Announcementcontent warning: description of injuries"Help her!" Azura demanded in a panicky voice. "You have to save her!"

  "Doing my best," Ruby stated as she remained focused on her sceptre, her magical healing power, and Lily's wounds.

  There wasn't a lot of blood, but that was only because the raw flesh and exposed bone looked almost cauterized with a mix of second- and third-degree burns. Part of her bustier looked almost melted into the the injury that carved clean through from front to back and more than a dozen centimetres inwards from just below her right arm.

  The sight of those injuries turned my stomach, so instead I focused on our surroundings again. As I looked around I warned the others, "We should be careful, incase there's more of them."

  "Right," Violet agreed. She hefted her axe and moved to take up a defensive position on the other side of our fallen comrade.

  I did the same, so the purple girl and I stood on opposite sides of Lily and Ruby, so together we could cover the whole barn interior. Azura didn't move though, she remained by her friend's side.

  It was getting harder to see anything inside the building, thanks to the fading light outside. And I couldn't help worrying about Onyx and Peri, since as far as we knew they were still on guard on the far side of the barn by the lower level doorway. That's when we all heard a loud unholy screech from somewhere outside.

  "This isn't over yet," the purple magical girl muttered in response.

  "You two go deal with that!" Azura ordered. "I'll stay here, I'll keep Lily and Ruby safe!"

  I nodded and dashed for the door. Despite her limp Violet was right behind me, she could still move fast when she needed to. Both of us had our weapons raised and ready as we emerged from the barn with our eyes peeled, looking for any sign of more Outsiders lurking in the darkness.

  It took a moment to find it, and we actually heard its wing beats before either of us spotted it. Just visible in the fading light about a dozen or so meters above us was something big and bck. It was about the size of a rge dog, but with huge bat-like wings. As near as I could tell it didn't have a head, but its entire body was covered in mouths and vicious fangs.

  "Shit!" Violet swore. "How are we supposed to get at it, way up there?"

  The answer came a moment ter, when a bolt of green light shot out into the night sky from the top of the barn. Peri's magical arrow just missed the flying Outsider, and unfortunately the near miss got its attention on her.

  "Oh no!" I gasped as I realized the green magical girl wasn't alone up there.

  She was standing next to Onyx, which expined how Peri got up there in the first pce. My girlfriend must have teleported the two of them onto the barn roof, so our archer could get a clean shot at the flying horror.

  As I watched the Outsider dove down at Peri and Onyx, but the green magical girl was ready for it. Another bolt of green magic shot out across the dark sky, forcing the monster to veer off to the side. Then it tried to swoop around behind them, which scared me since that meant the thing was heading right for my girlfriend.

  Fortunately it turned out Peri was expecting that. She spun and let a third magical arrow go, and that one didn't miss. Both Violet and I saw it strike the fpping bundle of fangs and jaws dead centre. There was a fsh of green light and the thing let out another ear-piercing screech as its wings folded, then it tumbled from the air.

  I was ontop of it the instant it hit the ground, and my crystal halberd bde fred with pink energy as I cleaved the wounded Outsider in two, just to make sure it was dead. As the bat-like abomination started to decay into dust there was a fre of darkness to my left, which faded to reveal Peri and Onyx standing next to me.

  "Is everyone ok?" my girlfriend asked nervously. She was clutching her staff tightly and from her expression I could tell she was trying hard not to freak out. Not that I could bme her.

  "Lily's hurt," I responded. "Ruby's helping her."

  The green magical girl muttered a curse when she heard that news. Then she stated, "Onyx said that was the st of them. We should get out of here before the authorities show up."

  "Let's get back in the barn," Violet suggested. "We'll be out of sight, we can check on Lily, and Onyx can give us all a lift home where nobody's watching."

  The four of us hurried back inside, and I paused to slide the big door closed behind us. Peri and Violet moved closer to where Ruby was still using her healing magic on Lily, but Onyx stopped just inside the door and stared at the fallen magical girl.

  "It's not a pretty sight," I half-whispered to my girlfriend. "Ruby's taking care of her though. I'm sure she'll be ok."

  Onyx nodded slowly as she tore her eyes off the scene in the middle of the barn floor. She was still clutching her staff tightly as she whispered back, "I don't sense anymore of that dark energy here. It must have been just the two of them."

  "Good," I replied softly. Then I moved closer and slipped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a side-hug.

  My girlfriend leaned into the hug, and ended up resting her head on my shoulder. We stood there holding each other for a few more seconds before she asked, "Is this what it was like when you fought them up north?"

  "Not really," I sighed. "This was bad because they had pces to hide? Up north there were lots more of them, so they didn't need to hide. They just came at us from all sides."

  After a brief pause I shrugged, "It doesn't really matter. I think fighting Outsiders is always going to suck, because of what they are. I just hope they didn't kill too many people before we got here."

  "Yeah. Me too," she mumbled, before we both went quiet.

  After another half minute or so Ruby finally lowered her sceptre and sighed, "Alright. That's all I can do for her."

  "What do you mean that's all?!" Azura demanded. "I thought you were supposed to be our healer!"

  Lily was still ying unconscious in the middle of the barn, with the red magical girl kneeling beside her and the blue magical girl standing over her. Both Onyx and I started moving forward to defend our boyfriend, but Violet was already there and beat us to it.

  The purple magical girl stated, "Knock it off Azura. Ruby's new at this, and there's never been a red magical girl before. It's not like her ring's got any extra experience she can draw on here. We're all new to this, and nobody was expecting more Outsiders tonight."

  "I saved her life and I saved her arm," our boyfriend added. "She's going to be ok, but she's been through a traumatic injury. It'll take some time for her to recover, and that means rest. She needs to take it easy for a while."

  The blue magical girl looked torn, like on the one hand she was still upset that Lily was hurt but on the other hand she maybe knew she was out of line yelling at Ruby. It took her another couple seconds before she sighed, "Alright. Sorry Ruby, I let my emotions get the better of me."

  "Onyx?" Azura added as she looked over towards where me and my girlfriend were standing. "I understand there aren't any more Outsiders in the area, so can you get us out of here?"

  The bck magical girl nodded, so we all gathered around the unconscious Lily then Onyx spun her staff. As darkness fred I noticed the sound of distant sirens approaching. So it seemed like we were leaving just in time, since nobody wanted to deal with the police.

  Our first top was New Zeand, where we dropped off Azura and Lily at the white magical girl's home in a Wellington suburb. Then we jumped to San Francisco and said goodbye to Peri. Next we took Violet back home to north Wales, and bid her a good night. Then finally the three of us returned to my house, where we appeared back in the living-room where the whole thing started about two hours earlier.

  "Holy crap that was intense," Ruby sighed as she dropped her sceptre on the coffee table then slumped back on the sofa.

  Onyx put her staff down on the coffee table as well then all but colpsed onto the other end of the sofa as she agreed, "That was terrifying. And there was only two of those things? I can't even imagine what it'd be like dealing with more."

  I dismissed my halberd rather than add it to the pile, then took my pce between them on the sofa. I pulled them both into a side-hug and asked, "Are you two going to be ok?"

  My girlfriend shrugged as she leaned against my right side, "I guess so? I mean, I didn't even really have to do any fighting. But it was scary watching you disappear into that spooky barn. I can't even imagine what that was like, knowing those things could jump out at you any moment."

  "It wasn't so bad for me I guess," our boyfriend commented. "I was just waiting outside with Violet, until we heard the scream. Then we both charged in, and I really wasn't thinking about the Outsiders? I was just focused on helping Lily."

  The bck magical girl responded, "It was sort of the same for me I guess. Waiting outside with Peri, I was mostly worried about Rosa and the others. Then we heard the scream, but at the same time that flying monstrosity dropped from the roof of the barn and came down practically on top of us."

  "Oh crap!" I gasped. "But you're ok right?"

  She nodded, "Peri saw it coming, she knocked me clear before it reached us. Then she whacked it with her bow and it let out an ungodly screech, before unching back up into the air again."

  Our girlfriend continued, "Peri couldn't get a clear shot at it because it kept ducking around the top of the barn, so she asked me to get her up onto the roof. And from there she was able to get a couple good shots off. And, well you know the rest. She shot it down, you finished it off."

  Ruby let out a sigh of relief, while I just grimaced as those images repyed in my mind.

  After another few seconds I suggested, "We should probably deactivate our rings? Seems like the crisis is over. Then we can try and unwind, and maybe think about getting something to eat."

  "I'm not really hungry," our boyfriend mumbled. "Not after all that."

  Neither of them switched back to their normal forms yet either, they both just continued cuddling against me from either side. I could tell Onyx was still freaked out, because she didn't even tease our boyfriend about wanting to stay in magical girl form.

  "What was the healing magic like? You said Lily's going to be ok, what all did you have to do for her?" the bck magical girl finally asked. "Without going into any gory details, I mean."

  Ruby sighed again, "It was more involved than I thought? It wasn't just, wave a magic wand and poof! Healed! It was more like..."

  Her voice drifted off for a moment as she seemed to think it over. Then she shrugged, "It was like regur first-aid, but with magic instead of medical supplies? The magic made it easier and faster, and gave me more insight than I'd have had on my own. I still needed to call on my own knowledge and training though, to a certain extent."

  "I don't know that I could have saved her life if I wasn't a magical girl," she added. "She'd have lost her right arm for sure though, without the sceptre and the healing magic. That gave me the power to do stuff like fuse broken bones and mend torn muscles back together."

  "Ok that's too much detail for me," Onyx interrupted at that point with a shudder. Then she added, "I'm gd you saved her Ruby. And I'm gd neither of us are front-line fighters. I know I was kind of bummed at first that I didn't get a sword or some other weapon? But not anymore. Not after tonight."

  I gave them both a gentle squeeze then suggested again, "Let's get back to normal? That might help us put all this stuff out of our heads for a bit. Find something else to think about for a while, right?"

  "Yeah ok," our boyfriend nodded as she reached for her ring. "Good thinking Bke."

  A moment ter there were red and pink fshes followed by a wave of shadows, then we were all back to normal. The sceptre and staff both vanished at the same time, so there weren't any other reminders or any other evidence of our evening's activities. We were just three friends cuddling together on the sofa in my living-room.

  Unfortunately it wasn't that easy to push the encounter out of our minds. We tried putting something on TV but none of us could get into it. And we tried talking about inane stuff like college or work, but the conversation kept dying off or turning back to Outsiders and other magical girl stuff.

  Eventually Ellie pointed out, "Cel said the darkness was diffused, right? I know they eventually pointed us to Newfoundnd, but... I have a feeling there's going to be more Outsiders, more attacks. Probably in other pces around the Atntic."

  "I'm also wondering if the situation out west is reted or not?" she added quietly. "The missing students, the stolen occult stuff? Could they be controlling the Outsiders somehow? Or trying to communicate with them?"

  Harper frowned at that thought, and for that matter so did I.

  "I don't know Ellie," I said as I slowly shook my head. "We need to talk to my mom, she should know. And hopefully she'll have some news from Leslie too."

  After checking the time I added, "She should be home in about two hours, if you two don't mind waiting."

  "That's fine with me," Harper stated. "This feels way too important to leave it for another day or two."

  Ellie nodded then added grimly, "Not like I'll be getting much sleep tonight anyways. Not after seeing a live Outsider up close."

  PurpleCatGirl