Even with their days off, the time leading up to the date of the carnival passed by quicker than Adah could keep track of. The Magical Carnival Committee’s planning proceeded according to schedule, and soon reached a point where they were ready to officially announce the event to the region.

  The last bunch of tasks on their plates were dependent on that announcement. Making flyers and promotional graphics for social media, locking in their venue, securing a contract with a tech team—all of these required a specific and finalized date. To Adah’s relief, Grace took the lead on managing this final step of the process and ensuring all the pieces were in place for a successful event. That was the purpose of the Committee, after all. Someone like Grace could take a birds-eye view of the event coordination while Adah busied herself with the necessities of her performance, such as practicing her singing and dancing.

  One other task that kept Adah busy was managing the Last Light’s relationship with the other coalition teams. The one team that Adah and the other members hadn’t made a public appearance with yet was Fifty Flip. Now, the time had come to get involved with Hyperia’s web show.

  Adah and Rika were first up on the docket, with Ami and Emi set to appear the following week. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t quite work out to announce the carnival while Adah and Rika were on the stream, but making an appearance like this would all but confirm for their fans that some plan was brewing in the background. Judging by the comments Adah had seen online, the fans had already taken notice of the Last Light’s sudden involvement with other regional teams.

  So, on a Friday evening, Adah and Rika braced the cold and traveled to the Fifty Flip agency office, where Hyperia had set up a streaming studio in a spare bedroom. The arrangement was shockingly professional, with a pair of cameras atop tripods pointed at the “set,” which consisted of four sleek, rounded back chairs and a pair of circular side tables. Hyperia had positioned a couple of ring lights and even a reflector to help illuminate the set. On the ground beside Hyperia’s designated chair was even a foot pedal that she could use to swap her stream feed between the two camera angles in real time. Whatever the live feed showed was displayed back to the girls via a large television set up behind the cameras.

  Apparently, Hyperia took the entertainment side of her job as seriously as Seliah took her training and combat.

  The four girls would appear on the stream as their magical girl personae, so once they had transformed there wasn’t much other preparation to manage. As the go-live time approached, Hyperia and Elegia gave Adah and Rika an overview of how they expected the show to run.

  “We’re only scheduled for an hour and a half, with a little break in the middle,” Hyperia explained. “Dani was able to get through it, so with two of you it should be no problem. Plus, I got tons of questions to ask Lyrika!”

  Adah was certain the girl wasn’t lying—she held a stack of notecards as thick as a hardcover novel in her hands.

  “I’ll uh… do my best,” Rika said with a smile.

  “It will be painless,” Elegia assured her. “The important part is to have fun. Our dear Dystopia did nothing but argue with Sam the whole time, and the viewers still enjoyed it.”

  “She went crazy on me,” Hyperia said. “And all I said was that she should quit smoking or she won’t be pretty for much longer.”

  “I can’t imagine why that set her off,” Adah said.

  With every magical girl she met, Adah grew more certain that you didn’t pursue this career unless your personality was warped in one way or another. All things considered, the members of Fifty Flip were mild compared to some of their competitors. Adah would never have agreed to join Iris on a show like this. That girl was too dangerous for live broadcast.

  Though, some people would probably say the same about Adah herself.

  From there, Hyperia detailed the general run of show: she and Elegia would take the lead on introducing Heartbreak and Lyrika, then the first part of the show would be an open conversation based on questions Hyperia had come up with. That would take up the first hour or so of the broadcast. After a short break, they’d go live again and start answering some questions from the viewers. Elegia used the break to collect the audience questions and filter out a list of appropriate and interesting ones.

  With such a casual format, and a pair of hosts as affable as these two, there shouldn’t be much to worry about. Adah could simply focus on being herself. Or rather, being Heartbreak.

  At least, that’s what she thought.

  After Adah sat down in the rightmost chair (Hyperia insisted that she and Rika take the center two spots) and clipped on a lapel mic, Hyperia informed her that the waiting screen for the stream was up and the broadcast was officially live. At that point, Adah grew keenly aware of the two cameras pointing at her.

  She really had no reason to feel nervous. She’d given interviews on camera after missions plenty of times already, and had even had her first live television appearance just recently. Even during the quick speech she’d given at the IndieMagie fan meet, in the middle of a confrontation with Iris, she had kept her composure without any trouble.

  Something about this show being a livestream was messing with Adah’s head. Hyperia had said the first stream with Dystopia had pulled in a few hundred viewers, which meant today’s show would likely attract an even larger audience thanks to the Last Light’s involvement. All those people could pause, rewind, clip, and chat about the stream in real time. A stream combined the immediacy of speaking in front of a crowd with the unfettered social conduct of the internet. Granted, Adah wouldn’t be reading the chat during the stream, but it was hard to put its existence out of her mind.

  Adah did her best to shake the feeling as a minute-long countdown appeared on the stream’s waiting screen. She reached up and touched Heartbreak’s horns for reassurance. Now that the horns “grew” out of her head, they offered her a strange comfort. Like Sheffa had described with her bunny ears, Adah couldn’t feel any sensations from the horns themselves, nor the points at which they seemingly connected to her head. When she pushed her fingers against them, a magical force kept the horns in place, and she felt no tugging or resistance on her scalp.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  To her, that was an assurance that the persona of Heartbreak was bound to her. The magical girl she had become was not an act that could be shed as easily as a winter coat. She could trust in her instincts to guide her, and have faith in the feelings that had taken her this far on her journey.

  Adah took a breath as the countdown reached zero, then leaned back against her chair, her back angled slightly in Rika’s direction.

  In the end, even if Adah hadn’t snapped herself out of her nervousness, Hyperia’s ridiculous introduction likely would have.

  “Hi-hi-Hyperia!” she shouted toward the camera, her bright smile threatening to wipe out the device’s white balance. “Welcome back to another episode of ‘Flip the Script!’ I’m Host Number One and the number one host, Hyperia Flip!”

  “And I’m Host the Second, Elegia Flip,” Elegia added.

  “And we’re two-thirds of Fifty Flip!” they said together.

  Hyperia then frowned and said, “Saying ‘two-thirds’ is pretty lame, isn’t it? Without Dystopia, we can’t do our usual intro. In that case, last episode will be the only one where you guys get the whole song and dance—understood?”

  This whole bit was something the two of them had rehearsed before going live. Apparently, they had forced Dystopia to join them on reciting “…and we’re Fifty Flip!” to start the show. It hadn’t been until today that Hyperia realized that they couldn’t do the same kind of intro on all the episodes without Dystopia. Adah wasn’t sure they needed to draw attention to that fact in this way, but she figured it would be easier to let their eager host do as she pleased.

  “We may not have our dear Dystopia joining us,” Elegia continued, “but I know you’re quite excited for today’s guests, Hyperia.”

  “And I know you all are, too!” Hyperia said to her viewers again. “There’s no denying it—today’s guests are destined to be the next big thing among magical girls. You may be asking yourself, ‘Hyperia, if they’re such a big deal, how did you get them on your show?’ The answer to that is simple! Because I’m destined to become a big deal, too!”

  Adah let out a snicker, making sure it was loud enough for her microphone to pick up. If nothing else, Hyperia was a natural entertainer.

  “What was that about?” Hyperia said, taking the cue. “You’re laughing at me before I even introduced you. How unfair!”

  Despite her apparent outrage, the girl immediately tapped her foot pedal, shifting the stream to a camera shot of just Adah and Rika. Maybe this would be even more fun than Adah had anticipated.

  “A tiny girl, but a big deal,” Adah said, laying on the haughtiness of Heartbreak with slow and methodical words.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hyperia said, laying on her indignation just as heavily.

  “I think Heartbreak’s trying to say she can relate to you,” Elegia chimed in. Like teacher, like student, apparently.

  Now that Adah had joined the conversation, Hyperia moved on to welcoming Heartbreak and Lyrika as the guests for today’s show. Adah took the lead on introducing herself and Rika.

  “I’m known as Twilight Heartbreak,” she said, facing the camera now. “I lead the Sisterhood of the Last Light, along with anyone else who desires to follow me. I’m honored to be here with Hyperia and Elegia tonight. I’ve taken such an… interest in these girls lately.”

  As their conversation got rolling, Adah knew she’d inevitably slip out of this haughty attitude. Best to lay it on thick now to help maintain Heartbreak’s impression throughout the more casual segments of the show.

  A couple chairs over, Hyperia started nodding her head a little. It seemed her energy levels skyrocketed when the magical girls she admired began playing their roles. Adah could relate to that—to a degree.

  With Heartbreak’s introduction out of the way, Adah turned toward Rika, and Hyperia also looked at her idol in anticipation.

  “I’m Lightburst Lyrika,” Rika said. “A member of the Last Light. I, uh… well, thank you for having me tonight.”

  Her eyes darted downward for a moment before she forced herself to look up at the camera again. She squeezed a fist against her thigh nearest to Adah.

  The flow of conversation froze, as the other magical girls all expected Rika to say something more, but no words came. After that momentary awkwardness, Hyperia tapped her foot pedal again to return to a zoomed out view of the set, and Elegia picked up where the show left off.

  “We began our first show by asking Dystopia why she became a magical girl,” the woman said. “She had quite the unique response, as you can imagine. It was a fun way to start, so why don’t we begin the same way tonight? Why did you become a magical girl, Heartbreak?”

  “There are evil creatures, and even eviler people, that threaten this world,” Adah began. “I don’t intend to sit on a throne and look over a world barren of hope and happiness. I’ve had enough of that, so I intend to fix it.”

  Elegia clapped her hands and said, “How lovely. This is why I was so glad to meet you, Heartbreak. You truly understand the pleasure of snuffing out Cruelties.”

  Adah wouldn’t quite describe her feeling toward Cruelty extermination as “pleasure,” but she smiled back at Elegia all the same.

  “What about you, Lyrika?” Hyperia asked. “I bet you want to take the biggest stage in the world, don’t you? The whole world will stop to listen to you sing. That’s what your throne would look like.”

  Rika gave a little laugh and said, “I don’t know about that. It sounds pretty intimidating. I guess I just have a lot of fun with my team, so as long as I can stay with them, I think that would make me happy.”

  Even though it was Rika speaking—Hyperia’s one true idol—the tiny magical girl’s excitement faded from her face. Instead, she wore a confused look.

  Hyperia’s reaction was appropriate. Something was off about Rika, and Adah knew exactly what it was. If Adah had been feeling nervous about the livestream, then Rika’s anxiety must have felt even worse. And for her, the feeling wasn’t one she could shake off or power through. It gripped her and squeezed her into a box, just as it was doing now. Rika was handling herself well enough, considering how she must be feeling, but Adah didn’t want to leave her struggling on her own.

  “Even the grandest stage feels less intimidating when your team is by your side,” she said. “Knowing the way our Zerker and Raindrop act, we may wind up too distracted to worry much about a crowd.”

  “Yeah,” Rika said. “Maybe that’s true. Those two are something else.”

  The girl smiled at Adah, an expression which looked genuine. She seemed to appreciate Adah’s gesture, even if she clearly hadn’t regained her composure.

  Since they were transformed, Adah had the option of communicating with her partner through a magic channel. She debated letting Rika know privately that she could call off the show if she wanted to, that she and Fifty Flip would understand.

  Yet, was that making too patronizing of an assumption? Rika was trying her best despite her anxieties—that must have meant she wanted to get through the show one way or another. If Adah reached out in such a manner, would that be the same as saying to Rika, “Hey, you’re really screwing this up. Why don’t we call it off?”

  Rika was usually the person Adah could speak to most naturally, but in a moment like this, she wasn’t sure how best to communicate.

  “I guess,” Rika spoke up again, “that’s right, though. About the stage, I mean.”

  Her knuckles were buried deep in the skin of her thigh, but Rika looked up at Hyperia and then the camera.

  “Even if it’s just for myself,” she said, “I want to put on a performance I can be proud of. I think it’s… that… the more of the world that watches me, the prouder I can be. That’s why I became a magical girl.”

  At that, Hyperia beamed her brightest smile and Elegia clapped as she had for Adah.

  “No matter who else is watching,” Hyperia said, practically singing herself, “I’ll be tuning into every performance of yours!”

  “I’d quite like to see what kind of show the Last Light puts on,” Elegia added, once again proving how savvy a host she was.

  Then, in the end, it was Rika who reached out to Adah through a private channel. Her voice sounded in Adah’s mind firm and resolute.

  “I’m trying my best,” Rika said. “So, no matter what, you’d better watch me.”