"I'm off, mom!" Charlotte called down the hall as she tightened the knot on her pink sneaker.

"Are you sure you'll be okay, honey? It's only been two weeks since you got out of the hospital, and I—"

"I have my cell phone; I'll call you if anything happens, bye!" Charlotte said as she darted out the door.

It had taken two weeks of begging and pleading, but finally Charlotte's mother was letting her out of the house without supervision (during the day, of course—Charlotte snuck out every night with Kyubey to hunt witches either way). The sun seemed even brighter than usual as Charlotte ran down the street—she always ran—past the two siblings six houses down from her playing a game by their house, past the elderly man who lived by himself fixated on watering his lawn, but nobody else. Everybody else was either at work or in school (as it was so late in the year, Charlotte wouldn't have to return to school until the next semester started—which she was okay with, of course), so the streets were quiet and almost deserted.

It was probably better like that, Charlotte decided as she slowed to a trot. That way, nobody would ask her why she ran everywhere, or accidentally catch her disappearing as she tumbled into a witch's layer.

"Kyubey!" she sent the thought out telepathically.

Sure enough, seconds later Charlotte felt something warm brush against her leg, and Kyubey was trotting alongside her.

"Have you seen any witches around, Kyubey?" Charlotte asked as she slowed to a stop to let Kyubey climb up on her shoulder. He wasn't heavy as he looked; in fact, he was light as a feather.

"I believe I sensed one about one mile west of here."

"West? But… there's not much there, is there? I thought most of that area was under redevelopment," Charlotte thought, turning to run in that direction anyhow.

"If anybody wandered alone in that area, they would make easy prey for a witch. The witch could easily influence them without anybody else getting in the way."

"Makes sense," Charlotte nodded, "then I guess I better kill it fast!"

Charlotte scanned the area—nobody was around. She ducked into the nearby ally anyhow. Then, clutching her soul gem, she allowed the familiar, warm glow to surround her before emerging as the dessert magical girl.

A grin spread across her face as she jumped to the rooftops with a single, effortless hop. Of course, running felt great and all, but nothing beat running about town as a magical girl.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, it only took a few minutes to get to the part of town Kyubey had described. Charlotte's eyes narrowed as her soul gem began to glow brighter—the witch was nearby.

Calling that section of town a "slum" would be a compliment. At least a slum had people—there was nobody in sight, and the resounding silence from all directions echoed that. Unlike the rest of town, the ground was still made of pavement, rather than the smooth, marble-like material that covered the rest of town. The houses were all in shambles, their ancient wood frames crumbling and downtrodden from the test of time. It was no wonder that the entire area was set to be destroyed soon.

Charlotte followed the witch's path, gazing intently at the soul gem on the bow that clasped her red cape at her chest. The gem's glow was becoming brighter and brighter, until it was as brilliant as the day she first received it. She looked up—the witch was in an old church.

There was something strange about the church, though—even though it was made of stone, other houses made of the same material nearby were just as decayed as the wooden houses. The church, however, looked habitable. Unlike the other houses, where dust caked the windows, the stain glass windows on the church were clean and brilliant. It was clear that somebody was still living there—no doubt, that person was about to fall victim to the witch.

"Charlotte, wait," Kyubey said before she could dash into the church, "I don't think you should fight this witch. You are not strong enough to take it on alone."

"I've been fighting witches every night for three weeks, Kyubey. I think I can handle this one witch," Charlotte retorted, an icy coldness infecting her voice.

"You're hardly a veteran. I suggest you leave this one alone and—"

"I said, I can handle it!" Charlotte growled, speaking out loud. She paused for a moment, waiting for Kyubey to react. He didn't—he just stared at her, with his cold, unmoving expression. Charlotte sighed and lowered her arm to the ground, allowing Kyubey to jump off. "I could be too late as it is. I'm not going to let whoever is here die."

With that, Charlotte dashed into the church, the witch's layer materializing around her as she entered.

The lair was oddly quiet—normally, when Charlotte marched right into a layer already transformed, the witch flung its familiars right at her. However, this layer was completely silent, and not a living thing was in sight. All around her, for miles it seemed, bookshelves towered, the spines of the books engraved with ancient runes. Books were floating far above her, but other than that, nothing moved.

Charlotte knew the peacefulness had to be a hoax, though. Somewhere outside the witch's labyrinth, somebody was surely being brought to their death by the witch. Fury filled Charlotte as she imagined an innocent person being manipulated to jump off a building, or to stab themselves in the chest, or stick a gun up their mouths and shoot.

"Come out here you coward!" she screamed as she allowed her weapon to materialize in her hand. She struck the base of one of the bookshelves, causing the whole thing to fall over.

The books came flying down as bombs, exploding as the hit the ground. Charlotte, caught by surprise, barely had time to throw up a barrier to protect herself.

That's when the screams started. Ear-piercing, horrifying screeches, the cries of a demon. Between that and the books exploding all around her, Charlotte was afraid she might go deaf.

One book that was about to make impact with the ground stopped all of a sudden, then rose up and slowly opened. The silhouette of a girl shone on the pages of the book in place of text.

Through the explosions and screeches, Charlotte barely made out the maniacal laugh of a young girl before suddenly, all the books that had been falling in scattered patterns before were falling directly on her.

Hard as she tried, Charlotte's barrier was shattered by the fourth book or so. She cried out as the next book, missing her by inches, exploded, flinging her back into another bookshelf.

As the shelf toppled over, even more books were falling toward her now. Her knuckles white from gripping her weapon, Charlotte darted in a zig-zag pattern toward the witch, hoping to throw the books off. Each time, the books missed her by inches, and the screeching and explosions and cackling of the witch only seemed to grow louder. It was all Charlotte could do to not stop and plug her ears, the noise was so loud. Still, she pressed on, the witch getting closer and closer.

"I've got you!" Charlotte shouted as she leaped up above the witch, the second part of her weapon, a giant knife to match her fork, materializing in her hand.

However, before Charlotte could slash the witch with her finishing move, the witch let out another cackle and suddenly disappeared, the book falling lifeless toward the floor.

"What?" Charlotte whispered, her eyes growing wide as the shell of the book exploded on the floor. She cried out as something struck her in the back, pummeling her into the ground. She looked up to see another book with the witch adorning its pages floating above her. It had long ribbons, adorned with text, protruding from its pages, and it was using those ribbons to pin Charlotte to the ground as books from the shelf behind it flew directly toward her.

Blood was dripping from Charlotte's forehead now, the witch had slammed her head so hard. She struggled as hard as she could, thrashing every part of her body, desperately trying to break free, but to no avail. She choked back tears as the books came ever closer, and hung her head down to meet her fate. Kyubey had been right—she was foolish.

It was strange, though—she felt the explosion, and the heat from the fire, but no pain. Suddenly, the ribbons pinning her down were gone, and she was free. Was she dead? Was this her soul drifting from her body?

No, she was alive, Charlotte realized as she hoisted herself up to her knees. But how? That explosion should have killed her.

To her surprise, Charlotte turned to see two girls, a little older than her, crossing their weapons—a spear and a sword—creating a barrier the color of the sunset. The girl with the sword, with blue hair like the ocean, turned to Charlotte. "We'll take it from here!" she said.

"Mimi, let's go!" the second girl, with green hair like grass, said to the blue-haired girl.

The two uncrossed their weapons, and the barrier disappeared. Simultaneously, they both leapt toward the witch, weapons outreached. The witch, taken aback at the sudden appearance of the two girls, froze as they jumped into the air. "Let's go!" said the blue-haired girl, a song-like tone to her voice. She sounded way too cheerful for a girl hunting witches.

"Double slash!" the two shouted at once. They slashed their weapons across in the shape of an "X," similar to what Charlotte did with her weapon. The witch was instantly torn to pieces, and let out a final, ear-piercing cry as it disappeared into nothing, its layer disappearing around it.

The two girls changed as soon as they hit the floor, their costumes becoming normal casual clothes. Charlotte was about to change back as well, not wanting to expend any more magical energy, when she noticed the man on the balcony above. He was clearly about to jump before, but now he was unconscious, helpless to do anything as his body teetered over the railing.

"Watch out!" Charlotte cried as she dashed under the balcony. She just barely caught the man, her magic giving her strength to hold him even though he was twice her size. She sighed deeply as she placed him back on the ground, finally allowing her costume to fade. She was more tired than she realized.

"Nice catch there, newbie!" chirped the blue-haired girl—Mimi, Charlotte thought her name was.

"'Newbie?' I… I'm not… I've been doing this for almost a month now!" Charlotte pouted. It sounded bad when she said it like that, but she felt pretty experienced.

Mimi laughed. "A month? Honey, we've been doing this thing for a year now! You're a newbie, as far as we're concerned."

"Well I thought I was doing pretty well…" Charlotte muttered.

Mimi laughed again, patting Charlotte on the head. Charlotte always knew she was short, but both these girls were pretty tall—Mimi was almost twice her height. "I like you! We should hang out," Mimi said.

"Mimi, come on. There's that familiar across town that we have to take care of, remember?" the green-haired girl said, approaching the two.

"This sour-puss right here is my sister, Kiki," Mimi said, completely ignoring her sister, "You might not be able to tell, but we're twins. Just fraternal though, thankfully."

"What's that supposed to mean…?" Kiki muttered.

"My name is Charlotte."

"Charlotte? That's a funny name," said Mimi.

"No, it isn't. My grandmother from France named me. She said that when I was born, my cheeks were red like the strawberries on her favorite dessert, so she came up with the name for me- so it's not funny at all," Charlotte said defensively.

"France, huh? That's why you look so funny. And, no offense, but that is kind of a funny story. Who names their grand kid after a dessert?"

"Mimi, don't make fun of her. It's a very nice story," Kiki said to Charlotte's surprise. She expected Mimi to say something back, but she just nodded.

"Sorry, she's right. It's a sweet story. Now, where is it…? Ah, here it is!" she said, tossing Charlotte a strange gem. It was a grief seed. "You need this, right? You were using an awful lot of magic before; I bet your soul gem is pretty dirty by now."

"But… but you saved me! Don't you need to clean your gems?" Charlotte said. Her gem was pretty dirty, though—the light was duller than she'd ever seen it.

"Nah, we just cleaned our gems. You'd already roughed up that witch, so we didn't even have to use a lot of magic. You've earned this!"

Charlotte nodded hesitantly, but placed the point of the grief seed to her gem nonetheless, making it clear red once again.

"I'll take that," Kyubey said, brushing against Charlotte's leg like a cat.

Curiously, Kiki stiffened as Charlotte tossed the grief seed to Kyubey. "We need to get going, or that familiar is going to hurt somebody," she said, out the door before anybody could stop her.

"Okay!" Mimi said, "Charlotte, do you want to come with us? We won't get any grief seeds from killing a familiar, but we'll save a lot of lives and, quite frankly, you need the experience."

"Insulting people is no way to make allies," Charlotte muttered, but followed Mimi out the door anyhow.

"Well, you're never going to be a good magical girl if you're all cynical! Loosen up a little, huh?" Mimi laughed. Charlotte couldn't help but smile a bit with her—her smile was contagious.

"Let's go, you two! Charlotte, you can come along, but Kyubey? You stay here. There's no grief seed that's going to come out of this so you'll just get in the way," said Kiki.

The three ran to the familiar, all keeping pace with one another. Charlotte couldn't help but marvel at the whole thing—the last time she'd been able to run alongside anyone, she'd been a toddler. However, she couldn't help but notice Kiki was acting a bit peculiar—she kept looking back at the church even when it was out of sight, as if she was afraid something was following them.

"What's wrong?" Charlotte asked.

"I just want to make sure that fox thing doesn't follow us," she grumbled.

"Kyubey? Why don't you want him with us?"

"I don't know. His face just creeps me out—it never moves, you know? I don't trust him."

"Oh, come on, give him a break, will you?" Mimi said, nudging her sister. "He did give you a second chance at life, you know."

"I don't trust him either way. He acts too much like a business man for my taste—what with the contracts and obligations. He saved me, but it's not like it was for free."

The three slowed down as their soul gems began to glow brighter. None of them were out of breath.

"Looks like it's right around the corner," Mimi said. She turned to Charlotte. "Shall we go?"


Charlotte returned home in a better mood than ever. For the first time since she was hospitalized, she'd made some friends—and not just any friends, but magical girl friends. She didn't even know there were other magical girls! They were the only ones who could really understand each other, and against the familiar they'd made a fantastic team.

Charlotte was returning home later than she'd promised her mom—about half an hour late, to be precise, but she was sure her mom wouldn't mind. She might get yelled at, and lectured and maybe even grounded, but as long as Charlotte was safe and healthy, her mom surely wouldn't complain that much, especially if she knew what her daughter was doing when she left the house. No doubt, killing that familiar had saved many lives.

Something was strange when Charlotte returned home, though. Even though everybody should have been coming home at that point, nobody was outside—not even the old man with the strange infatuation with watering his lawn. As Charlotte turned the corner to her house, she realized with horror why.

Ambulance lights flooded the front of the house, and all the people who were usually outside their own houses formed a crowd around the vehicle. Memories filled Charlotte's mind of all the times her health had been threatened and the same had been done for her. Horror-stricken, Charlotte made her way through the small crowd—all of whom politely parted upon seeing who she was—to see her mother on a stretcher, being carried inside the car.

"Mom-!" Charlotte cried, rushing to the stretcher. She was stopped by a man easily five times her size, huge and brawny.

"Miss, you have to stay back. Is this your mother?" the man said, his voice booming.

Charlotte nodded and stopped pushing obediently, though secretly she fantasized about pushing the man over and running to her mom, like she'd done for Charlotte so many times before. Charlotte had the power to do that now, if she wanted, she thought to herself as she clutched her soul gem with white knuckles.

"Your mother is in critical condition right now, so you can't see her for a little while. Your neighbors have offered to look after you for the night, but you can visit your mother probably tomorrow morning."

Charlotte gulped. "Visit her… where?" She knew exactly where, but she didn't want to admit it to herself as visions of needles and life support systems and children destined to die ran through her head.

"The hospital—for now, your mother has to go to the hospital."