Author: Hardguy
Title: mahou (Work in Progress)
Summary: The following story is a work in progress and is presented
as is. It may be unformatted, contain misspellings, poor grammar,
half constructed thoughts, and continuity errors. Story title may be
misleading, as the plot may change during the writing process from
the initial inspiration. If anything, it is presented in an effort to
gauge reader interest.
Keywords: g, anime, fantasy

      She threw a series of punches at her foe, and just narrowly
ducked away from the sharp blade that was aimed at her neck.  An
upper cut?  No.  Sweep the legs, take it down and attempt to finish
it there.  With the grace of a dancer, she did just that, and then
leaped backwards and pointed her Bureau issued disintegration wand at
the 7-foot tall hairy insectoid monster she'd just knocked on its
ass.  She cocked her head so that the small window of her headset was
centered on the beast.  Its energy levels were low and there were
high levels of bleeding among its internal organs...or whatever that
purple fluid was that seeped from one of its severed limbs, which was
already beginning to regenerate.  It was now or never.  
      
      Lucy Kessler, or Mystic Knight Lu-Ke as she was properly
called at the moment, closed her eyes, pictured her foe in her mind's
eye and silently mouthed the incantation.  She felt the burning in
her abdomen as her power built up and she steeled herself for what
came next.  She had vanquished countless foes before this one in her
brief career as a Mystic Knight of the Earth Defense Bureau, but the
release of her energy never failed to make her blush bright red,
especially when she fought in public.  She shuddered as what felt
like a little ball of heat dropped from her belly and exited her body
to be soaked up by her outfit as a paper towel would soak up a drop
of water.
      
      Had she not been wearing what the other girls at the Bureau
jokingly called their 'lightning panties,' a bright golden light
would have shot out from under her little skirt where the golden
circuitry of her tight fitting body suit radiated from.  Instead, all
that a witness to this event would have seen was light racing up the
exposed portion of the suit at her waist, only to disappear under her
jacket and then reemerge at her wrists where it would then fan out to
the golden tips of each of her fingers before being drawn into the
wand that began to glow with a bright blue light.  This took less
than a second, and when Lu-Ke felt the last of it slip from her body,
her eyes opened and she screamed.
      
      "LIFE BURST FORTH!"
      
      It wasn't really necessary to cry out the name of the spell as
it erupted from the crystalline structure at the tip of her wand, but
it helped her to focus on the task before her and to block out all
distractions, including the pleasurable sensation that the spells she
wielded often produced.  Her disciplined mind and concentration did
not fail her and the bolt of energy engulfed the grotesque form that
lay on the pavement before her.  So intense was her stare in the task
at hand that she almost did not see the flash of sunlight upon the
metal blade that shot out of her enemy's melting form at her
midsection.  She was forced to break off her attack to avoid being
impaled by this final strike, but she held her form a split second
too long and suffered a deep gash in her side, inches above her hip.
      
      Lu-Ke cried out in pain as she tumbled to the ground,
clutching at her sliced open side.  This was no time for licking
wounds though, as her job was not yet done.  Even when she had
clenched them shut in pain, her eyes remained fixed on her target to
ensure that it was destroyed and no longer a threat to the Earth. 
She heard it laugh, a sort of ragged rasping cackle that seemed to
linger even after the last wisp of blue light had faded away and the
battle was won.  It was only then that she was able to relax and
could turn her attention towards herself.  The wound was as though a
semicircle of flesh, roughly the size of a tennis ball, had been torn
from her side.  It was not a mortal wound, and in truth not the worst
she had ever taken, but she knew that if it had struck its target,
even if she had survived it, it would have meant the end for her as a
Mystic Knight.
      
      "Are you alright?!" asked a bystander who rushed to her side
and helped her to her feet.
      
      "Yes, thank you," she responded through gritted teeth.  She
gave the man a smile, as she had been trained to do, but the shrill
screaming of a woman behind her, caused that smile to fade from Lu-
Ke's lips.  Her waist burned in agony and bled like she was being
torn in two as she turned to see what had happened.  Her jaw dropped,
and she felt so numb that not even the gash in her side hurt anymore
when she saw the body being cradled by the shrieking woman.  
      
      "N-no..." she sputtered in disbelief, tears washing over her
cheeks.  That blade had been meant for her, and though it had bit
into her side, it had continued on until it found the head of a man
who had taken cover behind a park bench.  She shrugged her way free
from the man who had helped her to her feet, but a single step from
the leg on her wounded side was like being stabbed all over again and
Mystic Knight Lu-Ke, trained Life Mage of the Earth Defense Bureau
fell to her knees and blacked out to the sound of grief ringing in
her ears and somebody yelling, "The little knight girl fell down,
call an ambulance!"  Lucy was only 11-years old.
      
      
      ***
      
      
      She came to suspended in a pod of regenerative gel at the
Bureau's medical center.  She sighed, annoyed at herself for
collapsing like that in front of civilians.  She was a Mystic Knight,
a prestigious role in this new age of humanity where the Earth seemed
to be under frequent attack by external forces, and with that role
came an image that she was charged to uphold.  Fainting was to Lucy,
not at all acceptable.
      
      Closing her eyes, she saw once again her failure and heard the
woman's cries echoing from the memory.  There was no point in
dwelling in the past, and so she opened her eyes and looked around
the recovery room for something that was more important to her now. 
To her left she saw it displayed on a monitor, a system by system
account of her injuries.  There had been minor digestive system
damage done, but her eyes didn't even pause to peruse the details. 
She heaved a sigh of relief when she found the entry for her
reproductive system.  Green.  No damage.  Her career could continue.
      
      She closed her eyes again and counted her blessings that she
had dodged that blade.  It surely would have pierced her womb, and
though it would not have killed her had it done so, her days as a
Mystic Knight would have been over.  She remembered the day she had
been implanted.  She had been fearful but proud as she was strapped
onto the table along side her fellow recruits and received her Gift. 
Her stomach had been full of butterflies of excitement and fear as
she watched the girls before her receive theirs.  Nearly all of them
had giggled at the application of lubricant to their privates, most
yelped in pain upon penetration by the wand, and every one of them
screamed in agony when that same wand forced its way past their
cervix and implanted the Gift into their still premature uterus. 
Lucy had tried her best not to cry out, and nearly succeeded, but she
too was reduced to tears from the experience.  Throughout it all, her
mother had stood by her head, stroking her cheeks, wiping away her
tears and sweat, and telling her how proud she was that Lucy had made
the choice to enter the service.
      
      That had been 5 years ago when Lucy was only 6.  Most girls
were given their Gift as soon as possible, to prepare and train them
for when their bodies would start to mature and their mystic powers
would be strong enough to be deployed in the field.  Also it was to
weed out the girls who's bodies would reject the Gift.  There was a
marked difference between girls who were Gifted young and those who
were Gifted in their teens and later.  Some believed it had to do
with the body maturing around the Gift being in place.  Others felt
that it was because the younger girls were trained and prepared to
use their powers better.  The fact was, nobody really knew, and for
all the medical science that had developed around and resulted from
the Gift, so much of it remained a mystery.
      
      What was known was that when the Earth had faced the Crisis,
four girls from different parts of the world had come together to
save it with their powers.  They had had no wands to hold and aim
with, no skin tight body suits to draw out the energy from their
wombs, and no tissue regeneration technology to heal them if they
were hurt.  They each assumed names taken from flowers: Red Rose,
Blue Iris, Yellow Sunflower, and Green Ivy.  Together they succeeded
in repelling the Crisis, but gave their lives to do so.  Blue Iris
had been the last to fall, having dealt the final blow, but lingered
long enough to ask that her body and the bodies of her Sisters, as
the Mystic Knights now addressed each other, be studied in the hopes
that should the Crisis occur again, there might be some measure of
defense available to the world.  A jewel was recovered from within
the wombs of 3 of the girls, and it was from them that the Gift came.
Red Rose, however, did not have a jewel within her body.  No matter
where they looked, her body was simply that of a young girl,
naturally gifted with power.  She was the first Natural.
      
      Rumors soon spread across the globe, as dozens of young girls
would report having seen Red Rose come to them in dreams, visions, or
even as an apparition.  What they described was always the same.  Red
Rose, her hands resting upon her abdomen, much as an expecting mother
would place her hands upon her belly.  Once she lifted her hands and
held them out to the girl, a light would be upon the open palm, as
thought it were being offered to them.  If awake, the girl would
typically faint or pass out, and if she were sleeping, then she would
remain asleep, not waking for several days.  Regardless of their age,
they would enter puberty almost immediately, experiencing menarche on
the spot.  These girls too would become known as Naturals, all of
them just as skilled as those who had saved the Earth without need
for training or instruction.
      
      Lucy was not a Natural, she was augmented like so many other
little girls who showed promise following tests that so many of them
underwent.  It wasn't shameful to be augmented of course, but it
certainly didn't carry the prestige of being a Natural.  Those girls
could do amazing things without the use of assisted tools.  They
could heal each other, shoot bolts of mystic energy from their finger
tips, and even control the minds of their enemy, though even for a
Natural that came at a drastic, near fatal burst of power.  Only
Yellow Sunflower had been able to do it with little cost to herself,
and of course she had her Sisters there to back her up through it
all...and it was made even stronger when she did that...
      
      A rosy blush came to Lucy's cheeks when she thought about the
power boost that all Mystic Knights could receive, but only the
Naturals could do more than once.  It had been Blue Iris, the most
science minded of the Sisters, who first raised the question: since
the source of their power seemed to come from within their
reproductive system, then what would happen if they had sex?  Yellow
Sunflower found the answer.  Though she was the youngest of the
group, and also the most reckless, she endured the pain that any 10-
year old girl would feel having intercourse at that age.  When she
joined her Sisters in combat, she hadn't taken the time to dress or
clean herself, a mix of blood and semen staining her thighs and
privates, but she was able to single handedly defeat their foes that
day.  Of the 4, only Red Rose abstained from boosting her powers
through sex, and many believed that was why she had been the first to
fall in that final battle.  It had been speculated that was also why
she did not have a jewel within her womb, but all the Naturals who
followed, and used sex to their boost their powers, never developed
jewels within them.
      
      The first augmented Mystic Knights also attempted to boost
their powers, but every one of them died, as the Gift within them
reacted violently to the semen.  It was good for a sort of suicide
attack though.  A Mystic Knight named Mother's Breast was the first
to survive such an event, though she lost much of her lower body to
the intense heat that grew inside of her.  She explained that though
it had been the best feeling she'd ever had, far better than the
usual orgasm that typically occurred, it was also the most painful
and it felt as though her own soul was being ripped from her body. 
The action soon became forbidden to all but the Naturals to perform,
but once medical science had developed organ replacement technology
it was permitted among the Mystic Knights as a last resort only.
      
      Lucy's own mother had been driven to that desperation once,
and spent a month within a pod of regeneration gel as her lower body
was rebuilt, and then it took nearly 2 years before she could walk
again without assistance.  Lucy had been terrified when she had first
learned that she was a candidate for Mystic Knighthood, but it was
the stories her mother would tell her about how she had saved lives
and defended the Earth that calmed Lucy's fears.  She remembered
asking her mother why she was no longer a Mystic Knight, and with a
sad smile her mother replied, "because I did what I needed to do."
      
      It had been during the last great alien incursion that Lucy's
mother, a veteran Mystic Knight, 17-years old, nearly lost her life
in protecting the inhabitants of a small town.  The massive landing
pod blocked out the sun as she and her fellow Mystic Knights who were
dispatched to stop the latest in a series of invasion attempts. 
Their commander, a 14-year old Natural, had already been seriously
wounded attempting to employ their usual tactic of arrayed spell
blasts aimed at the core.  This time however, the attack was repelled
and shot right back at the unlucky girl.  Reporting to headquarters
did not result in any alternative strategy, as this one had always
just worked easily and simply.  Lucy's mother was not the first to
volunteer, but she watched as 3 other Knights offered themselves to
the men of the town, but individually could not succeed in their
final strike.  In the end it took 6 girls, ranging in age from 12 to
18, to combine their powered up assaults to vaporize the invaders. 
Three did not survive.
      
      The advances in medical technology were truly amazing.  Almost
any body organ could be repaired or regenerated if it was damaged,
but it was never as robust or stable as the original one was.  Mystic
Knights seemed to be an exception to that though, as their magical
abilities enhanced the degree to which they could be repaired.  Only
injuries that caused death could not be healed.  Lucy closed her eyes
and swore silently as she thought about that bystander.  She could
have taken the hit more directly and spared him.  What was her ovary
compared to that man's life?  It was her duty to protect him, and she
had failed.  Another inch and he could have lived.  Her hipbone could
have deflected it.  She wouldn't have walked for a month, but he
would have lived.
      
      Tears came to her eyes and she let them stream down her
cheeks.  Failure always frustrated her, because she pushed herself so
hard and had achieved so much.  Not every Mystic Knight got to go on
solo deployments like this had been, but Lucy had proven herself
through numerous encounters in her junior squad and then again when
she been partnered with an older girl.  She was top of her class and
in was ranked in the top 10 every year since she had entered active
service.  Now though, she felt like that had all been a dream.
      
      The door of the recovery room opened and in walked an adult
woman in a lab coat and a young girl dressed in a cadet's uniform
under a lab coat similar to the woman's.  The doctor and her trainee
assistant, no doubt, thought Lucy.  She noted the girl, who was
likely no older than 7, had a round stomach as though she was
pregnant.  She wasn't of course, but it was a side effect of the Gift
implantation that typically lasted a few months before returning to
normal.  The doctor looked up at Lucy and smiled, while the cadet
snapped to attention as she had been taught when in the presence of a
Mystic Knight.  "You've awoken.  How are you feeling?" the doctor
asked pleasantly with no ceremony.
      
      "I feel fine," Lucy said without hesitation.  She wanted to
wipe away those telltale tear streaks from her face but could not
since her arms were submerged in the regenerative gel, which was
currently in a hardened state to prevent movement while it worked its
magic.  It wasn't so much the doctor she wanted to hide her tears
from, but the young cadet, who despite her rigid pose at the moment,
was looking curiously at Lucy's face.  "What's your name, cadet?"
Lucy asked, sounding as authoritative as she could.
      
      "Sunshine Daisy, ma'am," the little girl responded crisply.  A
flower name.  Lucy stifled a smirk.  Cadets were not required to
assume code names, but they often did so anyways, and generally most
of them took names that emulated those of the first Mystic Knights'
color-flower combinations.  Once they entered service though, they
often changed to a different name.  Lucy had not done so herself, and
had used Lu-Ke from the very start.
      
      "I don't know how much you remember," the doctor said, "but
you took a wound to your waist, just a few inches above your hip
bone.  The majority of the damage was done to your large intestine,
specifically the descending colon.  Recovery time will take a few
days, and until then you'll be put on a liquid diet so as not to put
too much stress on your digestive tract while it heals up.  Do you
have any questions for me?"  Lucy couldn't think of any, though she
wanted to hear it from the doctor directly, not just read it off a
screen.
      
      "My reproductive system is fine then?  How soon before I can
return to active duty?"  Lucy was all business, and had only one
thing in mind.  The doctor cocked an eyebrow at the question, turned
to look at the monitor that Lucy had already read the answer to her
question off of, and gave it only the briefest of glances.
      
      "There was no direct damage to your ovary, but other local
tissues will require a few days-"
      
      "A few days then.  Thank you doctor," Lucy abruptly cut her
off.  The woman narrowed her eyes for a moment in annoyance, and then
her expression snapped back to the same pleasant smile it had been
when she came in.
      
      "Sunshine, could you step outside for a moment?  I'd like to
speak with the Mystic Knight alone."  The little girl nodded and
waddled her magically pregnant body out of the room.  The doctor
walked up to Lucy, who was stoically looking straight ahead at the
medical monitors, her face trying to conceal the turmoil of her
failures in the battle earlier.  "It's ok," the doctor said, reaching
out to wipe the tears from Lucy's cheeks.  "She's outside, you can
let it out now."  Her touch was gentle and kind, and as hard as Lucy
fought, she broke down and wept openly, ashamed to be doing so.
      
      "I failed him.  I won the battle, but I lost a life I had
sworn to defend," she said through the tears, her shoulders now
slumping.
      
      "You're not the first Mystic Knight to experience civilian
casualties during a battle," the doctor said.  "Even Red Ro-"
      
      "I know already!  Her entire village was wiped out, her own
parents crushed before her own eyes!  I know the histories, you don't
need to-"
      
      "You know I need to," the doctor answered calmly.  "What you
can do, what all Mystic Knights can do, is nothing short of
miraculous, but you can't go thinking you are infallible.  You are
only 11-years old, by so many standards still a little girl despite
your power.  You aren't perfect, no matter how badly you want to be."
      
      "I could have saved him though," Lucy protested.  "If I hadn't
have moved my hip, it would have hit the bone and...and..."  Her
sobbing over took her, and she could not say any more.
      
      "And he would be alive, and you would have lost every major
organ in your body that had been pierced by bone fragments from your
hip, your uterus included most likely," the doctor stated.  "You
would recover physically in just under a week, but your life would
never be the same again.  It happened to me.  It will happen to
little Sunshine Daisy out there, and it will happen to you some day,
be it from a wound taken in battle, a personal choice to return to
civilian life, or from the natural maturation process.  You can't
stay a Mystic Knight forever, Lu-Ke."  The doctor inspected a readout
on the side of the regeneration pod and pressed a button causing it
to tilt and recline.
      
      "You need to rest now," she told Lucy.  "I'm going to induce a
mild hibernative state so that you don't move too much.  You'll
awaken on your own, likely in a few hours, and somebody will come by
to check on you.  If all goes well, you'll be out of here tomorrow
and you can begin your home recuperation for the next few days.  Is
there anything I can do for you?"
      
      The words 'Call my mom' made it as far as Lucy's lips, but she
did not speak them and only gave a curt shake of her head.  Moments
later the world faded out, and she was asleep.
      
      
      ***
      
      
      Pain.  A dull aching pain.  Where was it coming from?  Lower,
down there, on her...her?  Yes, that's right, she was a girl, and her
name was...was...Lucy!  Yes, she was Lucy, and she hurt.  She was
warm too...warm and dry.  Fabric...dry fabric, not clammy gel that
had been all over her in the pod.  It was so dark...why?  Her eyes,
she needed to open them, but they felt so heavy.
      
      "Lucy?"
      
      A voice.  She knew that voice, knew it very well.
      
      "Lucy, honey?  Can you hear me?"
      
      Mother?  Yes, that's who it was.  Her mother.
      
      "Lucy, sweetheart, I'm right here with you."
      
      Movement, a touch, a sensation on her body...not where the
ache was, no...it was higher, up on her face.  Warm.  It was so warm
on her cheek.  Warm on her cheek and warm on her back and warm on her
feet and dry everywhere.  Dry and soft and yielding to her body, not
molded to her hips and legs and waist and chest like the gel became. 
A bed.  She was laying in a bed.  Where was she?  She needed to open
her eyes and see.
      
      "I'll be right back, baby.  I need to tell the doctor you're
with us again."
      
      Gone.  The warmth on her cheek was gone.  Her mother's touch
was gone and there was only the ache in her hip.  That's right, she
had been hurt in battle, and had been put in a gel pod to recover. 
Then why...?
      
      "Lucy?  Honey, the doctor is coming.  Can you hear me,
sweetheart?"
      
      Yes, mom.  I hear you.  Can you hear me?  Wha-what is that
noise?  A groan?  A moan?  Was that...was that her?  Mom?  Yes, it
was her own voice, or her attempts at using it.  Eyes are so heavy,
but they need to open...  No!  No...too...too bright.  It was too
bright to open her eyes.
      
      "It's ok, honey, it's ok, don't force yourself.  Just take
your time."
      
      "Muuuhhh...muuuhhh..."
      
      "That's right, honey, it's mom.  I'm with you."
      
      "Ms. Kessler?"
      
      "Oh! Doctor, she's waking up.  She can't talk yet though, and
she can't open her eyes either."
      
      A doctor... Was she sick?  Did she not recover in the gel? 
Why wasn't she in gel now?  Why a bed?
      
      "Muuuhhh..."
      
      "Lucy?  Can you hear me?  You're in the recovery ward.  You've
been asleep for 4 days.  Do you understand what I am saying?"
      
      F-four days?!  Wha-What had happened to her?  Open those
damned eyes!
      
      "Muuuhhh...whuuuhhh..."
      
      Bright light flooded in from small slits, and she had to
squeeze them shut once more, but could flutter them open more and
more.  Washed out shades and blurry objects gradually resolved into
color and faces.  Her mother's face.  A doctor's face.
      
      "Whaaa...mooom...wheeereee...where...why..."  Her mother could
only respond by clutching her hands and crying happily.
      
      "Good morning, sweetheart.  Good morning."
      
      "Lucy Kessler," said the doctor, the same one she had seen in
the regeneration room, her smile still neutrally sweet, but somehow
more serious now.  "How do you feel?"
      
      "Wha...what happened?"  She tried to sit up, but every muscle
ached, and her hip hurt.  "Sleeping?  I was...sleeping?"
      
      "That's right.  You were asleep for 4 days," the doctor
repeated.  "Do you remember anything?  Have any dreams?  Did you
dream of anybody?"
      
      "N-no...no dreams...why..."
      
      "Lucy, honey, you," her mother's voice caught, "you had...you
had a period, sweetheart."
      
      "I...I can't mom...I can't..." She couldn't understand what
her mother meant.  She'd been implanted with the Gift, and that meant
she couldn't menstruate as her reproductive system was put into a
sort of suspended animation by the mystic forces at work.  She
couldn't have a period, she just couldn't unless...  "N-
no...no...that...it can't...I...I can't..."  She looked from her
mother, who could only cry to the doctor who could only smile.  "D-
doctor, it's...it's still there, right?  It's still inside me, isn't
it?"
      
      "I'm very sorry, Miss Kessler, but your body rejected and
expelled the Gift that had been implanted inside your uterus. 
Menarche followed soon after and your reproductive system resumed
natural function for an adolescent female."  She slid a hand into the
pocket of her lab coat and produced a small translucent box from it
and placed it on the table beside the bed.  From within glistened a
small diamond like jewel.  Lucy could only stare at it in stunned
disbelief.  The doctor then cleared her throat and straightened her
back and turned to address Lucy.
      
      "Lucy Kessler, code name, Lu-Ke, Mystic Knight 3rd Class, Type
Red, of the Earth Defense Bureau, it is my duty as a senior medical
official of the Blue Iris Research and Medical Center to inform you
that due to injuries sustained in the line of duty I am hereby
honorably discharging you from service in the name of all mankind. 
On the behalf of the citizens of the planet Earth, I thank you for
the sacrifices of your youth and wish you a long and healthy life."
      
      It sounded so cold, so rehearsed.  Lucy herself had heard it a
half-dozen times before while visiting others in the recovery ward or
while she herself was in recovery, but never had her own name been a
part of it.  She tore her eyes from the inert jewel on the counter to
look at the doctor.  Her kind smile was gone, and she was herself
fighting to keep her emotions in check.  It was only when she turned
to leave that Lucy saw Sunshine Daisy outside the door, clutching her
notebook to her faux-pregnant belly and crying.  She felt her mom
squeeze her hand tighter, but Lucy just turned her head to the side
and stared at the one thing that had defined half of her young life.
      
      She did not cry.
      
      
      ***
      
      
      The medical report detailed what had happened, and it was just
as full of questions as Lucy had been after being told.  As she
remembered, she had been put into mild hibernation to assist in the
healing process of her injured hip.  It was only supposed to cause
her to sleep for the next 12-18 hours, at which point she would
awaken naturally and then be discharged to her home where she would
rest for 3 more days before returning to duty.
      
      When she had been asleep for 21 hours, an attempt was made to
awaken her, but she remained asleep.  It was thought that she was
experiencing a gel coma, a condition where the regeneration gel would
cause a person to sleep an abnormally long time.  Lucy had
experienced a gel coma before, and slept for 57 hours while
undergoing reconstruction of her right hand and forearm.  As per
procedure, she was moved from the gel pod to a recovery room with the
expectation that she would wake with in a day.
      
      Less than an hour after she had been removed from the gel, a
nurse responded to an alarm indicating a major bleeding event
detected by sensors in the bed.  Upon pulling back the sheets, it
became obvious why.  A scan of her uterus showed no sign of the Gift
within it.  A pelvic examination found the Gift gem in the vaginal
vault, lying just outside her cervix.  Hormone tests were performed
that indicated that a menstrual cycle had begun.  A passive mystic
aura test, similar to the one initially performed on all Mystic
Knight candidates when they are young, was performed on her body, and
no reaction was observed.  Lucy was now simply a normal 11-year old
girl.
      
      Spontaneous rejection of the gift wasn't unheard of, but it
was rare, particularly at Lucy's age.  Generally a quarter of Mystic
Knight candidates would reject the Gift within a year of implanting,
but of the girls who retained their Gift, less than one percent would
reject until their late teens, at which point the rejection rate went
up exponentially.  The oldest Mystic Knight to retain her Gift had
reached age 31, but paid for it with a great reduction in her life
span, passing away less than a decade following.  That was a side
effect seen only in those who kept the Gift for over 20 years.  Every
girl who lost their Gift around age 20, the most common age of
rejection, lived an average lifespan.
      
      Only once before had rejection of the Gift resulted in the
awakening of a Natural, and that girl, Summer Calm, had been the
greatest Natural of her generation.  That was over 60 years ago
though, and had coincided with the start of the Third Great War,
exactly when a warrior with her strength was needed most.  She was
able to lend strength to over 100 Mystic Knights and keep them alive
through repeated sex enhanced strikes.  She herself, at only 9-years
old, body weakened through exhaustive use of her powers, fueled by
almost 36 straight hours of intercourse with over 20 men, dealt the
final blow to the invaders, wiping out over 2/3rds of their fleet of
spaceships.  Her body was never found.  Summer Calm joined the small
list of Mystic Knights who's deeds and abilities wrote the pages of
history, and the birth of the next Great Natural was awaited, and
feared, by all.
      
      There was no direct evidence for it, but the strongest girls
in the 200 year history of the Mystic Knights had a habit of
appearing just when they were needed most.  There was never a way to
predict who or when it might happen, or by what method.  Some girls
would just pass out and awake days later.  Few would already be
implanted, and then reject their Gift as they became Naturals.  Once
in a great while a girl would simply be born a Natural.  Emotional or
physical distress had also been known to trigger it.  One girl even
had her powers show themselves while she was being raped, causing the
demise of her attacker almost immediately. 

***This marks the end of current progress on mahou, as of 25
February 2014.***
Current word count: 5,491
Current page count (in MS Word): 11