Five very subdued Pretty Cuties sat around their usual table in Cutie Club Cafe – no affiliation – not looking at anyone, least of all each other, their drinks untouched before them. Finally, Shine Sword couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Okay, fine. I'll start." she exhaled in disgust. "What the hell happened? One minute Evil Megabitch from Shit Dimension is kicking our asses, the next she's just... dead?" She looked at Glitter Heart. "She is dead, right?"
Glitter Heart nodded emphatically. "Oh, yes. Very very dead." She still hadn't quite recovered from her examination of what remained of their late arch-nemesis. Ew ew ew. She needed a brain scrubbing. Retail therapy. Half a dozen new plushies, soft and cuddly. Yeah. Enough to build a wall of fluff between herself and those memories. "There's no coming back from... that." She shuddered. "However it happened."
"Did any of you see who or... or what did it?" Twinkle Star asked. "She uh... kinda took me out first, so I missed... most of the fight." Her stomach growled and she blushed. "Sorry. Missed lunch too." she lied. Her nostrils flared and she blindly flagged down a waitress carrying a tray of other people's orders passing behind her. "Hi, can I get uh..." Her eyes followed her greedily sniffing nose, and she looked at the waitress' delicious cargo. "Oooh. What's that? One of those Leaning Towers of Pancake, please?" Another loud interjection from her stomach. "Uh... Make that two."
Sparkle Butterfly sat quietly, examining and re-examining those last few moments before she'd lost consciousness, over and over again. She'd seen her mom, she was sure of it. But that was impossible. There was no way someone like her mom, who only cared about numbers – about things that could be proven, pinned down on paper in black and white – would have been able to walk through the barrier sealing off their battle space. So who – or what – had that been, then? She'd seemed so real...
Glitter Heart shook her head. "I think Hikari was the last of us standing, weren't you? Did you see anything?"
Startled out of her thoughts, Sparkle Butterfly swallowed. "Uh. No. The last thing I remember is her taunting me about how the power of friendship had failed us and doomed our universe, then passing out from the pain when she dug her heel into my spine." The whole table winced at that. "Sorry."
"Are you sure you didn't see anything? Anyone?" Shine Sword pressed her, suspicious. Sparkle had been acting very squirrely since the fight. Something was up, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.
"Hey, lay off her, okay?" Flash Ace told the others. "It's okay, Hikari. You did more than the rest of us. Fought harder. Lasted longer. You have nothing to be ashamed of." She flashed an encouraging smile at her before turning back to the group. "The important question is: are we looking at an opening move by a new enemy? A worse one, if they could do that to the empress?"
Blank looks all around. Their fairies hadn't been able to tell the girls anything useful either, once they were done healing and rejuvenating them. They hadn't noticed anything strange. No surprise, really, because they'd been staying far away from the actual fighting, leaving all the work to a group of teenagers.
As usual.
The First Cutie sighed. "I guess all we can do now is wait and see. Wait for the other shoe to drop."
Sparkle Butterfly jumped when her phone buzzed, and almost knocked over her drink when she reached for it. Beet red, she checked her messages... and then the time. Oh no! Gulping down the rest of her fruit smoothie, she grabbed her bag. "Sorry girls, I have to run! I promised my mom I'd be home by 6! I'm going to be so late!" And away she ran, unaware that a pair of distrustful eyes tracked her out of the cafe...
Saki sighed softly. Family dinner was... stilted. Too quiet. Even though hamburgers were Hikari's favourite, her daughter kept picking at her food. Shifting nervously in her seat. Glancing at her from time to time in a way she thought was stealthy. The girl obviously remembered something, and it was eating away at her.
Saki had half a mind to finally have the Magical Girl conversation with Hikari. Put it all out there in the open. Tell her daughter that she knew about her... extra-curricular activities. Had known for a while now. Just tell her world the truth about herself too – but no, she couldn't.
She'd put that life behind her a long time ago. Closed off that chapter. For good. Before she turned her life around. Became a mom. Completely devoted herself to Hikari. Today had been a one-off thing. A fluke. Never to be repeated.
Thinking of the returned magic knuckle-duster, safely hidden in a locked drawer in her upstairs office, and the way her blood still sang, Saki wondered who she was trying to convince...
Besides, opening that can of worms would lead to more questions and secrets. Questions she wasn't really ready to answer, and secrets that weren't just her own.
The glass door to the back yard slid open, and a gorgeous blonde head poked in. "Do I smell hamburgers? For moi? You shouldn't have!"
"Aunt Kat!" Hikari couldn't leap out of her chair fast enough. To hug her super-cool famous aunt, an old school friend of her mom's. To escape the uneasy silence at the dinner table. To return to some kind of normalcy.
Hikari could always count on aunt Kat. She was always there for her. Always had been, ever since she was little. She was a rock. And she rocked. Hikari giggled.
"Hello, light of my life." her aunt ruffled her hair.
"How is it that you always know the best days to drop by unannounced? The days I made food you like? Which, let's be clear, is all food, because you're a bottomless pit, so really, it's a miracle you're not freeloading every night." Saki mock-grumbled at her best friend, already preparing a third plate. Setting her usual place at the table. She too was secretly glad of Kat's interruption. Kat was safe, and would keep the conversation going. Kat centred her.
Katleen De Bont winked at Hikari. "Trade secret. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you – which would mean no more delicious dinners for poor old me, so I won't." she proclaimed nobly, making the teen giggle again.
Saki's eyebrows rose when Kat dragged in a large, heavy duffel, and Hikari asked "What's that, aunt Kat?"
Katleen waved the question away. "Just something your mom asked me to bring by." she deflected, making Saki's eyebrows climb all the way up into her hairline. "It's not important. Not like this yummy food your awesome mother cooked for us."
As one of her oldest friends took her chair and her daughter excitedly started to tell her about her day, Saki gave her a look. Kat caught her eye and mouthed Later.
Dinner finished and plates thoroughly licked clean, Saki and Katleen had retired upstairs to Saki's home office, bag and all, for some 'grown-up talk', after a quick "Don't forget to finish your homework!" admonishment to Hikari.
Wordlessly, Kat dumped the bag's contents on the desk. A bloodstained chainsaw neither of them had seen this century tumbled out, its teeth scoring the wooden desktop surface. "Whoops." she said sheepishly, launching her tale to hide her embarrassment.
"So... there I was, enjoying my day, driving down to my next location shoot, when this old friend suddenly appeared in my lap. I was so startled I almost swerved into oncoming traffic, and barely avoided having an accident." She paused. "Still better than if it had been during a shoot, of course. Not sure I'd have been able to explain that mystery away." One of the TV personality's slender fingers pushed against the chainsaw, making it wobble. "Guess it's still stuck in this form too. Any ideas?"
Kat hadn't taken her eyes off her best friend. The girl who'd been the first to make her truly feel welcome in a strange country so many years ago. Her heart. She'd noticed the tension at the dinner table. How could she not? It was impossible to not see the way her two favourite people in the whole wide world weren't really talking to each other. Looked anywhere but at each other. Only talked to her. And just now... Saki's surprise at the reveal had been real, but so had that flash of pain. Guilt. Something was going on.
Saki closed her eyes and opened a drawer. Took out the knuckle-duster, and placed it next to the chainsaw. Couldn't look at Kat.
"Wait, you too? What the fuck is going on, Saki?"
A weary sigh. Saki hadn't thought it would end up like this. She hadn't thought at all. Just acted. And now... this. Her fault. Her mess. Spilling over on the others. Again. She owed Kat an explanation. Probably all of them. If the others would even give her the time of day.
Swallowing, the woman that had been – and apparently still was – Sukeban Overkill related the day's unexpected events. How she'd been on the way back from the store. Had walked in on that. "It's not like I planned it. You have to believe me. Our little girl was in danger, and I just..." Fingers flexed in remembrance. An aborted reach for... something. Something that had answered. Unexpectedly, like a breath of fresh air.
"That old rage engulfed me. Burned straight through me, leaving nothing behind but vengeance." She nervously licked her lips. "You remember how pure it tasted? How good it felt? How right?" There was still some of it left, coursing through her veins. Whispering that she had a greater purpose. Needed to take out the trash. Protect the innocent. Wipe the slate clean.
Before she realised it, Sukeban Unchained's arms were around her. Holding her tight. "Hell, if that little light of ours was in danger, of course you had to do everything you could to take down the bitch." A kiss to her cheek. "I'm just sorry I wasn't there to help, love." A pat on her back. One. Two. "Don't worry. We'll figure this out. Us against the world, remember?"
The pats became comforting circles, slowly going round and round, drawing out the tension in her body. Saki relaxed into the hug. Inhaled Kat's scent. Let it soothe and muffle the voice, if only temporarily, like it always had. Even before they'd...
Kat huffed a laugh, derailing Saki's train of thought. "Of course, if it happened to me... I can only imagine how pissed off she is right now."
As if on cue, Saki's phone rang, flashing a caller ID she hadn't seen in decades...
Hikari was trembling like a leaf. Open-mouthed. Shocked beyond words. Beyond thoughts. Unable to pay attention to Pipisquee, who was chastising her for listening at the door, which was not what good girls did! Unable to process these bombshell revelations. She'd just wanted to know what was in the bag, that was all! She must have heard wrong. Her mom wasn't... Her aunt couldn't be... They were... It was just plain impossible...
