Celestial Sonata

"Form ranks!"

"Fire!"

I smirked.

"Wrong move, boys."

I danced out of the way as a stream of bullets and bolts of fire streaked through the air where my head would've been, just narrowly missing me by inches. I darted forward in a streak of gold and pink light, my body becoming a blur as I rushed them down. My first attack was aimed at the centermost figure. He went flying backwards from my front kick. His weapon clattered to the ground and skittered away, and his armor was cracked. The next two fell just as easily.

They were trained well, but there was only so much regular security forces could do against an elite Magical Girl.

"Whoops!" I teased as I sidestepped an incoming volley of bullets, before rushing in and dropping my assailant with a clothesline. "You'll have to do better than that."

I didn't bother trying to talk sense or negotiate. Time wasn't exactly on our side, so I'd decided to take the initiative.

I charged at them with a grin, weaving through their gunfire with an ease that almost seemed unfair, and I began to dance.

They tried to fight back. A hailstorm of bullets, plasma, and flame roared from the barrels of over a dozen different guns, all aimed directly at me.

But none of them hit their mark. None even got close.

...

"Are we done here?" I asked with a smirk, standing over a pile of battered and groaning men.

"Damn monster!" One of the guards spat blood on the floor and glared up at me from the floor, his face a mask of fury. He looked pretty young - maybe somewhere in his early to mid twenties, with olive skin, green eyes, and crimson red spiky hair.

I sighed, and my expression softened a bit.

"You're right," I said, kneeling down and meeting his gaze. "Well... You aren't wrong. But I'm not the monster here."

His expression twisted into confusion.

"I just do what I think is right, and try to keep innocent people from being hurt."

I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him close, my voice turning hard.

"And right now? What you and the others in this company have been doing here is really, really, really fudging wrong. And that's making me a bit cranky."

The man tried to pull away from my grasp, but I tightened it.

"You and your buddies are going to get me in touch with whoever is in charge, and you are going to release your hostages. If you refuse, well... I've been playing nice up until now, but things could start getting real ugly."

The man spat at my face, which I deflected with a brief spark of magic and an eyeroll.

I narrowed my eyes, and his expression turned into one of pure terror as I hoisted him into the air by his collar with a single hand and floated off the ground. His legs kicked feebly in mid-air as I brought him close to my face.

"Look. You've seen what I can do. There are two options here. You can cooperate with me and help these poor, defenseless people that you and the company you serve have wronged. You'll have the excuse of... just doing your job. Maybe some of the people who hired you threatened your families. That is option one. Option two? You can all keep trying to kill me. It won't work, and you'll just be making things even harder for yourselves when my friends come. The people you kidnapped and turned into slaves? Their friends, family, loved ones? They won't have any sympathy for you. You'll be thrown in a cold, dark cell and forgotten about. Is that really how you want this to end for yourself?"

The man looked like he wanted to spit in my face again, but he hesitated.

"So, what's it gonna be?" I asked sweetly, tilting my head.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even move.

"Are we going to have a problem, or will you comply with me? Will you help me save these people?"

He clenched his jaw and averted his eyes. After a moment, his shoulders slumped.

"...No," he said. "W-We'll do as you ask."

I smiled brightly at him, and set him back on his feet, binding his wrists with a coiled band of golden magic.

"That's a good boy."

My face hardened and my tone went from cheery to serious in a heartbeat. "Don't make me regret that choice."

The man flinched, averting his eyes. He looked like he wanted to fight, like he had the will to resist, but his heart just wasn't in it anymore. He nodded weakly, and I turned to the other men, most of whom had already picked themselves off of the floor.

"Now then. I've had to fight through an awful lot of your guys today, and I've had to play whack a mole. I'm pretty sick of having to fight you, and I'm guessing you're sick of the suspense and the waiting. You know you can't stop me, and the only reason you haven't been wiped out is because I've been playing nice. And guess what? I've called in reinforcements too. So, are we all on the same page?"

I glared at the battered and bruised men, my gaze icy and my voice hard as I looked each one in the eye with my arms crossed. They nodded slowly and muttered affirmatives, all eyes cast down in defeat. The ones that still had their weapons threw them to the side, and they stood down.

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I quickly snapped my fingers, binding all their wrists together with coils of glowing gold and rose-colored energy.

"Excellent," I said, smiling. "Now. Where can I find the rest of these lovely men and women of science you kidnapped and enslaved?"

"R-right this way, miss," the guard I'd talked to stammered. I motioned him forward, and the rest followed him in an orderly fashion.

The guards led me down the hall, turning to the right, then left. I hummed as I yanked on a few of the energy chains to keep them in line.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "I forgot to mention. If any of you think you can pull one over on me and call for help from the rest of the building? Just know that I'm the only one in this facility with any desire to be diplomatic. The rest of the people who are here? They aren't with me, but they're probably not going to give you the same courtesy that I've been extending to you."

The guard I'd directly interrogated spoke up, his voice shaky. "W-What?"

"I'm here to save people and stop whatever is going on in this facility. The people here have been taken against their will and I'm going to free them. Those people, though? My... support team has informed me they're carrying bombs and intend to destroy this facility, along with everyone in it."

He looked a little worried about that, and I looked at the other men pointedly.

"What the hell, man?"

"I didn't sign up to get blown up!"

"Are we going to die?"

I giggled.

"If you don't try and screw us over, then we can all come out of this happy, and you guys don't have to go all boom boom. I promise that my associates will deal with them. You'll just have to cooperate with me and let yourself be placed in police custody. Who knows, we could even be friends one day!"

This whole flighty bubbly act was a performance, at the end of the day.

It was exhausting, honestly. Be a little silly and cute, make them think you aren't a threat.

I mean, it was a part of my personality. The real me. Just exaggerated, a show for my audience. It was easy to play into the stereotype, but sometimes it really wore on me. Especially when the situation was such a mess like this one.

It was all I had, though, to put on this facade of happiness.

Because if I let the mask slip, even for just a moment? I'd be in tears. Maybe I'd even find myself flying off and blowing up a deserted island.

The thought that a place like this could exist in my home city? The place I'd been living for nearly half a year now?

The people that lived here had trusted in magical girls. They'd trusted us to protect them.

And still, they were being sapped of their life and vitality in the place that we called home. This was supposed to be a refuge, not a place of exploitation.

It was an outrage.

I'd seen how these people had lived today, just going through their day-to-day lives.

It was all a lie, a farce.

My thoughts were racing. I felt sick to my stomach, my chest tight.

The fact that this was a front company, owned by Z & P... that made this all so, so much worse.

Z & P was a massive entity. A multi-national megacorporation with a global reach. And if they were in on it, that meant it was bigger than one building or even one city.

What had happened to that company?

How far did it spread? How far had this corruption reached since the ousting of Zamir?

And was there anything that I could possibly do about it?

The fact that the people of this company could even have the audacity to do something like this nowadays...

"Miss...?"

"Sonata?"

The sound of Amelia running up from the back snapped me out of it, and I turned to her. She was with four other researchers we'd liberated from their cells.

I smiled at them.

"Sorry," I mumbled, feeling embarrassed at my lapse in focus.

"It's okay, you've been fighting all night," Amelia replied kindly, patting me on the shoulder. "Are you sure you don't need to take a break? Maybe sit down?"

Had it been that obvious? I had been kind of zoned out, I suppose.

"No, I'm okay. I just spaced out for a second," I replied, shaking my head. "But thank you."

I felt a rush of gratitude towards the scientist.

She smiled softly and nodded her head. The guard I'd interrogated looked at me, then at her.

Then he sighed.

"We separated the researchers into six separate groups and had them working on separate projects," the 'lead' guard explained. "They were the most important part of this operation. We have other teams on standby throughout the facility."

"I see," I mused, crossing my arms. "So you've been holding these scientists hostage, making them work for you."

"...Yeah."

"And they've been doing what now? Why are you guys doing this?"

"It's been dished out on a need-to-know basis. None of us are high up enough to know anything."

"Of course. You're just doing what they told you, right?" I sighed, and turned back to the man, my eyes narrowed in irritation. "Tell you what, why don't we stop beating around the bush, and you just take me to your boss. Then maybe I won't be so mad."

I glared at the guards, my eyes flashing dangerously. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously.

"And if he doesn't know anything... well, he has to report to someone, doesn't he? Who is the person in charge of the facility?"

I was met with silence, and I let out a frustrated huff. "You can tell me now, or I can just go beat up all your co-workers, one after another, until someone tells me. Or, y'know, we could wait until one of the people attacking this building decides to level the place. I'm sure I'll be fine, but you'll all die, and probably the people you've been kidnapping."

They all looked at each other nervously, and the guard I'd been talking to swallowed again.

"His name's Narek. Narek Arakelyan. He's our commanding officer, in charge of security for this building," the guard explained with a sigh. "He'll know more than we do."

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Lead me to him, and don't try to pull anything funny," I growled, crossing my arms as my voice went low. "I'm a lot nicer than my associates. We don't like it when bad people hurt good people. Kapeesh?"

He nodded, his face going pale.

I smiled sweetly. "Good boy."

I gestured with a tilt of my head, and he led us further into the facility, his shoulders hunched as though he were expecting a beating. I followed him with my bound group of men and my rescued hostages, keeping a close eye on them as we walked.

Soon, we arrived at a series of labs with big glass windows. There were researchers working on some sort of equipment, their movements sluggish and mechanical.

As we got closer, I saw one researcher in a room by himself, hunched over a table. He seemed to be writing furiously, his hands shaking. The others around him continued working without looking up. They all looked exhausted, and their eyes had a glassy quality to them. They weren't even looking where they were going. It was almost like... a dream.

I narrowed my eyes, scanning the lab. And then I saw him, standing off in a corner. A tall, broad-shouldered figure. He wore the same uniform as the other guards, but with broader shoulderpads and a badge on a lanyard I couldn't make out from a distance. He had tanned skin, and a shaved head with a thick silver mustache.

He had a scar that ran from his hairline to his jawline. It gave him an intimidating look that fit perfectly with the aura he was putting out. I noticed as the guard I'd been talking to flinched visibly.

"Is that the guy?" I asked the guard who'd led us to this set of labs.

"Y-Yeah," he said.

"Okay," I hummed. I turned to Amelia. "Grab the other researchers and stay back. Just like before."

The five of them nodded in affirmation and quickly ran back where we came from, while the bound security personnel looked between their superior and me.

I cracked my knuckles with a grin, and kicked the door to the labs down with a loud bang. It was made out of heavy steel, and it flew off its hinges with a satisfying crash.

The big guy turned, looking at me in confusion for a moment, before recognition set in. Followed by dread. There were seven or eight other guards, who all drew their guns on me.

"Knock knock! ♪" I said in a sing-song voice as I strutted into the lab. "Hello there, Mr. Arakelly... Araki-yan? Eh. Forgive the pronunciation. Anyway, it's me. Celest—"

I cut myself off as they opened fire, even with their own men standing behind me. I raised my hands, summoning a golden shield in front of me, deflecting the onslaught with ease.

I huffed in exasperation, shaking my head.

"Really? Why do they always do it the hard way..."

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