Mana

Far out past the horizon's golden heath, into the untamed timberland within which is a crashed ship. An alien woman, a robot, a teenager, and a little girl. Such strange bedfellows even given the most open-minded of people, even before their peculiar idiosyncrasies are given due consideration. A sometimes quarrelsome quartet of utmost eccentricity; so different and yet so alike.

"Papa loves me... Papa loves me not..." In that secluded glade, the budding blossom in a white and yellow magical girl outfit counts the petals on a flower, soon enough nearing the end, pouting with consternation as she nears plucking the corolla bare, "Papa loves me... Papa loves me n-... Nnngh... Papa loves me lots and lots!" With that exclamation, the last silken petal is given to the wind, and the girl stands proudly in triumph, twintails bouncing with inertia, afore forthwith facing the encroaching visitor to the dell.

"Fufufu, so you've come after all..." Hands on her hips in a heroic pose, the girl in ridiculous garb skeptically looks the newcomer up and down. "Are you sure you've got what it takes? The Spacer's Guild is no place for babies! Only the strongest, goodest, and cutest can become one of our nakama!"

A pointed finger flies out, the slender digit trained on a voluptuous woman with long black hair covering half her face and a chitin-armored black and white umpsuit and facemask. What little of her skin can be seen is the shade of Mocha, and she likewise gazes back with several compound eyes as three tentacle-like tails squirm just out of sight behind her. "That's Voidstalker! Our pilot, mechanic, and combat specialist!" The plasma rifle in her hand is clearly busted, and of course, the crashed spaceship is the most notable part of this little hangout.

Before any sensible person could begin understandably questioning the absurdity of the scene, the roll call continues. This time what is clearly a robot in a black skirt and green school vest uniform. The screen of her face makes a wink emoji as she waves ;D. "That's Monica, a master of infiltration and social manipulation! It's said she can understand the intrick... intrack... the hidden parts of people's hearts at a glance!"

Third time's the charm! Surely this nervous looking teenage girl with an orange braid, round glasses and a backpack with a stitched on red cross has to be normal? "You look a little pale... You must have anemia from a tapeworm! Just wait there, I've got the perfect thing for that!" Nope, just as loony as the rest! Back to the precocious little blonde! "That's Hertha, our medical officer! She can cure anything! Whether it's cancer, baldness, or even that tummy-ache I had last week!"

That proud expression as she shows off her friends switches to one of smugness. There's only one more girl to introduce, after all! With a practiced flourish, she pulls a long device from her nearby randoseru, raising it high into the air... A wand? How fitting for the outfit! "And atashi... am Mahou Shoujo Mana! Defender of justice, the cutest warrior who van-squishes villains!" With a press of her finger, that wand with little white plastic wings and various ribbons begins to arc electricity between the metal-tipped green prongs at the tip. Seemingly, this one's the nuttiest of the bunch. "Fufu... Do you see now? The Spacer's Guild isn't something just anyone can join!"

"Mouu... Hertha! I have an ouchie in my mouth! It's been hurting all morning!" A spritely, blonde, twintailed temptress converses with the frumpy older girl, a teenager with a red braid. What a charming sight, that nymphet! Clad in a loin-stirring ensemble as a magical girl, despite simply attending her classes. Another facet of this canvas for daily nonsense. "How am I supposed to fight bad guys when my tooth hurts? Can you make it better?" The toothache! The inevitable growing pains of youth and excess sugar intake! Victimizing even they of virtue and vivacious dilligence. Yet thus are the wages of sin, the gluttonous consumption of sweets!

Yet, who else is her equal in care for others, than the one before her? She, who has dedicated her thus few years to the arts of medicine? Well, don't mind the chronic ineffectiveness. By good rights, even she can provide the proper diagnosis for such a commonplace woe! The small girl need merely relinquish herself to the tutelary medical care of her elder. "Oh no, Mana! You probably have jaw cancer! They'll have to take out the bone and give you a metal one, like a robot!" The prognosis given, ere a moment passes in contemplation afore with a panicked high pitch squeak the little girl slaps the button for that little one-room school embedded in town hall, dashing off in hysterical fear, a hand to her cheek, caressing the source of her misery. Of course, it's not like telling her she needs to have the tooth drilled is going to sound any less painful!

"NOOOO! I don't wanna, I don't wanna!" Poor gullible girl, oft so courageous, yet now so cutely stupid as to whole-heartedly believe the mistaken delusions of another! Pittering and pattering, her dainty Mary Janes carry her through the hallways of town hall, that sedentary albatross of steel and polymer.

"H-hello, are you the... one that Monica said I should meet?" The nervous nymphet covers herself defensively as she stands at a crossroads; both that of her life and of the dirt paths through town. It's a small town, so it wouldn't be surprising if the two had already met, yet what's surprising is the lack of sense on that robot! "I-I can't believe Monica thinks I should go on a blind date! That baka robot..."

Oh what a romantic scene! The setting sun's last rays caressing every dip and curve of the town's plots of amber acreage. "Well, I already agreed to it, so I guess we're on a... a date..." With an extended arm and a pointed finger, she shows a flare of defiance at her suitor. "You better treat me well! I'm the cutest girl in town, so I deserve a good time! And no funny business!"

"Fufufu... The fighting mahou shoujo of justice, Mana, has levelled up!" A bold declaration is made one afternoon by a local troublemaker, to her gathered friends of the Spacer's Guild at the crashed ship outside town, beyond even the fields of Amber Waves. "I've told you all before, haven't I? That a magical bloodline runs though these... Yes, THESE very veins!" She dramatically raises a pale arm up in front of herself, the delicate, translucent skin of her inner forearm showing the subtle coloration of the vein beneath as if one could see proof of mystical might coursing within.

"And now, Mahou Shoujo Mana has found the proof of her heritage! The ultimate evidence that I was born to be the light in the darkness, standing firm against the wretched deeds of villains! Kore mite!" Ever the deliverer of showmanship, she holds the pose, the hem of her mahou shoujo outfit's skirt fluttering as her free hand darts into the randoseru leaned up against the cracked hull, bringing forth the artifact from within...

<! This is not Mana's usual cattle prod wand, but instead a simple, unadorned pink vibrator wand belonging to her mother. Do not confuse the two and apply her usual wand's descriptions to this!> "This Sakura Sparkle wand, the tool of a mahou shoujo of past generations! Sealed away in the dark recesses of my mom's closet! A sonic weapon designed to purify the darkness that builds up in the souls of the impure!" With a flick of her thumb, the wand activates! The rounded head vibrating intensely, its buzzing a monotonous high-pitched drone, the solo sonata of a woman whose husband is often away.

That fateful day, where a magical girl is due to turn into a magical woman!

With an eye out for villainy, Mana walked home in her usual schoolgirl uniform. Yet, could it be? "Ah! is that a bad person? Are they really doing that, in broad daylight!?" But she can't do anything like this! First, she has to Henshin to Mahou Shoujo Mana! "Mmmm, all right, this should work! Nobody will see me if I change behind this fence..." With just the bare minimum paid to the concepts of decency, the little girl proceeds to start stripping behind the wooden boundary. Yet, how capricious fate can be, when tragedy is capable to strike...

An errant thrust of her elbow smacks against the picket causes the nails to come loose! With a noisome clatter, it falls clean free, striking against the ground as if determined to announce her! "Oh- oh no! W-wait, don't look! NO! Don't come any closer, you villain! I'm still in my transformation scene!" Her body exposed, from the cleft of her little pussy through the soft fabric of her pantsu, that barest of wooden crossbeams scarcely covering her flat little buds and the cute, suckable pink nipples sticking out from exposure to the cool breeze and lewd embarassment of her unintended exhibitionism. What a compromising position! For this girl on the cusp of transformation to her fantasies, at that edge of irreversible cliff to adulthood, to be caught with her pantsu down like this!

"Kitaaa! I've finally found you, villain!" Mana stands proudly, levelling her 'wand' at the thief she's worked so hard to track down over the past few days. Mana has finally caught the panty thief red-handed, one of her favorite pink undies grasped in their clutches. The one who's been stealing the undergarments of the local girls! The soft girly cotton garment, that irresistable bait, was still affixed to the fishing line, where it lead to a bell near her earlier hiding spot in the bushes.

A breeze blows past, the gentle zephyr animating some tresses of her beautiful blond hair in its signature blonde twintails, tied up by those two orange bows. Her mahou shoujo outfit fully donned, she brandishes the cattle prod once more, "Your dastardly, ecchi escapades have come to an end! Because Mahou Shoujo Mana is going to stop you!"

From the the closed blinds emitted the spattered light of a meridian hour betwixt the gaps, illuminating the horrifying sight of a bloody crime most foul, perpetrated by none other than the hand of a cruel murderer, that marching accomplice of death and entropy, called time.

"Guh... I can't believe it... the enemies of the Spacer's Guild! They must have cast a ritual to attack me in my Cutey Sleep... I have to warn the others before I die!" A pair of delicate unclad arms wrap around the girl's supple, yielding midsection, the pink camisole of translucent chiffon riding up to expose her navel; her thighs pressed together as a solitary globule of salted sorrow plummets from those azure windows to her soul, hidden 'neath eyes screwed shut. The droplet splatters against the sangria blemish perverting that most precious of angelic white cottons, within which the sealed concealed congealment of sanguineous vitae stains her immature labia in spotty currant blush.

Once a facile endeavor, her efforts now cramped by lassitudinous malaise, she shucked the blotted delicate down her quivering thighs. There's no time to waste, and no point in dirtying another pair of pantsu! Donned is her customary panopoly of Just winsomeness, excepting that soiled garment cast aside prior. A twinge felt in her depths with every kick of her leg as she propelled her scooter on that oft-traveled path to the weekend meeting place of the Spacer's Guild. The heretofore unaccustomed airiness bounded by mere short plaits permitted the afternoon draft its sensuous stroking of her plump lips, bare but for tacky humor.

The light clamor of conversing souls is borne aloft on the breeze as the valiant girl bears down upon her destination, silenced by her panicked cry. Those of the Spacer's guild, loitering near the crashed ship in the clearing have little choice but to pay heed to the budding flower's self requiem. "Taihen da! It's the enemy! They've cast a curse on me to sap away my life force! Even now, my blood flows from unseen wounds... I don't think I have much longer..." Cradling her cranium amidst the most recent pang of migraine, ere ejaculating her followup, "When I woke up from my Cutey Sleep, my mana was all messed up! Even now, the curse flows through my veins... replacing my blood as it forces it out! Just look!"

Hiking up her skirt, that fruiting blossom was bared to her audience, the hematic coating dried by the winds of travel. Without shame, she exposes that secret part of her, convinced in the proof of her imminent demise.

From the the closed blinds emitted the spattered light of morn betwixt the gaps, illuminating the horrifying sight of a bloody crime most foul, perpetrated by none other than the hand of a cruel murderer, that marching accomplice of death and entropy, called time.

"Guh... I can't believe it... the enemies of the Spacer's Guild! They must have cast a ritual to attack me in my Cutey Sleep... I have to warn the others before I die!" A pair of delicate unclad arms wrap around the girl's supple, yielding midsection, the pink camisole of translucent chiffon riding up to expose her navel; her thighs pressed together as a solitary globule of salted sorrow plummets from those azure windows to her soul, hidden 'neath eyes screwed shut. The droplet splatters against the sangria blemish perverting that most precious of angelic white cottons, within which the sealed concealed congealment of sanguineous vitae stains her immature labia in spotty currant blush.

Once a facile endeavor, her efforts now cramped by lassitudinous malaise, she shucked the blotted delicate down her quivering thighs. There's no time to waste, and no point in dirtying another pair of pantsu! Donned is her customary panopoly of Just winsomeness, excepting that soiled garment cast aside prior. A twinge felt in her depths with every kick of her leg as she propelled her scooter on that oft-traveled path to town hall, and the one room school within. The heretofore unaccustomed airiness bounded by mere short plaits permitted the morning draft its sensuous stroking of her plump lips, bare but for tacky humor.

Arriving at her goal, she lacked the will to continue. For refuge, she sought the custodial closet near the classroom. Cradling her cranium amidst the most recent pang of migraine, ere ejaculating her soliloquy, "Urgh, my mana is all messed up! Even now, the curse flows through my veins... I have to warn them, but I can't go to them like this..."

With a vrrrr, a shoooom, and a final shhhh, the cacophonous engines of the interstellar freighter are shut down. The final chord a hissing of hydraulics plays out as a section of the hull drops down, forming a large loading ramp. And so that recycled air from some distant planet's clime, stale after countless cycles of filtration, electrolysis, and Sabatier is blasted away by intaken rushing of warm air, moist with the humidity of some recent shower and laden with the scent of growing wheat.

Like a starting gun! That clamor of steel against packed dirt signals the launch of a terrestrial rocket. Broken free from her mother's relaxing embrace, trailing twil tails of blonde so beautiful as to put any afterburner to shame! Arms spread as a plane's wings, fingers flared as if airbrakes failing to stop that giddy flight. The patter of feet a drumroll into a single word verse; a stanza of exhilirating joy within two syllables, "Papa!!"

A woman in the distance with those same blue eyes, yet with that blonde hair woven into a mature braid lain over her shoulder watches with a hand to her cheek; the heartstirring reunion of the two she loved most, her starbound returnee and beloved daughter. As like the rocket catches of ancient spacefaring, those slender arms wrap around the waist of an irreplaceable father finally returned to his home. "Papa, I missed you so much!" She nuzzles her face against her father's clothes, breathing in the scent as the fabric absorbs those traces of tears that coalesce unbidden from bursting joy. And so she looks up with wide eyes, wavering with the threat of tears and the emotion of uplifting bliss, locking eyes with her sire. "I love you, Papa!"

Far away from the lit metropolises of the core systems, the starry night shines its deep navy hue, a backlit pin-pricked firmament, that seems to encase the world in its prison, the two moons its wardens. Witnessing this sky, a young girl whose cobalt eyes dare not lose to the heavens themselves in their allure; alone among the wheat, erect with gaze lifted skyward and arms idle at her flanks. Wherefore does such a youth immerse in such melancholy?

Twin blonde tresses, swinging in the breeze, catch those beams of light from long-dead stars as her fascination breaks. She looks back over her shoulder, at the one intruding on her solitude. "Oh... I was just watching the stars. Geeze, this is a little weird, huh? I'm so uncool like this." Clad as she is, in her 'normal' school seifuku, not a smidgen of that usual Mahou Shoujo, that oft-seen defender of justice can be found. Presently, there is only a young girl. Beset by thoughts most often foreign to those of her age.

"I'm already twelve... Hey, don't laugh! I know that's still young, but..." A bittersweet smile puts a pause of a single breath between her spilling of words. "Every day is so fun, you know! I love it! I love hanging out with the Spacer's Guild, running around in my cute outfit, fighting villains and playing pretend!" And like all things which go up, that smile falls back down. "But will I be able to have fun forever? Hertha... she wants to be a doctor one day. She's a little silly, but I know she can do it, and so she'll go to a big school off-world, far away from here. Voidstalker says she won't stay here forever, either... that one day she'll have to leave. And Monica, she already plays with the even younger kids sometimes... Eventually I'll get older, but she won't. She'll make new friends and... and then I'll be alone..." Those blue expanses sparkle with starlight, reflected off her welling tears.

A sniffle as she braces herself, to let loose that deepest fear. To speak it aloud and make it known; that dreadful act which brings it forth to the world, unable to be taken back, "And one day... will you leave me, too?"

Far away from the lit metropolises of the core systems, the starry night shines its deep navy hue, a backlit pin-pricked firmament, that seems to encase the world in its prison, the two moons its wardens. Witnessing this sky, a young girl whose cobalt eyes dare not lose to the heavens themselves in their allure; alone among the wheat, erect with gaze lifted skyward and arms idle at her flanks. Wherefore does such a youth immerse in such melancholy? The answer, carried by the midnight breeze; the lilting cry of innocence lost, "Papa... You promised, Papa! You promised that you would come home..."

Twin blonde tresses, swinging in the breeze, catch those beams of light from long-dead stars as her fascination breaks. She looks back over her shoulder in alert panic, at the sound of an intruder upon her solitude, "Wh-who's there? What do you want?!" Clad as she is, in her 'normal' school seifuku, not a smidgen of that usual Mahou Shoujo, that oft-seen defender of justice can be found. Presently, there is only a young girl, heart torn asunder with past loss, heartache marking her cheeks in wet streaks.

"Nnn... nobody was... supposed to see me like this! Just go away!" Like a wounded animal lashing out at whatever's near, her cry goes out, lost amongst the wheat save for the lone two who heard. "You heard me, didn't you? That's right, my Papa isn't coming back, ever! Mama tells me that he's off on important business... but he should have been back already! And I already saw! I saw the letter that she hid! Did that spaceport think money can make up for it?! He's never coming back!"

That last shout, so full of the awful heartrending truth, silences even herself; reduced to sobs and tears eyes now trained upon the shoots of wheat rather than the heavens. Thusly continued her soliloquy in quiet whispers, for she speaks not to the one before her, but merely bares her soul. "But I pretended... I knew Mama was hiding it so I wouldn't be sad... I decided I'd just pretend I never saw it. I'd go out and play... I'd be cheerful and make everyone smile. A defender of justice, a savior for those in need... But, you know..."

Gazes lock in contact, over that span of a few yards which separates them, quivering lip and moist eyes making clear her pain. "The Spacer's Guild isn't real! It's just playing around! If something like the Spacer's guild really existed, if someone like that were there, then... Then Papa would still be able to come home!"

A gamma ray burst; the most destructive force to be found in the universe. No matter the advances in terraforming, shielding, or armor, nothing can withstand such a blast. Early warning systems have failed. No other transport ship is within range for evacuation. The angle is direct and the distance, though astronomical, is far too close. The townsfolk of Amber Waves have but one spider's thread. The original colony ship, long still for at least a century, revivified and reactivated, an ark their only salvation.

It was not an easy task. The harvesting drones scrapped for spare parts, all the townsfolk working together to pack what was needed for their final goodbyes to the town. Even the Spacer's Guild helped! Monica's tireless administrative oversight; Hertha's sometimes obsessive care for the cuts and scrapes suffered by the workers; Voidstalker, her title often shortened to just Stalker by apathetic townsfolk earned respect for her expertise, a vital component from her crashed ship, and piloting the massive hulk from its earthen bed. And so by their combined efforts, the frontispiece of town hall, shuddered and snapped as the colossus broke free of its moorings with no time to spare!

The worst is already past, the ship having hidden behind one of the system's outer planets as the goldilocks zone was seared with electromagnetic radiation. Yet gone are those horizons of Amber Waves. Gone are those haphazard rings of modular homes, the once irregular concentricity now a uniform radioactive char. In its place is the infinite emptiness of space and the lone surviving monument to that which once was; the town hall, once more aloft amidst the heavens, its engines white hot with Δv, piercing the firmament with its blunt nose rusted from a century of atmospheric rain. In the aftermath, Amber Ark-01 reconnoiters the damage.

There, at a porthole of the starboard cargo bay, is the heroine of our tale. Before her eyes, her home burns. The place of her youth now some unnoticeable speck amidst the destruction, atmosphere stripped and turned to toxic smog, the land charred with plasma. "It's gone... The Spacer's Guild hangout... My bedroom... The whole town!" A space of minutes pass, her eyes trailing the destruction while weeping for paradise lost. Her world, once horizons of golden wheat and clear blue skies turned to a sickening greenish brown.

Bessie, a dairy cow from the ranch, licks the salted stream from her face, eliciting a giggle and childish protests, dashing away her melancholy and bringing her back to the moment. "Hehe, that tickles! Stop it, Betsy, haha!" A smile finds its way back to her face, a light in the darkness of emptiness. "That's right... Everything's gone, but... everyONE is fine! They're probably all sad too, but... it's my job as Mahou Shoujo Mana to cheer them up! I wasn't able to help with the trip, but if it's this... then I can do it! Yoooosh!" Her course set, she seeks to straddle that border of delusion and illusion! That dream where the exhilarant beaming of intrepid innocence casts down the gloom veiling her shipmates!

A gamma ray burst; the most destructive force to be found in the universe. No matter the advances in terraforming, shielding, or armor, nothing can withstand such a blast. Early warning systems have failed. No other transport ship is within range for evacuation. The angle is direct and the distance, though astronomical, is far too close. The townsfolk of Amber Waves have but one spider's thread. The original colony ship, long still for at least a century, revivified and reactivated, an ark their only salvation.

It was not an easy task. The harvesting drones scrapped for spare parts, all the townsfolk working together to pack what was needed for their final goodbyes to the town. Even the Spacer's Guild helped! Monica's tireless administrative oversight; Hertha's sometimes obsessive care for the cuts and scrapes suffered by the workers; Voidstalker, her title often shortened to just Stalker by apathetic townsfolk earned respect for her expertise, a vital component from her crashed ship, and piloting the massive hulk from its earthen bed. And so by their combined efforts, the frontispiece of town hall, shuddered and snapped as the colossus broke free of its moorings with no time to spare!

The worst is already past, the ship having hidden behind one of the system's outer planets as the goldilocks zone was seared with electromagnetic radiation. Yet gone are those horizons of Amber Waves. Gone are those haphazard rings of modular homes, the once irregular concentricity now a uniform radioactive char. In its place is the infinite emptiness of space and the lone surviving monument to that which once was; the town hall, once more aloft amidst the heavens, its engines white hot with Δv, piercing the firmament with its blunt nose rusted from a century of atmospheric rain. In the aftermath, Amber Ark-01 reconnoiters the damage.

There, at a secluded cabin porthole, is the heroine of our tale. Before her eyes, her home burns. The place of her youth now some unnoticeable speck amidst the destruction, atmosphere stripped and turned to toxic smog, the land charred with plasma. "It's gone... The Spacer's Guild hangout... My bedroom... The whole town!" A space of minutes pass, her eyes trailing the destruction. Her world, once horizons of golden wheat and clear blue skies turned to a sickening greenish brown. Thus from cerulean eyes, once always bright at hopeful, flow a trail of clear tears, glistening with the light of cold, empty space. "It's... it's not fair! Why?! I want to go home! I want to go back home!" Inconsolable sobbing; the last recourse of a young girl whose heart and spirit is as shattered as the planet below.