Time to begin, thought Mami. She flicked her arm, and her Soul Gem soared from her hand into the air, golden light pouring from it and wrapping around her body. She smiled as she felt her Puella Magi outfit form around her with reassuring familiarity; the striped stockings and elegant boots encased her legs and feet, the yellow skirt wrapped around her waist, and the white shirt draped itself over her torso and down her arms before the dark corset bound itself over it. Her Soul Gem fell into place in her hair, and the final bowtie at her collar tied itself. She was ready.

Her Soul Gem glowed, power flowing out of it to tear open an eldritch gateway before her as she stepped forward. At last, the end of the trail. The Witch's Barrier. Its hidden lair. Mami walked in with easy confidence, and looked around. The world inside this Barrier, though clearly alien, wasn't as eldritch as many of the Barriers she'd seen. The terrain was a gray moonscape, with brown cliffs towering over her to either side; a black expanse of starry sky hung over her head. It seemed as real as the one she'd left behind; the grey dust beneath her feet was as solid as real sand, and nothing around her wavered or shifted. It seemed that this Witch liked to play by rules.

Mami didn't let her guard down as she proceeded; she'd seen a lot of weird stuff in her time as a Puella Magi, and was used to all kinds of Barriers. There were the ones which started out like something out of a bad nightmare and never let up, the ones which looked normal – or at least benign – with varying degrees of creepy undertones before springing a nasty surprise, the ones which looked friendly even as they tried to kill you, and the ones which were exactly as they appeared. She walked on at a constant, measured pace, ready to pull a weapon at the first sign of anything amiss.

As she continued to advance, she saw the first sign that she wasn't alone in the moonscape. A large blue crystal hovered in the distance before her, drawing closer with each footstep. A message appeared in the dust before her, and to her slight surprise, some of it was written in typical Witch runes, but the rest was written in her own tongue – or at least, something resembling it.

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Mami peered at it, frowning, but dismissed it after a few moments; it didn't make any sense to her and she decided to ignore it, not letting herself be distracted. As she continued, her elegant heel crushing out the name written in the dust, she saw several gear-shaped golden disks lying around the blue crystal. She continued her measured approach, remaining ever prepared.

Suddenly, the golden disks split open, and roughly spherical golden constructs rose from their insides, one from each of them. The metal spheres 'glared' at Mami with blue 'eyes' for a split-second, before unleashing a volley of deadly blue plasma with distinctive 'bdew!' sounds. Glowing orbs of blue plasma closed the distance near-instantly, but Mami Tomoe's finely-honed Puella Magi instincts were on high alert, and she leaped aside just in time.

No sooner did her feet hit the ground, however, that the Photon Cannons fired another volley. She quickly rolled aside, summoning and firing a pair of musket pistols as she came back to her feet. Belying their seeming antiquity, the downsized versions of Mami's signature weapons fired powerful golden blasts which could easily punch through mundane metal.

No dice. The golden blasts splashed against an energy shield, and the Photon Cannons wasted no time in replying with another withering volley of blue plasma. Mami leaped into the air, ignoring the half-understood taunt which wrote itself into the air over the cannons:

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Fine, Mami thought. Heavier firepower, then. This won't stop me. She waved her hand as she reached the zenith of her jump, and a swarm of muskets filled the air around her, aligned in perfectly choreographed rows, pointing a fearsome fusillade back at the Photon Cannons. Mami pointed dramatically down at her targets, and the muskets answered; the hammers of the guns slammed down in unison, unleashing Mami's own barrage on the Photon Cannons. The first few shots merely splashed against their shields, but Mami had summoned dozens of rifles, and there were plenty enough rounds to tear through the shields and blast the cannons into glowing slag. Mami smiled as she landed smoothly, bending her knees only slightly to absorb the shock of landing. She continued on into the Barrier, deeper down the canyon.

Not knowing that she'd made a dangerous mistake.

The blue crystal – the Pylon – had remained intact. And now, several blue energy fields formed around it, prisms of warped spacetime drawing forth new foes to assail Mami. Several four-legged spider-like constructs unfolded from the depths between dimensions, each as large as a tank and forged of gray metal.

"Death comes to all," one Stalker whispered, just too softly for Mami to hear. And they fired.

Blue plasma leaped their guns, towards Mami's unprotected back.

XxXUb3rPROtossPlayah: Fa1l n00b, u suk

She screamed as the bolts struck her, blasting her flying forward, but quickly rallied, whipping around in midair. Her back was on fire, but her Puella Magi outfit and powers had spared her body serious damage, and Mami Tomoe was nothing if not focussed. She skidded to a halt as she landed on her feet, waving her hand to summon and fire another cluster of muskets. Golden bullets lanced towards the dark spiderlike forms of the Stalkers…

…the message flashed before Mami's eyes as soon as the bullets left the barrels of the weapons…

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…and the Stalkers vanished, Blinking out of existence right before the shots struck.

What? Mami thought.

And then they returned… swarming all around her. Mami reacted on pure instinct, leaping into the air, and the plasma slammed into the ground below her feet. Taking advantage of her split-second advantage, Mami drew a rifle from thin air, and fired it at one of the mechanical creatures. As expected, a shield flickered into place to block the blast. She pulled another with her left hand and fired again. Blocked again. She whirled around in the air, drawing another rifle as she did, firing again. Those shields had to have a limit, and apparently the 'grey spiders' couldn't teleport again straight away.

She was right. The third shot tore through the shield, but barely penetrated the armour, leaving only a small, sparking hole. Her fourth shot, with a rifle drawn from over her shoulder with her left hand, pierced straight through the Stalker, and it fell.

One down, four to go.

And by now, the guns of the rest had nearly recharged.

Mami flicked her wrist forward, and a golden ribbon unravelled from her sleeve, whipping towards the next-nearest Stalker and wrapping around it. Its shield protected it, but the ribbon nevertheless encircled the shield, draining the Stalker's power away and momentarily stunning it. As the other Stalkers fired their guns, Mami pulled hard on the ribbon, yanking herself towards the Stalker she'd ensnared and shutting down its shield at the same time. The blue plasma zinged behind her, to Mami's relief; though the pain was starting to fade, she was not keen to take another hit. As she bore down on the second Stalker, she spun around again, drawing a larger rifle – not quite the size of her signature move, but still oversized – and slammed it into the Stalker like a club as she flew past, knocking it off-balance. The stumbling Stalker staggered into another unit beside it, disabling its comrade's shields while knocking them both down… leaving Mami landing right next to a pair of collapsed Stalkers with no shields, large rifle pointed directly at both of them.

Boom. The golden bullet tore through them.

Two more.

Mami waved a hand, and several rifles sprung from the air around her. She grabbed hold of two, firing them at one of the Stalkers. Its shields took the first two shots, as expected, but Mami snagged the next pair of rifles out of their position in the air around her, and fired again. Both bullets pierced the shield, and the Stalker fell, disabled. The fourth fired its plasma cannons. Prepared, Mami easily skipped aside, her hovering rifles following her, and returned fire. The first shot slapped its shield, but as the second golden bullet sped towards it, the Stalker blinked out again.

Mami smiled. And that was why she had fired her rifles manually one-at-a-time, instead of directing them to fire all at once – so not all of her shots would be wasted. On a not-so-wild guess, she whipped around, taking hold of the next pair of rifles, and fired them at the Stalker, which had appeared right behind her. Its shields failed. She snagged the last two rifles out of the air and finished it easily.

Mami glared suspiciously at the giant blue crystal in the middling distance. Why had she left that behind, anyway? She'd dismissed it as harmless background. A dangerous mistake; in a Witch's lair, anything could be an enemy. Mami shouldered a new rifle, and charged magic into it; a golden glow gathered around its muzzle, and she waited a couple of seconds before pulling the trigger. A more powerful, long-ranging shot quickly closed the distance between her and the rogue Pylon, and tore straight through its shield and structure, rendering it a sparking mess of collapsing crystalline shards. She continued down the canyon, noting that the ground had started to take on a slight upwards slope, and the cliffs were growing shorter. Was she nearing the end?

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The slightest flicker of fear ran through Mami as she saw large curves of metal start to peek over the tops of the shortening canyons. As they flew slowly towards her, the huge constructs became clearer – four massive starships of some kind, two on each side.

XxXUb3rPROtossPlayah: GG n00b

And then the Interceptors started to launch from the Carriers' prows, a string of smaller shapes closing on Mami, blurred with speed. The smaller ships opened fire as soon as they got in range; Mami tried to sidestep, but the blue beams flashed out quicker than she could dodge, stinging her painfully. It wasn't as bad as getting hit unexpectedly by the grey spiders, but it still hurt, and Mami knew she couldn't allow it to go on. She drew a couple of rifles from the air, and attempted to return fire, but the swarm of smaller ships parted around her shots, before firing another barrage of stinging blue beams, causing Mami to stumble and almost fall to a knee. She waved a hand before her, summoning several rifles pointed in an arc in front of her, but this didn't have much more luck; the Interceptors scattered again, and Mami braced herself as they started to fire the next chain of blue beams. Pain coursed through her body.

As the Interceptors broke off to recharge their guns, Mami gritted her teeth and took hold of the end of the ribbon tied at her throat. She yanked it free, spun around, and lashed out with it at the Interceptors. The glowing golden ribbon cut through the fighters, weaving through the air to catch each and every one of them as she swung it defiantly back and forth, clearing the air around her. As the sparking remains of the last fighter fell to the ground, the ribbon split in two and wrapped itself around her wrists. Silver metal formed out of the ribbon, turning into two large cannons around her wrists. She smiled as energy flowed from her Soul Gem through her body, healing it, and into the arm cannons, empowering them for a decisive strike.

She pulled the triggers inside the gauntlets which had formed around her wrists, and the air exploded around her. The first golden blast on either side fell short, between her and the Carriers, but the rest bloomed inside each of the large starships, tearing the Carriers apart from inside in bursts of golden energy.

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She panted a little as the gauntlets dissipated into golden light. She hoped the Witch didn't have any more surprises; her magical defences wouldn't last forever, and the blasts still hurt. But she felt the corruption flickering in her Soul Gem, and knew she had to finish the fight, or risk failing her mission for good. Mami nervously continued up the hill.

The canyon walls fell away, and as she crested the rise, she saw what she took to be the Witch.

A large golden pyramid stood at the crest of the rise, amidst a collection of more blue crystals, two smoke-spewing buildings which resembled factories, and a number of other buildings formed of golden metal and blue crystals. Though there were a number of them, she knew the largest pyramid housed – or was – the Witch. Not only was it the centrepoint of what she took to be an alien military base of some sort, she felt a sense of… dark life coming from it. Her theory was confirmed when, with an electronic beep, a Familiar emerged from it, an odd, roughly conical construct of golden metal with a blue sphere in its 'nose'. As she looked closer, she saw several more Familiars of the sort gathering the blue crystals, as well as green cubes of some sort from the 'factories', and bringing them back to the Witch. Mami wondered what it was meant to represent, but ultimately ignored it.

There was a long, silent moment. Mami wondered if the Witch had any more tricks up its sleeve. So far it had only used Familiars… yet the building housing it seemed fairly inert, and its Familiars had been far more powerful than usual, especially the last few. Was it possible that this Witch relied on Familiars alone?

XxXUb3rPROtossPlayah: F u!

As one, the Probe Familiars turned towards Mami and charged at her. Mami just smiled slightly as several rifles burst from the air around her and fell around her feet, lodging into the grey dust, their handles ready for her to grab. She calmly picked them up one at a time and picked off the Familiars as they approached. None got near her.

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A series of Familiars burst into existence around the Witch's pyramid and rushed her as she started walking again, slowly closing in, but she waved a hand and several rifles appeared in a line in front of her. They fired, and the Familiars blew apart.

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"That's enough of that," Mami said, a cold edge to her voice. She flicked her wrist, and a ribbon unravelled from her sleeve. It fell into her hand as a massive rifle, and she stabilized it with her other hand, pointing it carefully at the Witch's pyramid. Golden energy started to gather in its muzzle.

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Mami's mouth tightened.

"Tiro Finale."

The golden beam burst forth. A cleansing golden light obliterated the Witch, and with its demise burned away the rest of the wavering Barrier – but it couldn't burn the last words of the Witch out of her mind.

She winced as the Grief Seed fell into her hand. The Witch's last words had left an unexpected burning sensation in her heart, reopening a wound her Soul Gem couldn't heal.

But she would go on. She held the Grief Seed against her half-darkened Soul Gem, watching the corruption siphon away. She had her job, and she would stick to it. That was all she needed.

Or so she told herself.