Alighting upon the roof unseen, Alicia turned towards the ongoing combat and readied her bow. Things were not going well at first glance, and she wasn’t sure she had a move that wasn’t just a distraction. But as a distraction, it would hopefully be a pretty good one.
It was as she was reaching for an arrow that a mirror appeared in front of her. She only had a few moments to look at her doppelganger before she was pulled through it and somewhere else-
Alicia blinked, looking around at the large training room. She remembered this place. It was where Beacon had helped her learn her powers when he first became a magical girl. She’d got her butt kicked a lot, but she felt so good finally mastering a spell or pulling off a move with her bow.
The room was being used for the same purpose, but with a much different user. Alicia looked over her doppelganger, their uniform bright whites and gold in its color unlike her darker outfit. Her other self released an arrow, the golden tip slamming into a picture of Mariette pinned up on a target, with a similar picture of Justine next to it and already riddled with arrows.
“Good, you’re here. We have a lot to talk about,” aicilA said as she turned to face her counterpart.
Coming to a stop some distance from her other, Alicia glanced around the room once again.
“This is new,” she remarked.
aicilA shrugged.
“Maybe for us. I hear they do this sort of thing in one of the Danish Beacon branches.” She couldn’t recall where she had heard anything like that, but she must have at some point. Right?
Leaving that alone for now, Alicia returned to what had been said earlier.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”That caused aicilA to scowl.
”You.” Then she jabbed a finger back down the training range.
“Them.” Then a sweeping gesture around the room.
“All of...this.”Alicia continued to watch her without moving.
“So you’re not working with the Queen?”The question earned a dismissive snort.
“Me? Work with the Queen? Not a chance. I want to drop kick her off this building as much as you do. More than you do, probably.”“Fair,” Alicia conceded. She was sure that her other self would explain things without needing prompting.
In this case she was proven correct moments later.
“Anyway, how I see it is, you have Mariette, Justine, and the Queen all here in the Penrose. Our biggest headaches in one place. So what you do is, you teleport away, call in the Reckoning, wipe them all out in one blow, easy as that.”“’Easy as that’? What about all our friends in the city?” Alicia was taken aback by the sudden mention of the Reckoning, much less the callousness her doppelganger was showing.
Her question earned a shrug.
“Acceptable losses,” aicilA replied.
“The ones who matter will come back and honestly the world will probably thank us for removing Penrose from existence.”Frowning, Alicia folded her arms over her chest as her foot tapped against the ground.
“Well, this sounds familiar,” she remarked. It felt like the sorts of arguments she would have with Rachel up until fairly recently. Maybe not using the Reckoning, but the general
“It sounds familiar because Rachel was right. All that talk and here we are, again, trying to keep the city from being destroyed by yet another bad guy. I’ll bet good money that the Queen also ends up ‘redeemed’, and in a month we’ll be fighting alongside her to fix some other stupid crisis, just like Justine and Mariette.”“Those were out of my hands," Alicia pointed out. It wasn’t like she’d been present for either girl deciding to not be a bad guy anymore, much less anyone caring about her opinion on the matter.
The objection prompted aicilA to roll her eyes.
“And when you found our about it you just decided it wasn’t your problem anymore, in spite of all the things they’ve done. If you want people to take you seriously then you’ve got to commit! The higher ups in Luxia might be out of touch fossils, but even they were willing to stick to their guns and give Penny the boot when she decided that she wanted to be Queen of Penrose. Because they understand that Beacon and a Monster Queen aren’t going to be able to play nice.”Alicia shook her head as she frowned.
“Penny is my friend. I understand why she was expelled from Beacon but that isn’t the way to make the world a better place.” “You know who else Penny was friends with? Chloe. And now she’s got an entire army of herself running around the place. If she flips out or listens to the wrong person and decides that her rule shouldn’t be questioned, then we’re all screwed. And you’ll just be saying platitudes up until she’s stomped on your neck.”Such a confident declaration caused Alicia to scoff.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,”“Spoken with such confidence,” aicilA snarled, her glare sharp and unwavering.
“You’d stop it, huh? Just like how you stopped that trap at the Rave? How you stopped Sylvia from dying? Or how you stopped Mariette from abducting all those brainwashed girls right from under your nose? Face it, you’ve only been able to fix the problem and by then people have already died.”Alicia glared in turn, shifting as she took a step forward.
“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I enjoy watching my friends die, or having to fight another crazy villain? I don’t!”Her anger seemed to get a react from aicilA, or at the very least the other self seemed to enjoy watching her be this way.
“You hate it but you don’t do anything about it. Haven’t you heard that whole bit about the definition of insanity? You keep doing the same thing expecting a different result but it’s not going to happen. So grow up and face reality while there’s still a reality left.”That eager expression her other self had forced Alicia to pause, and she took a deep breath lest her anger get the better of her.
“It’s not just some loop,” she replied after a moment.
“We came as far as we have because we have allies to help us out where Beacon's capabilities aren't enough to solve the problem. Blowing up cities is just going to make even more people hate us, and then by the time we learn of a crisis we’ll already all be dead. Even Rachel is starting to see that.”aicilA opened her mouth to speak, but Alicia kept going rather than give her the opportunity.
“Besides, can you honestly say I’d be a better person if I never knew Penny, or Kimble, or Hyun Long, or any of the others? Sure, our successes haven’t been dramatic and there are still problems, but the things I’ve been able to experience and all the good that we’ve done so far are worth working for. What you suggest will just burn everything for no certain gain.”Silence descended for several moments before aicilA smirked.
“Wow, you really believe all that don’t you?”“I do. I’ll explain it to you, Rachel, or anyone else as many times as I have to,” Alicia asserted with a firm demeanor.
aicilA laughed, shaking her head as she did so.
“You really are something else, you know that? Maybe there’s some hope for you after all.” Smiling, she stepped back towards where she had been when Alicia was pulled into this space.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me. I’ll be waiting.”Likewise, Alicia turned and headed towards the door.
“I won’t,” she replied, without looking back. This was her path, and she would walk it to the end, whatever that end might be.
Renose
BrokenPromise
Azure Bubbles