An actress in our midst! (web version)

This was definitely cheating. She didn’t really even have to do anything. Just pledge her soul to an ancient demon spirit and bam, her total magical power nearly quadrupled.

Before, she could almost handle fighting all four magical girls at once. Now? Well…

“Nightfall!” she shouted as she spread out her arms.

Dark magic flowed out of her and enveloped the entire school in a swirling vortex, blocking out light. Panicked screams reached her ears as she marveled at her own power. She watched the school from the roof of the neighboring building, waiting for the magical girls to swoop in and engage her.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, her magical vortex of darkness shuddered as pressure from the inside hit it and dispersed in all directions.

“Oh ho? They were inside? Interesting,” Jessica said to herself in her carefully practiced evil villainess voice.

It didn’t take long for the magical girls minus Pretty Frost to fly out of the windows and immediately lock onto her position. Once they spotted her, their eyes widened and jaws dropped.

They most likely recognized her even though she had changed outfits. Gone was the skintight minion suit and a crappy nondescript mask. Now she wore a black dress with dark purple ornaments and a smiling black face mask with horns.

But they already knew her true identity and how she looked, not to mention she had told them she would become a general, so she wasn’t particularly trying to hide her identity from them with the outfit.

“Y-you! You’re…” Flame started as they floated up just high enough to be level with each other.

“Greetings, magical girls! I am one of the new demon generals, Tepes, the enchantress!” Jessica – no, Tepes – bellowed. “I hope you like my little debut present!”

She sent them a bloodthirsty grin that startled even Spark.

“You… So it’s true? You’re really a general now?” Flame breathed, shock painting her expression.

“What are you doing here? What’s your aim?” Spark asked, eyeing Jessica warily, her teeth gritted.

“My aim is to destroy you magical girls!” Tepes declared. “Once and for all!”

“No way… This can’t…” Flame began, but stopped as she took in Tepes’ evil grin.

“Ah, but my new powers are still settling in.” Tepes narrowed her eyes in faked annoyance. “I might not be able to destroy you yet, but it’s still more than enough to give you a little appetizer for what’s to come!”

All bullshit, of course. Her ‘new powers’ had already ‘settled in’. She didn’t need to wait. But she needed an excuse not to steamroll the magical girls right away.

“We beat you once! We’ll do it again!” Spark shouted in defiance.

“Hmph! Good thing Frostie isn’t here yet. I have time to play with you all!” she shouted as she unleashed a wave of magic in their direction, making them scatter.

“Stun bolt!”

An arrow-shaped blast of light flew in the demon general’s direction, but she slapped it out of the air like an annoying fly, redirecting it at Bloom. At the same time, she summoned her spear from her pocket dimension and threw herself straight on top of Flame.

Flame immediately blocked the attack with her sword, but couldn’t stop the impact from hurling the two of them toward the ground.

“Gah!” Flame groaned as her back hit the asphalt. The hold on her sword never faltered and kept the demon’s spear at bay.

“Flame!”

“Leaf cutter!”

Tepes jumped back and away from Flame as a blade-shaped magic blast swished through the air above Flame, right where Tepes had been standing. Naturally, by the time she landed, there were arrows of light converging on her from all directions already.

“Thunderstorm!”

Tepes spun her spear on one side to absorb the magical attacks and readied her other arm to deflect the ones from the other direction all while moving the rest of her body to dodge as much as she could.

And somehow, she did it. Not a single one of the attacks managed to touch her.

By the time Spark’s ultimate move ended, Flame was back in the game, rushing at Tepes, sword in hand.

Although her expression was still worried and uneasy.

Tepes exploited that without pause. She gasped in an exaggerated feminine way and widened her eyes as they met Flame’s.

Flame immediately stopped her charge, and that was the opening Tepes needed to unleash a blast of magic from close-range and hit her square in her stomach, sending her skidding across the ground.

Ouch. Even though this was supposed to be all an act, that had to have hurt for real.

“Gyah!”

“Flame!”

“You bitch!” Spark swore as she drew more arrows.

“Hah! Getting distracted in the middle of a fight, Flame? Pathetic!” Tepes taunted with an evil grin while unleashing another magical bolt in Flame’s direction as she still struggled to stand, all while nimbly dodging Spark’s relentless barrage.

And in a true cinematic fashion, an icy shield appeared at the last second to block her attack, the last member of the magical girls standing behind it.

“Sorry, I’m late,” she said, like some kind of freaking superhero character from the comic books.

“Frost! You’re here!” Flame shouted, just to complete the scene, probably.

“Tch,” Tepes clicked her tongue. “Frost is here, huh? I suppose I should wrap this up then. My introductions are done and I had enough fun for the day.” She smirked. “We even had an audience! How nice.”

Naturally, teenagers being teenagers, the students inside the school couldn’t help but trickle outside and gawk, record the fight on their phones, or both. Mostly both.

The four heroines stood on guard as Tepes stored away her spear and spread out her arms.

“Well, now. End of the show for today. We’ll meet again, magical girls!”

And then a massive blast of magic surged from her and the heroine’s eyes widened.

“Frozen barricade!” “Maze of vines!”

A massive wall of ice covered in vines rose from the ground, attempting to block the blast. But to everyone’s surprise, the ice wall shattered into pieces as soon as the blast hit it.

“Firewall!” Flame shouted as she held her sword in front of her, generating a shield. Spark stood behind her, transferring some of her magic to help out.

The blast hit it, pushed her back a step, but then finally let up and dispersed.

Once Flame’s defensive spell dropped, Tepes was nowhere to be seen.