LIGHTNOVELONLINE 6 – Date!
Sarah was annoyed.
Well, sure, they’d won and nobody got injured… In fact, they had managed to drive off Salem and all her minions before too much damage had been done to the place… But it still felt like a loss to her.
Seriously! What the hell was up with that one minion? Nicole had told her how she had struggled to take her down for a good while until Sarah had finally come and shot that jerk.
And even after that! Why the waving and a thumbs up?! Had that minion been taunting them? Sarah wanted to barge into whatever demonic dimension she had escaped to and rip her a new one.
“Calm down, Sarah. We won,” Erika reminded her. “No need to get all worked up over one minion.”
“Yeah, it frustrated me a bit too, but it’s over now,” Nicole added.
She sighed. “Yeah, yeah.”
Sarah calmed herself down. As her friends had said, there was no need to think about that irritating demon. Heck, maybe they would never have to meet her again. That would be perfect. She wished for nothing else.
“Hey, everyone!” Jessica greeted them as she finally arrived at their meeting spot.
“S’up!” Sarah greeted her back, fully pushing the irritating minion out of her mind.
“Hi.”
“Hey, Jessica,” Erika said, before frowning as she scanned her eyes over her friend. “Jessica… are you injured?”
“Ehh…” Jessica waved her hand as she stood up from the bench she had been waiting on. “Had a bit of a meeting with the ground at work.”
“You’re still overworking yourself, aren’t you?” Erika scowled at her.
“Weeell… We had a bit of a special task to take care of yesterday, so it tired me out a bit.” Seeing as her friends only got more worried, she added, “Hey, I’m fine now!” She raised her hands. “Just took a quick nap and I’m as good as new!”
Erika sighed. “Are you sure that having a part-time job is a good idea? It’s only draining you and now you even got yourself injured. Juggling work and school can’t be good for you.”
Jessica shrugged. “Don’t worry. Once summer starts, I won’t be as overwhelmed. And also, I can’t quit now! I’m probably about to be promoted!”
“Wait, what? Promoted? Already? How long have you been working there again? A week?” Sarah asked.
“Almost two weeks. And y’know. My boss was happy with my performance yesterday, so there have been some talks about me teaching the newbies even though I’m a newbie myself. Moving up in the world!”
“Seriously? That can happen…? Where do you work again?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, enough about my job! Isn’t the whole point of this to help me relax?!” Jessica ran to the trio and caught all three in a huge hug. “Let’s get this quadruple date started!”
“Wha– Quadruple date?!” Erika yelled out as her friend snuggled to her.
“Or, well, I’m fine with just a double date,” Jessica let go of the other two, only holding Erika now. “Dibs on Erika, though!”
“It’s not a date! We’re just friends hanging out!” Erika yelled.
“Oh…” Jessica’s voice turned defeated and she let go of her. “I see… Sorry then…” She turned to the other two with a mixed expression of despair and sorrow. “I was rejected…”
She earned a bump on her head for it. “Stop playing with my feelings!”
Jessica pouted, her despairing expression nowhere to be found… before quickly changing to her usual cheer.
“... well anyway, where are we going first then? Anyone planned this out?”
“Why not the arcade first? They have some new machines in there,” Nicole suggested.
“Hmm, I thought about going to that sweets shop,” Erika thought out loud.
“Didn’t we want to go to the amusement park?” Jessica began before wincing. “Oh wait, that place got wrecked yesterday, didn’t it…?”
“A little bit. But apparently, not enough to make it close down,” Erika clarified.
“Wait, seriously? Huh… Humans are tenacious creatures, aren’t they?” Jessica nodded to herself.
“More like, businessmen are.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Gotta keep those profits up.”
They moved away from the meeting spot whilst continuing to chatter. In the end, they decided to go to the mall first. There would be plenty of places to go from there.
“Still, the demon attacks have been getting more frequent recently, haven’t they…?” Nicole wondered out loud.
“Hmm… yeah, I wonder why?” Jessica said, fully knowing that the reason was the recent recruitment drive in the demon army. The one that also included her.
“They must be planning something big soon. I have a bad feeling about it,” Sarah said whilst frowning.
Jessica didn’t know what the other generals were planning, but she knew for sure that at least Salem wasn’t planning anything for a while since she had just gotten beaten by the magical girls yesterday.
“Hey, hey, hey! What’s with this mood? I thought you were trying to help me relax!” Jessica feigned annoyance as they made it to the mall.
The trio of magical girls fell silent for a second before Erika replied. “Yeah, sorry about that…”
“Jessica’s right! Today, we should forget about all our worries and just have fun!” Sarah exclaimed. “I mean, there was a demon attack just yesterday. There probably won’t be another one for a while.”
Naturally, as soon as she said that, a loud crash resounded in the mall and the lights flickered and turned off.
“Wha-?! What is–”
“Puny humans!” a male voice boomed from the mall’s intercom. “I have taken over the mall! You are all my hostages now!”
The girls stopped in their tracks and despite the darkness managed to stare at Sarah accusingly.
“Dammit! I jinxed it!”
“Why does this always happen?!” Jessica groaned out loud.
Even after she had joined the demons herself, these situations just couldn’t seem to leave her alone in her civilian life.