Bramble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bramblepatch) wrote2019-11-04 03:28 pm
bramblepatch) wrote2019-11-04 03:28 pm
Entry tags:
Original Fiction: Sunset Knight and Magic Fighter Star✧Strike versus the Galaxy Dragon
(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 1852 words, Gen. content warnings: cartoon violence, implied gender dysphoria.
Thank you to all my patrons who support my writing and art! If you'd like to get early access to stories like this or vote on what characters I develop next, please consider becoming a patron!)
The rain had stopped a little before sunset. The sky was clear enough, now, for the last streaks of color to catch in the last shreds of cloud, and in the cool autumn dusk the standing puddles and wet pavement caught hints of orange and pink. Before long, they’d be reflecting the yellow glow of street lamps instead, and the sometime flash of white headlights.
It was lovely. Sunset had a tendency toward loveliness in this neighborhood, in the past few years. Maybe it was just confirmation bias, that a certain teenager noticed how things fell neatly into place to provide a picturesque backdrop on evenings where the nagging awareness that there was a monster somewhere out there prompted them to sneak out. There was no proven link between ambient meteorological anomalies and an active case of Transformative Adolescent Empowerment Syndrome, but Blair was pretty sure this was their doing anyway.
On the other hand, no one else ever seemed to make the connection – practically no one; Blair had brought it up once with some of the TAES veterans in the area, and gotten a sure, that could be happening. Just as well, really. Blair had absolutely no desire to make their case to their aunt as to why they ought to be allowed to go monster-fighting on a school night when with a little luck and a little finesse they could sneak out and slip back in before she noticed they were gone, so the less of a tip-off that Aunt Lizbet had that tonight was a Sunset Knight kind of night, the happier Blair was.
In point of fact, the stocky teenager almost made it out of the building without anyone catching them. Once they’d managed to slip out of their own apartment unnoticed, the hallways of the apartment complex were quiet. The back stairwell should have been even quieter, but as Blair descended to the first-floor landing, the door to the hallway eased open to let a dark-haired kid, already dressed in a practical and slightly sparkly magical girl costume and carrying an armful of raccoon, through.
There was a long beat of shared acute awareness of their delinquency, before Esther spoke up. “So. Team up?”
Blair sighed, and continued past the younger teen toward the ground floor and the exit, although they answered as they went. “Don’t you have a team already?”
“Yeah, uh, Hoshi sprained her ankle in gym class,” Esther replied, and before she could continue, from her arms, Sparkle added brightly, “And Magic Medic Star✧Balm is visiting his grandsire in the far-off land of Canada!”
Blair paused, and looked over their shoulder. “How in the heck did she just make that star sound with her mouth.”
“She’s a raccoon, how does she make any of the sounds with her mouth?” Esther pointed out. Blair considered for a moment, and shrugged; like suspiciously appropriate weather and symbolic costume changes, the exact nature of animal companions was probably without rational explanation. Esther certainly didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer. “Anyway yeah Sterling’s out of town until next week.”
As much as they’d have liked to, Blair couldn’t find fault in that reasoning. Nor could they really justify keeping Esther away from a monster that clearly they’d both sensed the presence of, although they made one more token objection as they reached the back door. “Aren’t you a little young for the whole magical girl thing anyway?”
Esther huffed indignantly. “I mean, a monster crashed my bat mitzvah and I had to fight it, I think that counts for something.”
Blair was pretty sure that did not in fact count for anything, but also they were way too lapsed Methodist to feel comfortable arguing the point. “Whatever. Just don’t get yourself hurt, I don’t have any healing abilities,” they said, holding the door open for her. “Give me a moment, I need to suit up.”
When their transformation sequence had first shifted, Blair had been surprised how simple the new Sunset Knight transformation was. Princess Sunset had been elaborate and overwrought, a multitude of tiny details and dramatic poses; Sunset Knight’s sequence was barely three seconds long, flannel fading into mail, and then armor and sword glowing into existence. A moment later, Blair was on their feet again, grinning with the brief wash of euphoria that the magic always brought with it.
“Dang, you’ve got a cape now,” Magic Fighter Star✧Strike breathed. “That is so cool.”
“Not bad, huh?” Sunset Knight agreed, propping their sword against their shoulder. The cape in question fluttered in the light evening breeze, as the colors of the sunset sky glinted off the wet pavement. “Let’s go kick some monster butt.”
The monster, it turned out, was perched on top of a bus shelter two blocks away.
“Do they usually… hybridize like that?” Blair wondered, studying the monster from a safe distance. The serpentine, winged form was definitely typical of one of their own common adversaries – but the glowing, shifting galaxy patterns across its scales marked it as one of the space-themed monsters that the Star Squad encountered frequently.
“I don’t know, you’ve been doing this longer than me!” Esther hissed back. “I usually don’t team up outside my team, unless you count Nova! And she doesn’t magic anymore!”
“Ok, ok,” Blair said. “I guess it’s still a dragon. If it’s like mine, magic weapons should do fine against it.”
“Right. Yeah. Magic.”
“Esther, that hammer you’re carrying is part of your magical girl thing, right?”
“Uhhh...” Esther didn’t deny it, exactly, but she took long enough not denying it that Blair kind of figured that was their answer.
“Esther!”
“Not everyone has a special magic weapon as part of their transformation, ok?” she demanded, and Sparkle added, “The hammer’s full of truth! And realness!”
“That’s not anything, I don’t think,” Blair said.
“Yeah, no, probably not,” Esther agreed reluctantly. “I mean, it is a couple of pounds of solid steel on a wooden handle. It’s still pretty good for hitting things with.”
Blair did some rapid mental arithmetic of dragon versus totally unmagical blunt instrument and also of their own willingness to face the irritation and disappointment of Esther’s mentor if literally anything went wrong. “Ok, look, I know you’re the tank of your little team, but you are not getting in close quarters with that thing,” they hissed.
“Blair!” Esther objected, managing to draw the name out to the same cadence as Sparkle whined, “Sunset Knight!”
“Seriously. You can be like, the distraction or something,” Blair insisted. “But I know my sword’s gonna take that thing out, and I have no idea if some hammer you found somewhere will have any real effect. So be the bait or go home.”
Esther pouted. Down the street, the dragon stretched its wings, dark against the fading sunset. Blair gave their temporary teammate a stern look.
“Ok. Fine. Meanie,” Esther conceded. “I get to yell at it, though, right?”
“...yes. You get to yell at it,” Blair agreed.
They had kind of assumed that there would be more strategizing involved, and was a little taken aback when the thirteen-year-old just took off toward the monster, trailing a scattering of starlight as she picked up speed. Blair sighed, and hurried to keep up, glad that whatever magical stuff their costume was made of, it didn’t restrict their breathing the way their mundane binder did.
Esther kept to her word, though, stopping at the curb on the opposite corner to wave her arms and start shouting at the dragon. Blair was thankful that the streets were almost eerily quiet, although they were pretty sure that they saw movement at some of the windows in nearby buildings. So much for no one noticing that they were out superheroing this evening; Blair didn’t expect anyone to interfere, especially if they wrapped this up quickly, but there was a good chance that word would get back to their aunt, and fast. They weren’t sure how public Esther was with her magical girl identity, but they’d been less that subtle with their alter ego.
The dragon spread its wings and took off, in a motion that only mostly seemed consistent with its apparent mass. Esther turned on her heel and started running away, with the raccoon weaving around her ankles in a way that made Blair wonder how she didn’t trip. Not that they wondered long; with a dragon to fight, they put the question quickly out of their mind. They planted their feet and raised their sword, staring down the rapidly approaching starry monster. As they’d suspected, the creature seemed entirely focused on its quarry; if its galaxy theme was any indication, it was as attuned to Esther as it was to them, and their monsters tended to be fairly single-minded. For a moment, they were afraid that the creature wouldn’t be within stabbing range – but even forbidden to actually engage, Esther had good instincts for drawing a monster where she wanted it, and she ducked behind Blair, placing them firmly between her and the dragon.
Just as they liked it.
“At thee, foul beast,” they growled through gritted teeth, the words drawn out by the same instincts that guided their actions while transforming, and as the dragon swooped down, Blair drove their blade through the creature’s chest.
The starry patterns across the dragon’s hide flared brighter for a brief moment, and then it seemed to dissolve in a rush of wind that ruffled Blair’s hair and set their cape flapping behind them.
A moment later, there was nothing left of the monster but a faint coating of shimmering stardust across Blair’s sword, and a brief clattering rain of something onto the sidewalk at their feet. Esther hurried to gather up the fallen items as Blair wiped off the sword on the lining of their cape.
“Here, you take some!” she said, holding out a couple of what appeared to be claws.
“What are they?” Blair asked, a little suspiciously; usually, their monsters didn’t drop loot.
“Meteorites!” Esther explained, and sure enough, when Blair accepted the claws, they certainly seemed to be made of dark, pitted iron – although the tips were more than sharp enough to make them glad that the dragon hadn’t gotten in clawing range of either of them. “Our monsters keep leaving them behind. We haven’t figured out if they’re for anything, yet, but they’re cool.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Blair agreed, as Esther put the rest of the fallen claws into her pockets; Blair’s own costume didn’t have pockets, which suddenly felt like a pretty significant oversight, so they just palmed the ones they’d been given. “Thanks.”
“Soooo… team up again some time?” Esther asked.
Blair sighed, casting their eyes up at the fading sunset colors. Nova was going to tear them a new one for taking the kid along to fight a dragon, they were sure, and usually they fought alone. But it had been kind of fun working as a team. “Maybe. I guess. If you bring the other Stars, no more of this ‘two melee fighters and no support’ nonsense.”
Thank you to all my patrons who support my writing and art! If you'd like to get early access to stories like this or vote on what characters I develop next, please consider becoming a patron!)
The rain had stopped a little before sunset. The sky was clear enough, now, for the last streaks of color to catch in the last shreds of cloud, and in the cool autumn dusk the standing puddles and wet pavement caught hints of orange and pink. Before long, they’d be reflecting the yellow glow of street lamps instead, and the sometime flash of white headlights.
It was lovely. Sunset had a tendency toward loveliness in this neighborhood, in the past few years. Maybe it was just confirmation bias, that a certain teenager noticed how things fell neatly into place to provide a picturesque backdrop on evenings where the nagging awareness that there was a monster somewhere out there prompted them to sneak out. There was no proven link between ambient meteorological anomalies and an active case of Transformative Adolescent Empowerment Syndrome, but Blair was pretty sure this was their doing anyway.
On the other hand, no one else ever seemed to make the connection – practically no one; Blair had brought it up once with some of the TAES veterans in the area, and gotten a sure, that could be happening. Just as well, really. Blair had absolutely no desire to make their case to their aunt as to why they ought to be allowed to go monster-fighting on a school night when with a little luck and a little finesse they could sneak out and slip back in before she noticed they were gone, so the less of a tip-off that Aunt Lizbet had that tonight was a Sunset Knight kind of night, the happier Blair was.
In point of fact, the stocky teenager almost made it out of the building without anyone catching them. Once they’d managed to slip out of their own apartment unnoticed, the hallways of the apartment complex were quiet. The back stairwell should have been even quieter, but as Blair descended to the first-floor landing, the door to the hallway eased open to let a dark-haired kid, already dressed in a practical and slightly sparkly magical girl costume and carrying an armful of raccoon, through.
There was a long beat of shared acute awareness of their delinquency, before Esther spoke up. “So. Team up?”
Blair sighed, and continued past the younger teen toward the ground floor and the exit, although they answered as they went. “Don’t you have a team already?”
“Yeah, uh, Hoshi sprained her ankle in gym class,” Esther replied, and before she could continue, from her arms, Sparkle added brightly, “And Magic Medic Star✧Balm is visiting his grandsire in the far-off land of Canada!”
Blair paused, and looked over their shoulder. “How in the heck did she just make that star sound with her mouth.”
“She’s a raccoon, how does she make any of the sounds with her mouth?” Esther pointed out. Blair considered for a moment, and shrugged; like suspiciously appropriate weather and symbolic costume changes, the exact nature of animal companions was probably without rational explanation. Esther certainly didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer. “Anyway yeah Sterling’s out of town until next week.”
As much as they’d have liked to, Blair couldn’t find fault in that reasoning. Nor could they really justify keeping Esther away from a monster that clearly they’d both sensed the presence of, although they made one more token objection as they reached the back door. “Aren’t you a little young for the whole magical girl thing anyway?”
Esther huffed indignantly. “I mean, a monster crashed my bat mitzvah and I had to fight it, I think that counts for something.”
Blair was pretty sure that did not in fact count for anything, but also they were way too lapsed Methodist to feel comfortable arguing the point. “Whatever. Just don’t get yourself hurt, I don’t have any healing abilities,” they said, holding the door open for her. “Give me a moment, I need to suit up.”
When their transformation sequence had first shifted, Blair had been surprised how simple the new Sunset Knight transformation was. Princess Sunset had been elaborate and overwrought, a multitude of tiny details and dramatic poses; Sunset Knight’s sequence was barely three seconds long, flannel fading into mail, and then armor and sword glowing into existence. A moment later, Blair was on their feet again, grinning with the brief wash of euphoria that the magic always brought with it.
“Dang, you’ve got a cape now,” Magic Fighter Star✧Strike breathed. “That is so cool.”
“Not bad, huh?” Sunset Knight agreed, propping their sword against their shoulder. The cape in question fluttered in the light evening breeze, as the colors of the sunset sky glinted off the wet pavement. “Let’s go kick some monster butt.”
The monster, it turned out, was perched on top of a bus shelter two blocks away.
“Do they usually… hybridize like that?” Blair wondered, studying the monster from a safe distance. The serpentine, winged form was definitely typical of one of their own common adversaries – but the glowing, shifting galaxy patterns across its scales marked it as one of the space-themed monsters that the Star Squad encountered frequently.
“I don’t know, you’ve been doing this longer than me!” Esther hissed back. “I usually don’t team up outside my team, unless you count Nova! And she doesn’t magic anymore!”
“Ok, ok,” Blair said. “I guess it’s still a dragon. If it’s like mine, magic weapons should do fine against it.”
“Right. Yeah. Magic.”
“Esther, that hammer you’re carrying is part of your magical girl thing, right?”
“Uhhh...” Esther didn’t deny it, exactly, but she took long enough not denying it that Blair kind of figured that was their answer.
“Esther!”
“Not everyone has a special magic weapon as part of their transformation, ok?” she demanded, and Sparkle added, “The hammer’s full of truth! And realness!”
“That’s not anything, I don’t think,” Blair said.
“Yeah, no, probably not,” Esther agreed reluctantly. “I mean, it is a couple of pounds of solid steel on a wooden handle. It’s still pretty good for hitting things with.”
Blair did some rapid mental arithmetic of dragon versus totally unmagical blunt instrument and also of their own willingness to face the irritation and disappointment of Esther’s mentor if literally anything went wrong. “Ok, look, I know you’re the tank of your little team, but you are not getting in close quarters with that thing,” they hissed.
“Blair!” Esther objected, managing to draw the name out to the same cadence as Sparkle whined, “Sunset Knight!”
“Seriously. You can be like, the distraction or something,” Blair insisted. “But I know my sword’s gonna take that thing out, and I have no idea if some hammer you found somewhere will have any real effect. So be the bait or go home.”
Esther pouted. Down the street, the dragon stretched its wings, dark against the fading sunset. Blair gave their temporary teammate a stern look.
“Ok. Fine. Meanie,” Esther conceded. “I get to yell at it, though, right?”
“...yes. You get to yell at it,” Blair agreed.
They had kind of assumed that there would be more strategizing involved, and was a little taken aback when the thirteen-year-old just took off toward the monster, trailing a scattering of starlight as she picked up speed. Blair sighed, and hurried to keep up, glad that whatever magical stuff their costume was made of, it didn’t restrict their breathing the way their mundane binder did.
Esther kept to her word, though, stopping at the curb on the opposite corner to wave her arms and start shouting at the dragon. Blair was thankful that the streets were almost eerily quiet, although they were pretty sure that they saw movement at some of the windows in nearby buildings. So much for no one noticing that they were out superheroing this evening; Blair didn’t expect anyone to interfere, especially if they wrapped this up quickly, but there was a good chance that word would get back to their aunt, and fast. They weren’t sure how public Esther was with her magical girl identity, but they’d been less that subtle with their alter ego.
The dragon spread its wings and took off, in a motion that only mostly seemed consistent with its apparent mass. Esther turned on her heel and started running away, with the raccoon weaving around her ankles in a way that made Blair wonder how she didn’t trip. Not that they wondered long; with a dragon to fight, they put the question quickly out of their mind. They planted their feet and raised their sword, staring down the rapidly approaching starry monster. As they’d suspected, the creature seemed entirely focused on its quarry; if its galaxy theme was any indication, it was as attuned to Esther as it was to them, and their monsters tended to be fairly single-minded. For a moment, they were afraid that the creature wouldn’t be within stabbing range – but even forbidden to actually engage, Esther had good instincts for drawing a monster where she wanted it, and she ducked behind Blair, placing them firmly between her and the dragon.
Just as they liked it.
“At thee, foul beast,” they growled through gritted teeth, the words drawn out by the same instincts that guided their actions while transforming, and as the dragon swooped down, Blair drove their blade through the creature’s chest.
The starry patterns across the dragon’s hide flared brighter for a brief moment, and then it seemed to dissolve in a rush of wind that ruffled Blair’s hair and set their cape flapping behind them.
A moment later, there was nothing left of the monster but a faint coating of shimmering stardust across Blair’s sword, and a brief clattering rain of something onto the sidewalk at their feet. Esther hurried to gather up the fallen items as Blair wiped off the sword on the lining of their cape.
“Here, you take some!” she said, holding out a couple of what appeared to be claws.
“What are they?” Blair asked, a little suspiciously; usually, their monsters didn’t drop loot.
“Meteorites!” Esther explained, and sure enough, when Blair accepted the claws, they certainly seemed to be made of dark, pitted iron – although the tips were more than sharp enough to make them glad that the dragon hadn’t gotten in clawing range of either of them. “Our monsters keep leaving them behind. We haven’t figured out if they’re for anything, yet, but they’re cool.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Blair agreed, as Esther put the rest of the fallen claws into her pockets; Blair’s own costume didn’t have pockets, which suddenly felt like a pretty significant oversight, so they just palmed the ones they’d been given. “Thanks.”
“Soooo… team up again some time?” Esther asked.
Blair sighed, casting their eyes up at the fading sunset colors. Nova was going to tear them a new one for taking the kid along to fight a dragon, they were sure, and usually they fought alone. But it had been kind of fun working as a team. “Maybe. I guess. If you bring the other Stars, no more of this ‘two melee fighters and no support’ nonsense.”