New York City
Friday, the 13th of September, 1907.
Anna ran through the crowd, panting, as the Labyrinth portal grew nearer. It was out there, somewhere beyond the fog.
The weather should have been a clue. It was unnatural and un-forecasted. The crowd of hundreds of thousands had gathered to watch the arrival of RMS Lusitania with the expectation of clear weather to see the modern marvel. The world's biggest ship was quite the attraction.
Well technically it will only be the world's biggest until next month when RMS Mauretania is completed-
Shaking her head, she chastised herself. No time for that now, Anna!
Her father had taken the day off work to bring her here. Vivian and Esther's parents were the same. Even Daisy had slipped away from the tenements of Harlem to come and see 'the white man's big new boat'.
But now there was something coming toward the city's crowded harbour: A witch big enough and evil enough to kill everyone here. Anna knew that only the four of them, as Puella Magi, could hope to stop it.
Kyubey perched on the railing of a tall ship moored next to the Cunard dock, flicking his tail back and forth contentedly, lost in his own alien thoughts.
"Put this all together rather well, haven't you?" His musings were interrupted by a woman's voice. She spoke with a British accent.
Turning rapidly, clearly startled, Kyubey regarded the humans standing on the ship's otherwise empty deck. The pair appeared to be fraternal twins, dressed almost identically in contemporary high fashion for this part of the world.
Not leaving the railing, the small white creature appeared as composed as always, his eyes locked in their default featureless stare. "How can you see me?" His mouth remained motionless as he spoke, as if it was simply painted on. As if it was an afterthought. An affectation. "And how did you sneak up on me?"
Nonplussed by the childlike voice issuing from the strange being, the man responded. "We see more than most, Kyubey."
The woman continued. "This conversation will be simpler if you simply take it as read that we have been observing you for some time."
Kyubey's ears flattened slightly. "Who are you?"
"Lutece." The two replied in unison.
"Ah. To what do I owe this visit?"
Robert raised an eyebrow quizzically. "You've… heard of us?"
"I doubt there's a member of any higher race who hasn't heard of The Lutece." Kyubey cocked his head to the side. "Isn't there normally a third? A girl? There was in the stories at least."
"Attending to other affairs." Rosalind responded.
There was a tense silence.
"Alright then!" Kyubey said brightly. "What is it I've 'put together' so well, if you don't mind me asking?"
"To keep this simple, we know about the full relationship between Puella Magi and the witches they fight." Robert responded.
"We also know you manipulate the girls' battles. Managing what witches they fight and when." Rosalind picked up.
"To provide a maximum harvest of 'emotional energy', of course." Robert concluded.
Kyubey remained impassive, staring cutely up at the two.
Rosalind spoke. "We have a personal interest in stopping today's conflict."
"This witch originated from a parallel universe."
Anna, Esther, Vivian, and Daisy stood at the end of the pier, shrouded from the crowd behind them by the thick, supernatural fog. The four teenagers had already shifted form and were resplendent in their Puella Magi outfits.
"Any new military tricks from your daddy you wanna share with us, Viv?" Daisy, dressed in brilliant red, asked coyly, her twin pistols standing out on her hips.
Vivian shook her head, a brief smile showing through her concern. Esther remained calm and collected, casually and needlessly checking her makeup with a small pocket mirror. Anna was dressed in blue, and carried a large sword in each hand. Each blade was styled to look like one half of a scissor.
"Let's just keep it simple this time, alright?" Anna beseeched. "We have to stop it from getting to the city. That's all that matters."
"And the fact that it's bigger than any witch we've ever felt doesn't worry you?" Vivian asked.
Before Anna could reply, the fog bank parted over the ocean, revealing all 787 majestic feet of the ocean liner RMS Lusitania. Above it was a horror.
The witch's main form hovered directly above the ship's bow while its familiars swarmed all over the liner itself. No people were visible on the ship's deck, either victims to the witch's curse or too consumed by her ambient despair to leave their cabins.
Esther gaped at the sight. "It's doesn't have a labyrinth. It's powerful enough to exist without one!"
Anna barely heard her. She was paralysed by the sight of the witch, yet had no idea why. The creature was covered with thick leathery skin, and floated in the air with her massive bat-like wings outstretched. Red lamp-like eyes glowed from the sides of her bird-like head, and she flexed her steel claws threateningly. Twisted runic letters hung in the air above her, spelling out the witch's terrible name, striking unreasoning terror into Anna's heart:
SONGBIRD.
"Once upon a time, and through an unfortunate sequence of events, a young girl succumbed to despair."
"Unfortunately, this girl possessed the unique power to travel from reality to reality."
"So she bridged to a dimension where this despair could grant her strength."
"Could grant her power."
"Where her curse could be inflicted on all she encountered."
"A physical transformation to match the transformation of her soul, as it were."
The Luteces concluded their joint explanation.
Kyubey spoke, only briefly considering their words. "I fail to see why I should intervene to end today's battle. This witch is more powerful than almost any other I've encountered before and I expect at least one of the girls to succumb to despair today in order to defeat it. Anna in particular shows a remarkably high potential."
"Have you ever wondered why that is?" Rosalind asked.
Now Kyubey stopped to think. Reviewing the conversation so far, he quickly caught on to what the Luteces were implying. "Anna is the witch? But that means… the power to travel between realities…"
Robert interrupted Kyubey's musings. "Now you understand our interest."
"Yes. Anna DeWitt is Elizabeth." Kyubey said, his voice filled with wonder. "Your Elizabeth."
Rosalind nodded to confirm. "And this witch is a loose end we must take care of."
Robert explained. "As soon as 'Songbird' entered this reality, she became a part of events here."
"Therefore unaffected by the actions we took that eventually invalidated her timeline."
"We have come to ask for your permission and assistance in taking her away from here. This is not a universe she belongs in."
Kyubey stared the two of them down once more. "Are you sure this isn't out of personal concern?" He asked. His words were full of guile; smugness apparent even through the childlike tones of his voice. "You travel with one version of Anna. Is it irrational to think that you are simply here to save another?"
The Luteces eyes narrowed, their carefully neutral expressions darkening. "Beings… in our position-"
"With our point of view-"
"Know that it is impossible to save them all."
"Even if 'all' is just one girl."
The girls attacked the witch as one, leaping across the fog-shrouded superstructure of the ship with lightning speed. The familiars quickly moved to intercept. The unease in the pit of Anna's stomach grew as she faced off against the nightmarish menagerie.
Emaciated stick figures with the heads of dead presidents swung lengths of pipe at the Puella Magi, steely forms that looked like the top halves of men fired streams of bullets and exploding rockets. Floating counterparts hovered and circled around the Lusitania's towering smokestacks. Hulking creatures, half-man and half-machine, lumbered across the deck, screaming in agony as their exposed hearts danced. Suits of armour encased in living flame bellowed with rage as they threw blazing missiles across the length of the ship. Black-robed living coffins with high-peaked cowls sprouted black-feathered wings to join the fray. Schoolboys with brass heads that sported massive hearing trumpets from their otherwise featureless surface called out to the other freaks, keeping the girls constantly moving.
Anna's vision fogged and her head ached anew with each monster she faced.
Where have I seen this before?
Showing no signs of withering under their glares, Kyubey challenged the pair further. "So then, make me an offer, Lutece. Why should I stop this battle? The policing of the multiverse is none of my concern."
"The vessel approaching the harbour has a key part to play in Earth's history." Rosalind replied.
"Trust us when we say that if its fate is altered, the consequences would be disastrous." Robert continued.
"Your 'interests' in this planet demand that you allow its destiny to play out naturally."
"Otherwise, you risk its destruction."
Kyubey shot back. "A moot point. With the new information you have just furnished me with, I can confidently predict that when Anna turns today, she will become a witch powerful enough to destroy this planet utterly in a matter of days. The energy released will be titanic, and will buy more than enough time for another planet to be selected for my work."
"The harvest will continue."
Iron claws closed around Anna's legs, snatching her from the air. The pain fogged her senses further as the witch pinned her arms with its other claw; the two of them floating above the battle-scarred, sinking Lusitania.
She was vaguely aware of the familiars closing in around Daisy as she frantically defended a wounded Vivian. Esther was struck from the air by a blast of flame and mobbed by black-winged priests on her way down. She was pierced with bullets from a gatling gun wielded by a clockwork George Washington, his battle-scarred face a horror in its own right, like a doll without skin; sightless shining eyes working frantically in their ceramic sockets.
Staring into the witch's massive crimson eye, Anna began, impossibly, to comprehend. Her screams rang across the water, muffled only by the all-shrouding fog.
The Luteces looked to each other, seeming to communicate without words. Breaking the stare, Rosalind turned her gaze back to Kyubey.
"Who are you?" She asked, simply.
Kyubey said nothing.
"You make many grand claims about your identity, your mission, your race. 'In-Kyubey-tor'." Robert stated.
"But when it comes down to it, your… victims only have your word to go on." Rosalind mused.
"We are both highly educated physicists in our own right-"
"And as such, we know that it is an absolute certainty that energy cannot be created or destroyed."
"Entropy is the diffusion and disorganization of energy through physical and chemical reactions."
"Your explanations are really just oversimplifications."
"You are certainly gathering energy."
"But the energy gathered could only fight against entropy only if you were to hoard it at the cost of the rest of us."
"Such a stockpile could only prolong your own existence in a dying universe."
Kyubey remained silent.
"We know that what sits in front of us isn't your true body."
"It was tailored, like your abilities and emotionless nature-"
"Which is likely, itself, a façade."
"-to seduce young women into selling you their souls."
The Luteces paused, once again fixing their eyes on each other meaningfully.
"Whether you are part of some dying race at the end of the universe or you are accumulating this energy for your own selfish interests, it matters not." Rosalind declared.
"We possess the power to remove the witch from this world ourselves." revealed Robert.
"In addition, with our abilities it will be a similarly simple matter to track your particular unique strand of space-time back to its origin point." concluded Rosalind.
Kyubey was shaking now; involuntarily trembling in fear as his emotionless mask threatened to slip. His face was still frozen in its perpetual painted-on smile, his red eyes as wide and bright as ever.
Robert Lutece's expression was one of disgusted, tired, disappointment. "We just wanted to give you a chance."
"…"
Kyubey jumped down from the railing, scrabbling over the damp wooden deck toward the twin gods he had angered, pawing desperately like a frightened animal at the Lutece's legs. "NO! Please! Don't do this! It's too cruel!"
Ignoring the creature's pleas, the Luteces prepared to dematerialize.
Rosalind's final words echoed in the emptiness after they had gone. "As an old friend who we have yet to meet would say: Everything has its time. And everything dies."
New York City
Saturday, the 6th of July, 1907.
Anna walked hand-in-hand with her father through the streets of New York City. She put on a happy face for his benefit as together they passed shop after shop filled with things they could never afford.
DeWitt Investigations had never brought in much money, and Booker had a child to look after as well. Anna had a job of her own now, which made things easier, and he didn't drink all his money away like he used to after Anna's mother died. Nonetheless, money was always tight, and Booker still lavished his daughter with gifts whenever he could, often at his own expense.
Sometimes Anna wished-
No. This life was good. Best not to ruin it with foolish notions.
The Luteces watched the pair from under the shade of a restaurant awning, seated casually at an outdoor table. Father and daughter strode down the street happily, chatting to one another as they went.
No strange white creature made an appearance in an alleyway causing Anna to give chase. No wishes were granted. No contracts were made.
Rosalind held up her hand. On it rested a Greif Seed; the spire on its top bore the design of an empty cage. Turning it one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, Rosalind revealed a flying bird etched into the spire's opposite side.
The Seed disappeared from her hand in a bright flash as Robert watched.
The centre of the sun should be a safe enough place.
The pair exchanged no words; neither had quite come to terms with what they had seen on their mission to retroactively erase Kyubey's influence on the planet Earth.
He and his 'sister' still staring into the space in front of them, Robert shuddered as he recalled it.
One desperate wish shared by all life; to escape the end of everything.
Furnaces… burning…
Screaming at the dark…