The digital lock to the dressing room beeped in recognition of an accepted keycard. That was odd. Sheffa and the other girls had left for rehearsal only a few minutes ago, and Nora had made sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.
The door to the dressing room crept forward until it had opened wide enough for a young woman to stick her head through. With where Nora was sitting, the door would block the young woman’s view of her until the intruder all but walked into the room. Figuring it was best to put this scheme to rest as soon as possible, Nora cleared her throat and spoke.
“Can I help you?” she said.
The intruder’s head—blonde hair and a blue, doily-like headband were the only distinguishing details Nora could see—vanished from sight. The young woman shut the door immediately, barely giving herself time to blurt out an apology.
“Sorry, thought this was our room!”
Nora sighed. This hadn’t been the first “accident” she and her team of magical girls had been the victim of during their trip to Ivendawn, and she was certain it wouldn’t be the last. She stood up and opened the dressing room door, then poked her head out into the hallway. The intruder was long gone. The only backstage security guard in the area happened to be walking back this way from the farthest possible end of the hall. Had Nora’s unexpected guest arranged for a convenient distraction or simply paid the guard off? Either way, he would be of no use. She shut the door and sat back down.
It appeared she had made the right decision staying behind. She would have preferred to watch her girls rehearse, but she had a feeling something like this would happen. Apex Vox had no friends in Ivendawn.
The sabotage had started as far back as the lead up to the IndieMagie Finals. After defeating Region 1’s representative to advance to the Finals, a target had appeared on the back of each Apex Vox member. The whole region must have had an unspoken agreement, even including magical girls who hadn’t participated in the competition, to turn against whoever knocked out their rep. If they couldn’t beat Sheffa and the other girls in the competition, they’d simply make their lives hell outside of it.
At first, the attacks had been childish enough that they were hardly worth mentioning. Negative comments flooded Apex Vox’s music videos. Absurd rumors popped up about their team members on social media. Trivial drama of that nature—all of it contained in anonymous online spaces. Once Apex Vox arrived in Ivendawn last year, for the Finals, the attacks ramped up.
Ivendawn could be considered a second capital of Region 1. The city was the economic heart of the region—of the nation, really—and the hub for anything related to show business. The largest and most successful magical girl agencies all congregated there, as did the movie studios, record labels, and fashion houses. Ivendawn was a place where success was a virtue, regardless of what form it came in. It was only natural that the IndieMagie Finals would be held in such a place.
Nora had recognized her team was walking into enemy territory from the very first day of competition. The two finalist teams in the IndieMagie were supposed to receive coaching from veteran teams of magical girls. The idea was partly to benefit the finalists by connecting them with industry mentors and partly to engage viewers by bringing more famous teams into the show. If a potential viewer didn’t care about either finalist, maybe they’d get interested if their favorite team was coaching one of the up-and-comers.
For Apex Vox, their “mentor” team had been more like another opponent.
Those girls had acted nice enough in front of the cameras. There had been an elaborate media day to kick off the Finals, and both DreamRise and Apex Vox had met their mentors as part of that display. Apex Vox would be coached by a team called Shine 365, who had won the IndieMagie for Region 1 a few years prior. Shine’s accomplishments were supposed to be a boon for Apex Vox, but Nora believed it had only made them more eager to sabotage Sheffa and the other girls.
Before the Finals began, both teams had a few practice sessions scheduled with their mentors, the first of which was meant to prepare them for the physical duels of the competition. It was during this first practice that the members of Shine showed their more unsavory nature. All of the magical girls were flying around in a mock match of Takelen, the ball-based sport that was commonly featured in the Finals. The practice session quickly turned into a beatdown, with the members of Shine slamming into Sheffa and her teammates at dangerous speeds, even shoulder checking them from behind on occasion. When they grew bored of that, they shot spells toward Nora’s team with an intensity that far exceeded what a practice session would require.
Sheffa and the other girls took the attacks in stride, but Nora could only watch so much of the farce before putting an end to it. She had brought up Shine’s behavior to the IndieMagie staff later that evening, only to be met with indifference. One of the event coordinators made some excuse about how the mentor teams were helping out for free, as a way to give back to the industry. The IndieMagie didn’t want to risk ruining those relationships over “what could be a misunderstanding.”
Nora hadn’t misunderstood anything, though. She declined any additional practice sessions with the Shine members, and took her team away from the competition grounds for a private practice.
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Now, all these months later, Apex Vox had returned to Ivendawn for its annual Idol Festival. Not much had changed during that time. If anything, the aggression had only increased.
Region 1 had the greatest number of idol-like magical girl teams, so it was only natural for the Festival to be flooded with them. Sheffa and her teammates were surrounded by enemies. In the halls of the different stages and theaters of the Festival, in the hotel reserved for the performers, and on the buses that carried them between those locations, all Nora saw was animosity. Other girls would bump shoulders with Nora’s team as they passed in the halls. Someone from another team would “accidentally” try to walk off with her talents’ accessories. During group rehearsals, someone would always laugh loudly when Apex Vox was singing, as if someone else had conveniently told a joke at that time.
Today, the childish jabs had escalated into something more serious. Nora couldn’t be sure what today’s intruder had hoped to accomplish—likely to steal something from the dressing room or leave some threatening message—but she had expected an attack like this. Thus far, the Festival staff had been as useless as those at the IndieMagie. If they didn’t intervene in the behavior of the other groups early, it was inevitable that the sabotage would grow in severity.
As their manager, it was Nora’s responsibility to ensure Sheffa, Mari, and Canto could put on the best performance they could. She had to free their minds up from worrying about this nonsense.
So, Nora remained in the dressing room throughout the remainder of today’s rehearsal, trusting Sheffa to manage any issues out there. After another hour, she heard the door’s lock chime again, this time in recognition of a keycard that Nora expected to have access. Sheffa and the other girls stepped into the room, dressed in their color coordinated practice sweats. From the smiles on their faces and the way they joked around as they entered, Nora concluded that nothing too terrible could have happened during rehearsal.
However, the look on her own face must have given something away about what had happened back here. Sheffa frowned as she looked at Nora.
“Someone tried something, huh?” the captain said.
There was no point in hiding it.
“They stole a keycard,” Nora explained. “Or were gifted one. Will you three be okay here by yourselves if I go speak to someone about this? Surely this crosses a line, even for them.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Mari said as she fell onto the dressing room’s couch. “One bad trick begets another, ya know? I’ll cook up a little something for them.”
At the other end of the room, in a small prep area with a sink and mini fridge, Canto turned on the faucet and splashed water on her face. Nora hadn’t noticed the girl move away from the others. How catlike.
“Except your tricks might actually get us kicked out,” the girl said once she’d refreshed herself. “You’ll probably do something like give everyone food poisoning. Including us.”
“I don’t mess with food,” Mari said. “Only food-related apparatuses.”
Nora decided she was better off not knowing what that meant.
This conversation had made one thing clear, though. Sheffa was right that Nora didn’t need to worry. She had gotten to know these three magical girls well over the past couple of years. She could sense when they weren’t feeling like themselves—not that any of them were particularly talented at hiding their emotions anyway. Right now, they seemed the same as ever. She almost felt bad for worrying.
The girls hadn’t once taken the bait from any of the provocations thrown their way. They shrugged off the bumped shoulders. They focused on themselves during rehearsals, and tuned out the noise. Even back during the IndieMagie Finals, they made do with practicing outside of the city limits, and happily used the extra time spent traveling to plan out how they’d approach each upcoming duel.
Those other magical girls held no power over them. At the end of the day, Apex Vox would stand above them all. Sheffa knew it, as did Mari and Canto.
Nora shouldn’t have been surprised those three could keep such cool heads throughout all of this. That had been the kind of team she’d scouted for herself, after all.
She had wanted to find a group of girls who harbored not a single doubt about themselves. They didn’t need to be the best singers, the most capable fighters, nor the prettiest or most charming. In fact, they didn’t need any other quality. So long as they knew who they were, and were unshakable in their beliefs, then Nora could make their dreams come true.
There had been a reason Sheffa had stood at the top of her scouting list. She was a straightforward girl. When they had first met, she had told Nora that she wanted to be the strongest magical girl of all time.
She meant those words exactly as she’d said them.
There was no ego in her words. She didn’t mean that she thought she would be the strongest, or that she deserved to be, or even that she could be. She only meant that she wanted to be the strongest.
Someone else might take issue with that. They’d want to recruit a girl who thought she was destined to be the strongest, who exuded that kind of confidence. But Nora was searching for a straightforward girl. Sheffa knew exactly what she wanted and why she wanted it. Her own potential or aptitude for reaching that goal didn’t factor into her desire one bit. She could struggle with no fans, no fame, and no strength for a decade, and still hold that same goal in her heart. No matter her circumstances, Sheffa would wake up every day and work toward what she wanted. Nothing else mattered.
That was the kind of magical girl Nora wanted to find, and she’d been lucky enough to find three of them.
“Don’t forget who we are,” Sheffa said, standing directly in front of Nora and staring into her eyes. “When you look at us, what do you see?”
Canto had remained by the sink, and was preparing a kettle of tea. She filled up the kettle, set out the cups, and procured some honey from her bag all while hardly making a sound.
Now that she was done singing for the day, Mari sucked on a sour candy while playing a game on her phone. Even as she squeezed her eyes shut in reaction to the extreme sourness of her treat, her fingers tapped away on the screen.
Then there was Sheffa, who stood there with a smile growing wider and brighter on her face. From the cockiness in her expression, she must have predicted what Nora was about to say.
If she wanted to hear it so badly, perhaps there was no harm in granting that wish. It felt good for Nora to say, as well.
“I see a team without any weaknesses left.”