Magica Riot: Full Bloom - Chapter One & Two Preview

My hands flew across the keys of my purple Korg keytar’s angular body. Sweat rolled down my forehead and the band’s amplifiers roared from the back of the stage. Cass and I locked eyes, our solos intertwined and snarling, her twist-out hair bobbing with every beat.

To my left, Nova attacked her drum kit. Her arms were a blur as she rolled through her toms and snare. Her foot smashed the kick drum pedal.

Hana thumped the beat on her bass. She raised her leg and planted her boot on the top of Nova’s kick drum. Her ponytail swayed as she bobbed her head and unleashed her megawatt grin on Nova.

The pent-up energy of the crowd was palpable in the air of the Daedalus Theater. As we came to the final notes of our last encore, I waited for that energy’s release.

To my right, Sara spun as she rang out thick, overdriven chords on her guitar. As she twirled to face the crowd, she reared back and banged her head and torso. The final chord rang out, and Nova crashed down on her kit and brought the song to a stop.

The final notes hung over the room, quickly drowned out as the crowd of twelve hundred people erupted in cheers, screams, and applause. I looked across the stage, completely overwhelmed. There were so many people here.

And then, for a moment, my head spun.

In that instant, I saw a memory of the cosmos. The faces of every magical girl who had ever existed and would ever exist. Limitless dimensions and world lines stretching out into corners of existence that nobody had ever seen before. The grand universal torrent of magica that connected it all yet lay beyond the reach of most people.

The room pulled away from me, and I felt as though I were falling into creation.

Four weeks ago, I’d seen everything in the span of a heartbeat. Flashes of that moment had danced across my mind in the days since Magica Riot saved the world, but they’d never been this intense.

The energy of our performance tonight must have turned up the dial. I’d unlocked the true powers of magical girls, but as far as I could tell, nobody else had experienced what I had. They felt the surge of magica from the Maidensong that day, but they hadn’t gotten my cosmic revelation. That was something I had to carry alone.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that.

Before the moment could overwhelm me, I forced myself to slow my breathing and look away from the crowd. My focus shifted to Sara. She glanced over her shoulder and grinned at me, then turned back to the audience.

“Thank you, friends!” she shouted into her microphone, still catching her breath as sweat dampened her short red hair. “We have been Magica Riot! Be good to each other! We love you, Portland!”

I glanced from her to Cass, Hana, and Nova, and we exchanged nods. With a moment’s concentration, we called upon our magica to send our instruments back to the aetheric plane, drawing another wave of cheers and gasps from people in the crowd.

As we headed toward the stage access door, Nova gave me a nudge.

“I’m so flammin’ glad I don’t gotta pack up a dang drum kit ever again! We shoulda gone public as magical girls way sooner!”

I laughed. “All the other drummers out there are going to be jealous.”

“Maybe,” Nova shrugged, “but they don’t gotta fight monsters, so I figure it’s a fair trade!”

I reached the stage door and opened it for her. As she walked through, Hana caught up and smiled at her.

“You’d rather fight monsters than lug around a drum kit?” Hana asked.

Nova nodded. “Fightin’ creeps is way more fun!”

“I suppose you’ve got a point,” Hana giggled.

As our rhythm section exited the stage, Cass walked up and I held the door open for her.

“How are you doing after all that?” she asked. “Gotta be the biggest rush on stage you’ve had so far.”

“I was nervous, yeah, but I feel great,” I said, honestly. “I’m not used to seeing so many eyes on me, but that was a blast.”

Cass grinned. “That’s what I like to hear! I’m glad you’re feeling it. Me, I haven’t played a show that good in a long time!”

She walked through the door and off stage, and finally, Sara followed. As she passed me, she gave me a smile, though I couldn’t help but notice the tears in her eyes.

I knew she had to be full of complicated emotions right now. Tonight was Magica Riot’s biggest musical triumph in two years. It was also the first show since we had all discovered that Sara’s girlfriend, Iris, wasn’t actually dead. Even though Iris was alive, she was still being occupied by the entity known as Bloom.

The same Bloom who had disappeared with Iris’s body and mind after we saved the world.

To come so close to having the love of your life back only to feel her slip away again for some unknown period of time? It was entirely understandable that Sara would be delicate right now.

I stepped through the stage door and let it close behind me, muffling the crowd. Nova, Hana, and Cass were headed for the green room, but Sara stood there by the door, waiting for me.

“You did great, Claire,” she said. “I needed to tell you that.”

“That means a lot coming from you,” I said. “Are you okay? I saw—”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just been a long time since we had a show go that well. Takes me back, y’know?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I hope I did justice to Iris’s parts.”

“Without a doubt,” Sara said. “You two are different, but you’re both good at what you do in your own ways. You learned to be your own magical girl, and you became your own musician, too.”

“Aw, thank you. Maybe Iris can tell me that herself one day, if everything goes well.”

She sighed. “I hope so.” Then, she re-centered herself and motioned in the direction of the green room. “Let’s go finish up. The others would never forgive us for skipping out on the victory party.”

We made our way down the creaky wood hallway to the green room. The moment I stepped through the door, a pair of warm arms wrapped me up and held me tight.

My girlfriend—and Magica Riot’s new band manager—Hazel Hoffman gave me a kiss, then broke away and beamed at me. “You all did great! Did you hear that crowd? They were eating it up!”

On the other side of the small room, Hikari Tomori, our new computer expert, nodded imperceptibly. They brushed their cyan hair away from the glasses in front of their amber eyes, and the faintest hint of a smile flashed across their face. When they spoke, it was in their usual monotone mumble. “For sure for sure you executed the maximum amount of rock allowed by physics and perhaps even a little more considering the magical nature of things I doubt anybody out there was disappointed in the quantity or quality of said rock.”

“Yeah, the Magica Riot family’s back on top, and I flammin’ love it!” Nova shouted as she toweled off the sweat from her face. She draped the towel across her shoulders beneath her twintail hair, ran over, and put her arm around me, squeezing so tightly that I worried I might crack a rib. “And Claire cutie’s finally got a real show to be proud of!”

“I still can’t believe I got through it,” I said, “but it feels good, yeah! Even if the stage fright was a little rough.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hazel said, “you’ll have plenty of other opportunities to work on that stage fright! I’ve actually got a surprise for you girls that I didn’t want to tell you about until after the show tonight, because I didn’t want to add even more anxiety.”

From the back of the room, our team commander, the tough former rancher Meredith McCoy, let out a hearty laugh. “It’s been a pain keepin’ this from y’all, but I promised I wouldn’t spoil the big news.”

“Well, don’t keep us hanging,” Cass said. “Let’s hear it!”

Hazel stepped to the center of the room, cleared her throat, and grinned. “Magica Riot’s the most famous band on Earth now, right?”

“That’s right,” Hana said. “At least, for now, while we’re the only public magical girls.”

“Exactly,” Hazel nodded, “and you just played your biggest show so far, yeah?”

“Right …” Cass said.

“So what’s the next step?” Hazel asked. “What’s bigger in Portland than the Clarion Room and the Daedalus Theater?”

“Well, there’s the Schnitzer, and the Keller,” Sara said.

“Yeah, aren’t those, like, twenty-five hundred seats? Three thousand?” I asked.

Hazel’s grin broadened. “You need to think bigger! Way bigger!”

Nova made the connection first. “Wait a flammin’ minute, babe! You ain’t talkin’ about—”

“I am,” Hazel said. “What do you girls think about playing the Rose Garden Arena?”

The room went quiet for a moment before Cass spoke again. “Are you serious?”

“I’m very serious,” Hazel said. “I’d been working on something at the Keller, but it was tracking to sell out so fast, the promoter and I worked out a chance to move it to the arena instead. You girls are hot now.”

“How long do we have?” Sara asked.

“A month,” Hazel said. “Short notice for something like that, but it’s all about the numbers. There’s that much demand to see the magical girl band that saved Portland.”

“That makes sense,” Hana said. “We showed the world that literal magic exists. That’s bound to pique some curiosity!”

I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s incredible, Haze. A little terrifying, but incredible.”

“You girls are ready for it,” Hazel said. “You’re Magica Riot. This isn’t even close to the most impossible thing you’ve done!”

“Can’t argue with that,” Cass laughed.

The commander walked over and stood beside Hazel. “Now understand, the final say’s up to you girls. We want y’all to be comfortable with this. If you think you’re ready, though, this’ll be the biggest thing you’ve ever done, musically speakin’ of course. And it’ll give us some major income on top of what the Alliance spends on us. Always good to have some breathing room.”

Sara looked to each of us. “What does everybody think?”

“Don’t gotta twist my arm, babe,” Nova said. “You couldn’t keep me off that stage!”

“I agree with Nova,” Hana said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity!”

Cass nodded. “No way I’d miss this, boss.”

Sara’s attention fell to me. “And how about you, Claire?”

It would have been a lie to say I wasn’t nervous about the idea. Twelve hundred people was one thing; if I walked onto a stage with fifteen or twenty thousand watching me, would I even be able to move? Would I remember to breathe? Would I have to transform into Riot Purple just to summon up enough courage?

On the other hand, it would be an amazing opportunity for the band, and after I’d made myself step up as a magical girl, I really didn’t want to let them down as a performer. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and spoke.

“I think we should do it. Not saying it won’t be a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it.”

“Yeah?” Sara asked.

“Yeah. Everybody’s right. It’s a huge chance to show the world who we really are again. We’re magical girls, but we’re also people.”

Hana nodded. “A very important thing to show.”

“That settles it, then,” Sara said. “I feel the same way. Commander, Hazel … let’s go for it.”

“Yes!” Hazel exclaimed, pumping her fist. “You girls are going to do great!”

Hikari perked up from their laptop again and nodded. “For sure and I can’t wait to get my hands on that arena’s sound system do you know the kind of power one of those things puts out think about the possibilities think about all the laws of decency I can break with my engineering skills I’m gonna make you girls sound like a magical thunderstorm it’s gonna be truly awe-inspiring and frightening and maybe even a little bit horny but you know in an auditory sense.”

“See, it’s even got the Hikari seal of approval,” Nova said. “It’s gonna be a big cutie crew party!”

“I’ll start finalizing everything tomorrow,” Hazel said.

Cass grabbed her bag from the floor and motioned for the exit. “Alright! I say we go have ourselves a celebration.”

“I agree with that,” Hana said. “Mom and Dad said they’d keep a private table open for us at the restaurant, if we wanted one.”

“Sounds perfect,” Sara said. “What do you say, Claire?”

I smiled. “Yeah. I could use some food. Let’s go.”

After dinner, we all hopped back into Vancent Price, the dark-gray extended-length 1993 Dodge van that had been transporting magical girls since the days of Portland’s original protector, Jade Evergreen, and had seen more than his fair share of action.

I settled into the plush bench seat, upholstered in what I could only describe as “bordello red” cloth, and enjoyed the happy, warm combination of a full stomach and Hazel snuggled up against me. The sensation was pleasantly domestic, and I let my mind wander to thoughts of many happy days to come as Sara drove us around and dropped people off.

“Okay, here we are,” Sara said, breaking my train of thought as she pulled Vancent up to the curb. “Hazel, does this look right?”

“Yeah, that’s my apartment over there,” Hazel said. “Thanks!”

I slid over and opened Vancent’s double side doors, and stepped out to make room for Hazel as she exited. She took my hand, gave it a squeeze, and looked in my eyes.

“You okay?” she asked. “You seemed a little quiet.”

I nodded. “I’m okay, yeah. Just having nice daydreams, I guess.”

“What a coincidence,” she said. “So was I.” She leaned closer. “I’m so proud of you. You got through that show, and you did great.”

“Aw,” I blushed, “thanks, Haze. It felt good to finally do it.”

“I’ll bet,” she said. She grinned and gave my hand another squeeze. “You know, if you’re too tired to go the rest of the way to your apartment, you could just crash here.”

I laughed and protested instinctively. “Oh, you don’t have to do that, Haze. I know you’re tired, too. I’ll just head home. I should check on my apartment, anyway.”

Hazel gave me an odd look and nodded. “Okay! We’ll see.” She smiled, leaned in, and kissed my cheek. “Goodnight, Claire.”

I managed to croak out a “goodnight” as she turned to head up to her apartment. I returned to the van, only to find the rest of the band blocking the side doorway, giving me disappointed looks.

“Claire, what are you doing?” Cass asked.

“Um, going home?” I replied, as if I were unsteadily answering a teacher after being called on in class.

“Is that really the best course of action here?” Hana asked.

“I mean, that’s where my bed is,” I said.

Cass shook her head. “Claire. I ask again, what are you doing? Get up there and celebrate with her!”

“Didn’t we already do that?” I asked.

“Celebrate,” Cass repeated.

Slowly, realization crept up on me. “Oh. Oh!"

Sara laughed. “You’re such a useless lesbian. It’s impressive.”

“I just didn’t want to bother her!” I protested.

“Pretty sure she’s already bothered, if ya get my drift, babe,” Nova said.

Cass grabbed the doors to pull them shut. “Go have fun, alright?”

“Consider it an order,” Sara added.

“Understood,” I said, already feeling the redness in my cheeks. “Thanks.”

Hana giggled. “Goodnight, Claire!”

Satisfied that I’d been thoroughly educated, Cass closed the doors. Sara shifted Vancent into gear and pulled away from the curb. I stood there for a moment, more than a little embarrassed, before I turned and dashed up toward the steps to Hazel’s apartment.

She was waiting for me by her door, her green eyes sparkling mischievously behind her shaggy blonde hair. “Mmhm. Thought so!”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, nervously rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m not so good at picking up on things.”

“It’s okay. I’ll just have to make my signals a little more obvious!”

Before I could say anything else, she took my hand, pulled me close, and kissed my lips. Her kiss was warm and needful, and I felt my nerves melting away instantly.

With her lips on mine, she reached back with her free hand, opened her apartment door, and guided me inside. As the door shut, she broke our kiss, locked the door, and turned her gaze back to me.

She grinned. “C’mon, rock star. Let’s really celebrate.”

Her hands moved slowly and with purpose, taking me and guiding me toward her bedroom. Like every moment with Hazel since I’d come out, it felt exactly right. She made me feel safe and desired and cared for in ways I hadn’t thought possible.

I closed my eyes, even as I felt joyful tears well up in them. Hazel fit me so well that it was hard to believe we hadn’t been together for years. And, for a moment, I had the thought that I could see myself living like this, together with her, every single day. Maybe that was something we could talk about sometime.

For now, though, there was this moment.

The next morning, we made a slow, giggly breakfast together, and then it was back to business. Hazel had a meeting scheduled with the promoters about ticket prices, and I actually did need to check on my apartment.

I left her place and walked to the nearest Cycleburg station, where I grabbed an e-bike and set off for my apartment in Northeast, off Sandy Boulevard. The morning sky was cloudless and boldly blue, contrasting off the green of the trees passing overhead as I followed bike lanes and routes north across Burnside and into my part of town.

The whole way north, I felt like I was flying. That warmth from the night before carried over so effortlessly into the morning after. Spending time with Hazel—whether it was carefree or that happily harried time when we both had to be responsible adults—was so right. I’d found somebody who truly cared about me for who I really was, somebody who, despite my cluelessness, I cared about just as deeply.

It was so easy to imagine moving in with Hazel, or her moving in with me. Just making this us, with no asterisks. The thought made me feel fuzzy, and a huge grin broke across my face.

I pedaled faster, and laughed out loud to the city that had given me a life that was so much better than I’d ever dared to dream.

In short order, I reached my neighborhood. After stowing the bike at the nearest dock and walking the rest of the way to my apartment, I climbed the stairs and walked to my door, where I found an agitated figure trying to open the lock. I yelped, falling hard as I stumbled back.

All of this noise drew the attention of my mysterious guest, and as they turned around, I caught a better look at their long violet hair and their disheveled, but strangely familiar, clothes. They faced me and gazed down with unearthly red eyes and a wild expression, and I finally realized who it was.

“Bloom?!”

There was no mistaking her: Menagerie Bloom, former leader of a trio of corrupted consciousnesses occupying the bodies of magical girls, who had very nearly unleashed Mistress Rennia and unspeakable ruin upon the world. After an unexpected impact with Vancent Price that woke up Iris’s mind inside her, Bloom had grown a conscience and betrayed her sisters to help Magica Riot prevent that global cataclysm.

Now, she stood outside my apartment door, looking like a stray cat.

“Claire,” she said, attempting to affect the theatrical voice she’d always used, but sounding weak and shaky. “I see you do actually return to your home. I was beginning to think you had taken up permanent residence in that drab underground tin can of yours!”

“Bloom, what the hell are you doing here? I thought you’d vanished to go figure yourself out.”

She grumbled. “Are you aware that your grotesquery of a society requires currency to obtain even basic necessities?”

The thought of Bloom being turned loose in America with no money hadn’t occurred to me before. I clamped my hands over my mouth.

“Oh shit, you didn’t have any money,” I whispered between my fingers.

“Precisely,” Bloom muttered. She stumbled forward, straddling me and leaning in closer. “It pains me to ask a magical girl for assistance,” she said, chewing on the words like drywall, “but I require some things. A chance to bathe. Water. Food. Something called ‘hormones.’ And … to talk about the next steps for me and this accursed do-gooder sharing my physical form.”

“Bloom, I—”

“Claire, I am starving,” she said. “We can talk once I’m not on death’s door, okay?”

I brought Bloom inside and let her take a shower, telling her to take her time. While she cleaned up, I decided I needed to put together a meal for her. I wasn’t exactly a professional chef, but I could feed somebody. The only question was with what?

My first obstacle was the basic matter of supplies. I’d been spending a lot of time with Hazel at her place, and as a consequence I’d let my grocery shopping atrophy a bit. I dug through my cabinets and the fridge, pulling together as much as I could. I hoped to get around my lack of knowledge about Bloom’s tastes through sheer variety.

Some things were easy. I poured her a bowl of cereal, opened a bag of chips, gathered up some fruit that was still fresh, and threw together a quick sandwich. What if she needed more, though? I had some leftover rice that I’d made, so I brought it back to life and tossed some instant teriyaki noodles over it, along with some shredded cabbage that was still good.

It all looked pretty solid. It’d help her, which was the important thing. I was feeling rather proud of myself until a thought occurred: What about allergies? Did Iris’s body have any? Would Bloom even know about them? What if I made her sick, and I—

The sound of the bathroom door opening kicked me out of my anxiety spiral.

Bloom emerged from the bathroom wearing my bathrobe, her hair wet, looking significantly more clean and calm than before.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“Mmph,” she mumbled as she walked over to my couch and sat down. “From the smells in here, am I correct to assume you prepared food?”

“I did, yeah,” I said as I brought the various offerings to the coffee table and laid them out for her, along with a pitcher of water and a glass. “I made a bunch of stuff, just to cover all the bases. Not that I had too much in the kitchen. Um, anyway, please, go on and eat.”

She looked over the offerings, nodded silently, and dove in with ravenous energy.

I sat in a chair across from her as she guzzled the water and inhaled the food I’d set before her. Some minutes of furious eating followed before either of us spoke.

“So, um, is it good?” I asked.

She paused, and considered the question. “I do not know. It could be vile. I have no idea what I like yet.”

A defense of my modest cooking skills flared up inside me. “What do you mean vile?"

“No matter,” she said with a dismissive wave as she looked up at me and swallowed a bite of cereal. “I got quite some distance from your city before I realized I was experiencing an entirely new set of sensations. Apparently, Mistress Rennia’s magica had frozen the biological processes of this body, so that it could serve the singular purpose of enacting her will.”

“That means you never had to eat?”

“No eating, drinking, sleeping,” she nodded, “none of the complicating factors of your human existence.”

“I guess that explains how you and Burst and Blaze could be so dedicated to the cause.”

“Precisely,” she continued. “When Rennia was sealed away, the magica broke and those urges slowly returned. I do not know what food or drink I enjoy. I suppose I could call this food inoffensive, if I must.”

“That’s a start. If anything stands out to you, I can get you more of it.”

Bloom frowned and stared deeply at the plates and bowls before her, and pointed at the cereal. “If pressed, I would say these crisped orbs bolster my dark heart.”

“So you want more Peanut Butter Crunchlins?”

She nodded. “If you wish to express it in more pedestrian terms, yes.”

“I can do that,” I grinned. I got up, retrieved the box from the kitchen, and refilled her bowl before I sat back down. “So, um, where have you been while you’ve been dealing with these new needs?”

“I went northwest,” she said, “until I found myself in a place called Astoria, sleeping on rooftops and stealing stale bread from a bakery to survive. And, I would like to add, feeling awful about it, thanks to this damned conscience festering in me.”

“I don’t think you need to feel bad about stealing food to live,” I said as I reached over and refilled her glass from my water filter pitcher.

She frowned. “Not all of the people I have encountered on my travels would agree with you. Your society and its rules are terribly complex, and quite often infuriatingly nonsensical!”

I nodded. “You aren’t wrong. You mentioned Iris’s conscience. Does that mean she’s alright? What does she think of all this? I remember when she popped up before, it caused you a lot of pain.”

“She is dealing with things surprisingly well, considering the circumstances. She’s very much still alive. In fact, she’s getting stronger inside me by the day. And I no longer experience the distress I did when she became active before. I believe that was a side effect of Rennia’s magica. With that gone, Iris is free to be as quiet or loud as she likes. That does mean she and I are a bit blurrier than before.” She sighed. “This has all become rather complicated.”

"Become complicated? Wasn’t it that way before?”

“As Iris grows stronger, things in here—” she tapped the side of her head “—become more noisy. Indistinct. The wall between our consciousnesses becomes more permeable, and I experience more of her mind as if it were my own. And all the while, I’m trying to figure out what I even am now.”

“How’s that been going?”

She sighed. “Menagerie Bloom was a remorseless agent of chaos. Bloom, the creature before you, is a blend of that being and Iris Carr. Or perhaps she’s a creature colored by Iris. It is hard to explain.”

“Wow,” I said. “That sounds like a lot to get used to.”

She nodded. “Indeed. My sense of self is a mess, Claire.”

“I know how that feels,” I said. I sat back and nodded. “How can we help?”

Bloom leaned closer to me. “I want out. I want my own body. I want to be free of this confusing existence. And with Rennia gone, well, you magical girls are my best option, as loathe as I am to admit it.”

“I know we’ll do anything we can.” I sat forward again and looked Bloom in her eyes. “You know that means going back to the Vault and meeting with everybody. Um, are you okay with that? You didn’t seem to be last time you were around Sara.”

Bloom frowned. “I expect it will be awkward, yes, but I have nowhere else to go. Perhaps it makes me weak, but that is my situation.”

I shook my head. “It’s not weak to ask for help. And helping’s what magical girls do. I might still technically be the new girl, but I know that much.”

Bloom laughed and rolled her eyes. “Corny as always.” She looked down at the empty plates and bowls before her and nodded with satisfaction. “Your food was appreciated."

“You’re welcome,” I smiled.

Bloom leaned even closer. “Now, speaking of this body’s needs … do you have any of those hormones I asked about?”

“Oh! Yeah, I do,” I said, as I got up and grabbed my backpack off the floor near the front door. I dug around in it and pulled out a bottle of small blue pills. “Estradiol, coming up. Take two and put them under your tongue.”

I handed her the pills, and she took them, slipping them beneath her tongue as I instructed. After a few moments, a satisfied look crossed her face. “Ah, yes, that’s it. This body has been lacking that sensation.”

“Um, stop me if this is a little personal, but I didn’t realize Iris was, y’know, like I am. Trans, I mean.”

“I think it simply never came up,” Bloom said. “I’ve learned a lot of things from Iris and her memories. I had no idea such a subject was so fraught in human society.”

I sighed. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

“It is baffling,” she said. “What concern is it to anybody but the individual what form they were given at birth, and what form they desire now?”

I nodded. “Human society has a lot of problems.”

“So it would seem,” she laughed. “Perhaps I should still try to rule over you people. I could, at least, avoid your many mistakes!”

I smiled and shook my head. “Let me get you some clothes, so we can head to the Vault. And no world-ruling, okay?”

She smirked. “No promises.”

I managed to find some clothes that Bloom could tolerate. She settled on a pink T-shirt with mesh sleeves, a black skater skirt, and black thigh-highs, which was the most “tough” look I had in my wardrobe. We each also put on sunglasses, something that had become useful to Magica Riot since our unplanned magical girl reveal during the Rennia incident. They helped anonymize us, and in Bloom’s case, with her red eyes concealed, she looked downright “Portland” with her borrowed outfit and violet hair.

With Bloom dressed, we walked from my apartment down to the Hollywood MAX station to board a Blue Line train headed downtown.

“Claire, do you not have your own conveyance?” she asked as I paid for her with my Hop card.

“I don’t, no. This is Portland. I like to walk, and ride bikes, and take the bus, train, or streetcar.”

She nodded. “I see. Perhaps it is understandable, given your propensity for hurling wheeled vehicles under your control into other people.”

“Hey, I did that once," I laughed as I led her to a seat in the middle of the train. “And I really don’t want to keep up with my own car. It saves me a lot of money. Besides, I left that kind of thing back in Texas.”

Bloom considered this. “I am surprised that your Starlight Alliance doesn’t reward you with riches for your work.”

“Hey, keep that down,” I said, attempting to hush her. “We’re trying to be a little subtle right now. And you know that magical girls don’t work for personal gain.”

A handful of other people boarded the train. A few moments later, the doors closed, and we pulled away from the station. A casually dressed mother and her young daughter took the seats in front of us, and as the MAX picked up speed, the girl turned around in her seat and stared directly at Bloom.

Bloom stared back at her for several moments before acknowledging her with a smile. “Yes? May I help you, young one?”

“I like your hair,” the girl said. “It’s pretty!”

Bloom’s smile grew into a broad grin. “Ah, I see you are a child raised with taste. Perhaps your society is not entirely hopeless.”

The girl’s mother glanced back at us. “I’m sorry if she’s bothering you. She loves purple.”

“It’s totally okay,” I said. “We don’t mind.”

Bloom leaned forward. “If you fancy purple, child, what do you think of the purple magical girl who appeared in your city recently?”

I tensed. “Hey, uh, we don’t need to—”

“Riot Purple?” the girl asked. “She seems nice!”

My tension immediately flipped over to delight. “Aw, you really mean it?”

The girl beamed. “Yeah! But … I think my favorite’s Riot Blue! She’s funny!”

Bloom burst out in uproarious laughter, loud enough to attract curious looks. “Well now, Claire! How does it feel to be usurped by the drummer?”

I chuckled nervously, and shrugged. “Honestly, that’s fair. It’s Nova we’re talking about.”

Bloom and I got off the MAX at the Old Town station, which put us beside Waterfront Park. We made our way past the crowds of people there, some of whom were simply enjoying the sun and the river, and some who were sightseeing around the area where Magica Riot had fought the invading Pandora Corruption army just four weeks before.

After we slipped past one of the construction crews repairing the damage from the battle, we took off our sunglasses and entered a maintenance door beneath the Burnside Bridge, descending into the old tunnel system that led down to the main entrance of the Vault.

At the security door, I activated the locks with my wrist link and waited as the heavy steel door slid open. Beside me, I noticed Bloom seemed to stiffen up, as if being back here made her tense.

"Um, are you okay?” I asked.

“I am fine,” Bloom said. “I simply have some … conflicted feelings about this place.”

“That makes sense. We did have kind of a bad fight down here.”

Bloom shot me a sideways look. “A fight I won, I would like to point out. But there are Iris’s feelings to consider, as well. This place holds meaning for her.”

“And you feel that, too.”

“Indeed.” She stood straight, as if puffing herself up. “I must also face the others again. Claire, I …” She trailed off, the words caught in her throat.

“What?”

“Do not let me be captured.”

“We’re not going to capture you,” I said. “I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

She took a deep breath, exhaled, and looked over at me. “I will hold you to that promise.”

I smiled back at her. “Please do.”

By then, the door had opened, and I led Bloom into the main corridor. The Vault’s vast size stretched out before us, occupying two blocks of space beneath downtown Portland. At the moment, the corridor was quiet and empty, the rest of the team clearly occupied in other rooms.

I opened a comm channel to the facility’s command center on my wrist link. “Commander? This is Claire, um, Agent Ryland. Could you assemble everybody? Something’s come up, and we need to talk.”

After a few moments, Commander McCoy responded. “Agent Ryland? What sort of thing’s come up?”

“Um, something … Bloom-shaped,” I answered.

There was a pause, and then the commander replied. “Right. Got it.” Another beep on the wrist link, as the line shifted to all users. “Attention, attention. Agents Ward, Coates, Hasegawa, Nova, Barrera, O’Carolan, and Tomori. Report to the command center, ASAP.”

“And so, I returned, and made my way to Claire’s residence,” Bloom said, concluding her tale of the last four weeks to the assembled team. “The rest should be obvious.”

The room was quiet for a few long moments. Cass was the first to break the silence.

“So, have you had any sort of contact with Rennia in the last four weeks?”

“None whatsoever,” Bloom said. “Believe me, magical girl, if Mistress Rennia was reaching back out to me, you would have found out by now.”

“What about Blaze and Burst?” Hana asked. “They got away before we sealed the dimension gate.”

“Nothing,” Bloom said, as she shook her head. “I have no idea where my former sisters are, and I do not care. They were not especially fond of me when we last spoke.”

Hikari nodded. “Yeah I think Bloom is being honest the sensor grid hasn’t picked up anything there hasn’t been so much as a flavor-blasted cheese puff of Menagerie vibes anywhere in Portland.”

“Those girls are probably still dangerous,” Commander McCoy said. “For all we know, you're still dangerous.”

“I am always dangerous in some fashion, my dear commander,” Bloom smiled. “I simply pose no danger to you or your city anymore.”

I stared at Bloom, noting the change in her personality. She’d been vulnerable, even downright human, back at my apartment. Now, she’d switched back to her old ways. That wall of bluster and arrogance had gone back up. In a way, it made it clear she was feeling better now, but I wondered why she’d chosen me of all people to expose that softer side to.

The commander stared back at her. “That so?”

“I’ll be saving my rage for those who wrong me directly, for the foreseeable future,” Bloom said. “I trust that won’t be anybody from the Starlight Alliance. We do have a mutually beneficial opportunity here, after all.”

Sara looked up from her thoughts. “Yes, we do. You want your own body.”

“And you all want your precious Iris back,” Bloom said. “You, Sara Ward, most of all.”

Sara nodded. “You’re right.”

“Well then,” Bloom said, smiling back at her, “I should think my freedom for her life is a fair trade.”

The commander sighed and turned to me. “Agent Ryland, she came to you first. Is it your honest assessment we can trust Bloom?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “I think she’s sincere, yeah. Bloom isn’t Menagerie Bloom anymore. Whoever she is now, she’s better than that.”

“Why thank you, Claire,” Bloom said. “That is, sincerely, the nicest thing anybody who’s smashed my skull with a van has said to me.”

Sara took a step closer to her. “Just know that we’ll be keeping an eye on you. If you do anything to hurt Iris—”

“Oh, please, girl prince,” Bloom shot back, “I have no more interest in hurting your girlfriend than I do in hurting myself. Which, of course, is the same thing for now.”

“I have your word?” Sara asked.

“For whatever you think it’s worth, you do,” Bloom said. “As long as you all hold up your end of the bargain, I shall be on my best behavior. Do you magical girls do a pinky swear or something similarly cringey?”

“You don’t gotta be a jerk about it,” Nova said under her breath.

The team’s resident physician and biologist, Dr. Marisol Barrera, raised her hand and stepped forward. “All of this will be academic if we can’t find a way to separate them. Bloom, that’s going to involve me doing a lot of tests on you.”

“I expected as much,” Bloom said.

“To be perfectly clear, I mean a lot," the doctor continued. “Nobody has ever done anything like this before, in all of the Alliance’s recorded history. We will truly be operating beyond the edge of known science, medicine, and thaumaturgy.”

Bloom frowned. “Yes, yes. Can you do it?”

“I don’t know if anybody can do it,” the doctor said, “but I will put all of my knowledge and the combined knowledge of the Alliance into being the first person who does.”

“Aye, it’ll be one monumental task,” magical weapons armorer Saoirse O’Carolan said as she stepped forward beside the doctor, “but I’ll help as much as I can. I’ve got engineering talent. I can adapt tools to do the job.”

Hikari moved to join the doctor and Saoirse. “Yeah uh hi I don’t think we’ve ever really met before but uh I have computer skills some might call mad if there needs to be programming or data crunching I can throw my brain sauce at it until it’s nice and tasty I want to help I’m always up for mixing coding with mad scientist stuff.”

“You see, Bloom?” Hana asked. “You’re in the best hands for this in the world!”

Bloom’s usual smirk curdled into a grimace. “That’s not especially calming for my nerves, but so be it. When do we get started?”

“Let’s you and I head down to the medical bay,” Dr. Barrera said. “I’ll get comprehensive starting points and decide on a path of action from there.”

The commander nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s all get to work and see if we can’t solve this problem.”