Luster Red could hear almost nothing over the sound of the bells chiming as she stood at the top of the huge clock tower and faced down her nemesis. She was surrounded by a hundred leering clock faces, each one registering a different time and yet sounding in eerie unison, a temporal paradox the magical girl had long since stopped trying to make sense of. The only mercy Luster Red—or Naomi Kanaka, as most knew her—found in the din was that it stopped her from hearing the pounding of her own fearful heart or the mocking laughter of Lady Kaira, the time-warping villainess she had come to stop.

Yes, Luster Red was afraid. After all, Lady Kaira’s countless minions had incapacitated all four of her teammates, leaving her to fight alone against the darkness. But fear wasn’t all that she felt. Luster Red summoned up all the rest—all her hope, all her justice, all her love and loyalty for her friends—and let them shine out from her in a gentle, luminous glow that, somehow, held even Lady Kaira’s darkness at bay.

“Lady Kaira!” Luster Red cried, ribbons and pigtails billowing dramatically as she adopted her signature pose. “Prepare to face the sparkling light of justice!”

Beyond the reach of her magic’s glow, the shadows were thick and oppressive—and amid them stood Lady Kaira. A demonic being from another world on the threshold of apotheosis, she was beginning to shed her mortal form like a moth discarding its cocoon. Its corporeal boundaries seemed to fray with the dimming of the light, and from her protruded long, reaching, shadowy tentacles that were slick and wet with an unearthly vileness. All the same, she was unnaturally beautiful; tall, willowy, shapely, and with a forceful seductiveness that Lady Kaira often put to good use. Her face, too, was captivating, even as her eyes shimmered with impossible colors and her malicious grin stretched far, far too wide for any human face.

“Foolish girl,” Lady Kaira cackled, seeming to grow in stature as she brought her strength to bear against Luster Red. “Just like your insipid friends, you will fail and you will-“ She broke off and hissed abruptly as the glow around Luster Red surged, repelling her shadows. “Impossible!”

“No.” Luster Red shook her head slowly, bringing her fist to her chest. “With love, everything is possible.”

“But how can one girl have such strength?”

“Because it’s not all mine.”

Luster Red opened her fist. In the palm of her hand, floated not merely her own spark—but five. Five magical gems, each one the source of a magical girl’s power, orbiting one another like stars. Yes, her friends had fallen to Lady Kaira and her army of mindless, uniformed grunts, but they had bequeathed their magic to Luster Red, their leader.

And she wasn’t going to let them down.

“Minions!” Lady Kaira screeched. “Defend me!”

Half a dozen women leapt forward from behind her. Each wore a skin-tight, sleek, shiny,  black, rubber uniform on their bodies—emblazoned, of course, with the symbol of their mistress—and a look of mindless, slavish devotion on their faces. Luster Red wasn’t sure where Lady Kaira got her grunts from. She just knew they were completely brainwashed and surprisingly strong.

After a few well-placed blows and magical blasts, they were left lying on the ground in a heap.

Lady Kaira hissed venomously. “More!”

“There are no more,” Luster Red informed her. The glow surrounding her was brighter than ever. “You’re alone, Lady Kaira. This is the end.”

The final battle. The final confrontation. Luster Red had been scared of this for so long, even though she tried not to show it. She wasn’t scared anymore. Her friends were all lying unconscious, but they were still with her. She could do this.

“You are nothing,” Lady Kaira spat, but she coiled her tentacles back around herself defensively. “I hold mastery over time itself. I can change the timeline with a snap of my fingers. Take one step toward me and I’ll make it so you were never even born!”

Luster Red took the step.

“Empty threats,” the magical girl retorted, when nothing happened. “You’re not as strong as you pretend to be, Lady Kaira. I can see right through you. If you can wipe me out as easily as that, why didn’t you do it a long time ago?”

Lady Kaira said nothing, but the livid, mutinous look on her face let Luster Red know she was on the right track.

“Just now, I figured it out,” she went on. “It’s because there are some things you simply can’t change. I’d always heard that becoming a magical girl was fate. I didn’t realize how true that was. Me getting this power… that’s fate, isn’t it? You can’t change it. Which means you can’t stop me.”

It was true. She could feel it. It was funny; Naomi had spent so much time doubting herself. Doubting that she deserved to be Luster Red. That she deserved to be the leader her friends needed. But now she knew. It was written in the stars.

How could she possibly lose?

“I grew up,” Luster Red began slowly, “in a poor neighborhood on the South Side, watching shows and news reports about magical girls with stars in my eyes. I grew out of it, but then, when I was seventeen and feeling lost and confused, I joined a silly little magical girl fan forum online, and I realized that looking up to magical girls could help me find my way.”

The light shining from within her grew. It was a blaze. It held the darkness at bay.

“I always struggled with being shy,” Luster Red went on, “but on my first day of college at Juban U, I decided to be brave just like my magical girl heroes and reach out to some of the other girls. It was the best decision I ever made. Now, we’re the best of friends—and ever since graduation day, when our magical girl sparks chose us, we’ve been fighting at each other’s sides.”

She took another step forward. The light moved with her, beating back Lady Kaira’s shadows. Even the deafening clocks all around them seemed to grow quiet.

“Now, I just turned twenty-three. I’ve been a magical girl for two years. I’m not a shy, uncertain little girl anymore. I’m a hero. I’m a leader. I am Naomi Kanaka—Luster Red!” Luster Red dropped into a fighting stance and smiled the brilliant, gentle, confident smile that had soothed the hearts of so many she’d saved. “And in the name of all that is light and good, I’ll punish you!”

It felt good to make that little speech. To gather up all her convictions, and the life that had led her to them, and fix them firmly in her mind. Now more than ever, Luster Red felt ready to confront Lady Kaira.

Until the supernatural villainess threw back her head and howled with mocking, cruel laughter.

“W-what’s so funny?” Luster Red asked. She no longer sounded quite so firm.

“You foolish girl!” Lady Kaira crowed. “You’ve just given me exactly what I need.”

Luster Red’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

“You’re right that you’re destined to be a magical girl,” Lady Kaira conceded. “I can’t stop that from happening. But you’d be surprised by just how little that really means. No; what was keeping you safe was simply that I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know when to go back to, or how best to change your timeline. But you’ve just given me everything I could possibly ask for, in a single, self-righteous little instruction manual.”

At once, all the blood drained from Luster Red’s.

“No, wait!” she cried, and surged forward, fists blazing with crimson magic. She had to end this. She had to stop Lady Kaira before she could-

Luster Red hadn’t made it a single step before Lady Kaira raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

***

Naomi Kanaka couldn’t help but blush as she clicked on the link to the magical girl forum. Seventeen really was too old to be so into magical girls, wasn’t it? Sure, everybody knew that they were out there, fighting bad guys and keeping people safe, but none of the other students at Naomi’s high school seemed to spend very much time thinking about magical girls. They were passé. A childish fascination. Something you were meant to grow out of.

Not for Naomi.

But then, she’d never been much like those other girls. Naomi was awkward, gangly, uncertain, and shy. She wasn’t pretty. She had a strong sense of justice, but it never seemed to do anything but get her into trouble. Naomi was isolated. She was alone.

No, worse than that—she was nothing. She didn’t know who she was, or how to define herself. Naomi felt like a ghost. She drifted through her daily life, and nobody else seemed to actually see her. Naomi was beginning to doubt that there was anything for them to see.

Amid her teenage depression, as part of her quest to figure out who she was, Naomi had decided to turn to the one thing she knew that, deep down, she’d always loved most: magical girls. Naomi had grown up on magical girl stories, glued to the news for the slightest hope of catching footage of a magical girl in action. As embarrassing as it was, it was a passion, and Naomi was hoping that reaching out to connect with other people with the same passion might help her feel less alone.

Naomi created an account on www.magigirlsuperfans-forum.com and logged in. She was just about to start browsing discussion topics when her browser was lit up with a notification. It was a direct message! Excited, Naomi clicked to view it:

LadyK: Hello Naomi. Let me show you around.

Naomi shivered. Someone was actually messaging her! It felt amazing—even if she was a little unsure how ‘LadyK’ knew her name. Maybe it was on her profile somewhere. She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t going to let her uncertainty stop her from connecting with a fellow fan.

Kanana99: omg hi! yes please!! was just gonna write a lil introduction in the newcomers thread but then I’d love that <3

The reply came right away:

LadyK: Don’t bother with that. I have something much more exciting for you to see. Click this.

She sent a link along with the message. Naomi was cautious, of course—but this stranger was being so friendly. She didn’t want to put them off. So, she clicked the link. To her surprise, she was taken to a small sub-forum she didn’t seem to have access to before, and when her eyes scanned over the thread topics and preview images, they widened in scandalized disbelief.

It was porn. All of it. She had been linked to a sub-forum for sharing magical girl porn.

Naomi’s cheeks burned—but she didn’t look away. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. She’d had fantasies about magical girls for as long as she could remember. Naomi had always chalked it up as an outgrowth of her childhood fascination. She’d never told anyone, though. It had always seemed so shameful. But if there was an entire community of people just like her…

Kanana99: wow, um… wow. this is really something ><
           LadyK: That’s right. Much more interesting than a bunch of insipid, upbeat fawning don’t you think?

Naomi wasn’t so sure about that. She loved fawning over her favorite heroes, after all. But before she could register a protest, she received another message:

LadyK: Did you see this thread?

Another link. Naomi clicked and found herself staring at a long thread devoted entirely to, of all things, villainesses—and more particularly, to their minions. There was post after post of masked, uniformed grunts, photography and artwork, most of them dressed in the kind of shiny, skin-tight that, for some reason, villainesses seemed to favor. And all of it was shamelessly, scandalously erotic.

As she scrolled through the pages, Naomi’s eyes just kept widening. Her lips were parted breathlessly. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She couldn’t believe how it was making her feel. It was as if something was being awakened inside her. She’d thought about magical girls before, yes, but not about villains. Not about grunts.

But it made so much sense. Hadn’t she always idolized them as much as the magical girls, in her own way? Hadn’t there always been a delicious stirring in her stomach whenever she’d seen a powerful, beautiful villainess crowing over a defeated hero, or cruelly punishing her weak underlings?

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t it getting her shamelessly hot and bothered?

Another message. Naomi glanced at the chat window:

LadyK: Haven’t you ever wondered what it must feel like to be one of those lowly, brainwashed grunts, utterly loyal and devoted to your glorious, domineering mistress?

Naomi wasn’t sure she had—but she certainly was now. She kept scrolling, and it was all she could think about. With each moment that passed, the idea cemented itself deeper into her young, impressionable mind. It was the uniforms—sleek, tight, shiny. It was the brainwashing—twisted, evil, all-consuming. It was the loyalty—the sense of purpose, of devotion, unshakeable. It was the punishment, even; being subjected to the cruel, sadistic whims of an all-powerful villainess. And so many of them were just so, so beautiful…

Before she knew it, Naomi’s fantasies with stained through in a new, dark color. And being an evil villainess’s brainwashed, devoted slave was all she could think about.

Just barely, she managed to shake herself out of her dreamy stupor so that she could reply to her new friend, but when she looked, the chat seemed to have closed. Naomi tried to navigate to LadyK’s profile, but she couldn’t find it. It was like it had never existed at all.

Her new friend was gone. But somehow, Naomi wasn’t dismayed. Right in front of her eyes, on this sub-forum full of porn, were hundreds more new friends to meet. Naomi had found herself. She had found her people. Sure, it was a little embarrassing that her people were a collection of villainess-loving perverts, but her newfound sense of euphoria was more than enough to blot that out.

Without a second thought, Naomi returned to scrolling through the forum thread about villainess grunts, and let her hand gradually stray between her thighs.

***

Luster Red’s head throbbed dangerously. It wasn’t just the sound of the bells of Lady Kaira’s clocks as they rang out discordantly around her. It was the sensation of her own memories warping and distending as her own past was rewritten.

"You… that was… you?” Luster Red asked, overcome with desperate confusion. “On the f-forum… but… but that didn’t happen? But I…”

“I assure you, it most certainly did,” Lady Kaira laughed. Her eyes shone with an unnatural, crimson glow that made her seem more inhuman than ever. “Now that I’ve inserted myself into your timeline.”

“No!” Luster Red gasped.

But there was no denying it. As she strained against the pain to look clearly at her foe, Luster Red could see the entire world shifting around her—rippling, like disturbed water across the surface of the pond. The walls, the floor, the sky outside—all of it. Lady Kaira stood alone at the very center of the ripples, untouched by them, her very presence the source of the temporal corruption Luster Red was witnessing.

And she was so unbelievably hot.

Beautiful. Sinister. Evil. Monstrous. Perfect. All those words and many more came into Luster Red’s mind as she stared dumbstruck at Lady Kaira. Perfect most of all. She was exactly Luster Red’s type, to a truly embarrassing, flustering degree. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before.

No, wait, she thought to herself. Noticed… before? But it hadn’t been true before… had it? Luster Red wasn’t sure. She couldn’t keep the two timelines straight, as they overlapped in her head. The truth—the original truth—was rapidly slipping through her grasp. Luster Red clasped at her head and groaned as she struggled to remember.

She remembered plastering her college dorm with posters of villainesses. She remembered embracing her fantasies about being turned into a brainwashed minion every time she needed to get off. She remembered blushing from the irony when she’d been chosen to become a magical girl. She remembered how flustered she’d always been whenever she and her friends had found themselves fighting against Lady Kaira and her schemes.

Always?

Yes, always.

Luster Red blushed deeply as she tried to look directly at Lady Kaira without letting her attraction show. This was no time for the lurid fantasies that threatened to flood her head. She was in danger. Extreme danger. Shamefully, after just a few seconds, she was overcome by how hot her nemesis was and had to avert her gaze. Glancing down at Lady Kaira’s prone, latex-clad minions did little to help her plight. All it did was add a flicker of envy to Luster Red’s churning emotions.

“Luster Red,” Lady Kaira purred, extending her shadowy tendrils toward the magical girl. “Naomi. Consider this: join me. I’ll even spare your friends.”

Luster Red hated the way she shivered with pleasure as she saw those tentacles drip with unholy ichor.

“J… join you?” she whimpered.

The time-warping ripples were beginning to ebb. As they did, Luster Red noticed the skirt of her magical girl costume retreat several inches and her blouse tighten noticeably around her chest. She recalled once being told that the state of her costume reflected the purity of her heart. So much for that, then.

Moments later, she stopped thinking about it at all. After all, her costume had always been that way.

“Just think about it,” Lady Kaira implored. “I can tell you have a certain… longing for the dark side. A certain yearning for the boot of a powerful woman such as myself. I promise you, you would be perfectly at home amongst my minions.”

Luster Red gasped—and, against her will, started to drool a little. How did she know? Then, she caught what, exactly, Lady Kaira’s piercing gaze was directed at. As a gust of wind blew through the clock tower Luster Red’s skirt had lifted slightly, exposing her hip. And on it, as the very last temporal ripples faded, there appeared a small, black tattoo of the crest of Queen Nelenia—one of the most infamous villainesses of all time.

Luster Red blushed even deeper than before. She had gotten that tattoo on impulse, and she still didn’t regret it. It felt amazingly sinful, after all. But it certainly did make her costume’s short skirt even more embarrassing.

In light of that, the magical girl certainly couldn’t deny that Lady Kaira’s words had a ring of truth to them. Luster Red had always felt the allure of the dark. Ever since she’d developed her shameful little erotic fixation on villainesses and their minions at a crucial, formative moment. Even now, fantasies of corruption and submission clung to her. But that was just one part of what made Naomi Kanaka the girl she was.

And the rest of it was far, far more important.

“No way.” Luster Red steeled herself, and held Lady Kaira’s gaze. “I would never betray my friends like that! They’re my strength. They put their faith in me when they chose me as their leader. I won’t let them down!”

“Your friends, hm?” Far from dismayed by Luster Red’s refusal, Lady Kaira seemed only to be gleefully contemplating further malice. “Then it sounds like that’s where I should go next. College, yes?”

“No!” Luster Red cried desperately, as she realized what was about to happen. “Stop!”

Once again, Lady Kaira snapped her fingers.

***

Naomi Kanaka couldn’t resist the urge to clasp her arms around herself and make herself small as she peered around the corner to where the small group of four other freshman girls were talking. It was her first week of college and, so far, she had met absolutely nobody. It had been just as bad as she had feared. Naomi was simply too shy. Too introverted. She didn’t know how to get to know people. She’d tried looking for advice online, but it hadn’t helped.

‘Connect via mutual interests?’ How was she supposed to do that, exactly, when her main interest was fantasizing about evil villainesses?

Just around the corner from her, though, four other freshmen were getting to know each other. At first blush, they didn’t seem to have much in common, but it was clear that a shared desire for fellowship was bringing them together as they traded names, opinions, and stories. All of them seemed so nice and welcoming. It would be so easy to simply walk up to them, introduce herself, and ask if she could join in.

Except that for Naomi, it seemed like the hardest thing in the world.

Anxiety tied a bitter knot inside her. No matter how hard she tried to muster her courage, Naomi simply couldn’t quite bring herself to head around the corner.

What would her heroes do? That was what Naomi normally reached for when she was trying to motivate herself. Only, in this situation, it didn’t really help. Nowadays, all of her ‘heroes’ were cruel, evil villainesses. They didn’t care about making friends.

“What are you doing, Miss Kanaka?”

The strange voice, laced with abundant authority and sadism, made Naomi jump as she wheeled around to face whoever was speaking to her. She was about to cry out from the shock, but when she saw the woman looming over her, her voice died away into speechless awe.

The woman was tall. Impossibly tall, even. Her hair and clothes were jet black and her skin deathly pale, and her face was somehow terrifying. It was somehow as if she was puppeting herself, moving and holding her own body in an odd, disjointed reminiscent of no actual person. Her eyes, with their cold, red glow, seemed to betray her awful, inner truth, and the shadows clung to her in ways Naomi could not make sense of, wrapping around her like a cloak one moment, and the next, extending from her in a way that gave the impression of reaching, surging, dripping tendrils.

Naomi shivered. It was almost like she was speaking to a villainess.

But it couldn’t be, of course. There was just no way a supernatural villainess would be at Naomi’s college, talking to her.

That was simply too good to be true.

“C-can I help you?” Naomi squeaked, before something occurred. “I-I-I mean, um… who are you? H-how do you know my name?”

Speaking to her wasn’t easy. Between anxiety and attraction, Naomi found herself almost completely tongue-tied. Villainess or no, this woman was exactly her type. Embarrassingly so.

“Oh, I have a position here,” the woman told her, smirking. “You can call me… Professor Kaira.”

“P-p-professor!” Naomi squealed, turning bright red. “I’m s-s-sorry for being so r-rude!”

Instinctively, she bowed her head. She wanted to do much more than just that, of course. She wanted to throw herself on her knees before this dark goddess. To kiss her feet. To worship her. To beg and plead for praise and punishment.

Surreptitiously, Naomi pinched herself. She needed to get a grip. And perhaps she needed to limit her consumption of villainess porn a little.

“I came to fetch you,” Professor Kaira announced, laughing faintly at the look on Naomi’s face. “You’re late for your first training session, Miss Kanaka.”

"My… first…?” Naomi paled. She had no idea what the sinister professor was talking about.

“Fortunately, you’re almost in the right place. Over here.”

Professor Kaira took Naomi by the arm and, before the freshman could mount another protest, hauled her through an adjacent door and into a nearby practice room. Naomi’s confusion doubled when she saw practice mats all over the floor, and burly students wearing tight-fitting uniforms and protective headgear. She shook her head. No way. There had to be some mistake.

There was absolutely no way a girl like her had been signed up for the college wrestling team.

“Well?” Professor Kaira beckoned, smirking. “What are you waiting for?”

“I…” Naomi spluttered weakly. She wanted to protest, but Professor Kaira’s presence was overpowering. It was so hard to go against her. “B-but… I think…”

“Kanaka?” came a rough, commanding voice from inside. It was the coach, by the looks of it, bellowing in their direction. “That you? Get your ass in here! You’re late already!”

Another shivering pang speared Naomi’s stomach. Once again, her weakness for domineering women was proving to be her undoing. She felt herself bowing instinctively to the coach’s instruction, even though it was clear there had been some kind of awful mistake.

“Uh… um…” she replied nervously, already stepping forward. “B-but I have class in just a few-“

“Don’t worry about that,” the coach interrupted impatiently. “I’ll give you more than enough sports credits to make up for a little spotty attendance. You’re here to be an athlete, not a nerd.”

“Well…”

Naomi wasn’t so sure about that. While never close to the top of the class, she’d always been decidedly on the nerd side of the jock spectrum. She didn’t fit in very well with athletes, and she’d always needed plenty of study time to get her head around difficult concepts. Joining the wrestling team and skipping classes was definitely going to take a toll on her brains and her grades.

But what if that wasn’t such a bad thing?

Suddenly, Naomi saw this weird mishap for what it was: a blessing in disguise. She would never have joined the wrestling team on her own, but wasn’t it a great way to meet people? A chance to make something out of her college years? Naomi had promised herself that when she made it to college, she’d start saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ to chances and opportunities. Seize the day!

Besides, now that she was looking at them, those tight-fitting wrestling squad uniforms were really, really hot. Not quite latex, but close enough to stroke Naomi’s kinks.

“Hurry up!” the coach bellowed. She was a burly, middle-aged woman, attractive in her own coarse, severe way. Naomi could get used to letting a woman like that order her around. “We need to get you on the mat and see what you can do. A scrawny little thing like you is gonna need to do some serious bulking up. I don’t tolerate half-assing, understood?”

“Y-yes, coach!” Naomi replied. Despite herself, she was smiling. She could already tell. This was going to be a good thing for her, even if it wasn’t what she’d expected from her first week as a freshman.

A new path. A new lifestyle. But she had already made her decision to embrace it wholeheartedly.

Naomi turned briefly so that she could thank the professor who had directed her there—but Professor Kaira was nowhere to be found. Naomi was only a little disappointed. She’d have to keep an eye out. There was something fun about having a crush on a cruel older woman in a position of authority.

Just before she turned back so that she could step across the threshold and join the wrestling team, Naomi cast a single, longing glance at the group of freshman girls she’d been eyeing before. They looked to be headed off somewhere together—to the canteen, maybe, or to a lecture. Away from her. Naomi was sorry to see them go. They had seemed like a lovely group. But Naomi didn’t need them. She’d found her place, and she had no regrets.

She was going to spend her college years as a meathead, spending time pumping iron at the gym, writhing around on a mat with other girls, and getting bossed mercilessly by her domineering coach.

And Naomi Kanaka couldn’t have been happier at the prospect.

***

Luster Red’s head wasn’t just throbbing. It felt like it was about to split apart. As the magical girl reached back into her memories each thought redoubled upon the last, the echo becoming a painful pulse that made her clutch at herself in desperation. She opened her eyes, hoping it would help with the dizziness, but that proved to be a mistake. All around, reality itself was warping and distorting in mind-rending ripples, all emanating from the shadowy, inhuman villainess standing before her.

The world itself was echoing. Temporally. Metaphysically. Two different, incompatible histories fought for primacy. One true. One false.

And Luster Red was already struggling to figure out which one was which.

“In college… you?” she cried. “I-I must have… did I forget? No, no, that didn’t happen! I-it couldn’t have. We only spoke on the forum, until… no, wait. No, no, no.”

“Of course it happened,” Lady Kaira cackled. “I’ve made it so! You’re welcome, by the way. It looks like you made quite the wrestler.”

Confused, Luster Red glanced down at herself—and her eyes shot wide open at what she saw.

She was ripped.

At first, she chalked it up to a trick of the light, but in moments, it was undeniable. Beneath her revealing costume—itself rapidly growing to accommodate her new gains—her body was big and powerful like never before. Luster Red’s sleeves were struggling to contain her thick, sculpted biceps, and the contrast between her short, pleated skirt and the thick, muscular thighs beneath. It was the same all over. Luster Red had never felt stronger, but her body was no longer her own.

Until, suddenly, it was.

Memories flooded in to explain what the magical girl was seeing. Memories of long hours spent in the gym, steadily piling on the weights until she could lift more than she’d ever dreamt. Memories of those first few months, with all their aches and pains and struggles, and then of those slowly giving way to a newfound sense of brash pride as she developed confidence and strength. Memories of devoting herself to her new diet, her new workout regimen, and her new timetable of wrestling meets and competitions.

And of, in the process, letting her academics go completely down the drain.

Luster Red couldn’t shake a certain sense of horror as all her memories of academic hard work and success were gradually but inexorably smothered. Earning those credits and grades had been agonizing, but she’d been proud of the achievement. Now that was all ebbing away; in her new timeline, it seemed, she’d ended up coasting on a sports scholarship. Luster Red clutched at her as she tried to cling on to the grades, to the hard work, to the intelligence, to something—but in the end, the sense of swaggering ease that was now associated with her college memories was just too comfortable to resist.

She could remember taking more than a few knocks to the head, too. And plenty of cracks from Coach Dominguez about what a dumb meathead she had become. Luster Red supposed that figured. No wonder she was having so much trouble wrapping her head around what Lady Kaira was doing to her. She’d always been the dumb muscle of their particular magical girl group.

No. No, wait. That wasn’t true, was it?

“I…” Even Luster Red’s voice was deeper as she spoke to herself, hoping speaking it out loud would help to ground her.  “I’m… the leader?”

The uncertainty in her voice was palpable. The pitying, malicious look on Lady Kaira’s face was even more crushing.

“I-I am!” Luster Red tried to insist. “I’ve… always… always?”

Lady Kaira sneered at her pointedly, and Luster Red found the blood rushing to fill her cheeks with warmth. The fact that she was so muscular, so visibly strong, somehow made the fact that she wanted villainesses like Lady Kaira to conquer her even more embarrassing. It wasn’t her fault, the magical girl tried to tell herself. All those years spent with Coach Dominguez breathing down her neck and barking orders had made her shameful little predilection so strong, it was almost irresistible. Hell, as she’d been beating up those grunts earlier, she hadn’t been able to stop one treasonous little thought crossing her mind: she’d be so much better at it than they’d been. So much stronger, and with her muscles she’d look even better in those shiny, skin-tight uniforms.

Luster Red blushed deeper as she realized how distracted she was getting. She didn’t have time for that. She had to focus. She had to remember the original timeline, and her weird villainess fetish had no bearing on that whatsoever—after all, she’d always been that way.

“I’m the leader,” the magical girl pleaded. Surely she could hold on to that, at least—but with each repetition, it seemed less and less true. “I’m the leader. I’m the leader. I’m the… the…”

Lady Kaira just shook her head.

“Is that really what you believe?” the villainess mocked.

Luster Red shook her head too—first in defiance, but then, reluctantly, in agreement.

She just couldn’t find it in herself. She wasn’t the leader. She wasn’t leader material. She was the muscle. The headstrong, meatheaded one. Everything just made more sense that way. Besides, why would all the other magical girls in the squad have chosen her to be the leader? They barely even knew each other.

Luster Red’s eyes shot wider than ever before.

“No,” she pleaded. “No, no, no, not that. Not them.”

But there was no stopping it. One by one, her memories of spending college with her friends—the other magical girls—were blinking out.

Years of familiarity, of companionship, of friendship and warmth—gone. Each memory that died left Luster Red with an indescribable sense of loss that was replaced by an equally disturbing sense of calm and comfort when she forgot even what she had been trying to remember. New memories flooded to fill the gaps, memories of spending her college years with other wrestlers and athletes. Those memories were happy, yes, but less warm. Less special.

Despite the futility of it, Luster Red fought her hardest to resist. She picked a memory—one of her early study sessions with all the girls—and tried with all her might to keep it clear in her mind. She tried to remember what reading she had been doing. What they’d all chatted about. What kind of tea she had been drinking. Only…

Only, she could now remember meeting them all for the first time years later, at the end of college. She remembered being something of an outsider in the group, given how well the rest of them all knew each other. She remembered resenting it, even. And try as she might, Luster Red just couldn’t reconcile that with the fading memories that seemed to fade to nothing under the slightest scrutiny.

Maybe if she was smarter. Maybe if she had a better handle on Lady Kaira’s weird time magic. But Luster Red had always been the dumb muscle of the group.

“Please…” Luster Red found herself begging. “I just… just…”

She felt stronger than ever—but completely and totally lost. Her friends had always been her anchor. Without them, she was nothing. Her fellow magical girls had entrusted their sparks to her, but she was no longer sure why, or what that meant. Swamped by uncertainty, Luster Red lost her grip on her own magic. She detransformed, her costume falling away into ethereal sparkles to reveal what she’d been wearing underneath: a nice, tight tank top and a pair of gym shorts.

Exactly what she always wore.

“You want them back?” Lady Kaira whispered poisonously. “You can have them—as soon as you join me. You and your little comrades will make fine servants. You can all be together again, at my side.”

Though she was loath to admit it, Luster Red found the offer tempting. How couldn’t she? Lady Kaira was everything she’d spent years touching herself to, and becoming just another brainwashed grunt in her army would be a fantasy come to life. Moreover, Luster Red was no longer quite so sure what she was supposed to be fighting for. Her fellow magical girls? It would certainly suck to betray them.

But it wasn’t like they were friends. Not really.

Mostly, though, the offer was clarifying. It reminded Luster Red: Lady Kaira was her enemy. She was messing with her, and she wasn’t the type of girl to take that lying down. Luster Red was confused about so many things—but not her anger.

“Fuck you,” she spat. “I’ll never join you!”

Lady Kaira wasn’t dismayed, or even surprised. “Just one more little push, I think,” she gloated. “You’re already ready for the final step.”

Once more, before Luster Red could stop her, the villainess snapped her fingers and rewrote reality.

***

Naomi’s eyes bulged in shock as she turned her palms upright to receive the bright, brilliant light that had descended upon her from the heavens. The spark that came to rest there, floating just an inch or two above the surface of her skin, exuded warmth and power. It was like one of the very stars themselves had come to Earth, and chosen her.

It was a magical girl spark.

And it should have been a magical moment. Being chosen as a magical girl was a childhood dream of Naomi’s, the kind she never imagined might actually come true. Admittedly, these days, she spent more time daydreaming about villainesses and their minions—but all the same, being chosen should have felt amazing. It should have made Naomi happy.

Instead, it just left her scared.

Naomi didn’t know what she was supposed to do with that kind of power and responsibility. She was just a meathead from the wrestling squad. Who was she supposed to turn to? She’d seen other sparks falling somewhere else, in a cluster of four, but she didn’t know where, or to who. Without her coach or another confident, older woman to tell her what to do, Naomi wasn’t sure she could find her way. Graduating had already left her feeling lost. Becoming a magical girl at the same moment was just too much.

“Hello, Miss Kanaka. Remember me?”

Naomi’s heart leapt into her throat, and she turned to see a tall, shadowy figure emerging from the evening gloom. Once she overcame her initial shock, she laughed bitterly. It was a villainess, that much was obviously from the shadowy tentacles extending from the strange woman’s body. On any other day, Naomi would have been fangirling excitedly. Today, though, it was just one more helping of misfortune.

Her first day as a magical girl, and she was about to face down a villainess—alone. Great.

“No,” Naomi replied tiredly. “I’ve never seen you before in my-“ She froze, as the villainess got closer. “You… that professor?”

She had certainly seemed far more human the first time around, but Naomi would have recognized that face anywhere. It was seared into her memory. She’d spent hours scanning faculty portraits in the years since, in the hope of finding her.

“That’s right,” Lady Kaira confirmed, with undeniable malevolence. “Me.”

“Then… you guided me to the wrestling team?” Naomi asked. “Why?”

“Oh, I have my reasons,” Lady Kaira hissed. “Let’s just say that I’ve seen your future. And I’ve decided to help keep you on the right path.”

Naomi shivered. Her feelings were just as confused about that as they were about becoming a magical girl. It should have been horrifying. Instead, Naomi couldn’t help but take a secret thrill in the knowledge that, all along, she’d been under the villainess’s boot.

“I…” Naomi glanced at the spark she held in her hand. All she had to do was close her first and claim it, and its power would be hers. “I’m supposed to stop you.”

Lady Kaira laughed. “Is that what you want to do?”

Slowly, Naomi shook her head. “No,” she admitted.

“You don’t need to do what you’re supposed to,” Lady Kaira told her approvingly. “Instead… join me.”

“W-what?” Naomi looked at her sharply.

“Why not?” Lady Kaira put to her. “You’re confused. You don’t know what to do. And here I am to tell you. Isn’t it perfect?” The villainess licked her lips. “Isn’t it exactly what you’d always dreamed of?”

Naomi couldn’t deny it. She was being offered her perfect fantasy. Why would she refuse it? What else did she have? No friends, now that she’d left college. No direction. No purpose. No more coach to tell her what to do. She could try to make her own path as a magical girl, of course. But that just didn’t sound right.

In the end, she just wanted someone else to pick her path for her. And from the sounds of it, that was exactly what Lady Kaira had already done.

“What do I have to do?” she asked slowly.

Lady Kaira drew herself up victoriously. “Kneel,” she hissed. “And offer your spark to me.”

The burly, muscular girl sank to her knees. She held out her hands, palms upturned, magical spark cradled between them. After sparing just a moment to savor her victory, Lady Kaira reached out—not to take the spark, but simply to imprint it with her taint.

Time would take care of the rest.

***

The pain Luster Red had felt before was nothing compared to this. It wasn’t just her head that was being split in two. It was her essence. Her very being. She could feel the forces of destiny battling against what Lady Kaira had just done to her, fighting to maintain the fixed, eternal points in her timeline.

And they were losing.

Not completely. Some things were truly immutable. Luster Red was a magical girl. Nothing could take that from her. But just as Lady Kaira had promised, as her mind fractured into two halves she began to realize just how little that meant.

She hated Lady Kaira—and she loved her. She despised her—and she worshiped her. She fought her—and she obeyed her. Countless hours of slavish, mindless devotion rushed into her head, poisoning everything she’d once stood before. Her justice, her loyalty, her love for her friends—they were all in tatters.

Luster Red could feel it all happening. She could feel her own defeat. It had been years in the making, or so it now seemed. And it was just seconds away.

“Join me, Luster Red,” Lady Kaira laughed. “Not that you have a choice. After all, you already did.”

Luster Red tried to glare defiantly at the villainess, but she could barely see. No, she was seeing double; one Lady Kaira, the enemy rewriting her timeline. The other, the mistress who treated her with such perfect, ravishing cruelty. The magical girl knew she should try to fight what was happening to her—but what was the point? She’d already given it her all. Now, after the changes inflicted on her, she had less to give than ever.

But she resolved to make one last effort. To fight until the bitter end. Wasn’t that what heroes were supposed to do?

“L-Luster Red!” she chanted, summoning up her power. “Spark—activate!”

The chant triggered her magical girl transformation. Luster Red’s spark erupted from her chest in a beam of crimson, pearlescent light before enveloping her body in a brilliant glow. At once, she felt bolstered by it. She always did, when the power of hope flowed into her. Luster Red still wasn’t sure she could win, exactly, but she felt just a little more confident and self-certain than before.

Then, the corruption took hold.

It began as a single thread of shadow, woven into the magnificent rainbow of Luster Red’s light. The thread quickly grew, knotting itself around other beams of light and devouring them, expanding and taking over, its shadow lengthening until sticky, inky blackness dominated. Luster Red felt it enter her, and the moment of panic that caused it was quickly drowned out by a sinister, euphoric chorus of emotions.

There was no fighting it. Her own power was the one thing a magical girl could never fight.

After all, it was fate.

So instead, Lady Kaira’s corruption washed over her. It smothered her. It repurposed her transformation to its own ends, and when the poisoned, umbral glow receded, Luster Red was left changed like never before.

Previously, her costume had been woven from the purest white threads, accented with a brilliant crimson color that matched perfectly her assigned name. Now, there was no white to be seen. All over, it had been replaced with black, and the gentle, soft, enchanted cloth had been replaced with sleek, shiny rubber. It covered her almost completely now; her sleeves, gloves, and tights were all longer, ensuring that not a hint of skin was showing beneath Luster Red’s neck. A little red color remained in the accents, but even those were darkened. Muted. Tainted.

Ruined.

And the final touch was Lady Kaira’s symbol, etched upon the magical girl’s chest.

All in all, she looked just like one of Lady Kaira’s many uniformed, faceless minions—but without the small mercy of anonymity to preserve her dignity and reputation. Her new, rubber costume was skin-tight, but not perfectly smooth; all the details of her old magical girl costume were there. The ribbons, the pleats, the collar. But now, they were made out of black rubber, and polished to a mirror shine. The impression was ghoulish. It left absolutely no doubt that Luster Red was a magical girl who had fallen to the dark side. A horrifying prospect.

Only, Luster Red wasn’t horrified. Not anymore. Etched on her face as she looked up at Lady Kaira was an impossibly wide, unnaturally reverent, impossibly worshipful grin.

“My lady!” Without skipping a beat, Luster Red snapped her legs together and offered the time-twisting villainess a crisp, perfect salute. “At your command!”

Lady Kaira threw back her head and howled with laughter.

Her laughter was nakedly cruel and mocking, but that did nothing but bring color to Luster Red’s cheeks. She adored her lady, in all her sadistic villainy. She had for years now. Ever since the fateful day she’d offered Lady Kaira her spark.

That was one thing Luster Red had never regretted.

“My, my!” Lady Kaira exclaimed. “Aren’t you just perfect?”

Luster Red’s ridiculous grin widened even further. Her mistress’s praise made her positively glow. She lived for it. Besides, she knew Lady Kaira was right. What better minion could a villainess ask for? A corrupted magical girl, and one in such fine condition too! Hoping to impress, Luster Red subtly tensed her muscles. The way they bulged beneath the tight latex, making the material catch the light, was mesmerizing.

“Well?” Lady Kaira snapped suddenly. “Don’t just stand there, idiot! Your friends could be about to wake up at any moment. Bring them to me!”

Luster Red saluted gleefully again, welcoming the abuse, but then frowned in confusion. “My… friends?” she grunted.

“Do you have muscles instead of brains?” Lady Kaira demanded impatiently. “The other magical girls!”

“Oh!” Luster Red’s grin widened even further as Lady Kaira enlightened her. “Yes, my lady!”

Luster Red certainly didn’t think of those other magical girls as her friends. In fact, she despised them for daring to oppose her glorious mistress. But, as always, Lady Kaira knew best. If she said they were friends, they were friends.

Luster Red was nothing more than a dumb grunt. No wonder Lady Kaira always needed to yell at her so much to get her to do the right thing.

One more salute, then she went to turn away and complete her appointed task. But Lady Kaira’s voice called her back.

“Wait!”

Luster Red paused obediently.

“Come here.”

“Yes, my lady!”

She saluted yet again, then rushed to her exquisite mistress’s side. Up close, Lady Kaira had never seemed less human. She had shed her mortal guise almost completely; she now towered above the corrupted magical girl, and the distinction between her form and the shadows surrounding her had blurred into meaninglessness. As she stared down at Luster Red, the villainess’s face was a demonic, leering, grin that filled her minion with delicious, sinful anticipation.

“Perhaps first,” Lady Kaira mused, “I can afford to take a little time to enjoy my fresh conquest.”

Lady Kaira’s shadowy tentacles extended toward Luster Red and began coiling slowly and sensually around her latex-clad form. Each one moved to restrain a different limb, and everywhere they touched her they left a trail of thick, black, gloopy ichor across the shiny rubber. Before long, Luster Red was slick and sticky all over with it, and Lady Kaira was lifting her off her feet—all the better to explore and use her willing, obedient minion.

Luster Red simply giggled dumbly and lustfully as her mistress claimed her. She loved Lady Kaira’s tentacles, and she loved being used as an outlet for the villainess’s rapacious appetites. Admittedly, she wasn’t quite sure what Lady Kaira meant by ‘fresh conquest’. She’d been devoted to Lady Kaira for years, after all. But the discrepancy didn’t trouble her. As always, Luster Red was completely and totally comfortable with the idea that Lady Kaira knew best.

But as one of Lady Kaira’s tentacles found its way underneath her skirt and entered her, drawing great, gasped moans of pleasure out of the muscular henchwoman, Luster Red found herself thinking back to the fateful moments that had led her to becoming the dumb, happy, brainwashed grunt she was now. Her fixation on villainesses and their minions. Her decision to join the wrestling squad. Her encounter with Lady Kaira at the end of her college years. She now knew, of course, that Lady Kaira must have had a hand in each of them. But as her mistress’s tentacle started pumping in and out of Luster Red, obliterating the last remnants of her thoughts with pleasure, the only feeling that crossed her mind was gratitude.

She was truly living in the best timeline.