An actress in our midst! (web version)

“So… Jessica’s… dad…” Erika breached the topic they had all been avoiding.

“He’s a total prick,” Sarah summarized.

“I’m sure he had his reasons…” Nicole tried, before turning to Max. “Right?”

“She… didn’t tell us about that bit. I never even knew that her dad abandoned her after her mom died…” Max admitted.

Sarah groaned at that. “Can’t wait till he shows his face so I can punch it. Can we really not take Jessica’s offer to kill him? ”

“Don’t say that… We’re supposed to be the good guys…” Erika murmured before sighing. “I really wish we knew why Jessica’s acting the way she is, though…”

“Don’t worry,” Nicole tried assuring her. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, we will!” Sarah agreed. “Seriously, it’s so weird when Jessica doesn’t even flirt with you every other sentence anymore! It’s like the entire universe is wrong.”

Erika sputtered at that but couldn’t find the words to deny it.

“Hey, everyone!” A cheerful voice reached their table in the cafeteria. Everyone either froze or jumped at that. When they turned, they confirmed that the voice, indeed, belonged to Jessica. “Oh, hey, Max! What a coincidence.” She put on a radiant grin and before anyone could react in any way, she put down her tray of food next to Erika’s and sat down before grabbing her spoon and fork. “So, how’s everyone doing today?”

The four stared at her as she began slurping her spaghetti without a care in the world.

Yesterday, after blasting them with that smokescreen and running away, they had completely lost her trail and she hadn’t talked to Max and Cody after school either. Everyone had assumed she would be avoiding everyone from that point on and that would just be the new status quo.

And then she just…

“Well, you know how it is,” Sarah began, her narrowed eyes trained at the carefree girl. “Getting back into school… Poaching the first years to join our clubs… A friend of ours deciding to become an enemy of humanity. The usual.”

Jessica nodded sagely. “Ah yes. I know the feeling. Hate when that happens.” She sighed theatrically while shaking her head… before continuing to dig in.

The others took a moment to make eye contact with each other to communicate their feelings.

“So… how are you? Still busy with your job?” Nicole chanced a question.

“Well, yeah.” She shrugged. “I’m helping my boss with a huge project and that’s all I’ve been able to think about lately,” she said as she glanced at Max. “And even ignoring that, there’s this whole issue of rogue –” Her eyes shifted between the four. “-- employees going outside and causing trouble for everyone.” She stopped eating for a second to let out another theatrical sigh. “We need to figure out a way to deal with them or they will ruin everything.”

The table went silent again except the sound of Jessica’s cutlery and slurping.

What was even happening right now?

“Big project…?” Nicole broke the silence.

“Company secret,” Jessica replied with a mischievous smile.

“Uh huh.” Sarah scowled at her. “Does it have anything to do with causing chaos and destroying the world?”

“It does, actually!” Jessica beamed. “In that we’re trying to prevent that.”

Confusion.

The four exchanged a look.

“... You… are…?” Nicole asked tentatively. “But didn’t you say you wanted to destroy the magical girls…?”

“Yeaaah, about that…” Jessica groaned. “See, that was Baugh’s idea. Pretend to be evil, keep them out of the loop, stuff like that.” She waved her hand. “It was all because it’s apparently impossible to find the magical girls’ true identities unless they themselves tell you. It’s even impossible to tell someone else once you know. Somehow.” She smirked. “Luckily, they told me! So there was a slight change of plans.”

“Huh… So that means…?” Max trailed off, a mixture of hope and surprise in his eyes.

“Yeah.” Jessica nodded. “No need to lie to them anymore.”

“Wait, so…” Erika started and seemed to choke on her words for a second. “So… so, it was all just an act?!” She slammed her hands down at their table, attracting the attention of everyone in the vicinity.

Jessica gave her a sweet smile in response. “Of course, my dear,” she said with a diabetes-inducing voice as she lifted her hand and gently put it on Erika’s cheek. “I would never harm your adorable face for real.”

Erika’s face instantly turned red as she sputtered.

“Aww, I missed this! Thank god I don’t have to act all standoffish anymore.” Jessica looked refreshed, as if she had just dipped into a warm bath after a long cold day.

“Riiight…” Sarah sighed in either relief or exasperation. “So with that out of the way, mind telling us what this was all about now?”

“I do… mind, that is. I can’t actually tell you much. Just that we’re gonna have to still pretend to be enemies while others are watching.” Jessica gave them a wry smile.

“What? Why?!”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Jessica…” Nicole muttered as she frowned in her direction.

“Sorry… I really can’t tell you.” She shook her head. “It’s an infohazard for the wielders of the magical weapons.”

“Infohazard…?”

“Yup. We don’t know what exactly causes it, but you might lose your powers, which would cause a whole another slew of problems.”

“Lose our powers…?” Erika’s eyes widened. “You mean like…”

“Like your predecessors. Yup.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone digested that.

“Fine.” Sarah sighed. “So what can you tell us? Who are we pretending to be enemies for?”

Jessica eyed her for a second before responding.

“Well… You know about the fifth weapon and how it destroyed the demon realm, right?”

A round of nods and hums of affirmation.

“Well, it turns out that there were other demons in that world besides Baugh.” Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “Were is the operative word. Their lifeforce was all drained away and most disappeared completely, but a few survived as spirits.”

Jessica paused as she took another bite. The others couldn’t help but grimace at the casual mention of a literal mass extinction event.

“Some of those spirits, understandably, want vengeance for what happened. They want the magical girls dead.” Jessica pointed her fork at the other girls. “Those are the ones we need to trick while us generals and Baugh work on a real solution to this whole mess.”

“Right.” Erika frowned as she stared at her lunch, clearly conflicted. “And… we can’t do anything to help?”

“You’re already doing plenty to help…” Jessica shook her head. “There’s still the matter of the extremists. The ones you called rogue demons… They don’t care much for the fact that Baugh is now in charge, so dealing with the trouble they cause is a priority.”

Sarah only scoffed and shook her head. “Wow, we’re supposed to be the main heroes and yet we’re getting sidelined.”

Jessica’s mischievous grin returned. “Aww, don’t be like that! If you want to, you can drop the whole ‘being a magical girl’ thing and become my demon minion instead! You’ll love it, I promise.”

Sarah scoffed again.

Only Jessica would try to poach a magical girl to the demon army.