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[h2](The Penrose Preternatural) Could Trial of Janet Howell Turn A New Leaf for Beacon?[/h2]
[i]Written By: Samuel Brooks[/i][/center]

Another day begins in Penrose - a brighter dawn for some but for others, perhaps, a darker horizon awaits. Justice, in the magical sense, has always been a term thrown around a lot in the world: who is guilty of this, who is guilty of that, and all the laws that exist between every faction, distinguishing one from Magical Girl and Dark Magical Girl. "Justice" is what people make it, and whoever makes justice holds immense power.

For a long time, Beacon has been a forerunner in pioneering justice for the magical world. Their policing of the streets, execution of Monster Girls, and the excommunication of their disreputable members have, for the longest of times, placed them as the truest and. supposedly, most fair faction of Penrose, if not the world. Their compass pointed true, to the light they so desperately wished to spread.

[h3][url=https://thepenroseindependent.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/the-penrose-preternatural-could-trial-of-janet-howell-turn-a-new-leaf-for-beacon/#more-39]Read More[/url][/h3]

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[center][i]Last Night[/i][/center]

In the din of the evening, The Vixen sat. The apartment she held up in that evening was small, dingy, perhaps too barren for the lair of a monster, and largely too dark for any non-magical being to reasonably seek their way around. She could see just fine, but had no plans of moving. Her evening was spent quiet, curled in a corner surrounded by her many tails, deep black in colour where uncontrollable fire had ravaged her flesh and singed her fur.

Tonight was a night of mourning. Perhaps of a way of life, but her eyes weren't weeping for something as trivial like a lifestyle. She was sad for things she had lost prior, things that couldn't be recovered, no matter how hard she tried. Not anymore. Now that evening had progressed into morning, she could gaze out a poorly kept window, cracked in places and grimy with age in others, and reflect on the better times, and times long past, and times where things she have been poor but instead she found herself happy.

And the prospect of losing that terrified her. Not in a menial sense of fear, but a deep seated petrification, rooted in her core like a cancer. The things she dreamt of had long since passed, and yet she couldn't stop imagining them. They plagued her. Kept her awake at night. Haunted her every waking thought, a byproduct of whatever mental flaw her transformation had afflicted upon her. She only had an awful future ahead of her, and a saddening past behind her, and in the middle she was stuck with ravenous hunger and an insatiable anger, that tore into her psyche each day, and left a gaping wound to be nursed in the night, when the lights waned in her dingy apartment, or whatever hideout she had procured for that night.

Some hours prior she had returned from her excursion, the night taking its toll. The Vixen had killed this night, and the previous night, and two nights prior to that, and the day prior to that. A hill of bodies that, given the chance, she would gladly convert to a mountain. Humans, Magical Girls, Monsters - none would be spared the sword. And then, an hour after that, she had returned to the apartment, bruised and sore from combat with a girl wielding giant, metal gauntlets. Her body ached. Her chest was bruised. Her breathe was ragged. Her mind was dark.

In those hours, between then and now, the floor found itself soaked in blood. Anger and grief had overtaken her, in the din of the evening, staring through her window in a pile of blankets and warmth. With her claws she had slashed her arms, her legs, her chest, letting herself bleed dry. Not half an hour later she seared those wounds closed, leaving deep, burnt scars that would no sooner vanish than her sanity return. And so she curled up in a corner, regretting and dreaming, wishing, waiting, hoping, crying, and looking, into a future inescapable and a past unobtainable, curled in a mess of bloody, burnt fur, and bloody blankets, staring blankly into the darkness.

[center][i]Present[/i][/center]

A wave of fear crossed the path of the Vixen. Keen senses she possessed, but a Third Eye she utilised most of all. On her travels, across the roofs of Penrose City, reminiscing on old days, she had been struck. But unlike most she did not begin to doubt anything, or fear anything. Too much fear already possessed and destroyed her. Instead, that primal nature kicked in, sending her spiralling down that ever-long tunnel, spiked and marred in lust and hunger. The mental affliction of the hunter.

Those keen senses and that eye led her to the Cathedral. Surrounded by witches, encircled with Magical Girls, shooting off their spells and engaging in active combat in the middle of the day. It was a feast - one for the glutenous, and the ravenous, to partake in. She leapt across those buildings, claws and strength leaving dents and damages with every jump, across every gap.

And yet she could not arrive on time. Mere moments prior, as she scurried across the city to the Cathedral, it vanished before her eyes. No matter her vast agility, she hadn't made it in time, clearly. For a person to take the structure with them, they must have been of vast power, and she had arrived shy of their disappearance, too late to kill them. But that was fine. The strongest" wasn't her prerogative - anybody would do. To sate her.

So she stopped, by the side of where the Cathedral once stood, in full view of all participants of the battle. Those that read the news might have known her, by the matted, scorched black fur of her tails, or her hungry, crimson eyes, that scanned across the field, making contact with every Magical Girl she could see, land or sky, selecting her target.

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In the grandstands of a large stadium was a girl, with dark skin, and flowing, purple hair, her body wrapped in brown bandages, surrounding her form like a dress. Still a year on, the outfit her transformation presented her with embarrassed her. But her Boss had taught her not to worry. Off to her side, on the chair next to her, was a handbag - her hammerspace - as well as a phone, and in her hand was a digital camera, specially built, enhanced and tested by both metal and reinforcement specialised girls. It was of excellent quality, with lenses far surpassing anything currently usable, and perfect quality even when zoomed into the battle below her from such a distance.

She was Christine West, Reporter for the Penrose Independent. On the pitch, a massive battle had been raging. Humans had once sat in these seats in her stead, but after the mummies attacked, they scattered, or died, only to be replaced with Magical Girls in troves. They came from the sky and started battling each other, without care for who they attacked, or the damages they caused. Some she recognised - some Beacon members, an Ebon Mint member - and others she didn't, no doubt belonging to the various factions that waged war over Penrose as their territory.

But something peculiar happened. That [i]thing[/i], that emerged from the portal. That horror. She lifted the camera to her eye, and aligned the thing, as well as some of the girls fighting it, in the digital viewfinder, and snapped a few pictures, before laughing to herself a small bit. Sitting back, in her chair so close yet so far from the battle, watching them fight, was interesting. It would make a great story later on.

Beside her, the phone she had placed beside the bag buzzed, once, then twice, before she picked it up. Unlike most phones carried by Independent members, this wasn't a flip-phone, but rather an old iPhone; the touch screen agreed with her much more than the buttons. A series of messages had been sent, from a contact simply titled "Rebecca".

[i]she's gone to the Penrose Doom Cathedral
and
well
it's fucking gone[/i]

For a second, she looked at the message, then laughed to herself.

[i][right]Gone?
How do you mean?[/right]
it's just gone, Christine
[right]...send me a picture.[/right]
[Image Attachment]
[right]Jesus.
Stay there, and watch.
This could be useful for her.[/right][/i]

With a couple of presses upon the screen, she switched over to a second messenger, with the contact this time simply labelled as "Boss".

[i][right]I've got something for you.[/right]
Like?
[right][Image Attachement]
The Penrose Doom Cathedral? It's gone.[/right]
By a Magical Girl?
[right]I guess so.[/right]
Who took the picture?
[right]Rebecca - she's still there now.
This is useful, right Boss? This is good[/right]
It is.
Very.
Keep up the good work, Christine.[/i]

Satisfied, she placed the phone back down, picked up the camera once again, and continued her watch, taking pictures of every action and participant of the fight, whoever they were. This, too, would be an extensively useful article. With it, and the Cathedral, things would start moving along much, much faster.