Adrian Tymes wrote:

[This is missing something, but I can't quite tell what.  Am I spending
too much time trying to develop characters given the length of the fic?
Am I adding too many "new" concepts to the MG genre?  Or am I just
completely missing what I'm missing?

C&C appreciated, as always, whether or not it's on the things I'm
looking for.]

*****

That drop of sweat had nearly killed her.
 

% Interesting hook.

As the guards yelled and ran off into the woods, she pitied their
fortune.  Any guards back home would have known to stop, drop, and
roll.  By the looks of things, these two would burn to death in their
ignorance.  Then again, she had made her fire hot enough to ignite
flesh;

% I'm amazed they didn't just drop over from the pain from the sensory 
overload, or die from it.

No one knew where they came from, or why.  It broke the mold of all
the magical enemy stories in the papers.  Her homeland was farm
country, not San Francisco or New York, and definitely not Japan.
Neither were humans directly attacked; instead, the monsters were
mutated farm animals, furiously eating and destroying the crops.
Everyone pitched in to fight when a mutant was spotted, but the best
they could do was to simply to tie up or corral the poor creature
until the magic went away.
 

% Interesting variation.

Scarlet marveled at the grim interior.  Grey, weathered stone offered
no comfort or cheer, not to mention slowed her pace as she padded
softly so her footsteps would not echo down the hall.  Here and there,
paper skeletons adorned the walls like a perpetual Halloween party -
no, Day of the Dead.  She was in Colombia now, and she had to remember
to shift her holidays accordingly.

A slight migraine manifested itself.  Scarlet leaned against the wall
and closed her eyes until it passed.  Rookie mistakes!  She had been
making mistakes she had not made since her first mission!
 

%making not made a but redundent. might want to change the wording

Breathing fire always left a bad taste in her mouth,

% heh

He demanded to know who she was.  She returned the favor.  They stood
there, angrily exchanging information for fifteen minutes.
 

% And determining there was no peaceful resolution possible. ^_^

The note contained an URL and a login.  The URL lead to an online
forum, specifically a page where members were discussing the number of
magical girls rumored to have gone into various spy services.  They
were good at keeping secret identities, they could accomplish tasks in
ways that no ordinary security would even think to guard against, and
they usually had strong senses of right and wrong that could become
stalwart patriotism.  Also on that page was a login form; logging in
lead her to a board of job offers.  Her heart skipped a beat when she
realized she had essentially been accepted before she even walked in
the door.  It skipped another beat when she saw the payment offered
for what she thought to be a simple job.
 

% Ah, a mercenary then. Hey, a magical girl's got to make a living.

It was only after her tenth kill did she realize she was starting to
become addicted.  Reaching out and snuffing the lives of those who
caused so much misery was not just right, but it felt good.
Dangerously good.  She had read, in the training material, of agents
who fell to this temptation, and started killing without making sure
of their targets.  They themselves quickly wound up as targets of
"arrest or terminate" jobs.
 

% Heh. "Rabid dog' syndrome.

Drinking.  Drinking helped people relax, 

%  Ah, the hobby of alchoholism.

Then she tried some Princess.
 

% Magical girl drug, eh?

---

Princess Pretty had been a magical girl since just before birth.  Her
father, driven half-mad by an encounter with the same evil minion who
eventually fell to Scarlet Fury, had woven together black magic as her
mother went into labor.  Her mother's life and soul were part of the
price for her power.

At first, it seemed her father's designs had succeeded.  Everyone who
encountered her came away happier, more so once she learned how to
talk and, at only 7 years old, peer into the hearts of others.  Few
suspected magic until she was 10, when her ability to transform
manifested.
 

% Hmm. Methinks this will be bad.

And then the magical girls started showing up.  Someone, probably one
of his new friends' rivals, had leaked his location to would-be
rescuers.  But Princess Pretty had one more side to her magic: she
could absorb the happiness of others, to refuel her own diminishing
reserves.  Only a half dozen had been thus drained by her 13th
birthday, but it was already starting to feel routine.
 

% Hmm. Eventually someone's going to realize magical girls don't come 
back from rescue missions regarding her

---

He thought about it, and then shrugged.  "Someone will claim her, even
if she thought she was alone.  In this world, no one is ever truly
alone."
 

% Interesting one shot, but I'm not sure you need to expand on Scarlet 
Fury's background as much as you did. A breif summary will do for 
finding her powers, IMO. Aside from that was decent, if short.

DB Sommer

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