For some time, i've been playing around with a concept for an original magical girl universe.
The basis of it was thus: Some time ago, like 25-30 years ago, a threat started to appear, mainly in japan it seemed. The treat was in the form of monstrous beings, some small, some large, that seemed more or less immune to traditional forces. Not sure on the name so far, but lets call them shadows till someone else has a better one.
Salvation came in the form of the first magical girls. Each one was paired to a seemingly invincible animal like companion, who acts in an intelligent manner, ie they can talk, etc. These were the physical representations of beings who stood opposed to the shadows, and who granted the magical girls their powers.
Now, the various girls had some things in common. All were granted increases physical attributes: speed, strength, senses, etc, in various degrees between them. All were also granted a different supernatural ability. Most were from various locations in japan, but a few were from outside it, mainly south Korea and Siberia, and a couple were actually exchange students in various cities. None had, to outside analysts, anything personally in common, save for a few traits. All had, in one way or another, a sense of justice and courage, and all were aged 13-19.
Each girl represented an archetype, with a different power set. Examples:
Elementalist: control over the five classic elements: earth, air, fire, water, and lightning.
Arcanist: control over 'arcane energies', which took various forms, but defied classification. think one part green lanturn, one part Rose form street fighter, etc. Can form and use constructs of arcane energies.
Mentalist: telepathy, telekinesis, mind reading memory rewrites, you name it.
Controller: could command plants and animals to do her will, and communicate with them. Could cause plants to grow, First hokage style. Can empower, temporary, animals with magical attributes. This had the result of changing their sizes in many cases.
Spectrum manipulator: another curious one, she could bend and redirect electromagnetic forces, along much fot he specrtrum. She also served as a source for many of them. There was limits to how much power she could self create though, but she coudl redirect it from any source, and focus it to a lasers point if she so wished. She also could wrap them around her, or bend them t make herself seemingly vanish, or project illusions, like a hologram at a line of sight distance.
summoner: Could summon physical weapons by pure will, with the requirement of having to understand, at an advanced level, how their structures were built. Highest physical attributes of any archetype, but the least flashy power. Unlike normal weapons, summoned ones were effective against shadows.
Now, these girls, after each ones discovery, were eventually able to band together, and defeat, what they thought was the root of the shadows power. They may have appeared, at least at first, as a united group, but there was some notable infighting, which later became public after the treat was dealt with. The group later split up to do their own thing and mop up the various shadow leftovers and hold outs. There were celebrated as celebrities to the public, and every girl, seemingly, dreamed of joining their ranks.
It seemed like, for years, the threat had been dealt with, and the girls regulated more to public symbols then a fighting force, and many further drifted apart.
That is, until the present. four years ago, the shadows returned. Instead of a focus in one area like before, they seemed to pup up all around the pacific rim. The archetypes were now much older, and far too few to handle the threat.
You see, the shadows hadn't been defeated, and the 'finalboss' the girls killed was important, but more like the general of an army, and well, those are replaceable. The shadows had come to the conclusion that a champion was needed, like the ones being used against them, and indeed, found a candidate and created the first dark magical girl archetype. They had intended to use her to defeat the archetypes, but she correctly pointed out she was just one girl, outnumbered, even with a shadow army. Instead, she convinced them to play the long game, build up forces, and the archetype forces. Impressed by her ambition, they gave her what she needed to enact her plan.
The root of it was simple: attack over a wide area, with a multitude of forces. To lead the, she would need Lieutenant, and thus, she got them to create less magical girls with powers with a more limited scope.
This seemed to be working, and they seemed to be pushing back the archetypes, now older and in some ways, less effective.
Luckily, their benefactors did not stand by ideally, and replicated the Lieutenant strategy, by creating score of their own magical girls, with similar powers based off the archetypes, but more limited in scope. For example, a lt grade Elementalist may only have control over a single element. A Mentalist may only be a telepathy, or an controller may only be able to control certain classes of plants or animals, etc and so forth.
More later, as I've got some ideas about specific magical girls of note, powers, etc. Wanted to see what you guys thought first. and well, it's lunch time and i'm hungry.
Thus, the world seems to be in a state of equilibrium. magical girls fighting an army of shadows lead by dark magical girls, with neither side seemingly to do much besides hold their ground and try to wear the other one down.