A moment was all it took to turn a safe sanctuary into hell.
A rift appeared within the heart of the camp and began its rhythmic humming within the still night. The humming of the rift was noisy, yet it wasn't loud enough to wake up the people who were sleeping.
A few minutes after it appeared, giant green-skinned monsters walked their first step inside the heart of the camp and began slaughtering everyone.
Aria lay perfectly still under the heavy, cooling weight of her mother's body and the massive club that had hit them. Her mommy had sacrificed herself in an instant, using her own life as a shield to hide her daughter from the carnage. It was mostly for naught, as Aria's lower body had been crushed by the weight of the blow that killed her mother.
It was only a matter of time until the monsters finished with the others and began poking through the piles of the fallen to find the dying survivors hiding beneath.
Aria was terrified of everything. Her body was losing a lot of blood and her mind was heavy with grief, but she remembered the magical girls she had watched with her mother. In those stories, the magical girls never gave up to despair and clung to hope with all their might. She forced her fear into a small corner of her heart and began to pray.
She prayed with an undying desperation, but she did not pray for herself. She prayed for someone to save her mother. She prayed for someone to save these people. She prayed for someone to kill these monsters who had stolen her happiness.
A deity heard her prayer. Suddenly the screams and the footsteps no longer existed. Her mother's body felt like a prison that held her in place. Time had stopped.
Through the silence she heard the slithering of a snake. The noise kept getting closer until it climbed on top of her mother's body, and the snake looked her in the eyes.
"I am Asclepius, god of Medicine and Healing," the snake introduced itself. "My kind rarely chooses a contractee with a pure support ability. Such abilities are a gamble, as they cannot fight alone. But I see the purity within you to help others no matter what it takes, so I will take that gamble."
The eyes of the snake glowed with a soft, emerald light.
"Sign this contract by saying 'I accept' to become a magical girl. Do it, and you shall unlock the power within to restore things to what they once were by willing your magic wand into existence."
"I accept," Aria accepted the offer with no further thought. She had no other choice but to accept the contract if she wanted to live and save everyone.
The light of transformation enveloped the Aria. All the pain she had been suffering under left her body as the new form filled her body with strange power. The name of this new form appeared brightly in her mind.
'Mending Rosemary.'
The girl moved her mother's corpse aside and willed her magic wand into existence. The magic wand that appeared in her hand was not a collection of flowers like those Big Sis Lily had. Instead, it was an ornate, heavy mace with purple rosemary flowers engravings across the hilt.
She stood up with the legs that felt strong and healthy, gripping the handle of the mace. She channeled the strange power into it, and the knowledge of how to wield that power came to her.
Raising her mace up high on top of her head, a shining purple light burst forth from the mace like a lighthouse. The light then turned into dots that spread across the battlefield, sinking into the bodies of the people who still lived while completely ignoring the bodies of those who had already died.
The 5 green-skinned giants looked at the source of the purple light and began running at the little girl holding the mace with bloodlust.
Aria was no longer held back by fear. Instead, she charged head-on toward these monsters with a death wish. She wanted to keep these monsters focused on herself, acting as a living decoy to let the other survivors escape.
Just as she was about to jump and hit the nearest giant with her mace, another giant met her small body with its club.
Mending Rosemary felt the weight of the club slam into her. Hit with a force that threatened to tear her body apart, she was flung into a brick wall and lost consciousness from the shock.
Her eyes flickered open. Pain was the only thing she could feel, as half her body had been crushed and her internal organs were compressed into one another.
The giants, who saw the magical girl went limp with half her body gone, were disappointed. Their eyes began to lose interest in the magical girl as they turned their attention back toward the remaining survivors.
"NO! YOUR ENEMY IS ME!" Mending Rosemary screamed. The mace glowed again, this time inward, and restored her body back to pristine condition, full of vitality.
The power recovered her body faster than the natural regeneration of any magical girl.
Once again, she jumped toward the group of monsters. The giants, seeing that the small girl they had just flung away was running back for more, let smiles plaster across their faces. To them, she had become a new and durable toy to play with.
The survivors could only helplessly run away as their savior fought these monsters alone.
***
Sunlight graced the earth. Ludwig and Sierra decided to make their way to the survivor camp that was willing to take them.
On the way, they found a man collapsed against the side of a building. Ludwig felt something was wrong and approached him.
"Sir, why are you out here? Isn't there a camp five minutes' walk from here?"
"The monster... they appeared inside the camp in the middle of the night and killed everyone," the man warned them, his voice trembling. "Don't go there, or you will die."
Ludwig felt his stomach drop. They were there, little girl Aria and her mother.
"What? Sir, please, tell me what happened exactly?"
The man looked at the siblings and took a deep breath.
"There was a girl, small one. She used some kind of magic to save us and held them back while we ran away. We don't even know her name, but she might have died by now. I saw how she got flung by those monsters. You kids shouldn't go over there."
"How many monsters are there?"
"Five."
'D-ranks, damn,' Ludwig noted in his mind.
"Thank you for your warning," Ludwig answered.
The siblings looked at each other with a shared sense of urgency. Liara was no longer the helpless girl she once was. She now held the power of threads that could harm those monsters. If they hurried, they might still be able to save that magical girl, or what's left of her at least.