On the first day of the apocalypse in South Africa, major countries were more concerned about plummeting stock prices and whether or not the next superhero movie would be delayed. By the end of the second day, the entire country went dark and was cut off from the rest of the world. Satellite imagery from space showed no light from any city, not even the populous Cape Town and Johannesburg, and instead revealed countless Malevolent Domains across the country. Attempts to send drones in were met with electrical interference and the airspace was deemed too dangerous.

Come morning of the third day, eight magical girls convened at the African Union's conference center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Of those eight, only five were willing to head into the heart of the apocalypse.

Somehow, it was when they needed to be united the most that the foundation of their alliance crumbled. Some had no choice in the matter, and others were under a sense of obligation or duty. For Inyanga, going was a given, and she wouldn't have hesitated even if she was to be the only one.

"In here! Quickly!" Inyanga urged the three young siblings, two teenage boys and a toddler girl, whom she had found while scouting the area. A dozen head hounds and a lizard monster were hot on their trail, one of which was close enough to snap at their ankles.

Although the monster was behind them, she pulled on the bowstring of her soul-weapon [Icewind], and in doing so, conjured an arrow on her bow. Loosing the projectile didn't cause it to fire forward like it should, but instead curve around to hit the head hound between the eyes.

[+1,000 Apocalypse Points]

The younger of the two boys suddenly tripped.

"Keep going!" Inyanga shouted to the older one who was carrying their little sister, then stopped to help the other boy up. "Can you stand?"

"Yes, but… I think I sprained my ankle!" The boy groaned and hobbled forward with a limp. It was clear he wouldn't be able to run in that state.

Inyanga had hoped to preserve her resources, but she refused to let any more people die today.

"Rocky, magic sigil. Now!"

"You got it!" Rocky manifested a crystal into her hand which she promptly crushed.

[Magic Capacity: 5/175 ⇒ 175/175]

"Hoarfrost Volley!" Inyanga spun to face the horde and pulled on the bowstring again, this time conjuring numerous arrows to take form around her.

[Magic Capacity: 175/175 ⇒ 150/175]

When she loosed the arrow, the others fired as well. Each shot found their own target, plunging into the monsters and freezing them into blocks of ice. Then, with a snap of a finger, she shattered them into a thousand smaller pieces.

[+31,000 Apocalypse Points]

"Wow… That was amazing, Inyanga!" the boy uttered in awe.

"Come on. Let's get you inside." Inyanga smiled, giving him a piggyback ride the rest of the way in.

The siblings reunited inside the construction site of what used to be a residential apartment project. Others around them began to raise back the barricade they had brought down to let them in. The building, made only of rebars and concrete with plastic tarps being used as makeshift bed sheets, now served as refuge for just under a hundred lives who had lost their homes in the town below. Should Inyanga and the others fail to stop the apocalypse, the rest of South Africa would follow suit.

She walked over to the edge of the building. Scaffolding and plastic blue coverings were all that protected the people inside from the monsters. Peering out between the gaps, multiple swarms of flyers blotted the skies like a massive flock of birds. They moved as amorphous, black masses over the ruined town.

"It may look daunting," Rocky began, "but I know you and the others can stop this apocalypse."

"I sure hope so, Rocky. There's a whole lot more at stake than just South Africa. The world is watching. They need to know that we can fight these monsters," Inyanga said, stepping away from the edge to meet up with the others.

They ascended to the third floor to another hollow, concrete room where four other magical girls and their anthems waited impatiently.

"That commotion outside was you just now, Inyanga?" one of them asked, who was feeding a kitten anthem on her lap.

Inyanga recognized her by the tattoo of an ankh underneath the right eye as magical girl Isis, a nineteen year old girl from Egypt, whose dark olive skin had seen much time in the sun. She was a Warrior class at level 3 and level 1 Raider subclass.

Wielding a long staff which blossomed into flower petals-like blades at each end, Isis specialized in flighted combat to lay waste to the monsters from above. However, her strength didn't come from the staff, but from a skill that granted her wings with razor sharp edges, allowing her to become a weapon itself in the sky.

"Yeah," Inyanga almost hesitated to answer. "I found a couple of kids hiding in a hovel outside. Had to pop a magic sigil to keep monsters from getting any closer to us just now."

"Just getting into South Africa was hard enough, and you went and wasted a sigil for just three people?" An outraged magical girl named Inat, whose hair was mixed with ochre and the left half of her face was painted in a brownish orange, shot to her feet.

"They were kids, Inat. The smallest is a two year old girl," she argued back.

The seventeen year old magical girl from Namibia sat back down and folded her arms. She was only a level 2 Witch. Inat was the youngest and second to lowest level among them. Her home country bordered South Africa and saw just as many people hurt and many places destroyed. It was no wonder she was antsy. They were all on edge. Inyanga could tell by the weariness in each of their eyes and the fear that gripped them all.

"How are we going to get to Cape Town like this? We can't possibly protect all these people, and I'm pretty sure the rest of the world has given up on us," Ogun, the eldest of the magical girls said.

The twenty-two year old woman was a level 6 magical girl named after the god of blacksmith. It wasn't even a name she wanted herself, but it was what people started calling her after demonstrating skills that forged weapons out of thin air. Even her soul-weapon was a crude warhammer in the appearance of a blacksmithing hammer.

Inat scoffed. "You would think an entire continent was enough to get magical girls all over the world to act. There's eight of us in all of Africa but only five answered the call. Then the strongest magical girls, Flare and Hurricane won't even drop a line despite talking themselves up on TV. More like the biggest pussies. If it couldn't get any worse, we have to settle on that? You wanna actually start helping or what, Jhenne?"

At the corner of the room, Jhenne, who had been quiet all this time, was hugging her anthem and knees, shrank as if to make herself look smaller from Inat's insult.

"Hey, the five who answered the call include Jhenne, too. She's brave to come with us," Inyanga said, walking over to put a hand on the young magical girl's shoulder.

Jhenne was South Africa's magical girl, a level 1 who has had trouble adjusting ever since turning into one a year ago. The country celebrated her when she first transformed, but they quickly became disillusioned when she was… not what they expected. There was no kind way to say it, but she was slow to learn and fearful of fighting. No one was sure why she became a magical girl, only that her koala anthem, Kimo, insisted he had sensed her potential.

Somehow, and not even the anthems understood how or why, Jhenne possessed a soul-weapon despite her level. A sharp wooden stake with a golden cross embedded onto the surface.

"I say we leave the people here," Isis began, casting her eyes to the doorless entryway. "This is the safest place they can be. God forbid we try to help them cross Beitbridge in Zimbabwe. Flyers will pick them all off before we get there. What we need to do is get to Cape Town as fast as we can and kill that damn angel."

Everyone raised their eyes to Inyanga.

"You're our leader. What's your decision?" Ogun asked.

"We waste more time the longer we wait here. Isis is right. Monsters haven't attacked here yet, so there's no better place for them to stay. I'll be the one to let them know. The rest of you get ready to leave," Inyanga said, but on her way out, Ogun keeled over as soon as she stood up and vomited into an empty paint bucket.

The others went to check on her.

"You okay?" Isis asked.

"I'm fine. Maybe the thought of fighting more of those monsters grossed me out," Ogun said, making light of the situation to calm everyone's nerves.

Inyanga, however, met Ogun's wandering gaze and saw another reason for her sudden nausea. She decided against bringing it up in a time like this and left the room to speak with the refugees.

Of course, none of the refugees were on board with the magical girls leaving them. Who would protect them from monsters if anything were to break in? Inyanga didn't make this decision lightly, especially since the rest of the world had forsaken them, the military of neighboring countries in shambles, and the other magical girls have refused to help.

It just didn't make sense. It should have been in everyone's best interest to stop the apocalypse. Yet…

"Are you really going, Inyanga?" the young boy from earlier asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

"I have to," Inyanga said apologetically, kneeling down to brush the dirt from his messy hair. "Stopping the apocalypse will save everyone. There's still two weeks of food in storage. The other magical girls and I will clear as many monsters around the town as possible before leaving. You will be fine."

It was going to be fine. Inyanga had no other choice but to believe it.

However, none of them were prepared for the horrors they saw passing over Johannesburg.

"I'm going to be sick…" Inat gagged and covered her mouth.

Isis, who was carrying Inat on her back because the level 2 magical girl couldn't fly yet, grimaced at the sound. "If you're going to puke, it better not be on me…"

Once called the City of Gold was now a smoking ruin, a festering corpse of its former self, blanketed in fleshy tumors and growth that pulsated with each heartbeat. Instead of people and cars, monsters filled the streets.

"Everyone's… dead… because I'm not strong enough…" Jhenne, who was on Inyanga's back, muttered to herself.

"It isn't your fault," Inyanga said. "There was nothing you could have done. All we can do now is focus on what lies ahead."

"Do you… really think… we can win?"

"I know we can, and we'll win this together. So have hope, alright?" she urged, more to convince herself than anyone else

When they closed in on Cape Town, the coastal city of South Africa, things grew dire in an instant. The ones who could fly suddenly lost the ability to stay in the air, and they plummeted into the city where monsters chased them through the streets. Inyanga, Inat, and Jhenne became separated from Isis and Ogun as powerful monsters sprung out of nearby malevolent domains.

Unable to fly and with more monsters closing in, the three were forced to stand their ground in a large intersection.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Inat cried, firing skill after skill at the monsters, then crushing a sigil to restore her magic capacity. "Where the hell did the other two go? We could use their help right about now! Why couldn't we be separated with them instead of this useless idiot?"

Jhenne was on her knees and clutching her head, murmuring something neither of them could hear. Even if she was level 1, her added manpower would go a long way. But as it stood, she was only a burden. At this rate, they were going to be overwhelmed.

"Th-There's less monsters down the left street!" Rocky shouted, then ducked to avoid a flyer trying to swoop him up. "We can escape if we break through!"

"Inat, Jhenne! I'll create an opening for us to make a run for it— Blizzard!" Inyanga fired an arrow into the sky.

[Magic Capacity: 150/175 ⇒ 115/175]

A snowstorm blew through the intersection, slowing the army of monsters' approach. She then fired repeatedly into the left lane, thinning the enemies' numbers enough for them to pass through..

"Now!" she yelled to the other two.

Inat was about to make her way over until Jhenne grabbed her by the hand.

"Don't leave me…" Jhenne begged.

"What are you doing? Let go! We have to go—"

Jhenne stood up and plunged her stake into Inat's chest. It took a second for her to realize what happened. Blood poured down the other magical girl's outfit like an open faucet.

Inat pushed Jhenne away, then pressed both hands to her chest in vain to stop the bleeding. When it became clear that it wouldn't stop flowing, she ordered her anthem to put a healing sigil into her hands, but crushing the crystal didn't close the wound.

"I don't… want to…" She coughed a mouthful of blood, then fell limp to the ground at Jhenne's feet.

The pool of blood still hot coming out of Inat's body steamed from the cold air produced by Blizzard. Her anthem landed next to his dead magical girl and tried shaking her awake, but she was already gone. Even Kimo and Rocky were speechless.

"Jhenne… What have you done?" Inyanga took a step forward, still stunned and unable to process what had occurred.

"It's true… It's true, Inyanga!" Jhenne cried hysterically. "They were right… I got stronger from killing Inat! I can do this!"

Inyanga stormed over, slapped Jhenne across the face, and snatched the soul-weapon from her hand. The wooden stake was still warm with blood.

"You killed a magical girl! Who's they? Who told you to kill Inat?" Inyanga demanded to know.

"The voices did! Ever since I almost died to a monster, they are all I hear… They tell me I don't have to kill monsters to get stronger. I can kill magical girls, too!"

The timid magical girl named Jhenne was no longer present. When Inyanga gazed into those maddened eyes, she saw a deranged and troubled child.

Killing magical girls to become stronger? What kind of silly notion was that? First of all, Jhenne shouldn't have been able to outright kill Inat, who still had plenty of health left. Inyanga had seen magical girls quarrel before, and their weapons had never gone through another's health like that.

"You can grow stronger, too!" Jhenne grabbed Inyanga by her shoulders. "There is still Isis and Ogun!"

"No!" Inyanga shoved her back, but in doing so, staggered the other magical girl into the tongue of a lizard monster from the roof of a building. Both of them glanced down to her waist, which was wrapped by a long tongue like a boa constrictor.

"Wait— help!"

"Jhenne!"

Inyanga fired wildly, but the monster leapt from building to building to avoid her shots, carrying Jhenne away with it. She was pulled into its gaping jaws and swallowed alive with her legs still kicking. A bellowing roar ripped through the city as it began to transform, growing larger and bulkier, spikes protruding all over the body, and turning to her for its next meal.

"We have to go!" Rocky pinched her cheeks to snap her out of it.

She dove away from the same tongue that caught Jhenne. It smashed into the asphalt with bone-shattering force. They ran as fast as their legs could go and eventually lost the monsters. Colorful houses filled this deserted narrow street, like the color palette was picked right from the rainbow.

The coast was clear for now, but who knows for how much longer.

"How did I not see it? Why did Jhenne go and do that?" Inyanga collapsed onto all fours as it was dawning on her that their efforts might have all been for nothing.

Inat and Jhenne were dead. Isis and Ogun were nowhere to be found. If the apocalypse was left to run wild and the monsters unchecked, the neighboring countries would suffer the same fate.

"Inyanga… You couldn't have known Inat was going to do that." Rocky floated down to put a hand on hers.

"This is too much for us to handle… We have to find Isis and Ogun, get out of here, and beg help from—"

"Hey… Someone out there?" a weak voice from inside one of the houses called out.

Inyanga and Rocky traded glances, then followed the voice until they came across an injured magical girl inside the red house, slumped against the wall next to the front door. She appeared to be of Asian descent, had long black hair tied into a ponytail, and wore a red outfit that was stained a deeper burgundy from the blood stains around her stomach. If it weren't for how often she showed up on television and the fiery falcon by her legs, neither of them would have recognized her.

"You're Flare, the magical girl from Japan?" Inyanga uttered in disbelief.

"In the flesh." Flare winced as she tried to sit up straight. "I got here as fast as I could… didn't expect all the monsters to fight so fiercely. So, this is an apocalypse, huh? Don't tell me you're all that's left."

"I… might be. How's your wound? Anything I can do to help?" she asked, and Flare peeled back both hands to reveal a lateral cut across her stomach that had been cauterized. "What monster did this to you?"

"Not a monster. A magical girl did. Sharp wings, tattoo under her eye… you know her?"

Isis.

Could Isis also be crazed like Jhenne? But she always seemed so calm-mannered.

"I know her alright, but why would Isis attack you?" Inyanga asked.

"Does the name Messiah ring any bells?" Flare answered with a question of her own. "Bunch of loons who think monsters are the good guys. When I got close to the angel deeper in the city, Isis stopped me from trying to fight it."

It was too hard of a pill to swallow. Did Isis really believe such a thing?

"Wait a minute. Isis should have been with Ogun, another magical girl. Did you see anyone else?" Inyanga pressed her.

"Nope. Just her. I might just be paranoid but… you aren't one of them, are you? Or maybe you just fought one." Flare gestured to the bloodied stake in her hand.

Inyanga tossed it as soon as she realized she was holding it. The stake rolled across the floor until it came to a stop against the leg of a coffee table.

"Jhenne, I… I'm not sure. It might be too dangerous to stay here any longer. We should retreat and call for help," Inyanga said.

"There's no one else to call for help from. The States are just going to watch and wait until the end to swoop in like they always do, and China's got a tight leash on Chu Hua. The only ones this world can count on are us, and we're not ready to give up yet, are we?" Flare asked, fighting against the pain to stand up and extending a hand to her.

The hope that Inyanga had nearly lost was reignited by Flare's declaration. Stopping that monster was their top priority, and she intended to see that to the end, even if Isis had betrayed them.

"In that case, I look forward to fighting alongside you." Inyanga clasped her hand.

As they were leaving the house, Flare supposedly had the urge to use the bathroom. She came back out looking a lot more refreshed after rinsing off the blood and grime. Together, they fought their way to the Cape Town Stadium, a donut-shaped sports arena where the angel-level monster that spawned with the apocalypse resided.

Even though they could replenish their health and magic with sigils, the deficit of having to use them so often against stronger monsters versus the points gained proved to be very draining. Not to mention, just because they were able to restore their health, didn't make it any less taxing on their stamina.

They finally reached the stadium, and instead of finding the seats filled with people, half-eaten corpses littered the area in what appeared to have been a refugee camp. An eerie quiet was all that remained. Sleeping at the center of the field was a giant, wolf-like monster with no fur, ashen skin, and bigger than anything Inyanga had ever seen until now. Where it lacked eyes on its head was made up for with countless slits all over the body.

Inyanga let out a quivering breath. This was it. Defeating this thing meant that everyone's deaths weren't in vain.

"Don't be scared," Flare said. "Be brave."

"Inyanga? What are you doing with her?"

They looked up to see Isis flying down from the stadium's rooftop, unaffected by the anomaly that prevented them from flight. It was different for her, because the very essence of her flight was in the skills. For whatever reason or misfortune, she was without her anthem.

"Flare and I are trying to stop the apocalypse, Isis. What about you? Whose side are you on?" Inyanga asked.

"I'm on the side of protecting this world," Isis said, keeping a distance in the air thanks to her beating wings. "That magical girl next to you definitely doesn't care about saving it and isn't who she says she is."

"We don't have time to talk. I'm killing that monster this time, and you aren't stopping me— Snaking Flames!" Flare shouted. Fiery appendages emerged from her body to attack both the wolf monster and Isis, but she spun in place and created a gale to snuff the fire out.

Their battle set fire to the stadium. Isis had the advantage in the air, dodging and weaving from Flare's attacks. She retaliated by flourishing her wings, shooting out dagger-like feathers at them.

Inyanga stood there petrified, unsure about hurting another magical girl after she inadvertently caused Jhenne's death.

"Don't hesitate, Inyanga! This is our end game!" Flare cried, gravely injured from the feathers cutting into her body.

"All you know how to do is lie! Inyanga, stay there and we'll talk once I'm done with her!" Isis flew higher into the sky and spread her wings wide. "Wings of Ruin!"

An unrelenting storm filled the stadium, enough to lift the goalposts and bodies off the ground. Isis condensed the force at both tips of her wings and fired it into Flare, sending her crashing through the arena. Falling debris and rubble crushed her.

The hope that Inyanga regained was slowly slipping away again.

"Flare!" Blaze cried.

"Inyanga… I know you don't want to fight her, but this is looking bad! Like very bad! You have to stop her!" Rocky implored.

Isis began descending toward her. "Listen to me! Flare won't be dead for lo—"

"Isis!" Inyanga lost control of her emotions and fired volley after volley. She cracked magic sigils to continue the onslaught and soon, there were too many arrows in the sky for Isis to avoid. A few stray arrows struck her wings, freezing them still and causing her to plummet.

She came to her senses to find Isis frozen in a tomb of ice and tearfully knelt in front of it. The magical girl's eyes were wide with surprise. Inyanga pressed two fingers together but couldn't bring herself to snap.

"Inyanga?" Coming from the other end of the stadium was Ogun, but she wasn't in her magical girl form and walked with a limp. When both of them locked eyes, they smiled. "Oh, thank god you're okay—"

The frozen prison shuddered. The area around Isis' mouth had thawed enough for her to speak. Her wings sharpened themselves from within and began to vibrate. Inyanga had seen this skill before. It was her most powerful skill, capable of cutting through anything.

"Ogun, get down!" Inyanga cried, but she snapped her finger too late.

The feathers exploded out of the tomb of ice and flew everywhere. Several sliced into Inyanga, nicking her arms and legs.

[Health: 220/220 ⇒ 95/220]

Isis was shattered into a dozen pieces, killed by Inyanga's own hands. In her final moments, she mouthed the word 'sorry'.

[+1,200,000 Apocalypse Points]

Points…?

"Was this… what Jhenne was talking about?" Inyanga swallowed hard, then a prick on her magic ring made her flinch. "Wait— Ogun!"

"Inyanga, over here! Help!" Rocky waved to her from Ogun's side.

Inyanga rushed over to find Ogun on the ground, gurgling and choking on her own blood. She didn't know what else to do but to put pressure on the deep cut on her friend's throat. Ogun placed a hand on Inyanga's tear stained cheek as if begging for help. Then, maybe seeing the futility of it all, she let go with the other on her neck wound to place on her stomach instead, smearing blood on a very subtle bump.

She was pregnant.

Inyanga gasped, tears now flowing like a broken dam. "Ogun… This whole time, you were… Why did you come with us then? You should have stayed home!"

Ogun went still at last. Another magical girl was dead and Inyanga was all who remained.

The wolf monster began to stir from its slumber. This was the end. Inyanga alone wasn't going to be able to fight it alone.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Inyanga and Rocky whipped around.

It was Flare, brushing cinders and ashes from her shoulders, seemingly uninjured even though Isis' attack should have killed her. The fiery magical girl's gaze was fixed on the giant monster, and her lips curled back into a bemused smile.

"That monster you see is a cherub," Flare began, stopping right next to Inyanga. "It's maybe two forms away from evolving into something godlike. Unfortunately, the amount of people in both Johannesburg and Cape Town combined wasn't enough. Possibly, not even killing all eight magical girls here would be enough either. Gotta be a bigger place like New York or Tokyo."

"What are you saying? Did you know this would happen? Answer me!" Inyanga cried.

"I'm just as unsure as you, which is why I'm here to experiment." She kicked Inyanga hard, sending her rolling back, then picked up Isis and Ogun by their hair and tossed them in front of the monster.

"No, don't!"

It ate them both with a sickening crunch.

Flare raised her hand to manifest a fiery baton into her hand which made the space around them much hotter. "Hellfire!"

A column of flames bursted from underneath the monster, burning it into a blackened hunk of charcoal. Inyanga was awestruck. How was Flare— one magical girl, able to defeat an angel-level monster so easily?

Flare brought out a bloodied stake which Inyanga recognized was Jhenne's soul-weapon. She stabbed it into the monster's charred body, ripping out with it a ghastly white mist that wailed like the storm of hundreds of people in anguish. To Inyanga's horror, she swallowed it like cotton candy and licked her fingers, silencing the nightmarish screams.

"She just… swallowed their souls." Rocky gasped. "B-Blaze, are you okay with this?"

"It isn't for us to decide what our magical girls do, Rocky. Only that we obey them," Blaze answered.

"Flare… the real monster is you all along," Inyanga said, climbing unsteadily to her feet. "That's what Isis was trying to tell me…"

"And you killed her!" Flare cackled.

"Shut up!" She drew Icewind's bowstring and pointed the arrow at Flare. "You could have saved people instead… We… our lives and our souls aren't something for you to toy with!"

"Want me to let you in on a little secret? The one who gave Jhenne a ring was me. She never had potential, but she sure as hell was unstable enough to go crazy! Ahahaha!" The fiery magical girl ignited into a human blowtorch. Her skin and outfit was like magma, churning and cracking with a low rumble.

The face that Inyanga saw then was truly monstrous.

"Hey!" Rocky was calling, slapping her cheeks red.

"I'm… back?" Kari returned from the dream-like vision, standing in front of the destroyed fleet. She had seen weeks pass by in a fraction of a second, yet lived every waking moment of Inyanga's last moments leading up to her death.

There was more. The memories of other magical girls flooded into her head like a tsunami. One who died at level 1 when she tried to fight monsters. Another who took her own life from the pressure of it all. Many were because Flare just wanted to collect on their points. All of them shared something in common— it was Flare who had given them the rings, using her fame and false kindness to lure them in.

"Unlike us, there are still five of you," Inyanga said. "Set aside your differences. You can still stop Flare before it's too late."

"Take revenge for us."

"Kill her."

That traitor.

Monster.

"Heh… Hahaha!" Kari couldn't help herself but laugh at the absurdity of it.

"What's so funny?" the magical girls asked in unison.

"Maybe the memories were all real. Maybe you made it all up. I'm not your slave, and I sure as hell don't give a crap about what you want me to do. I want no part of your war, so you can screw off." She summoned [Destruction and Ruin] to her hand and swung in a circle to disperse the apparitions, then glanced up at the sky where a single, impossibly enormous and bloodshot eyeball was staring at her.

You will regret rebelling against us, gnat.

"I'm not afraid anymore. You can't do anything to me for the same reason you can't take away Flare's powers. When I'm done with everything down here, I'm coming for you to get Makina's soul back." Kari pointed her soul-weapon to the monster in the sky until it retreated behind the clouds.