Monster

A **monster** is a type of artificial lifeform in *Magical Girl Policy*. Likened to golems, these monsters are created by infusing Investiture into objects, granting a degree of sentience and empathokinetic powers. Platicore creates monsters to attack Kessia City, draining the Investiture-rich residents of their energy and doing battle with the Spirit Guard, with said battles typically happening approximately once every three weeks.

## Description

Platicore's monsters have unique appearances, but they typically retain traits of their original object form alongside a body type resembling that of a human woman. The object becomes the basis of their name, appearance, and abilities, with their names commonly being wordplay of this theme along with a traditionally feminine name. They are capable of thought and speech, but tend to be simpleminded in their devotion to their mission and loyalty to Platicore. They were originally rather mindless with only a single attack, but over time they are made with improved advanced combat and cognitive capabilities, with a major power increase inevitably coinciding with the appearance of a new Spirit Guard, who proves instrumental in defeating it. Each monster is usually unaware of their predecessors, and this is apparently by design out of fear that a monster may lose motivation if it knew it was preceded by failures. Cell-celia is considered unusual in this regard, as she is fully aware of her "sisters" and sports a more developed personality.

When a monster is created, they are initially inactive, with Platicore having Trace deploy and activate the monster at a designated area. Monsters are often in disguise as whatever object they're based on. They tend to morph into their true form when alarmed, such as by the appearance of a Spirit Guard or an unusual Investiture. Each monster has a core called an empathic capacitor, which resembles a black pearl and stores the Investiture they have drained. The capacitor is released and floats above the ground when the monster is killed, and it appears to shatter. In actuality, the capacitor makes itself invisible until made to manifest with the aid of a specialized Investiture collecting device, which Trace uses. In a case where the capacitor has no Investiture, however, it seems to shatter in earnest, as Trace couldn't find Polygal's after Robert had inadvertently overloaded it.

## Common abilities

Platicore's monsters are created for the purpose of draining Investiture from others, with the exact method of doing so varying between each monster. They are capable of sensing Investiture in their victims while attempting to drain them, but this is distinct from empathokinetic perception. Both of these abilities are considered rather simplistic; the monsters are designed to harvest will, the primary Investiture component, and are ill-equipped to handle or detect other emotional components. Because of this, one with a particularly powerful Investiture, such as a Spirit Guard, is highly resistant to getting drained by a monster, who may experience pain and possibly trigger an explosive reaction where their gathered Investiture is involuntarily set free.

Each monster has a set of empathokinetic powers based on their theme. Their strength is directly proportional to the amount of Investiture they have drained. For more powerful moves, a monster may have to speak the move's name in order to use it.

## Known monsters

In total, there have been about twenty monster appearances in Kessia City. Robert's research into the Spirit Guard indicates Polygal is the eighteenth, making Day LaMode the nineteenth, and Cell-celia, the latest monster, number twenty. Lieutenant Sanders, a police officer, says there have been "twenty-some-odd" attacks when at the Day LaMode scene.

The table below lists known monster in order of appearance in the series' timeline, though the relative positions of some have not been stated.

In addition, Valor recalls a time when she and Tenacity were fighting a monster when the police came too close to the scene, causing one of Tenacity's electric attacks to inadvertently fry a police car. The police opened fire in response, upon which the Spirit Guards learned their powered-up auras can shield them from non-empathokinetic damage like bullets. Whether the monster they were fighting was one of the ones above is not specified.