Haruna was out walking with her friends and comrades when she felt it, a pulse of dark energy starting to radiate and build up from within the local pet shop. The quartet of teens were unbeknownst to all a group of magical girls, dedicated by the sacred elements to seeking out sources of negative energy that gathered and festered until they condensed into monsters. Using their powers they would eliminate the manifestations of bad feelings, abet in perhaps a bit of an unorthodox way compared to how one might usually think.
Quickly moving into a convenient alleyway, the four girls got out of sight before calling out their group activation phrase, “By the powers granted to me by the Sacred Elements, I Am A Magical Girl!” Within the space of a moment they flashed brightly, the light both covering their shift to the Spiritual World, the dimension where they could do battle without harming the Material World, as well as highlighting their transformation sequences from normal street clothes into their battle outfits.
Haruna was the first to complete her transformation, just s she had been the first girl to discover her power over Elemental Water. As she struck her usual pose she completed her transformation with her new name, Wonderful Wave! It had been a little shocking the first time to suddenly end up wearing a rather puffy sleeved dress ending in a knee-high skirt and boots, but she was used to it by now. She then turned her attention to her friends, Asuka in fire red as Banishing Blaze, Erika in air green as Glorious Gust, and finally Terra in earthy orange as Radiant Rock.
Moving as one they entered the pet shop where they saw three manifestations forming, bestial creatures of darkness whose forms reflected what negative emotion or memory they represented. Two were a mixture of various animals, a feathered bird wing sticking out of the back of one while the other seemed to have the shell of a turtle. Their muzzles were both canine and feline, and yet mixed in with their pointed fangs were the incisors of a rodent. These were clearly the pain of being rejected, the sadness of the animals kept in their cages day after day with no one to love them.
The third however was larger, a solid 6 feet tall compared to its partners 4. This one was more humanoid, with dark tears falling from its three mismatched eyes and a nearly hollow chest. This was the leader creature, representative of the sorrow of children gaining brief attachment to the animals within the store, only to be denied. Parents who could not or did not allow a pet, animals grown attached to over several visits being taken away for one reason or another without warning, and the lingering desire for companionship that would never be fulfilled.
The quartet wasted no time in trying to reason with the evil creatures, in this state they were too wild and mindless to even listen. Instead the magical girl squad launched into battle, bringing forth their spells of elemental purification. Perhaps if this had been early in in their carers they might have had some trouble, but as “Seismic Smash” boulders ignited with “Furious Flames” to become meteors the creatures were thrown backwards. Then before they could recover Erika’s “Whipping Whirlwind” locked them down in place, setting them up for Haruna’s own “Frothing Foam” to start to wash away the resentment and anger they felt at the world.
At last the time came for their finishing move, a more recent discovery of theirs that greatly simplified things. Before they had needed to continuously batter and attack the Negative beings for many long minutes with their regular attacks, but now they had a different solution. Standing together in a line and pooling their magical energy as one, all four of their elements swirled around them as the trio of creatures struggled to recover. They were unable to do so in time however, and so all were hit by the “Elemental Sealing Blast,” seemingly vanishing into beams of light.
With the battle over the four girls relaxed a bit, after pausing to ensure that the miasma generated by the beings that would eventually seep into the material world was indeed dissipating. Laughing the quartet walked forwards to the site of the three beings last location, where three little shapes could be seen. They were a small dog-like keychain, a pin or button that looked a bit like a goldfish if you squinted, and a little inch high person that looked sort of like the third of the trio based on human regrets. As the only mobile one it was left looking around confused, before suddenly a massive orange boot slammed down a few feet in front of it.
As she finished her step and came to a stop Terra kept a close eye on the little being as she spoke out loud “Okay then, who is going to get what this time?” This was the secret of the quartet of magical girls, how they were managing to face down the dark forces and become more successful in doing so. Simply beating down the monsters DID work, but it was difficult and trying to fight the embodiments of negativity with pure physical/magical force had an unfortunate tendency to have that energy leak back out and reform or fester in a new location. However with their new sealing technique they discovered a year ago the girls were able to safely force all of that energy into harmless containers, and by simply keeping them close to their own positive auras the negativity was passively purified.
At the question Asuka piped up, saying “Well I want the doggy myself. The stagnancy spirit from last month finally dissipated and I need a new phone strap.” This caused a bit of a stir among the group, in particular Erika who said “No way! I want the puppy toy, you can have the pin.” This made Asuka scoff, and return “Uh-uh, that’s not my style airhead. Our leader Bubble-Butt over there should take that one, its right up her alley.” Haruna just rolled her eyes at the nicknames, slightly annoying but said mostly in good fun anyway.
Terra in turn snorted slightly and took another step forwards, purposefully pinning the still mobile creature under the tip of her boot as it had tried to sneak away. Just because they were in the middle of negotiations, did not mean that they were inattentive. Haruna then spoke up, reaching down and picking up both the pin and the keychain off the ground. “Well I think I should hold onto both the pin AND the keychain, you all can discuss the little creature.” This drew some protests from the other three, including Terra who reflexively flexed her foot a little more and eliciting a tiny whimper from it.
The girl in question snorted and crossed her arms over her orange dress, saying “Oh no way, you are not getting both, least of all the keychain. Do you remember what happened with the cram school stress monster?” Haruna flinched a little at that, as that particular negative being had taken literal months to dissipate. In all fairness it had been one of their first sealings, how was she to know back then that the way you treated the objects or small creatures informed how quickly their energy dissipated. On the other hand just leaving it clipped to the back of her pants or skirt every day bouncing off of her rear had perhaps not been the wisest decision. Still she felt the others had little leg to stand on.
“Oh yes? You seem so ready to bring up that incident, but I seem to recall a certain someone who kept the sticker of the stalker on her insole.” This caused Terra to blush and Erika and Asuna to giggle, before Haruna turned on them to continue “and I also remember a pair of girls who fought over the competing siblings sandals to the point that the dual monsters remanifested, or am I wrong?” This brought most of the bickering to an end, especially as they each individually contemplated the times they had messed up that the others DIDN’T know about. Asuna would take how she tried to speed up the dissipation of one mobile grief monster by keeping it in a locket in her chest to the grave, and Haruna felt that the less the girls knew about how often she woke up cuddling a plush doll of stood up dates the better.
The debate continued for a minute or two more before it was decided that Haruna would keep the pin and the keychain, as she was currently responsible for the least number of sealed monsters. At that point the mobile creature was retrieved from the ground, and then extracted out of the treads of Terra’s boots where it had gotten stuck. From there it was soon decided that Erika would be the one to hold onto and purify it, mostly because she was the only person to currently have a bottle on her person when she untransformed. So decided the quartet of females retuned to the alleyway and transformed back into their street clothes, leaving all of the citizens none the wiser. Haruna pinned the pin to her top, while the keychain was hooked onto her purse.
All in all it was a fairly quick little adventure, all wrapped up within a half-hour, leaving the girls plenty of time to go back to shopping. Naturally they would keep their eyes and senses out for any more building areas of negativity, but under their watch the city would remain safe and the negative emotions turned to positive. This was their vow as the Elemental Magical Girls, and they would never fail!
(That Erika had neglected to mention that the bottle she had on her was her water bottle, and that she forgot that the creature was left in there when she went to the gym the next day was a story for anther day…)