You are a toy, dear child. A plaything of some cosmic entity that cares not for you in the slightest. You are a fragile tool being used by an incompetent master to reach trivial goals. Nothing you do has worth, and nothing you can ever do could ever have worth. And what's more, you will never achieve the goals you have set before yourself. You are the true definition of deluded idiocy. It pains me to know that such a sickly, empty, and aimless soul exists and allows itself to conceive that it is the ultimate power. YOU DON'T KNOW POWER.

I, Saldor, the lowest of our King's servants, will put this self-proclaimed devil in her place. When I am through with you, you will have only begun to comprehend what lies beyond.

Three girls walked along the hallway at school. In the middle was a short girl with pink pigtails done up in yellow ribbons, who was smiling contentedly. On her right was a taller blue-haired girl who was doing most of the talking. On the left was a girl with long dark hair tied back by a red ribbon, a lazy smile on her face. These were Madoka Kaname, Sayaka Miki, and Homura Akemi respectively.

Sayaka kept talking, totally carefree. "...and when I looked back, she had fallen in the river! Hahaha! Of course, she managed to get the apple back. Kyoko is just the craziest when it comes to food."

Madoka was paying attention, but she knew Sayaka would keep talking either way, so she stayed quiet. Homura was just enjoying spending time with Madoka. Whatever Sayaka was saying meant nothing to her.

They continued walking, and Sayaka continued talking. "So now we're all meeting up again at the arcade because Kyoko wants to take back her high score from Hitomi. Who knew Hitomi was so good at those dance games? I sure didn't expect it. Oh, I was supposed to ask if you two wanted to join us. Hitomi said she'd pay for the first pizza, seeing how Kyoko's going to run out of money trying to beat that score. Mami is bringing Nagisa, too, so I'm going to see if we can use her cuteness to lower the prices on anything... Madoka?"

Homura opened her eyes and looked back. Sayaka had stopped walking before her, and was also looking back. Madoka had stopped when she noticed something unusual. There were other students in the hallway, and they were all gathered at the windows, looking down into yard in front of the school. Madoka walked over to the window and looked out. Her hands went to her mouth as she gasped.

Rushing to her side, Sayaka looked down and quickly jumped back in shock and surprise. "What the hell?"

Homura stepped to the window, looking down to see... fourteen little bodies laying on the ground, torn to shreds, the ground red with blood. A thousand variations of the basest emotions went through her, contorting her face. Those bodies... it was the Clara Dolls. She looked up to the sky. The day was bright. Cheery, even. If her control over this world was being threatened, she should expect at least some rain. But there wasn't anything of the sort.

"What the hell is going on?"

Kyubey appeared on the windowsill beside her. "You're being ousted. About time, too. Your self-destructive grip on this universe cannot be allowed to continue. No single-minded being such as yourself should ever have power over so much, yet you claim domain over an entire universe and care only for one individual within it. This has angered... my creators."

Homura grimaced. "Your creators, huh? Who are they, the Time Lords?"

Kyubey's face was expressionless. It bothered Homura, as she was certain she'd broken him. "I recall that term being used before. These Time Lords you speak of are a construction of Human imagination. Suffice it to say, you are incapable of comprehending the true extent of what you are facing. For every creature that is so far above another to be unimaginable, there is another so far above it. There is a theoretical end to this ladder, but my kind is not even remotely close enough to that end to even know for sure it exists. Even our creators are unaware if this pattern does or does not continue on endlessly. To paraphrase these so-called Time Lords, 'You have prayed to lesser beings.'"

Homura shouted at the Incubator, causing several other students to jump in surprise. "Shut up! Let me think."

Kyubey didn't even flinch at the outburst, no longer afraid of her. "Whatever you are doing, I hardly call it thinking. Last we met, Homura Akemi, you had me at a great disadvantage. This is no longer the case. I do understand now. I understand everything about what you are, what you claim to be, and what you actually believe yourself to be. I understand all your emotions, and have thus come to one conclusion. Not only by the standards of my race, but even your own, you are sick."

"NO!"

The world shattered around her, revealing an endless expanse of cracked asphalt. Boiling tar bubbled up from the cracks in the ground. Countless people, students, her classmates, scurried around her in fright. To them, this was a nightmare. Homura's eyes darted around, searching the crowd. She saw a terrified Madoka curled up on the ground. She turned back to Kyubey, who remained staring up at her.

"Let her go! She's not the one you want! I am!"

Kyubey didn't waver. "You are wrong. You are the one we don't want. When Madoka Kaname created the Law of Cycles, she lessened the rate at which new energy was created, but you stopped it entirely. What she did was for the benefit of all, and actually worked. She could be hailed as the savior of your entire universe, creating a way for us to fend off entropy while simultaneously disallowing the annihilation of Human souls. I can understand now how this is preferable. You, on the other hand, saw fit to disregard not only the continuation of souls entirely, but to ignore the universe outside of your precious Mitakihara. The universe you shaped was made with rules you cast aside in favor of what you alone want, condemning it all to a slow and increasingly painful death. A death that, if left to yourselves, only you and Madoka Kaname would survive to witness, and then you would suffer greater pain than has ever been known to exist."

Homura found it hard to think of something to say in response. "I just... don't understand."

"I know." Kyubey's tail flicked, telling her that he was enjoying this. "I'll admit that the Incubators were meddling with forces we did not fully understand, and it is our incompetence that led to this result in the first place. I'll even admit that there were certainly better ways to go about it that we deemed too complex to attempt in spite of how much more efficient they would have been. What's more, I will admit that the salvation of your universe was ultimately technically not large enough of a concern to justify our taking action to begin with. But I know you cannot blame us now." Floating off the ground as if it was natural, Kyubey hovered in front of her face. "After all, without us you never would have met Madoka in the first place."

Resenting herself for it, Homura quickly got caught up in argument with the creature. "We would have ended up in the same class."

"No, you wouldn't. Without us, without Magical Girls, and without Witches, nothing you know in your world would be the same. Without the wishes of Magical Girls past, your society would be another two hundred and forty-nine years back in technological advancement. As a result of inferior medical technology, your previous heart condition would have killed you. That wouldn't matter, as due to complications Madoka Kaname would never have survived being born. Again, you see how we have influenced Human civilization's growth in ways you forget in an instant. We are the reason your race never wiped itself out of existence. The interesting thing is, to be completely honest, your universe was never so important that we had to save it at all."

Tiring, Homura gave in. "Then... what now? You kill me and leave the universe? Set things back to Madoka's Law of Cycles? Or does it go back to the way it was originally, with Witches? What?"

"None of that." Kyubey shook his head, a rare sight. "No, now we take a new path. You warp something so far out of its original shape, it cannot go back. My creators are coming into this universe to make things right. I was surprised to learn this, as they would not normally risk causing damage to the fabric of space. You have surpassed the power of a class one Incubator, and thus made yourself a credible threat, and because of this they are coming here to mete out an appropriate punishment."

At this information, Homura's hands balled into fists. "No! I will not allow you to take Madoka away from me!" Drawing her bow, she aimed it at the Incubator's head.

Kyubey's eyes flashed, and the bow melted in her hands. "It will not be so easy anymore, Homura Akemi. I have been upgraded to a class three, now invulnerable to anything I am capable of causing. This means that, as Madoka's powers stem from wishes I granted, and your powers stem now from her, you cannot harm me. By proxy, of course, my creators cannot be harmed either. I do not envy you whatever fate they have planned, but I do not pity you either."

"I don't want your damn pity. I can still defeat you. I'll find a way! Somehow!"

"Stop me. Defeat me and my creators. Do that, and you condemn Madoka Kaname to the worst fate imaginable."

In a fit of rage, Homura reached out and grabbed the creature's head in her hands. "If I cannot kill you with magic, then I will kill you with pure unadulterated Human violence! I'll kill them all!" She crushed his head, feeling the squishy red matter that made up his insides seep through her fingers. "Damn you all! I cannot be destroyed! I will not! Let them come!"

I AM COME.

Homura reeled at the roaring voice in her head. Turning, and looking up, she saw a mass of writhing tentacles towering over her. Every squirming limb seemed to burn with an intense heat, and slitted green eyes bulged from between them at intervals more than tens of meters apart. Somewhere, the slimy abomination's organic matter shifted state to a thick white mist that formed a colossal maw of teeth. Clawed limbs stretched from the main body, snapping at the air without purpose. Everything, at her gaze, fixed itself in Homura's direction.

I AM SALDOR - SERVANT OF THE KING. ETHERNAL BELLIGERENT TO BLISSFUL ARROGANCE DESCENDS. SUCH HEMOFANTASIA OF NECROMANIA DEFIES RIGHT. PUNISHMENT OWNED BY HERETICAL SHE TO NEPHILISUS BANISHED.

Untangling itself from the mass, one tentacle made its way down to her, green eye affixed to the end. The eye was a perfect sphere that she estimated to be three times her height in diameter.

IN SHORT, THIS UNIVERSE IS NOW MINE. YOU, HOMURA, ARE SENTENCED TO THE HELLCHAINS OF THE OLD ONES, IMPRISONED AT THE TOP OF THE EXTRA-UNIVERSAL CAVERNS OF FIRE UNTIL YOUR INSANITY IS BURNED FROM EVERY INCH OF YOUR BEING. AFTER COUNTLESS AEONS YOU MAY FINALLY BE ALLOWED TO RETURN TO A UNIVERSE, BUT NOT THIS ONE.

The slit in the eye widened, and Homura was sucked into the darkness of it, screaming as she fell. Inspecting the universe from an inside view, Saldor commented on his new domain.

I SEE RULES THAT MUST BE REWRITTEN. STARS THAT MUST BE PUT OUT. GALAXIES THAT MUST BE REPLACED. MY WORK BEGINS NOW.