Adah had gotten lucky by visiting Ketzia when she did.

  She wanted to connect with Seliah and the members of Fifty Flip as soon as possible, and was only waiting for the right opportunity to approach them. For this, she took a page out of Sheffa’s book, aiming to show up when the teams were out on a mission and grab them for a conversation after. This would allow Adah and her teammates to observe the other magical girls in action and—if they showed up to a mission in an isolated location—talk to them in relative privacy.

  When Sheffa had done the same to the Last Light, Adah had been put on edge by their presence due to the ongoing tensions with the interregional teams. Even then, that approach had worked in Sheffa’s favor. It was odd for another group of magic users to watch a mission in person, and even stranger for them to stick around after. Apex Vox doing so had made Adah curious, so she was sure it’d have the same effect on the magical girls of Fifty Flip.

  Once Adah revealed her team’s intentions, she hoped Hyperia and her teammates would recognize the Last Light’s presence as a sign of sincerity. They’d have to lean on the reputation they’d built for themselves for that.

  The exact kind of opportunity Adah had been waiting for presented itself the very next morning after her trip north. Fifty Flip had taken a C-Rank mission in the middle of nowhere, as was so often the case in Region 4.

  Since Adah and her teammates weren’t fighting the Cruelty themselves, they didn’t need to investigate the mission briefing thoroughly or plan for any kind of battle. They grabbed the location details from Grace, rushed out the agency doors, and chatted about the mission as they flew to their destination no differently than some friends would discuss next weekend’s football match-ups.

  “Emi and I fought one of these a while back,” Rika said as they took flight. “It’s easy enough to dodge if you can take it out from range. Emi kept it busy for me, so it was just a matter of getting my aim down.”

  “It was boring, I just spammed waves.” Emi said, probably referring to her [Raging Ripples] spell.

  “For the three of them, it shouldn’t be a problem then,” Adah said. “They’ll have plenty of energy to talk with us afterward.”

  They were headed toward a cattle farm similar to the one Adah and the twins had fought the pack of wolf Cruelties at. The situation today would be much the same as it was then: no observers and no bystanders, assuming no farmhands got left behind again. Only the cows would be around to overhear any conversation between the two teams, which was exactly what Adah wanted.

  Isolation would give them the space to express themselves honestly and the privacy to keep Adah’s moves secret from certain Secretaries.

  As for the Cruelty itself, it was on the weaker end of the C-Rank spectrum, as Rika had alluded to. Its form resembled a badger the size of a parade float, with its key differentiators being its rotund bottom and its long claws. From Rika’s description, apparently the monster looked like someone had inflated the bottom half of it with a tire pump. As goofy as its body appeared, its claws were still intimidating, curving out several feet from the beast’s paws like a set of scythe blades.

  The Cruelty had some means of rotating itself at high speeds, leaning on its round bottom to turn itself into a spinning top. The monster would then roll around like this, angling its upper body such that its claws would slice around like a saw blade.

  The attack sounded like a trick out of a nightmarish circus to Adah, but apparently it was easy enough to avoid. The badger could move fast like this, and of course its claws would be deadly, but its approach was telegraphed well enough that three competent magical girls should have no trouble handling it. Once the members of Fifty Flip figured out their plan of attack, it would simply be a matter of executing it. This mission was ideal for a team at their level, so either their captain or manager had a sound head on their shoulders.

  “Don’t you think the Cruelties are making better picks lately?” Ami asked after Rika and Emi recapped their experience with the badger.

  “What do you mean?” Adah said.

  “Like the ibex at the shopping center and this guy here,” Ami said. “They’re picking forms that could do a lot of damage in those environments. The ibex could charge straight down that walkway, and if this badger gets an opening then it can carve through a whole herd of cows in a second. I remember the variants feeling more… random a year ago.”

  “Well, we know they’re learning,” Rika said. “The ibex was a coordinated attack, too. The Cruelties know they can’t just dump a random monster in the middle of a city and cause chaos anymore. Maybe they’ve switched to looking for weak points instead.”

  “They need to kill something to get essence,” Adah added. “If they want to create a powerful form like an S-Rank, they need the lower-ranked variants to kill lots of something. We think about these missions as a chance to eradicate another Cruelty, but to them these are more like harvesting jobs. Something like this badger isn’t meant to wipe out humanity, it’s designed to collect resources for a bigger invasion. Like an investment. At least, if I was them, that’s how I’d be thinking about it.”

  “Kinda like your scythe,” Emi said.

  “Yeah…” Adah said. “Kind of.”

  Rika flew up to be by Adah’s side and said, “Except Adah doesn’t hurt anyone with her weapon.”

  “Between the smarter attacks and the humanoids coming out of those portals, they’re obviously prepping for something,” Ami said. “And I don’t wanna wait for them to do it. Let’s hit them with a bigger attack first.”

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  “That’s why we’re out here today,” Adah said. “We need allies for dealing with Thibault, sure, but they’re going to be just as important for dealing with the Cruelties.”

  Ami grunted and said, “That’s today, but what about yesterday? Did Baba Yaga tell you anything useful or did she just make you eat spicy food?”

  “Don’t make me remember the second part,” Adah said. “But I got what my poor tongue paid for. Ketzia was a big help, it’s just that our plans might need to change a bit. Or a lot.”

  With everyone having split up the day before, and Adah returning late from Ketzia’s cabin, they’d never had a chance to debrief about what Adah had learned. The twins were already asleep when she got back, so Adah had decided to get some rest herself. Then, Fifty Flip had taken this mission first thing in the morning. This was the first moment since leaving for Ketzia’s that Adah had a chance to talk with her teammates.

  Adah summarized Ketzia’s advice as best she could. She’d had time to ponder the details on her flight back—questions like what she was going to ask a team such as Fifty Flip to do exactly, or how she was going to put the regional government’s feet to the fire once she had a strong alliance backing her. From all her thinking, two key facts emerged.

  When it came to their fellow teams, the Last Light couldn’t approach them with some vague offer like, “Let’s be friends!” Adah needed to tell them what they’d be getting themselves into, with a clear start and end point for that involvement. Their teams could continue to cooperate with each other after that, but Adah’s initial proposal needed specific boundaries. That way, everyone involved could be certain of what kind of movement they were a part of.

  That was essential not only for convincing other teams to join Adah but for ensuring they were all working toward the same goal.

  The second fact involved the need for the end point itself. When could they declare victory, or at least transition to their next objective? That was what Ketzia had pressed Adah to consider. A comment Ketzia had made offhand actually directed Adah’s thinking here. Rather than finding a specific replacement for Thibault, Adah simply needed to position herself as a representative of magic users.

  When a regional governor appointed a Secretary of Magic, that appointee needed to be confirmed by the region’s representatives, an entirely separate branch of government. In theory, those representatives were elected to advocate for the will of the people, including magic users. But why couldn’t there also be an unofficial representative specifically for magic users? Someone who had as much say over the confirmation of an appointee as any other representative.

  If Adah could prove that enough magic users and fans stood behind her, she could establish herself in such a role. At least, she could make her voice loud enough to overwhelm whatever shadowy figure was whispering in the governor’s ear, telling him to appoint someone like Thibault.

  Both the recruitment of allies and the plan’s endpoint hinged on some climatic event. There had to be something tangible the other teams were working toward, that they would be involved in for their own benefit. After all, Adah intended to make their voices heard, but it would be the Last Light who was speaking. There needed to be something besides replacing the Secretary of Magic that the other teams—and their fans—could get excited about.

  This event would also be her best shot at drawing attention to her cause. It had to be something that unified fans and teams alike, something loud and crowded and memorable, and something the media couldn’t ignore.

  No matter how Adah thought about it, only one option came to mind.

  “You want to host a concert?” Rika said after Adah explained her idea. “We only have one song out! And Ami and Emi aren’t even on it.”

  “It’s going to take a lot of work,” Adah admitted, “but we can do it. We turned around that first song fast, and that was with a music video! We don’t need to make a whole album, just a handful of new songs.”

  Rika’s skirt tails pulsed bright red at a rapid pace as she processed what Adah was saying.

  “I mean, I’ve been working on new ones, but… It’s totally insane! Does a team like Fifty Flip even want to make music?”

  Adah shook her head and said, “The concert’s just the headline attraction. The other teams can participate if they want, but it’s not the only event we’ll have going. Do you remember during the IndieMagie, when Thibault hosted that fan meet? Even back then, we drew a huge crowd, and he used that chance to deliver his stupid speech. We can do that ourselves. We’ll have a meet-and-greet, signing sessions, photo ops, and whatever else we can think of.”

  “Carnival games,” Emi suggested, which Ami vehemently supported.

  “Sure,” Adah said. “Whatever it is, our fans will show up. We can tell them what we need them to hear, rile them up with some music, and turn their support into something the region can’t ignore.”

  “A real Unchained Underground,” Ami declared.

  “I’m not saying we can’t do it,” Rika said, “but a concert is more work than just writing songs. Performing live is completely different than recording at home. Completely different.”

  Adah hadn’t forgotten that—the reason why Rika, who had always had the looks and talent to be a star magical girl, had wound up at the same agency as Adah. Rika’s stage fright still troubled her to this day. It had shown up during the IndieMagie photoshoot, and still reared its head during post-battle interviews from time to time. It wasn’t the kind of anxiety Rika could shake with a yell like Ami had done against the spider Cruelty.

  The strength of that fear made itself evident in the lights on her skirt that pulsed in time with her heart.

  “Do you want to do it, though?” Adah asked her. “Singing live?”

  “Of course I do,” Rika said. “I just… need to think about it.”

  The girls were still flying by each other’s side, so Adah reached out and grabbed hold of Rika’s hand. It was cold from the morning air despite her racing heart.

  “That’s okay,” Adah said. “Unanimous votes only, remember? We’ve got time to decide what to do, and no matter what, we’ll do it together.”

  “That’s right!” Ami yelled. “But either way, my singing’s gonna be so bad it’ll be all anyone can focus on anyway.”

  “Concert or no concert, as long as we have carnival games,” Emi said.

  “What kind of clowny team did I join here?” Rika said, rolling her eyes. Yet, she also squeezed Adah’s hand tighter.

  They dropped the topic of the concert for now, having at least reached an agreement that hosting some kind of event would work in their favor. Their flight was coming to an end anyway. As Adah and her teammates flew above the flatland of a grazing pasture, they spotted three figures floating in the distance.

  “There they are,” Adah said. “Our potential new comrades.”

  “I wonder if they’ll recognize us,” Ami said. “Maybe they don’t even know who we are.”

  Ami didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  “Lyrika!” a shrill voice pierced the air. Even several hundred yards out, the voice reached Adah’s ears perfectly clear.

  The tiny leader of Fifty Flip bolted toward the members of the Last Light, flying like she was trying to outrun a Cruelty hot on her tail. She slammed into Rika at an angle and, despite trying to sling her arms around Rika’s waist, spun out of control and flew past the girl. After collecting her bearings, Hyperia Flip flew back to Adah and her teammates and looked up at Rika with sparkling eyes and a chipmunk’s smile.

  If this greeting was anything to judge by, the conversation between their teams was either going to go very well or very poorly.