To Prevent World Peace Read online

  “Which is why you have the nerve to say that in public, in front of dozens of people, but you haven’t yet worked up the nerve to say anything to him?” Kendra asked coolly.

  Felicity’s face turned red. “I — I’ll tell him! I’ll tell him today!”

  “Would you two stop talking about these things at school?!” Florence exclaimed.

  “Uh huh,” Florence muttered.

  Of course, he’s probably figured it out already, Kendra thought, glancing at her ditzy teammate’s backpack. In permanent marker, all over it, she had written things like Felicity + Daniel, Felicity and Daniel 4-EVER, one great big heart with DANIEL in the center, and of course Felicity Frankweiler all over the place, which was Daniel’s last name.

  Really, if the boy hadn’t figured it out by now, he was as clueless as Felicity, who seemed to think her stalker-crush was some sort of secret. Then again, if he was as clueless as Felicity, they probably belonged together, and she should get that whole “confessing her love” thing out of the way already.

  Kendra was almost, sorta jealous. She hadn’t had a guy she’d liked since . . . well, since their first year as magical girls. But really, she’d been busy with more important things.

  Felicity giggled. “It’s only been a year since our last power-up, and already I have another one!”

  Florence ground her forehead into the palms of her hands.

  Kendra felt a flash of irritation. It was true, Felicity had managed to power up, and she was relatively proud of her teammate and all that. But it had been a very minor power up — her focus item and costume hadn’t even changed — and the battle had been horrible in every other way.

  Kendra cleared her throat. “We started with an old attack that hasn’t worked since our arch-minions upgraded. I wouldn’t call that ‘great.’”

  “I got a power-up because of Daniel!” Felicity squealed, hugging herself.

  “Would you stop saying ‘power-up’ at school?” Florence griped. “It’s like you don’t even care if —”

  Kendra cast a sharp glance off to the side, and caught someone hovering beside a locker listening in on them. Without thinking, she flung her arms upwards and shouted, “Cream Angel, fledge!”

  She launched into the air, hovering just below the ceiling as gigantic feathered wings sprouted from her back. Now everyone in the hall was watching, but that was fine, because they wouldn’t remember any of this in a minute. Kendra grabbed the golden ring of a halo off her head and spun it around her wrist.

  “Cream Angel, memory erase!” she shouted.

  The eyes of everybody in the hallway went glazed.

  Satisfied, Kendra dropped down, detransforming at the exact moment that her feet touched the floor. She lowered her arms with effortless grace and just a hint of smugness. This was why she’d taken ballet for all those years — to learn to detransform perfectly. Magical girls who stumbled looked so uncool.

  “Thank you so much,” Florence hissed furiously. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you would do right here in the hallway.”

  Kendra rolled her eyes. “Three years ago, you would have asked me to.”

  “Well, she did thank you,” Felicity said earnestly.

  The eyes of everyone around them returned to normal, and conversations and walking resumed as if nothing had ever interrupted them. Kendra waited until the student who had been listening in had walked off.

  Satisfied at last that it was safe to talk again, she said, “Now, about the battle last night —”

  “I powered up!” Felicity squealed.

  “What part of ‘secret identity’ do you two not understand?” Florence asked incredulously.

  “Oooooooh, what’s Daniel going to say when I finally tell him?” Felicity squealed, hopping up and down.

  “What secret identity?” Kendra asked dryly. “We don’t shapeshift when we transform. My parents designed our costumes. We’re officially registered with the government. If it weren’t for my short-term memory eraser, the entire town would . . .”

  “Yes, yes, I know, I’m very grateful that you have it,” Florence said testily.

  “Why don’t you make a power like that yourself?” Felicity asked helpfully, bouncing up and down. “Next time you power up?”

  “Oh, because that’s so easy,” Florence said in an undertone, glancing around the hall with a paranoid eye.

  Felicity giggled. “You just have to fall in love again, and —”

  “We’ll talk about that later!” Kendra broke in, anticipating the firestorm of her friend’s rage if the ditz finished that sentence. Florence’s last relationship had ended very, very badly. As in, “the guy had turned out to be a villain in disguise” badly.

  Sure enough, Florence looked very grumpy. “If you tell the rest of the track team I spend my weekends dressed like a cheerleader, you’re dead,” she muttered.

  This was a safer subject, and besides, it was a silly objection. Kendra’s parents had designed their costumes, but Florence herself had insisted on fluffy pink. “You didn’t mind your costume three years ago —” Kendra began.

  “Three years ago, I was twelve,” Florence cut in. “Besides, that was before we developed ‘frills of justice.’ What, would you rather I acted like Felicity?”

  “Gasp!” Felicity shouted. She didn’t gasp — she said the word out loud. “If I saved Daniel from a minion sometime, do you think he’d fall in love with my magical girl form?”

  “Again!” Florence cried. “Secret —!”

  “Oh no!” Felicity howled and burst into sobs. “If that happened, that would create a love triangle, and he’d never look at normal me again!”

  Watching their third teammate dissolve into hysterical sobs over nothing, Kendra’s eyes narrowed. “You have a point,” she said.

  “No kidding,” Florence agreed, walking away.

  Chronos loitered outside the building, waiting for the school bell to ring. She knew that it would happen in eighteen seconds, so she counted down the seconds impatiently.

  The idea of school bells seemed foreign to her, though she had seen them in many other people’s futures. She had never been to any sort of school; her family had had its own way of doing things, and that way had not included letting governments know their children existed.

  Chronos had grown up her whole life being told about the terrible anti-born mage discrimination laws, and the fact that ordinary humans would hate her for being superior if they knew about her.

  Most of her family’s work during her childhood had involved blackmailing and bribing politicians of the Greek government to have those laws repealed. They had succeeded so well that Greece was now infamous as a haven for villains.

  The bell rang, and Chronos glanced down at her watch, although she didn’t need to be told that it was 3:15. The futures were swirling and settling now. The future Avenging Angel would walk out the door in one minute . . . no, three . . . no, two . . .

  Doors burst open and students poured out. Chronos flinched and reeled back as the futures assaulted her.

  There was a popular girl kissing three different boys during the same night. The glimpses at first seemed like three separate futures, but they weren’t. Busy girl. There was a shy freckled teenager whose unlikely futures included dying in a car accident and becoming a singing magical girl. Four boys from the basketball team walked past, likely to win the state championship. A surly grumpy girl walked past, and Chronos saw her squealing with joy over her cat.

  Dozens of futures. Hundreds of futures. All of them irrelevant. All of them unwanted. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. It had been so long since Chronos had had to deal with a crowd, she was overwhelmed. She closed her eyes and clutched her head, and —

  A flash of the Wings of Justice appeared.

  Chronos’s eyes flew open. Now coming out of the door were Kendra and her two teammates. They seemed to be deep in an argument.

  “You want me to miss track for . . . combat practice?” the dark-skinned girl with doze
ns of tiny braids demanded.

  “Did you see? Daniel looked at me in fourth period!” the pale-skinned girl with a brown ponytail squealed, bouncing up and down as she walked.

  Crimson Dragon and Green Fairy, Chronos identified them. She checked their futures to confirm that, and corrected herself. Pink Dragon. The one with the braids hasn’t changed her magical girl form yet.

  “You can’t deny we desperately need it,” the blonde-haired Kendra announced, looking straight at the girl with the braids and ignoring the other one. “If we’re ever going to power up again, we need to learn the meaning of teamwork —”

  “I’m going to learn the meaning of teamwork in track,” the other girl said, starting to march away.

  Kendra seized her by the end of a handful of braids. “No, you’re not. This is important —”

  “Felicity and Daniel, sittin’ in a tree!” the other girl burst out singing, oblivious to her friends’ disagreement. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes . . .”

  She stopped, finally seeming to notice her friends’ heavy glares.

  “What?” she asked, blinking.

  It took a lot of effort to pry Florence away from her precious track practice, so Kendra was relieved when they finally entered the ice cream parlor.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Kendra said, sitting down at the nearest table. She tried to ignore the fact that Felicity, who had insisted that they hold the meeting here, was now flipping through the menu with avid enthusiasm rather than listening. “We haven’t had an arch-nemesis since we defeated Queen Hemlock, and I think that’s made us go soft.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting we pick a fight with someone new,” Florence said sourly. “Isn’t saving the world three times enough?”

  “Of course it’s not!” Kendra snapped. “We still have power, hence responsibility! Besides, what’s with this attitude? Wings of Justice was your idea!”

  “Does anybody want to buy me ice cream?” Felicity’s voice poked in.

  “Well, no one said I’d have to stay Pink Dragon for the rest of my life,” Florence said angrily.

  “Adults can’t become magical girls!” Kendra snapped. “You won’t be doing this the rest of your life! That’s why it’s all the more important to put all of your time and effort and emotional investment into this now!”

  “Doesn’t anybody want to buy me ice cream?” Felicity’s voice asked tearfully.

  “Oh, so you want me to be a washed up, former magical girl whose life revolves around her glory days?” Florence asked bitterly. “You want me to be like your mother?”

  Kendra leapt to her feet in outrage. “YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

  Florence sneered and hopped up out of her chair and headed towards the exit. “Whatever. I’m late for track.”

  “Florence!” Kendra shouted.

  But the door swung shut, and Florence was gone.

  Kendra sat down, her fists clenching and unclenching in fury. She admired her mother. She wanted to emulate her mother. Her mother had kept her magical girl powers until nineteen years old, even though most girls outgrew them between sixteen to eighteen. That meant Kendra’s mother had been so innocent, so pure, so good that the magic had still wanted her even that late. Even now, her mother spoke about magic with reverence and regret.

  Kendra had always known that she would one day be a magical girl. And she had always known that she would be so good, so pure, so righteous that the magic would choose her to stay a wielder of it past high school age. Just like her mother had.

  She’d based her whole childhood around that. She could have become a magical girl much earlier, but she had chosen to wait until she was twelve, so that she felt ready to do it right. She’d studied magical girls through history. She’d taken ballet and martial arts classes. She’d even learned German, the language of the world’s first magical girl, so that she could read books about Sönnig in her original language.

  The only thing that had derailed her plans had been Florence, her best friend, who had insisted that if Kendra was going to become a magical girl, she wanted to be one, too. And, not content with that, she’d wanted to be a team.

  Kendra’s jaw clenched. So I based my magical girl form around being part of a team. I can’t change my powers to be an effective solo magical girl unless I power up — and it would be very difficult to do that without her.

  How could Florence, who was supposed to be her best friend, be so selfish? She’d insisted on shoving her way into this part of Kendra’s life. Now she couldn’t just slack off or leave or quit.

  Kendra came back to herself and realized Felicity was yammering something about Daniel and yearbook photography.

  “I’ll let you obsess in peace,” Kendra said, shoving her chair back and standing.

  “Hey, why are you leaving?” Felicity asked blankly. She glanced around. “Where’d Florence go?”

  Why did we ever let her win the audition to join our team? Kendra wondered, marching out of the building.

  Chapter 3: The Vision

  Marching down the sidewalk, Kendra continued fuming. “Pick a fight with someone new,” she said . . . and I don’t pick fights! The FBI assigned us to the drug lord, and Queen Hemlock and Dark Deathzone attacked us first!

  Okay, granted, Dark Deathzone was a minion of our first villain, and we started the fight with Dark Deathwave when we mistook him for Dark Deathzone . . . but that’s not the same thing!

  Villains really needed to learn to use more original names.

  If she’d just listened, Kendra thought, frustrated, she would have seen that I had a terrific idea. This is just like that time we lost the Magical Girl Team of the Year competition to stupid Victory’s Bloom!

  Kendra still blamed her best friend for that. Florence had insisted that they use a team pose Kendra had known looked lame, and sure enough, they’d placed sixth. Meanwhile, the winning team had completely imploded on stage when one of the girls had accused the team leader of hogging all the power-ups and never letting the other two do anything useful in battle.

  I mean, really! Kendra thought. Our magical girl forms even looked cooler! And who names their magical girl form “Geranium,” anyway?! It had been two years since they’d failed to win the competition, but the memory still rankled.

  But Kendra was too mad about her current grievances to focus too long on an old one. Was it too much to ask that Florence be in a good mood so that she could persuade her to let their team volunteer as FBI aides again?

  I don’t even know why she made us quit in the first place! Kendra thought indignantly. Well . . . okay, I do know. Florence had gotten really mad when Kendra had killed their first assigned arch-nemesis instead of capturing him so that he could stand trial. But seriously, the guy had bribed two judges and gotten off scot-free twice already. What other way would there have been to stop the problem?

  She’d claimed it was unethical to kill someone when you could have captured them. And sure, Kendra had worried about that, too. But their handler at the FBI had explained to her that magical girls weren’t bound by the same regulations as law enforcement officers, and that as long as her magic continued to think she was worthy, she could take that as a sign that she was doing okay. That was even one of the reasons magical girl aides were so helpful to law enforcement, he had explained.

  But when Kendra had passed along this wisdom to Florence, she’d blown her top. She’d said that if they didn’t quit helping the FBI, she’d quit the team.

  But that was two and a half years ago, Kendra would have insisted. We’d have a different handler this time, and anyway, there are some regulations about magical girl aides now.

  She probably would have even managed to keep from adding, “Unfortunately.”

  So really, how dare Florence not listen to her? This was something they needed to do, as a team! Otherwise they’d keep stagnating!

  Kendra became aware that someone was following her.

  Without a pause in her stride, withou
t stopping to think, she threw her arms in the air and shouted, “Cream Angel . . . fledge!”

  Her body soared up into the air, and Kendra danced and flipped through the acrobats she had choreographed for her transformation scene.

  She’d tried to choreograph awesome ones for her teammates, as well, but noooo, they had refused to use them. “That looks too difficult,” Felicity had complained, and Florence had said, “If you think I’m doing anything but hiding while my clothes disappear, you’re dead wrong.”

  Really, Kendra thought, grabbing her halo from the air as it appeared over her head, it’s like they’re missing the whole point of transforming. It’s not like anyone’s supposed to watch you. You’re just supposed to look cool!

  The last of her angelic robes appeared and shot upwards into a double-layered short skirt, and a red sash came from nowhere and tied itself around her waist. Kendra spread her fingers like the wings of a bird of prey, and dove down at the villain who had been behind her.

  The target tried to leap aside, but Kendra was too quick. She jabbed her halo against the villain’s throat.

  “Speak, villain!” she shouted. “Why were you following me?”

  “I just wanted to talk to you!” the villain exclaimed.

  Kendra narrowed her eyes. “All right. Talk.”

  “Well, first of all, I’m not a villain!” the villain said furiously.

  Kendra snorted, but her arm didn’t waver. “I grant that you look more like a hobo, but that’s just a disguise.”

  “I do not!” the villain exclaimed. “I brushed and washed my hair, and I’m wearing a skirt! It isn’t even dirty!”

  Kendra wrinkled her nose, her arm still unwavering. “Well, it smells like something.”

  “Mothballs!” the hobo shouted. “That’s the smell of mothballs!”

  Kendra shrugged with the shoulder that was not holding the halo. “All right. Then who or what are you?”

  “My name is Chronos,” the hobo said. “I’m a born mage.”

  Kendra snorted. “Which almost certainly makes you a villain.”