal is almost upon us. To answer your first question, ‘Bro’, our goal is to defeat the creature above us. It appeared over Humbugg a few days ago, and I failed to defeat it. Now, we won’t let it get away,” Sikrat said, pointing at the various trunk like tentacles. Bro followed his gaze, taking in the situation with little worry.

“Well, uh, alright. Cool, but, like, what is it, though? Also, I don’t really think we need to defeat it or nothing, ‘cuz, like, it kinda looks close to death anyway?” Bro pointed out, actually seeming a bit confused (not that he didn’t always seem confused, but now more so). As a matter of fact, he was pretty correct. Sikrat really hadn’t noticed it until now, but, compared to their memories of what this creature was supposed to look like (whatever its name was), it was clearly…. off. The tentacles were dried, the main body was darker, and although the creature they had fought a while back hardly seemed lively, this thing really did seem to be on the brink of death.

Sikrat shook their head.

“That is unimportant. As long as it stands, and as long as we have a chance to defeat it, there is no reason to hesitate. We will defeat it, even if we have to strike a foe while it’s down,” Sikrat said, crossing their arms. Bro tilted his head but said nothing further.

In the distance, the alliance could see a light shining at the end of the tunnel. Apparently, they had almost reached the end of their short journey.

“Hmm? Whazzat?” Lily asked, pointing just to the side of the light, where yet another large tentacle, much like all the other ones they’d been staring at for a while now, had lodged itself into the ground. But that’s not what Lily was pointing at, no, clinging onto the tentacle as a sinner to a priest was a large, inhuman creature resembling an angler fish of sorts.

The first impression they got from noticing this creature was that it was attacking the tentacle, since it seemed to be chewing at it, claws just on the brink of sinking into its dried flesh. But somehow, it didn’t feel like it did any of this out of malice. More so, out of… adoration. Yes, it seemed like a religious believer clinging to their fetish.

“Yo, that’s pretty groovy, heh,” Bro commented, apparently finding the situation to his liking. Gods only knew what likings that man had. The other free gave him strange looks, none of which seemed even remotely agreeing. “Hm? Like, uhhh, it’s a cool costume, and I’d totally do the same in his situation. Like these tentacles are groovy and all, but doing what he wants when he wants is just straight up dynamite, dude!”

Alright, sure.

“Um, Bro, I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but that’s a monster, yanno? Like a corrupted grief seed and stuff? That’s that,” Lily said as if that was supposed to help Bro understand any of this. As might be expected, Bro could only give a single frown of non-understanding and turn to look at the angler-fish thing. Large and disgusting with a mouth big enough to swallow three people whole, a bulbous antenna sprouted from its head, and four bone-like limbs held the whole apparatus in the air, two of which were gingerly clasped around the tentacle.

“It’s a cool dude but on smack?” Bro theorized aloud, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Sikrat shook their head.

“We battled a creature alike this just this night. It is a rabid creature, inhuman and vile.”

“Hmmm,” Bro stepped just a bit closer to the creature to give it a good look (luckily, it had yet to notice any of them, enraptured as it was), “still pretty groovy, I gotta say.” Apparently, being called groovy was the first thing that the creature in question heard, as it slowly turned it’s bulbous head, large, disk-like eyes focusing in on the orange-clad hippie.

“Hhhiiiiinn~?” a long, whining sound emerged from its flabby lips, like a particularly squeaky door opening just a little. It seemed genuinely confused at being confronted like this, especially by such strangely dressed humans.

“-A Magnos, is it? Of the order Piscis Hominum. Yet another creature from Lutum, here on… this world. Yet another interesting development,” Helios said, stepping close enough to the creature to feel its bumpy skin. “Male, fully grown… a prime example of its species.”

With a nod, Helios took a step back to fully admire the confused, almost pitiful creature.

“We must kill it. Such a dangerous creature cannot be allowed to lurk freely. Take positions,” Sikrat commanded, grabbing two broadswords out of thin air.

“Huh?? B-, but Sikrat, it’s not hurting anybody!” Lily said, gesturing to the passively watching creature.

Sikrat shook their head, giving Lily, and the rest of the group, a stern, stoic gaze. It wasn’t a question. Helios seemed equally unhappy to rid the world of such a beautiful specimen, but… they were right. Much like the Lupus Nigrum of yesterday, the world as a whole may not be able to deal with it if left to do as it pleases. Truly, most things from Lutum were dangerous to this world. What a weak world he’d found himself in.

“-Lily, we have no choice,” Helio said, raising both hands in preparation for battle.

“I-, hrr, I guess it’s our duty as magical girls to defeat the forces of evil…”

“You-, dudes! Stop freaking out! My man Angly here ain’t hurt nobody!” Bro pleaded, being so fearless as to put a supportive hand on the shoulder of “his man”. In fact, he moved his entire body (which wasn’t much when compared to Chad or even Sikrat) to block the magical girls from hurting his good friend(?). “Besides, hurtin’ people isn’t, like, groovy at all! We don’t gotta fight, we can all just duke it out, yo!”

“Bro, I cannot understand you. But you must understand that such a creature cannot be allowed to live in this world? Please, step aside,” Helio said, forming a spell circle Bro couldn’t recognize. He grit his teeth and took a step closer to the creature. “We don’t have time to fool around. Every second we spend not fighting is a second wasted.”

“Dudes-,” Bro stammered, but, really, he knew they were right. He had no idea what was going on in this world, what kind of disaster they were supposed to stop, but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that a creature such as Angly could never live and be free. He would always be hunted, hated for who he was, despised for being… different. “I’ll do it.”

A cold silence reigned. The only sound that could be heard was the soft squeakings of Angly and the odd murmur of wind passing through the hundreds of tentacles above.

Bro turned to Angly. Those bulbous, soulless eyes that seemed to hold every emotion in the world peered back at him, confused and scared. Forgive me, little one. Taking a puff of his rosewood pipe, he let the words fall off his tongue.

“Ut Parva, canis,” and in a puff of purple smoke, the creature was gone. Reduced to-, no, wait, it’s right there! Small as a toy figurine, to be sure, but it’s there alright! Small, scared, and somehow even more confused than before. As exactly nobody spoke a word, Bro leaned down towards the small thing, and scooped it up in his hands. It didn’t even protest. It almost seemed… placid. “There, now he’s cool, right?”

They really couldn’t say anything to that. He was right, and as long as it didn’t revert in shape, it’d be alright, right?

“The second that thing grows even a centimetre, it will be exterminated. Now let’s hurry, we haven’t got much time!” Sikrat said, ready to break out running at any moment. In their discussion, it seems they had indeed forgotten that there was a large, potentially malicious threat looming over the town, possibly the world, depending on how malicious.

As Bro carefully slipped the scared little thing into his satchel, the magical girls went on ahead and emerged into the light. Bro followed closely.

As it would seem, the police weren’t doing anything about this, either. Considering that there had already been significant casualties caused just by the creature standing itself up. Currently, however, not much was actually going on. A few helicopters buzzed around its main body, and at various points around its feet, police cars and cops stood stationed, guns pointed square at the creature. However, nobody was actually firing or doing anything like that.

No, as it would seem, everybody was on stand-on.

At first, the reason for this might not have been too obvious, but soon, it was almost too obvious to ignore. As it turns out, they had indeed tried to shoot at one of the tentacles, but this only resulted in a wave of poisonous, acidic sludge pouring out and killing a whole squadron. The tentacle itself proceeded to collapse and melt some of the concrete it laid on, resulting in a black, frothy ooze covering it. The creature itself hadn’t even winced.

A general assumption was then made that shooting down a bunch of tentacles would only lead to a greater catastrophe. A fair assumption, but not a helpful one. It meant that the police had nothing they could do. Perhaps the could have tried to cut all the tentacles off and capture the main body alive, but the resulting contamination from the tentacles would definitely be more than the town of Humbugg could handle.

So, indecision reigned. That is until the heroic magical girls - hippie alliance appeared.

Bearing swords and magic and everything in between. Actually, there wasn’t anything in between, but saying there was one swordsman and three sorcerers seemed a bit too unbalanced. Nonetheless, they arrived.

He’d been holding up pretty well until then.

At least, as well as he could have, what with the whole “nightmare scenario” happening around him. His skin was as dry as a desert, one of his tentacles had been obliterated and collapsed, and all he wanted to do was fall down and sleep for a while. But he couldn’t. He knew there were people in this town he couldn’t live without, the lack of whom would cause his dream of normalcy to fully end.

Most importantly, down there, in the myriads of people beneath him… was Chad. His friend. His best friend, who, if he knew him well enough, certainly hadn’t ran away. So, he couldn’t just do what he wanted. Couldn’t just collapse, couldn’t just wreak havoc or do anything else he felt was appropriate.

The worst part, beyond the horrible pain, beyond the knowledge of how his future could crumble at any second, the very thing that made this so terrible, was…

That he kind of liked it.

It felt normal. Right. Being a large, omnipresent being of power, towering over those pitiful humans, their very lives under his thumb.

He hated that he felt like this, and yet, he couldn’t help it. He had felt cramped in that tiny body of his, in those tiny little human houses. Stretching out like this…

And yet, he stood still. Despite how much he wanted to just move a little, take a step here or there, or even let loose just one little spell… he wouldn’t. Even worse, he was pretty sure he couldn’t. At all. His body ran on Magick, he knew that much. That’s why he was a Beast of the Spirit, that’s why he could use Magick at all, and why his wounds could heal by themselves. Magick was as much a part of him as blood was to a human.

And there wasn’t a drop of it in him. Not even a little bit. Using the Humanification spell was even less than a dream, and moving seemed to have gained the same status. Unless something happened, unless something Magick introduced itself to him, he would remain there, only barely perched up by his failing body. And if left too long, he’d surely perish.

But three magical girls and a hippie did.

They sure did.