Chapter 9: Nightmare Pudding! Subjugation!

To launch a full-scale, decisive, and probably very expensive subjugation campaign against the infamous Darkmoon Coven—for S-City, this was a massive, city-defining, and politically crucial undertaking. If they could succeed, if they could actually pull this off, it would be a huge political achievement, a crowning, glorious victory for the entire city administration. For years, S-City had been striving, with obsessive, single-minded dedication, to cultivate its carefully crafted public image as the "Safest, Most Desirable City in the Nation." But the Darkmoon Coven’s recent, brazen, and frankly quite embarrassing attacks had nearly brought that ambitious, taxpayer-funded goal to a crashing, humiliating, and media-frenzied halt. This was an old, deeply entrenched, veteran fiend society, an almost legendary organization with many powerful, dangerous, and probably quite insane fiends counted among its shadowy ranks.

It was only because S-City, at this particular, fateful moment in time, could deploy two of the most powerful, if temperamentally opposite magical girls in the entire world—the beloved, universally adored Strawberry Sweetheart and the terrifyingly strong, notoriously grumpy Magical Girl Black—that they could even begin to attempt such a high-stakes, all-or-nothing subjugation. The organization had, in fact, been secretly, hopefully entertaining this very idea from the moment they had first begun cultivating Black's immense potential. However, at that time, Strawberry Sweetheart's own personal resolve to finally, definitively face her old nemesis had not, for reasons of her own, been firm. And they, the organization, for all their bureaucratic faults, absolutely, positively respected the will of their number one asset, Strawberry Sweetheart. So, the matter had been delayed, again and again, placed on the back burner of "maybe one day." But now, with the unexpected intervention of Magical Girl Black, who had somehow, inexplicably managed to convince Strawberry Sweetheart to finally act, something different, something epic, something legendary could finally, truly happen here.

Therefore, upon Black and Strawberry Sweetheart’s swift, dramatic return to S-City, the organization didn’t even have time to bother with the relatively minor, if slightly embarrassing matter of the runaway Magical Girl Red. After all, A-City didn’t truly rely on the power of magical girls in the first place; Red’s sudden, unexpected birth there had been an unforeseen, if welcome surprise. A-City, the Handler had assured them, had plenty of time, and a considerably smaller fiend population, to allow their new rookie Magical Girl Red to grow, to mature, to get over her little bout of stage fright. What was truly, critically important now was the complete and utter subjugation of the Darkmoon Coven. A successful, high-profile operation of this magnitude would undoubtedly deliver a heavy, crushing, and deeply demoralizing blow to the numerous other, lesser fiend organizations still lurking pathetically in the shadows. It was time to take out the trash.

“Although we’ve both decided to finally subjugate the Darkmoon Queen,” Akari, now fully transformed into the radiant Magical Girl Strawberry Sweetheart, said to Black, her expression unusually serious, her usual cheerful smile gone, “regarding the division of labor, Black, I… I hope you’ll handle the other fiends. Please, leave the Darkmoon Queen herself to me. This… this is a reckoning that I absolutely, positively must carry out myself.” Her voice was quiet, but it resonated with an unshakeable resolve. “This is a matter of destiny, Black. And for one of us, it is an ending. Can you understand that?”

Black just waved a dismissive, bored-looking hand. “Hmph. Isn’t that how it was probably planned from the very start, anyway? Sure, I’ll admit, I’d absolutely love to just punch her smug, pretty-girl head clean off her shoulders myself, but with my current power level, that’s still… a bit of a stretch. You’re confident you can actually beat her this time, right? Because if I had to fight her with everything I have, one-on-one… I might even end up getting myself killed in the process.” She said it so casually, so matter-of-factly, but the words, coming from the notoriously overpowered Black, were frighteningly real. In other words, she had come into this battle fully, completely prepared to die, and it was with that cold, hard resolve that she had first told Strawberry Sweetheart that she intended to help her subjugate the Queen.

Why? Why can she make such a terrifying, life-or-death decision so calmly, so easily, and then act on it without a single, solitary shred of hesitation? Strawberry Sweetheart was, once again, completely awed by Magical Girl Black’s incredible spirit. She placed a hand on her own rapidly beating chest, then, a brilliant, almost blindingly radiant, and utterly confident smile bloomed on her face—the signature, heart-meltingly sweet smile of the one and only Strawberry Sweetheart.

“LOVELY!” she declared, her voice ringing with a power that seemed to banish all doubt.

Black awkwardly, and with a slight cringe, averted her gaze. Honestly, Kenji Tanaka thought, his middle-aged soul squirming with secondhand embarrassment, do people, actual, real-life people, really talk like that in their daily lives? Maybe on a stage, for a performance, sure, I can almost get that. But here? Now? Before a life-or-death battle? It’s just… it’s just plain weird.

“Ah! Black! You looked away from me! Are you saying I’m not cute right now?!” Strawberry Sweetheart protested instantly, with a dramatic, theatrical pout. She then, with a speed that was almost terrifying, turned her big, pleading, tear-filled eyes to the nearby Ren Akiyama, who was coordinating things from a safe distance. “Senpai! Ren-senpai! You don’t think I’m not cute, do you? Tell me I’m cute!” The legendary magical girl blinked her sparkling, ridiculously large, watery eyes, every single frilly, pink symbol on her elaborate, probably very expensive Dress screaming, with a deafening, psychic intensity, "I AM THE ABSOLUTE, UNDISPUTED, UNIVERSAL PINNACLE OF CUTENESS."

Ren Akiyama, ever the professional, nodded with a deadpan, robotic expression. “Yes, Miss Strawberry Sweetheart. You are, from an objective, analytical standpoint, indeed very cute. Unquestionably.”

“WHAT?! What kind of flat, boring, completely unenthusiastic reaction is that!” she wailed, her pout deepening. “At a time like this, when I’m being so overpoweringly cute, shouldn’t you be rushing over to give me a big hug? Lots, and I mean lots, of my fans say they want to hug me!”

 “And would you actually let them hug you?” He simply asked. 

“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!” Strawberry Sweetheart retorted instantly, without a hint of irony.

How should one put it? This particular magical girl truly was full of a boundless, exhausting and slightly chaotic energy. Just being near her, even for a few moments, couldn’t help but make one feel… more cheerful. And a little bit tired.

Black, deciding to get back to the actual mission at hand, then asked, “Hey, kid. The organization said before that this Shadow Walker creep is a ridiculously powerful hacker, that it would take a great deal of effort, and probably a lot of money, to actually find him. Won’t he be lured out or just discovered during this big, flashy operation?”

“Although it’s almost impossible to counter Shadow Walker in the digital realm,” Ren explained calmly, “you must remember, Miss Black, that there are all sorts of strange, wonderful, and often completely unpredictable Esper abilities in this world! Some abilities might seem weak, almost useless on paper, but they just so happen, by a stroke of pure luck, to be the perfect, hard counter for someone like Shadow Walker. This, you could say, is a fated, karmic coincidence! Or just really, really good planning on the organization’s part.”

And so, on the night of the second day after Strawberry Sweetheart and Magical Girl Black’s triumphant, if slightly awkward, return to S-City… they finally, after much meticulous planning and reconnaissance, found the Darkmoon Coven’s secret, hidden, and probably very evil-looking base of operations.

In fact, the more direct and frankly much simpler option of just carpet-bombing the entire, suspected location with heavy, military-grade weaponry had been considered, and was, in fact, Kenji Tanaka’s preferred course of action. But the Darkmoon Queen’s ridiculously overpowered, reality-warping Dark Moon Domain was an extremely, unfairly tricky ability, not something that could be easily or safely destroyed with brute force. Heavy ordnance, it was determined, could easily be swallowed whole by her shadowy domain and then, with a casual, contemptuous flick of her wrist, thrown right back at you. With interest.

Therefore, the ones chosen to lead the dangerous and probably very messy frontal assault—were just the two magical girls!

“LOVE~LOVE! SHOCK🩷🩷!!!”

A massive, blinding wave of concentrated pink energy, crackling with the power of love, justice, and probably a lethal dose of pure sugar, instantly surged into the dilapidated, factory-like warehouse that served as the Coven’s base, blasting the entire, crumbling structure to absolute smithereens with a deafening, beautiful roar.

A pitch-black, solid moon instantly and defiantly rose into the night sky, its dark, oppressive light blanketing the entire area in an eerie, unnatural twilight. And one by one, like phantoms emerging from the dust and debris, a horde of fiends appeared, their grotesque forms silhouetted against the dark moon, as they silently, menacingly surrounded the two magical girls.

“Strawberry Sweetheart. Black. You came, just as I expected you would,” the Darkmoon Queen’s calm, almost bored voice echoed from the center of the fiendish formation. She casually, elegantly brushed a stray strand of her long, black hair from her face. “I must confess, I thought you would at least bring an entire, heavily armed army of Espers with you. But… it seems it’s just the two of you. Are you perhaps a little… too confident in your own abilities, my dears? Or are you simply, insultingly not taking my glorious Darkmoon Coven seriously at all!”

Black saw the bandaged arm on her enemy and sneered, a sound of pure, unadulterated contempt. “Cut the crap, you dramatic witch. Your miserable, pathetic life ends today, Darkmoon Queen. If you have any profound last words, any final, tragic monologues, you can go and say them to the King of Hell when you get there!” She had absolutely no intention of wasting any more precious time or energy engaging in pointless, philosophical debate with a bunch of fiends. At the end of the day, a fiend was a fiend. Period. Trying to reason with them, to debate them, was a fool’s errand. That, in itself, was the problem. They were creatures who had willfully, selfishly abandoned their place in society, who had forsaken their humanity—they were just names on a long, long list, waiting to be hunted down, to be subjugated, to be erased. That’s all they were.

With a speed that was like a glitch in reality, Black instantly appeared directly in front of the startled Darkmoon Queen, her knuckle-duster-clad fist already rocketing towards her face.

With a graceful, contemptuous swirl of a dark, miniature moon, the Queen vanished from her spot and then, with an infuriatingly smug smirk, reappeared in another direction, a safe distance away. “Oh my, my~ Such a fierce, impatient uncle! Are you really that eager to do something… naughty… to my delicate, youthful body, then?”

“Cut the goddamn crap, you waste of space. I’m here to crush you all. If you don’t want to die a horrible, painful death, then you’d better use all your pathetic little powers to try and take me down first.”

Black, with another burst of impossible speed, moved again. This time, she appeared directly in front of a particularly ugly, helmet-wearing fiend. A single, brutal punch to the fiend’s soft, squishy stomach sent the creature flying backwards, a pained, gurgling sound escaping its lips as it crashed through a solid brick wall.

“Twin-tail War God!” the other fiends cried out in a mixture of rage and terror. “What did you do to the magnificent Twin-tail War God, you monster!” One by one, the horde of fiends, their faces contorted with fury, charged recklessly, almost suicidally towards Magical Girl Black.

“Just a bunch of pathetic ants trying to shake a mighty tree!” Black’s gaze was as cold as the void of space, her face a mask of pure contempt. “No matter how many of you insignificant little bugs there are, you’re still just bugs. Subjugating disgusting things like you early, before you can fester and spread… it’s a genuine service to the world.”

The Darkmoon Queen sighed, a sound of profound, theatrical boredom, her gaze fixed intently, lovingly on the radiant Strawberry Sweetheart. “Black really is such an impatient, brutish magical girl, isn’t she? So… unrefined. What do you think, my dear Strawberry?”

“I respect her very much,” Strawberry Sweetheart replied, her own voice quiet but firm as she held her glowing pink staff at the ready. “Darkmoon Queen. No… Moonstone. It is finally, truly time for you and I to make our decision. To have our final reckoning.”

“A decision, you say? A reckoning? You’re right, my dear Strawberry Sweetheart. It is indeed time for us to make our final decision, isn’t it?” The Queen’s voice was soft now, almost melancholic. “So many long, weary years have passed since we first, tragically gained these incredible, terrible powers. If we don’t settle this now, once and for all, the era, this stagnant, miserable era, is simply unable to move forward.” She spread her arms wide, a gesture of grand, final acceptance, and the Dark Moon Domain around them began to twist, to warp, to distort in a strange, beautiful way. Unbeknownst to Strawberry Sweetheart and Magical Girl Black, who were both trapped within the oppressive domain, the image of their epic, fated duel was, at that very moment, being projected by the Queen’s power into the night sky above the city, a giant, otherworldly screen for all of S-City to see. She wanted to lure the wayward Magical Girl Red here, to witness this historic moment. And at the same time, she still had some final, parting words she wanted to convey to the disillusioned, downtrodden fiends of this weary era.

However, whether they knew about her little broadcast or not, it wouldn’t change what Strawberry Sweetheart was about to do. She took a deep, steadying breath, her expression now serene, beatific. “I was once, long ago, forced into that dark, terrifying Inversion by your cruel manipulations. Yet, I was, through a miracle, awakened by the boundless love of my precious comrades. You, Moonstone, you possess the pain, the sorrow, the righteous hatred of the fallen Magical Girl Crystal—I… I wanted you to let go of those heavy burdens. I wanted you to find happiness again, to find your own love, to live your own life. But… I failed. I see that now. You… you will not be changed by me. Not by my words. Not by my hope.”

A slow, sad smile began to appear on the Darkmoon Queen’s beautiful face. “After all this time, after all these years… you’re only just, finally realizing that now, my dear, naive Strawberry Sweetheart? I embraced the magnificent, corrupted power of Crystal with my own free will, my own conscious choice. I have walked this dark, lonely path to this very day with my own unshakeable will. You think I am merely, pathetically dominated by hatred and pain, a puppet of a long-dead ghost. But you, my dear, sweet girl… you know nothing, absolutely nothing, of my true, glorious ideals!”

A swirling vortex of pitch-black, almost solid energy began to gather in her outstretched palm; she was clearly, finally about to use her full, unrestrained power.

And so… in response…

“INVERSION… NIGHTMARE PUDDING!”

Even Magical Girl Black, who was in the middle of efficiently, and with no small amount of sadistic glee, dismantling a horde of terrified, low-level fiends, couldn’t help but pause and glance over with a keen curiosity at the legendary, incredibly rare sight of Strawberry Sweetheart’s fully unleashed Inverted state. If I can learn something useful from this, if I can gather some data…

Her usual, bubblegum-pink magical girl dress instantly, violently transformed into a dark, sinister, bruised purple. And at the same time… should one call it incredibly, almost scandalously revealing, or just plain, unadulteratedly lewd, or perhaps even exquisitely, artistically obscene? This new, nightmarish outfit, in a certain, very real sense, looked just like something one might find in a very specific, very high-end, and probably very illegal fetish shop—in fact, many pieces of actual, real-life lingerie weren't nearly as revealing, as daring, as this. It looked as if one single, large, dramatic movement would instantly, catastrophically expose absolutely everything that should, and definitely shouldn’t, be seen by mortal eyes. It was like… like a few strategically placed, slightly wide, and probably very uncomfortable-looking ropes, barely, teasingly covering those few, crucial, un-broadcastable, and highly sensitive locations!

“Can… can they even put this in ‘Magical Girl Brawl’?!” Black exclaimed out loud, her mind completely boggled. “The potential negative effect on the moral development of our nation’s youth would be absolutely, catastrophically immeasurable! This is a public decency crisis!” She was so genuinely, utterly shocked, so distracted by this sudden, unexpected, and frankly quite overwhelming display of raw, unfiltered fanservice, that she was immediately, and with a rather satisfying thwack, hit by two opportunistic and suddenly very brave fiends, and knocked unceremoniously to the ground.

“DAMN IT ALL! How DARE you! You’ve given me face, and now you want to lose it, is that it?!” Black roared, scrambling back to her feet, her eyes blazing with a fresh, new, and deeply personal fury. “I was just, for a few seconds, observing a rare and highly educational magical girl transformation! I was being nice, I was being generous by not immediately attacking you pathetic worms! And you actually dared, you actually had the audacity, to lay your filthy, fiendish hands on me?! Well, that’s it! That’s the last straw! Today, all of you, every single last one of you, you are ALL going to DIE HERE, you miserable bastards!!!”

Magical Girl Black, her earlier professional detachment now completely gone, finally, truly began to fight with her full, unrestrained, and frankly quite terrifying strength.

“Such a lewd, vulgar, and utterly shameless form, my dear Strawberry Sweetheart,” the Queen taunted, though her eyes betrayed a flicker of genuine caution. “Is it really, truly okay for a so-called ‘magical girl of hope’ to use this kind of… dark… power? What would your adoring fans think?”

Nightmare Pudding’s ornate staff had vanished completely. She simply, silently raised her hands towards the Darkmoon Queen, her left hand clenched into a tight, white-knuckled fist, her right hand held open as a flat palm. Then, with a sharp, percussive sound, she slammed her left fist hard into her right palm. Instantly, a huge, grotesque, dark purple shadow, a monstrous maw of pure, unadulterated despair, emerged from the very air around the Darkmoon Queen. It opened its gaping, toothless mouth, and then, with a horrifying, silent roar, it bit down, swallowing the Queen whole, and then, with a series of sickening, grinding motions, it began to… chew.

“What a terrifying, unbelievable power,” the Darkmoon Queen’s calm, amused voice echoed as she suddenly, impossibly appeared, completely unharmed, behind the impassive Nightmare Pudding. “If I hadn't seen this little trick of yours before, I might very well have died from that one, rather impressive attack.” However, Nightmare Pudding didn’t even bother to turn her head. A similar, dark purple shadow, this one taking the form of a massive, roaring, ethereal chainsaw, instantly materialized beside her and, with a terrifying, high-pitched scream, slashed viciously through the Queen’s seemingly solid body, brutally cutting her clean in half.

The bisected Darkmoon Queen, however, simply dissolved into a shower of dark, shimmering particles, which then coalesced into the familiar, ominous shape of a pitch-black full moon. She then, with an infuriatingly smug smirk, reappeared high in the sky, completely unharmed once more. “Such an unreasonable, cheat-like power. My full moon, my absolute defense, is not something so easily, so casually cut. And yet now, it’s like… like a piece of flimsy paper before you. Tell me, my dear Strawberry… have you been secretly, diligently training in this delightful form of yours? Honing your despair?”

Nightmare Pudding finally turned to look at the Darkmoon Queen, her eyes now icy, empty voids, filled with something that could only be described as pure, unadulterated “killing intent,” yet that terrifying, overwhelming intent was somehow, miraculously, firmly, almost rigidly bound within her small body, confined entirely to her chilling, emotionless gaze.

“Darkmoon Queen,” she said, her voice a flat, cold, robotic monotone, “if you continue to maintain that arrogant, self-assured attitude… you will die. For real this time.” She then, with a quiet, final finality, made her declaration. A giant, shimmering, wobbly, dark purple pudding, a monstrous, cosmic dessert of pure despair, appeared in the sky behind her. And then, something unseen, something terrible, began to take large, hungry bites out of that pudding, consuming it slowly, inexorably.

“The Final Dessert, is it? Your ultimate, self-destructive move,” the Queen observed, a genuine, excited smile now gracing her lips. “When the dessert is completely consumed, your own life, your very existence, will also come to an end. Are you really going for your ultimate, all-or-nothing move right from the very start of our little reunion, my dear? How… dramatic.” The Darkmoon Queen’s smile grew even wider, even more ecstatic. “Are you, perhaps, underestimating me just a little bit too much?!!!”

On this day, under a sky filled with projections of their epic, final battle, the true, pale moon was finally, completely, and with a terrible, beautiful finality, devoured by the dark moon.