Atop a skyscraper:

Kyubey stares at you. "To end entropy! A wish like that would rip apart the space-time fabric that holds reality together. The fate lines of a hundred worlds are tied to you…the power involved…"

It falls back a step. "You…you would reorganize the universe? Try to change reality?"

You grin. "Maybe. I don't care. I just want to beat your system, Kyubey. Enough using girls for your own ends. Enough manipulation, enough destruction. I'm ending this. For all of us."

Walpurgis floats above, dominating your hometown's skyline. The wind howls threats of annihilation, your annihilation. It's stronger than any witch that's ever lived, but you can defeat it. Once you have power, real power, you can protect your world from anything.

"I'll do what you couldn't."

The little alien cocks its head. "Your wish…I will grant what I can. I…your emotional energy…"

You scowl. After all that's transpired in the last few weeks, to learn that Kyubey is all bark and no bite disappoints you immensely.

That said, it's also quite odd that no magical girl has ever attempted a wish like this (if Kyubey's reaction is to be believed). You suppose few have had your many advantages in this world but really, did no one think to use their wish for the greater good? Have all magical girls been so selfish?

If you hadn't been found with potential, this farce might have gone on forever.

Then Kyubey looks at you with that etched mask and nods. "Very well."

Success.

The lopsided grin darts across your face. "Now, Incubator, we've made our contract. Give me what I asked for."

Your light is impossibly bright. A thousand suns would pale in comparison. Exploding out from your breast, it arcs toward Kyubey. It's a wish that plays with creation itself.

To end entropy, now, forever, and retroactively, to infinity.

Your only regret is that with all the blinding light surrounding you, the Incubator bastard can't see your smirk.

"End entropy."

You aren't:

Being here is painless — pain would be an indicator that you exist. Pain would be preferable. "Here" doesn't actually exist, though, so on the whole pain is pretty irrelevant.

There's also the fact that you don't have a body, so you wouldn't feel pain anyway. This isn't a bad thing, actually, because it makes it easier to deal with the fact that there's nothing to breathe here. No one has one, for that matter, because there is no one else. Not that there's a "you", either.

Merely a false consciousness, non-existing in nothing.

A multitude of murmurs strikes up a tune. If you existed, you would catch words like "useless" and "wishes", hear phrases like "emergency correctional powers and "undo the damage". You'd come to understand that your wish was incompatible with existence and that if the Incubators hadn't prepared for this, hadn't calculated that sometime and somewhere a stupid human would try to cheat, to work around rules that just can't be broken, your self-important arrogance would have destroyed everything.

But since you don't exist, you hear nothing. You're just (not) there.

A bang shatters the nothingness, and —

A few hundred paces from your home, a cave deep in the great valley:

Slow, rumbling, the earth shudders like a mammoth's dying breath. You leap to your feet with a frost-lined gasp, scrabbling for your crude spear. So strange that you weren't alert and holding it — had you fallen asleep? You must have. Grandmother would be so ashamed.

Wait. Where did these creatures come from?

You recover from your shock quickly. Strange beasts, small, white, four-legged. Far too small to be a predator. Large enough, however, to provide a decent meal. Food has grown harder to come by since your birth — the seasons turn as they always have, your elders say, but each year the wind bites for longer and the frost returns earlier. So difficult that they've taken to arming the young, even the females like yourself, and sending them out to hunt. Some die, torn apart and devoured or lost in the snow.

You suspect that, on some level, that might be the point.

But you just found food, prey. Your people will go hungry without these…things.

You lift your spear — plenty of the males throw farther than you, but none have your accuracy — and the creatures turn their faces to you.

All your life, your people have been the hunters, the ones who looked at a beast and decided it should die, who killed it and brought it back to the cave as food. All your life, until now. The pink eyes bore into you and suddenly, you are prey. The urge to flee is leashed only by the blood-freezing terror that binds you, colder than the air that sneaks beneath your overlapping furs.

Their sounds make no sense, but the air trembles with their meaning. You've never felt so small.

The sky cracks, flashing a multitude of reds and pinks, and the cold air around you squeezes into you and rips you apart, and you scream but nothing comes out because —

In your city:

It's already evening. Low in the sky, the sun lances your eyes, a parting shot as it dips into the sea beyond the harbor.

This you remember. You're back. You've become the strongest magical girl in existence.

Everything is different, even more than you'd expected. You can feel it in your muscles and tendons, every single one shivering with the power of your wish. Every time you exhale, the air curls around you in thick blankets. It's more than the physical world that reacts. Worlds that you didn't know existed, that might not have existed before your wish, move in time with your beating heart.

Flashes from lives half-remembered try to intercede on your thoughts, but you coldly stamp them out. They bring with them the raw abyss of fear and you, you're above that now.

One particular tremor in space-time snags your attention. Kyubey, the Incubator. It's walking away in what you might once have seen as justified arrogance, but in your ultra-powerful state you know better. You've beaten it, it and its pathetic little game of human subjugation.

There's something missing.

"And?" you blurt out.

It turns to face you. Those eyes, once misted with guile, are blank. "There are some things that can't be changed, but we compromised with your wish. For the human race, entropy is over. We will no longer harvest energy from your world or its species."

You laugh, triumph filling your breast. "That's right. No more exploiting us. I've saved us from your rules."

The little creature's ears bounce when it sighs. "Enjoy your time. Until your purposes align with ours, we won't see you again."

Drunk on your victory, you hear none of the naked greed in its voice. All that's important is that you've won. You beat the Incubators when no one else could. When you wished, you looked beyond your selfish whims and thought about the world. The result? No more girls will become witches. No more alien races to destroy humanity.

Your world is saved.

###

Madison falls first.

Her transformation happens late in the summer, a few months after you became a magical girl. The six of you were fighting a powerful witch in Argentina, one that forced you to employ your considerable power, when her soul gem turned black. The other girls panic. You're dismissive at first, but something akin to worry gnaws at you.

With entropy's end, shouldn't there be no more witches?

Then you realize: of course there shouldn't be. But it's not enough to wish. Perhaps this was the "compromise" Kyubey spoke of — no more future harvests, but the magical girls still exist. Wishing is powerless without the Incubators' power, but who has that power now?

In the heartbeat before Madison turns into a witch, just as her imprint materializes, you put forth your magic and smash her glittering soul gem.

The other girls stare at you. Their horror is as incomprehensible to you as your own actions apparently seem to them. What is there to be afraid of? You're here, and you've brought an end to entropy.

Right?

Maybe they're just caught in the moment.

Late in the night Zafirah screams at you, accusation flying at you like her magical daggers. The pale moon pulls the richness from her warm copper skin, making the sparks in her dark brown eyes stand out even more. "I thought you ended this madness! And how can you care so little?" she asks, the horror of betrayal flashing onto her drawn face. "She was your friend! Wasn't she? Aren't we?"

Friend. A concept that makes you pause, just for a second. You feel nothing for Madison, she's gone, but Zafirah? You can feel the corners of your mouth turn down…no. It's because you can't let yourself, yes, that's it. That must be it. Heroes have to make sacrifices, and heroes stand alone. You did feel for her once, for all of them, but you can't now. Of course.

You smile at Zafirah in what is intended to be a comforting manner, but she is unmoved. Her fury twists something in your chest, a feeling that hurts more than having your soul ripped out to become a magical girl. You try your best to ignore it — you're in the right, here. Her anger, at least, is understandable: to those like Zafirah without a true concept of the greater good, your actions would be reprehensible.

And besides, Madison brought this upon herself. She made a wish.

Zafirah stalks away, cast-off tears glittering in her wake, and you frown. There it is again, that painful twisting. You want to call her back, to demand that she fill the hollowness in your breast. To make her stop being angry at you.

Or maybe just to keep her from walking away.

But she's forced you to consider that there's something more important at stake, that perhaps the madness hasn't ended. Madison's descent has reminded you of both hope and despair, of how as long as both exist they will always be in conflict. Despair means witches and ends; hope, wishes and beginnings. And chaos loves beginnings.

It occurs to you that you made a mistake with Madison after all. You almost let her change before making your move.

It's not the witches of the world you need target.

###

Ruling the world is hard.

Well, no. Not "hard". Maybe "strenuous" is closer, and that was to be expected. If it were truly easy, you wouldn't have needed a wish to do it. But you were granted the power to end entropy, and preventing further wishes is a major part of that. Kyubey never said it would stop making magical girls. You don't even know the process. What if a girl wishes for the power to control space-time? Or, unlikely as it may be, does something you can't foresee to unmake your power?

You can't allow that possibility.

Consolidating your power takes almost no time at all. Revealing yourself to the world is unfortunate but inevitable as your murders turn into massacres. So many other girls with potential, so much hope. After a time you learn the distinct advantages of being overt, and you intend to bask in them as long as you can. Before your supporters desert you. Before they all turn on you.

You hear it often, even from the fervent believers. "Witch", they call you, and "tyrant", and even "mutant" and "alien". Assassination attempts from dozens of countries, dictatorships and elected republics alike, grow into all-out war. They're joined by terrorists and mafias and small-time crooks who see a rival in this superhuman girl rising on a tide of fire and blood. You defeat them all, but for every trial you overcome ten more spring up, each more desperate than the last.

Stomping out each resistance one at a time is taxing.

The winter, when it comes, is nuclear. The fallout from the flying missiles finally pushes your powers beyond their natural limits, forcing you to evolve in order to survive. Some part of you rages against the change, but masterminding the missile launch was necessary, and your actions are above reproach. Besides, they pushed you to it. It wasn't your fault.

Don't they understand what they're doing, acknowledge the savior they're trying to kill?

After you destroy a pair of powerful magical girls from Japan — the third, a dark-haired beauty with cold violet eyes, escapes through a labyrinth of time tunnels so complex that trying to track her nearly breaks your brain into fragments — there's no one left with the power to stop you. You're unsurprised when only a few magical girls come from across the world to die at your hand. Most don't even make it to you, pushed into grief and despair by their failing wishes or the destruction of their world.

So many witches, hundreds, thousands…so many of your own kind. Fully grown and static, unwilling supporters of your reign.

None last long, though. You know who takes these witches down, watch her progress with growing trepidation, but you can't confront her directly. Zafirah is still your old battle companion, and you're not one to do evil. It has to be her fault, to be she who breaks the bonds that surely still keep you two together.

As for your other friends…

Kenan rallies a battalion of magical girls just after the missiles fall, but hopelessness and grief destroy the alliance long before they ever make it to your lair.

Ari comes to your side and promptly betrays you, claiming to be in the right, but you know better. Without you this world will plunge into chaos — look at what's happened in so short a time! You take long pleasure in poisoning her soul gem while she lies just a few feet away, writhing futilely, her limbs ripped from their sockets.

Bianca dies from intentional overuse of magic, her gem bursting into a multitude of crystalline colors as she fruitlessly seeks some form of salvation.

One by one, the remnants of your life as a human — confident, prophetic, a true leader even if Zafirah was the girl people followed — fall away.

###

There's not much left of the human race when Zafirah finally confronts you.

It's been a few years since your rebirth as a witch. In that time, homo sapiens has faced a wave of death they've never before confronted in their blink of an existence, a wave that thanks to you they'll never have to face again. Of course, if you're to be honest with yourself, you've become more than addicted to their curses, their screams, their tears of despair. You've drunk so much anguish that it fills the dimensions around you, an endless wailing that will sustain you for all eternity.

Zafirah is your opposite. She is all of humanity's remaining hopes and dreams. Her expression is that of an avenging angel, and indeed she looks like one, all fire and light as she flies to face you.

But you're greater than even that, and both combatants know it.

The end is preordained. You're the next best thing to a god, and she — well, she's just an idiot who couldn't see past herself. Shortsighted, wanting only to fight for a world that no longer exists, for a wish that you ensured would mean nothing.

You grind her body into the ash with your gauntleted claws, wrap tentacles around her weapons and squeeze until they shatter.

She was the last magical girl. Deep in the recesses of your third brain, a memory of an Incubator's last words haunt you for centuries, but you eventually force them away. No more magical girls, no more witches, and that means no more challenges. No matter what happens, your rule will be uncontested.

Those few humans still living remain on Earth in their many thousands, eking out what meager existence they can in their small war-tribes. They worship you as a god while they clash and die, their blood draining into the dust while the erupting volcanoes drown out their screams.

You don't care.

What matters only is that the world is safe. Safe from the Incubators and magical girls, from witches, from fathers and sisters and friends and people with power and people without, from guns and bombs and words and all the things that kill. From ideas that drove people to madness, from ideas that sought peace, from thoughts that could evolve in ways your superhuman mind could never predict.

Your beautiful, fragile world will spin until the end of time — never changing, never growing beyond your specifications — tight in the grasp of its watchful ruler.

You have no limits. Someday, the moon will be yours, and the solar system. The galaxy will take longer, you'll have to stretch muscles that do not physically exist, but once you get the hang of it the rest of the universe will be ready. Like puzzle pieces falling into place you'll obliterate it all, destroying anything that might cause entropy to spiral out of control, and when you preside over the infinite space you'll have done it.

The end of chaos.

###

Millennia later, when the dark-haired time girl finally leads the Incubators back to Earth to siphon your emotional energy, the eventual fate of all witches, you can't defend yourself. "Yourself" is all you've had for so long that you don't remember what it even means.

.

.

.

From the idea that every word has power and intent is a tricky thing.