Memories of Crystal Tide #1

So, you may recall this as one of the stories I teased in one of my monthly updates. This is actually a story I began writing over two years ago but only finished two chapters of it. Rather than let it gather dust in my Google docs, I decided to share with ya'll what I have. Chapter 1 today, chapter 2 tomorrow.

--------------------------------------

Synopsis:

When I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything.

They told me I was a boy, but the mirror told a different story.

They told me I was a magical girl, but I couldn’t remember how to use magic.

They told me my name was Crystal Tide and I had nearly died protecting my entire school from a demon after successfully banishing it.

But that demon, as I later found out, wasn’t quite gone yet.

--------------------------------------

#01 - The beginning of the end

CW: Misgendering, Blood

The sirens howled, the winds raged, and the outside had already darkened. Everyone knew what the sirens meant, had experienced it many times in the past, but that didn’t necessarily mean people were calm and composed. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Diane tried to act calm on the outside, but her increasing heart rate and measured breaths told a different story. Naturally, her best friend noticed. He always noticed when she was distraught. Even though he looked quite nervous himself, he still gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder and a smile. She couldn’t help but smile back, albeit shakily.

Despite the general panic of an incoming demon attack, everyone in class moved out only after a moment’s pause. The gym hall had always been used as a bunker for these situations, and even as they strode through the hallways on their way there, she could see all the other classrooms similarly file out with only minimal pushing and yelling.

And then that damn bitch not-so-gently shoved her friend with a shoulder with a smirk as she walked past them. He stumbled and scowled in his bully’s direction but didn’t say anything. Diane couldn’t help but growl at her before turning back to her friend.

“It’s okay. Just ignore her…”

“Yeah, I know…” he muttered.

And so they did just that, trailing after the self-proclaimed queen of the school, disappearing in the mass of students as they made it to the gym. One look outside the window told Diane it would only take a few more minutes at most. She didn’t know whether the demon would attack the school, but she couldn’t ever be sure. It made her a bit nervous. But she knew they would all be alright even if the attack did happen here. 

Crystal Tide would come to save them.

She always did.

Not to mention, the rumors said that the magical girl actually went to their school. Diane didn’t believe it, of course, but maybe…?

She shook these thoughts out of her head as their class made it to the gym. Their teacher gestured to the wall and told them to sit down. As always.

Diane and her best friend sat next to each other, pointedly far away from the queen bitch and her clique. It was best to ignore people like her, after all.

Minutes passed as the last of the students and teachers made it into the gym and made themselves comfortable in whatever corner they could find. Expressions ranged from utterly bored or annoyed to scared shitless. Her friend in particular looked a bit more antsy than usual. In fact, it looked like he was ready to leap out of his seat at any moment.

“Hey, you okay?” she whispered to him.

“Hmm? Ah, well… I, uh… I need to go to the toilet,” he murmured, avoiding her gaze. 

For a moment, Diane thought there was something odd about his expression, but then waved it off and smirked.

“Oh, that’s horrible… First a demon attack, and now my friend is about to pee himself!” she whisper-shouted dramatically.

“Shut up…” he grumbled, a pink tint appearing on his cheeks.

She giggled at his predicament.

It was fun to tease him. And it lightened up the mood. It made her feel like everything would be alright even with the thick miasma visible outside of the windows.

Another minute passed by and then it finally happened.

The miasma outside moved in unison, a loud swirling sound resounded, and the gym hall shook. Everyone tensed. Some went pale. Nobody dared to move.

And then, the laughter. High-pitched, warped, sinister. It came from outside the gym’s entrance and echoed through the hall.

Diane’s eyes widened.

It was here.

“Shit…” she heard her friend murmur.

She briefly glanced at him. Unlike almost everyone else, he wasn’t pale and shaking at the prospect of the demon attacking their school. No. Instead he grit his teeth and glared at the entrance.

She was about to open her mouth to ask him why, but was silenced by her heart jumping up into her throat as a crash resounded just outside the entrance. All attention focused on it and everyone went utterly silent.

Then, the door slowly creaked open. Eyes still wide, now focused on the deathly gray fingers wrapped around the door.

“Lookie, lookie… What have we got here…?” the twisted witch-like voice said as the grotesque figure entered the gym hall.

It looked like a tall boneless man with withering gray skin. Its four rubberlike arms looked wrong, uncanny. Its hands were stained in ink, albeit it looked like black blood. The tall white mask shaped like a squid’s head with a sickening creepy jester-like grin covered its upper body.

Everyone froze.

The demon was right there. And Crystal Tide still wasn’t here. They would all die. The demon would slaughter them.

A hand squeezed her wrist, pulling her out of the panic attack. Diane tensed before forcing herself to relax. Her eyes followed the arm back to her best friend. He wasn’t looking at her though. His face was set in a steely glare directed at the demon casually strolling inside the gym hall.

“What a delicious gathering we have, wouldn’t you say, Crystal Tide?” The demon’s masked face swept across the students, eyes narrowed like a predator.

Nobody answered it.

“Now, now… I know you’re here somewhere… How about you come out and play?” It snickered.

Nothing.

“No? Ah, I see… We’re playing hide and seek now, aren’t we?” The twisted grin momentarily landed on Diane and she couldn’t help but tense again.

Where was Crystal Tide? If she was among them, why wasn’t she jumping out to fight the demon?

The creepy being extended one of its arm-tentacles and began pointing at random girls in the gym hall.

“Eeny… meeny… miny… moe!”

It landed on Caprisha, the bully. She visibly flinched.

“It’s you, isn’t it! You’re Crystal Tide!”

Caprisha glanced around herself in panic, hoping the demon meant someone else. It only made the demon grin wider.

A tentacle shot out like a whip and grabbed the girl, pinning her arms to her torso. She shrieked as the demon pulled her closer and held her in the air.

The grip on Diane’s arm tightened. She flicked her eyes back to her friend and found his expression furious. She wanted to tell him to ease up on the death grip, but didn’t dare speak at the moment.

“Look at you! So pathetic! Are you really my nemesis, Crystal Tide?” The demon snickered in Caprisha’s face.

“I-I-I’m n-not Crystal Tide!” she managed to stammer out.

“Oooh? You’re not? My bad!” the demon said cheerfully. “I guess that means I don’t need you then!” Its grin widened until it looked positively horrifying.

The hand part of the tentacle holding the girl transformed into a very sharp spear tip and hovered near her face.

“No, please!” the girl screamed, tears running down her face.

“Aww… Too bad! Looks like the real Crystal Tide doesn’t wanna come out and say hi. It’s very sad, isn’t it? What a pity!”

The spear tip drew back in preparation to skewer her face. Time seemed to stop.

Then the sound of rapid footsteps reached her ears and she belatedly realized that blood was once again circulating in her hand because the grip on her wrist was gone. Her friend was sprinting toward the demon at inhuman speeds.

She was about to shout out in horror when the air around his hand shimmered and a familiar cutlass appeared in his hand.

Moments before the tentacle spear could impale the terrified girl, the cutlass swished through the air and cut off the tentacle holding her. He caught the hostage in his other arm as he aimed the cutlass in the demon's direction.

“Wha–” the demon managed.

“Storm of the oceans!” he shouted.

An intense storm of crystalline bullets shot out of the cutlass and pelted the demon, throwing it all the way back to the entrance with a loud crash and explosion of dust.

Diane stared. Caprisha stared. Everyone else stared.

What the fuck?

He then grabbed the remains of the tentacle still wrapped around Caprisha without looking away from the demon’s crash site, made his hand glow, and severed the bindings with a burst of magic.

“Wha--” Caprisha managed.

“Get back,” he said, his voice cold and filled of fury.

The girl flinched, and tried to take a step back, but tripped on the tentacle’s remains. She continued crawling back a good distance from him.

Diane felt like she was dreaming. This was… her best friend, wasn’t it? It was. So then why was he holding Crystal Tide’s cutlass? Why had he just used magic like Crystal Tide? Why were his eyes shimmering in ocean blue, his right eye glowing with the white crescent shape curling around his pupil… like Crystal Tide?

A beat of silence later, the sickening mockery of a laughter resounded again.

“Oh, that’s hilarious! You’re Crystal Tide? That’s a new one! A guy is a magical girl! What a riot!” The twisted being cackled as it lifted itself out of the rubble, numerous scratches littering its body.

Her friend merely dropped his cutlass to his side, his cold furious glare still trained on the demon.

And then, he changed.

The oceaning blue light enveloped him, changing his looks, his clothes, his face, his gender.

Once the light show ended, Crystal Tide stood in his place.

Her light blue shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail, an eyepatch over her right eye hiding the glowing crescent moon, a pirate hat sitting on top of her head with a cat emoji in place of where skull and bones would be. A dark blue coat decorated with jeweled white buttons hugged her torso and simple black shorts and boots completed the look.

“Squid Jester,” Crystal Tide said, her voice colder than the deepest depths of the Arctic Ocean. “You made a mistake attacking my school.”

“Ahh, my bad! Did I make you mad?” the thing asked in a faux sweet voice. Its mask somehow grinned even wider. “Sorry, sorry! A little birdie told me you went to this school and I just couldn’t resist and pay you a visit!”

The air around Crystal Tide rumbled, her glare somehow getting even more murderous.

Diane felt sick. 

The demon was clearly trying to make Crystal feel guilty for this situation. Right after forcing her to reveal her secret identity. That secret identity being… Diane’s best friend. Her meek, quiet friend was the cool badass magical girl known as Crystal Tide. She still couldn’t process that.

“I will kill you,” Crystal snarled with enough force to make Diane flinch.

“Ah. You mean, like you totally killed me last time?” the demon asked with a vicious smirk.

That did it.

Crystal flashed forward faster than eyes could see, her cutlass angled to decapitate the abomination. The demon parried it effortlessly with a tentacle transformed into a blade, a second tentacle poised to skewer her from above. Crystal jumped out of the way, using her sword to parry another tentacle aimed for her landing spot.

“Come on, hurry…” The hushed voice of a teacher broke Diane’s bout of staring at the inhuman battle unfolding in front of her. Only now did Diane notice the teachers hurriedly pushing everyone as far away from the fight as possible. She followed, her mind still blank from the bombshell of a reveal.

Everyone huddled at the back of the gym and nervously watched. Everyone except for one person.

“Caps! Get up!”

Caprisha still sat in the middle of the gym hall frozen, her eyes trained on Crystal and the demon’s fight. She was way too close to potential danger and she wasn’t making any moves to back up, but nobody wanted to go near the battle to fetch her.

“Caps! Snap out of it!” one of her friends kept shouting at her.

“Caprisha!”

Naturally, that only attracted the demon’s attention. Diane could pinpoint the exact moment it noticed the defenseless girl sitting there, and lunged a spear-shaped tentacle in her direction right after knocking Crystal away from itself.

“No!” Crystal shouted as she dove for the girl.

A piercing scream echoed in the hall.

It all happened in a flash.

One moment, everything seemed fine.

The next, Crystal Tide had a bloodied spear-shaped tentacle going into her chest and coming out on the other side.

Caprisha raised her head from the ground where she had been shoved to the side and stared in horror.

“Got you~” the abomination singsonged as it crawled closer, its tentacle lifting the magical girl off her feet.

She whimpered in pain as her shaking hands gripped the slime gray appendage, her cutlass long gone from her hands and laying uselessly on the ground below her.

Diane’s heart stopped. This was not happening. No, not like this. Crystal Tide… Her best friend was going to die. She was going to die because of that stupid fucking bitch she had tried to save!

“My, my… Ever the hero, aren’t you, Crystal Tide?” the demon mocked as it drew right next to her, holding her up like a skewered piece of meat.

Crystal only gurgled and coughed out blood as tears streamed down her face.

“Hmm? What was that? Regretting your decision?” The damn thing laughed in victory. “How curious, though. I did my research, oh I did. That girl was your bully, wasn’t she? Why would you sacrifice yourself to save someone like that?”

The demon’s smirking mask leaned closer to Crystal who had all but slumped against its tentacle at some point, her shaking hands still gripping it.

“Hmm? What was that?” The thing leaned even closer to her face, grin growing ever larger.

The only sounds piercing the utter silence were Crystal’s desperate gasps and drops of blood falling to the ground. So when she spoke, even though it was quiet and very strained, everyone heard her.

“Glass….. Cannon!”

The eyes on the demon’s mask widened but that all it managed before a massive surge of ball-shaped crystal shot out of Crystal’s hands, hitting the abomination point-blank and ripping the tentacle that had speared her out of her chest.

Crystal landed in a puddle of her own blood with a sickening squelch moments before the demon and the crystalline cannonball punched through a wall in a loud crash and then an explosion. Several glassy shards flew back into the gym hall through the hole, embedding themselves in the floor.

The stunned silence returned.

Crystal lay there, unmoving. Diane was convinced that she was dead.

But miraculously, after one eternal moment, a wet cough broke through the deathly silence and Crystal began to move again. She lifted herself up with her shaking hand all while coughing up blood and stifling whimpers of pain.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who was still alive.

The damn demon emerged from the hole in the wall once again, this time, looking miffed. Its mask was cracked and its tentacle body had countless wounds, viscous black liquid dripping out of them.

For once, the demon wasn’t saying anything, its eyes trained on Crystal.

“What…” Crystal began, but cut herself off with another cough. “What kind of…” she managed as she pulled herself back to her feet. “... hero, would I be?” She winced as she sharply breathed in. “If I let her die just because I hate her?”

Her declaration made Caprisha flinch as if slapped and her eyes went even wider than before.

Part of Diane felt awe, but the much louder part of her kept yelling that Crystal was going to bleed out and die. But then she noticed… The hole in her chest had been sealed with glass-like azure material. Crystal Tide had patched her own fatal wound with some of her magical crystal.

That… couldn’t be a permanent solution, could it? No matter how miraculous magic was, that wound was still very much an issue.

“Hah…” the demon scoffed. “Naive. So, so naive.” Its voice sounded a lot darker than before. “Do you think she’s going to be grateful? Do you think any of them are going to be grateful?” Its following chuckle sent shiver’s Diane’s spine. “Of course, not. After all, you’re nothing but an imposter. Aren’t you, boy?”

Crystal gripped her cutlass so hard, her knuckles turned white. She was shaking. And Diane wasn’t entirely sure it was just because of the pain of her wounds.

“Shut up…” Crystal bit out, her words slightly slurred.

“You know I’m right,” the demon sneered. “Even if you defeat me, what then? Everything is just going to go back to what it used to be for you. Back to being a pathetic little boy. Your little fantasy trip of being a magical girl will be over.”

Crystal didn’t reply. She just stood there, grinding her teeth, trembling.

“Don’t listen to it!” someone shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. Including the demon and Crystal Tide herself.

Diane belatedly realized it had been herself. At some point, she had stood up and walked a few steps forward. Her nails were drawing blood from how hard she had clenched her fists.

She still didn’t quite understand what was going on. But the person in front of her was her best friend and they needed help. Diane wasn’t a magical girl. She couldn't fight and use magic. But at least she could give encouragement. Reassurance.

“I don’t care if you’re a girl or a boy! You can be whatever you want to be! You’re my best friend! And I’ll always be grateful for that!”

She barely finished saying those words before an inky black projectile hurled itself toward her. She yelped as her eyes widened and she stepped back. But Crystal Tide was already there, summoning up a crystalline iceberg barricade to block the attack.

The demon audibly clicked its tongue. “Meddling little shit…”

“Thank you…” The smallest of whispers reached Diane’s ears.

And then, Crystal’s straightened, despite the grievous injury, and her aura turned regal and unflinching again.

“It’s been long enough. This ends today, Squid Jester,” Crystal announced as she reached up with her free hand and pushed her eyepatch to the side, revealing her glowing crescent moon eye.

“Does it, now?” the demon growled as it stalked forward.

Crystal opened her arms, her blade swishing through the air at the motion. She closed her left eye and opened the newly uncovered one wide. The surroundings began to rumble as the air grew thicker.

“Under the sacred moonlight. Over the boundless ocean,” Crystal’s voice echoed, taking on a mesmerizing divine quality.

She aimed her cutlass in the demon’s direction with grace unbefitting of her tattered appearance. The magic in the air became so concentrated, even Diane could see it. It swirled around the entire gym hall like a tornado in slow-motion, centered on the demon.

The demon tried to move its boneless legs, but found itself tethered to the ground.

“You…!”

It wasted no time firing off more of those inky black projectiles. Crystal’s eye glowed and her hands moved as if dancing. This shot got blocked by a crystal shield that appeared out of nowhere, that shot was neatly flicked to the side by the flat of her blade.

“We’ve faced dozens of pains and trials, and yet, we are still in motion.” Her chant continued even as she flawlessly deflected the demon’s barrage.

It was mesmerizing, and Diane wondered why Crystal hadn’t done this sooner. Whatever this even was.

Then she noticed blue liquid matching her eye color leaking from her crescent moon eye. Diane immediately felt alarmed.

“But our time has come. It’s time to say goodbye, my friend.”

Regular tears began leaking out of her other closed eye.

“Because our journey together –” Her voice came to a crescendo before turning into a sorrowful whisper. “– is coming to an end.”

A beat. 

“Glittering abyss!” Crystal shouted from the top of her lungs as the magic surged.

The swirling magic sped up and closed in on the demon, as if it was a giant whirlpool trying to suck it under. The demon screamed and thrashed, but the magic held it in place, while crushing it at the same time.

Crystal kept her cutlass angled at her adversary, more and more energy surging from it to join the maelstrom. She stood there, undaunted, unbothered by her injuries, her moon eye glowing brighter and brighter… and bleeding more and more of that blue liquid.

And then, she winced.

It was a miniscule movement. A tiny change in posture that many would have missed, but Diane didn’t.

And neither did the demon.

It used the momentary distraction to shoot something black off to the side out of the whirlpool it was stuck in.

Crystal didn’t notice it. Diane did.

The black thing grew short tentacles and skittered across the floor, outside of Crystal’s view and right into her direction.

“Watch out! Your left!” Diane screamed.

Crystal’s head snapped to the side, both eyes widening in shock as the inky creature lunged itself straight at her face.

She lifted up her free arm and began creating another shield.

But it was too late.

A harsh bone-crunching sound pierced the air right after the incomplete shield shattered and Crystal Tide was sent flying.

Her limp body bounced off the ground once, twice, then landed and rolled a good distance before stopping.

She didn’t move again.

The magical storm faded within moments, although the demon seemed to have disappeared, only its cracked mask lay on the ground, its expression smoothed out into neutrality.

The inky creature’s remains were splattered on the ground near where it had hit the magical girl. The shield Crystal had created had been a spiked one, and although it couldn’t negate the impact, it had killed the little demon.

There were a good few moments of stunned silence afterwards.

When Diane recovered, her eyes could only see one thing.

Her friend, beaten and unconscious, laying in a pool of her own blood.

“D-Doctor! Someone get a doctor!”

That finally broke the silence and invited chaos. Everyone began to frantically run around and shouting things.

“Holy shit!”

“T-There’s so much blood!”

“She did it! The demon is–”

“Medic! Anyone here a medic!”

“Shut up! I’m trying to call an ambulance!”

“Is that thing really dead?”

Diane ignored all the panicked shouts. All she cared about was her friend. She ran right toward her lifeless body but once she got near, she froze in place. She wasn’t a medical expert nor a magical one, and she had no clue how to save her friend.

Luckily, the school’s nurse and one of the teachers were there as well and immediately began trying to save Crystal Tide’s life.

It was frantic, chaotic, and everyone was panicking.

No wonder nobody noticed that Crystal never transformed back.