UNIVERSAL
By Greg Wong
Chapter 5: Game Over
"Joan," I said in a deadpan. "Asteroids are not your friends. They will not give you hugs."
The Frenchwoman gave a most unsaintly snort as she brushed away the remains of the rock she'd slammed headfirst into. I drifted closer to her, propelled by my power.
"It was clever," the Frenchwoman said. "Pulling it down and interposing it between us."
"Well, yeah," I said, gesturing first to my cutlass, then to her longsword. "At my age you were taking swings at enemy knights while I was sitting in class listening to Ms. Saotome's most recent dating disaster. You're a much better swordsman than I am, so I'm not going to play your game if I can help it."
"You're quite good yourself, Sayaka."
"I notice you didn't say I was better."
"Of course. Lying is a sin," Joan said with a laugh.
I snorted, sheathing my sword as Joan brushed dust from her armor. Off to my right was the star Tau Ceti, where another dozen or so ascended Puellae Magi were zipping around the asteroids and space dust, flexing their powers. Some of them I recognized: Cleopatra (yes, that Cleopatra), an American who went by Annie Oakley, Queen Himiko, and a young pink-haired French girl named Charlotte David (pronounced Dah-veed, to those who were wondering).
Joan got along well with Charlotte, despite Charlotte declaring herself an agnostic. Every once and a while they would get into these deep discussions about philosophy. I kind of excused myself from them when that happened.
I, surprisingly, got along with her, too, even after I discovered that she was the Puella Magi that would, in another timeline, transform into the witch that killed Mami. She was deeply apologetic about what she had done—Could have done? Would have done? Blah!—and was doing her best to be friendly to me as a surrogate for Mami. Knowing firsthand the horrifying things you could do as a Witch, I decided rocks and glass houses were for the birds and did my best to be nice.
Wasn't hard, all things considered. The only thing that bothered me in a tiny, tiny way was how much she loved her sweets, cheesecakes in particular. I did have to admit she could make a killer soufflé, though.
After the scuffle with the Incubators a month ago, if you counted time as it passed normally, I'd gathered some of the Puellae Magi who were interesting in returning to the physical universe. We were testing out our abilities, learning our upper limits. I think I was getting a handle on the max power I could safely call on without blowing chunks out of planet's crust, but we still had a lot of ground to cover.
"Hmm," I heard Annie say as she floated to a stop next to me. "Sayaka, I think I see someone, over that way." She pointed.
I squinted off into the distance while I extended my power to try to touch on whatever the American had seen. She had sharp senses, much more acute than mine.
I strained more, then suddenly touched a familiar presence.
"Oh, him again," Charlotte sniffed from behind me, also identifying the person. "I do not like him. He is indecently glib."
I turned to the younger girl, an eyebrow raised. "Hey, be nice. Wasn't for him, we wouldn't have learned to do any of this stuff. Not for a long time, at least."
Charlotte sniffed again and zipped off. I turned to Joan.
"Go ahead, talk to him," she said. "I'll make sure the others don't break anything they shouldn't."
"Thanks."
"As always."
Joan flashed away. I turned to the where Janev Ssree'ten was walking in human form. He as doing that danged light-road again. Ostentatious, much?
I drifted over and met him halfway. "Been a while," I said as a greeting.
"Busy with stuff," he said.
"Busy with what? Pushing people down holes?"
His eyes widened. "Please tell me you're still not angry about that."
"Well... not angry," I said nonchalantly. As I did, I extended my energy as sneakily as I could and tugged a melon-sized piece of space dust towards the Xori'an. "I was just a bit annoyed that I very politely showed you to your room in our castle, while you shoved me down a hole in your forest."
"Hey, it was just a little nudge," he protested. "I—"
"Janev?" I said in a singsong voice.
"Hmm?"
"Hugs," I said, and dropped the rock on his head.
"Well, that's reassuring to know," I heard Janev grumble.
"What is?" I asked.
"That my species and yours aren't so different. Human females are just as psychotic as Xori'an ones."
"Oh, says you," I retorted. "That thing just bounced off your skull. And, besides, you pushed me—"
"Hey, stop bringing that up, Sayaka," Janev said. "We're already even. My observation on the evilness of human females is something unrelated."
"Fine, whatever," I snorted, waving it off. "You never answered my question."
His mouth thinned. "Same thing you had to deal with a month ago. The Incubators were being a little more... proactive than usual." Janev made a face. "They were thinking a little bigger this time. They were trying to cause a disruption in a star's photosphere. Wipe out one of two inhabited worlds in that solar system. Panic the the survivors so that more of them would be open to a contract."
"That's terrible," I said quietly.
"That isn't the most troubling part," Janev growled. "In the last month I've seen more instances of Incubators directly acting on a planetary population than I've seen in any three different centuries."
I frowned. "No idea on why they're doing things differently now?"
"None. They use deceit and subterfuge to get their contracts. It's how they do things. Their new plan of action is causing everyone to sit up and take notice." Janev looked away. "Sometimes I wish Keltev didn't have to deal with his limitations and just wipe them out. Save everyone a lot of headaches."
I recalled something he had said when he'd first appeared.
"Janev," I asked carefully, "what did they do?"
For a second I thought he was just going to brush my question off, but he turned back to me. "The system we had was a little different. We fought Devourers. Incubators still transformed males of our species into... I guess the closest human term would be a mage warrior.
"In this system Devourers were spontaneous occurrences, like how Wraiths are today. We also had Soul Gems, but there was no way for us to recharge them. The contract wound us up, and once we ran out of time our Soul Gem went dark. And when our Gem blackened, it would collapse in on itself, destroy our body, and trap our soul within. Then a Devourer would enter our dimension to assimilate it and become more powerful.
I tried to envision what that could be like. Couldn't.
"Imagine you were sharing your mind with a hungry alien creature that killed people and fed on your friends' souls. Imagine sharing your mind with with a thousand other people, and they were all screaming."
I shivered.
"The alternative was arguably worse. If your Gem blackened and, somehow, a Devourer did not come to take you, you were trapped within your Soul Gem. Inside there, time was skewed. A minute literally felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of dark emptiness."
I felt goosebumps rise on my arms.
Janev kept telling his story. "Every once and a while, the Incubators would select a... ripe Devourer and destroy it, collecting the life and magical energy it had accumulated."
"What about the souls?"
Janev looked away.
"Don't answer, then," I said. Janev's reaction told me all I needed to know about what happened to those souls.
"We were fighting a losing battle. More and more Devourers were showing up, and soon my species was facing extinction. In one last battle, I fought the most powerful Devourer I'd ever come across, and I did my best to buy my friend a little more time, even if there wasn't really anywhere else for him to run. By that time we might've been the last two Xori'ans alive."
"You and the Lord Of Sunlit Night," I said.
"Yeah. I did what I could, but my Gem darkened and the Devourer absorbed me." Janev shuddered at the memory. "It was that that caused Keltev to finally contract with the Incubators. His wish was for the power to render all Soul Gems immune to the blackness of the final power drain. And from that you got the system with the Grief Seeds and Witches."
"The thing was, in this new system my species didn't work for the Incubators. Very few of us would ever fully corrupt our Soul Gems. Generally, our Gems just lost energy and faded from existence when they did. In any case, the Incubators didn't like the results they were getting, so a million of them used their gravity fields to pull the moon onto our planet. Cue cataclysmic kaboom."
I gasped.
He smiled sadly. "It wasn't as bad as it could had been. The mages of my world—like I said, not many us ever did become corrupted—combined our powers long enough to keep the moon from crashing onto the surface, at least for a while. It gave the rest of the people enough time to evacuate the planet in as many starships we could spare. End result was a scattering of Xori'ans all over the universe, and the remainder of us finding our power exhausted and Gems losing power."
"You should know the rest. It probably would have been similar experience to mine."
I thought of when I had just begun to make my transformation into a Witch in the reformed timeline, and Madoka had come to cleanse me before it could happen.
"Yeah, I understand."
Janev looked real tired. I guess I'd be too if I ever shared my own story with him. Janev shook himself, as is throwing the memory off. "But that's that. Just wanted to stop by to give you a heads up. They get frisky again and we'll have to do something."
"Thanks," I told him.
He nodded to me. "I'd better get going." He cocked his head, looking at something past me. Then he blew a kiss and waved wildly. I turned, just in time to see a scowling Charlotte give Janev a very rude gesture.
Laughing, Janever looked back to me. "All right, Sayaka, until next time."
"See you around, Janev," I told him.
"Really?" I asked Madoka a little while later.
"Yes."
"What for?"
"Just to be there in case something needs to be done."
"I... all right." I paused. "You knew I was going to ask if I could go back down there, didn't you?"
"Maybe. Besides, you don't have to ask permission for that, anyway. I'm not like your mother, or anything."
I scratched my nose. "All right fair enough. But really...?"
"I just thought killing two birds with one stone would be good, you know?"
"Oh, all right then. I'll go in a bit. I just need some time. You know, to think."
"Take all the time you need."
Kyoko screamed as she was knocked into the girder of a half-finished building.
Her arm snapped, but she did not have time enough to dwell on it as a wave of black foulness came seething her way. She rolled, barely avoiding the obscene energy, and used her momentum to jump back to her feet. She had to grit her teeth as her injured arm bumped against the ground.
Before here loomed a dozen Wraiths, each of them ugly and distorted, moaning as they dragged themselves closer. The closest Wraith lurched faster, jaw opening impossibly wide as it vomited cursed energy.
Kyoko leaped past the attack, closing in on the Wraith before it could adjust the torrent of malevolence. Her spear flashed as she opened a terrible wound from shoulder to hip.
She was not fast enough to dodge as the creature's death spasm sent a gnarled hand hammering into her back. She ended up in a heap as she was knocked head over heels, stunned.
The wails of the remaining Wraiths drew closer. Slowly, stiffly, Kyoko climbed back to her feet, using her spear to support her. Wobbling, she rubbed her nose on her good arm's sleeve. She spat on the floor in front of the Wraiths as she bared her teeth. "Come on. I've taken fifteen of you out already. The eleven of you should be cake."
The creatures shambled closer, sensing Kyoko's rapidly fading energy.
Quietly, as if to herself, Kyoko said, "Dammit Sayaka, these are the days I wished you hadn't gone and gotten yourself killed."
She straightened, leveling her spear one-handed at the remaining Wraiths. "All right, one at a time, or all at once. I don't care. Come get some."
And then I was finally close enough.
My energy exploded as I struck the ground, and the shockwave slammed the Wraiths through the air, away from Kyoko. I dampened the energy wave as much as I could in Kyoko's direction, but it was still enough to knock her back to the ground.
In addition to putting her on her back, it must've gone the whole nine yards and knocked her out, since she didn't stir as I stepped closer. I knelt next to her, cradling her close to me I as I sent my energy outwards. I felt the magic I'd released mend and repair the damage to her arm. I would focus on that first, then the rest of her body.
Just as I finished, her eyes shot open. She looked around wildly before she focused on my face. Her eyes widened.
"That's not poss—"
An earsplitting howl cut her off.
I turned towards the sound, and saw that eight of the Wraiths were still alive and lurching closer. Okay, fine then. I raised my open hand towards them, extending my magic outwards to contact each of them. I felt the Wraiths, looking for... ah-hah.
I touched on the curse that fueled them. It was a kind of magic. Dark as hell, sure, but still magic. I surrounded that grief with my own power, spreading it over each and every one of them.
Then I clenched my hand into a fist, compressing my magic around them.
With a final wail, the Wraiths imploded into a vortex of disintegrating curse magic.
"Heh," I said in satisfaction as I turned back to Kyoko. "Cool, wasn't—"
I jerked my head back as Kyoko took a swing at my face. She wasn't fast enough to tag me, and it wouldn't have hurt me even if it had, but I still flinched from it instinctively. The redhead wrenched herself out of my arms and bounded away from me.
"What the hell are you?" Kyoko snarled at me, jabbing her spear in my direction.
I held my hands up disarmingly. "Okay, okay, I know this is weird, but come on Kyoko, you recognize me! It's—"
I saw the the muscles in Kyoko's legs and arms tense. Instinctively I drew my magic to myself, augmenting my body. Kyoko's strike, which should have been lightning quick, seemed lazily slow as I let it brush past me. I bounded inside the spear's reach and grabbed hold of the haft. Kyoko stared at me in shock.
"Dammit, Kyoko!" I cried. "Could you stop this?"
Her response was to do something complex with her arms and a hip, breaking my grip on the spear despite my strength. The slash that came at my stomach was all part of the same motion, and with my speed enhanced as it was I saw the control and precision required to pull that stunt off. Even without any power beside that of a Puella Magi—and beaten up and tired—Kyoko had them in spades.
It wasn't really any wonder that she'd kicked my butt the one time we had gone at it.
I slipped away from her and waited a few meters way, wracking my brains for a way to talk her down.
"How dare you?" she screamed at me. "You tried putting on her face last time, and it almost got us killed. Hell no, it's not happening again. You're done, you son of a bitch."
And I was supposed to be the stubborn one.
Another too-slow attack, this time deflected with an energy shield. Kyoko recovered almost instantly from the block, and came back for more.
I drew my cutlass and parried her thrust away. She attacked again and again, but each time I slid them out of the way. Even when she exerted more of her magic, casting illusory images of herself to confuse me, she still couldn't land a hit.
After a dozen more passes, I started to notice that she was becoming erratic, that her attacks were becoming sloppier.
She overextended on a jab, and I had more than enough time to send energy crackling through my hand.
"Game over," I muttered, and slammed my glowing palm into her chest.
With a whuf, Kyoko tumbled to the ground in a tangle of red. I waited for her to rise up again, but all she could do was raise herself up to her elbows. By the shivering in her arms I could see that she was, literally, past the point of exhaustion. Beyond caring.
"Do it," she snarled, and I saw frustrated tears in her eyes. She started sobbing. "I get it. Kill me while wearing her face. Just end it already. Dammit."
I watched Kyoko's tears—something I'd never dream to see—patter to the ground.
Slowly, carefully, I laid my sword on the ground and walked up to her. I cupped a cheek in my hand and angled her head so she could look me in the eye.
"One thing, first," I said deliberately. "A question."
Kyoko just glared at me, tears now sliding down her face.
"Did you ever pay for those apples?"
The moment I said my piece, her mouth dropped open in shock, working as if trying to say something but failing to do so.
Then, voice cracking, "Oh my God, it really is you. Sayaka."
Then she did something that surprised the hell out of me.
She laid her head on my shoulder and started crying.
The sun had been going down before she had regained her composure. When she had managed to stop crying, she had led me back towards the old church she had used to live in. We stood outside of it, now. The thing was as battered and beat up as I remembered it.
The only words she spoke to me was to apologize for trying to take my had off. A month after I'd... gone away, a Wraith had masqueraded as me and tried to kill the three of them. I understood her reaction now, at least.
Other than that, though, silence.
We went through the entryway—Kyoko had kicked the door down the last time we had been here, and it looked like she'd never gotten around to fixing it. It was drafty inside, and Kyoko, back in her beat up cutoffs and hoodie, looked cold. I had reverted back to my tee and jean skirt, but the cold didn't affect me any.
Kyoko tiredly collapsed on one of the more intact benches. I'd managed to heal her bodily injuries and cleanse her Soul Gem with the curse shards, but she'd still expended a lot of power against the Wraiths and the following battle with me.
"Why here?" I asked her.
"Pissed off the last landlord," she said sleepily. "I'd go out and convince someone to give me a room 'cause of my good looks, but I don't think I've got enough steam left to convince a street vendor to try to sell me something."
"It's cold in here," I noted.
"Well, yeah, I've been cold before," she said thickly.. "I can deal."
I looked around at the bare church. "What about food? Didn't see you carrying anything on the way back here."
"Not that hungry" she slurred. " 'Sides... been... hungry before, too."
I waited for her to say something more, but Kyoko had passed out.
I looked at her for a few minutes before I decided on what I had to do.
I sped up into the sky, hoping I wasn't going to kill some poor innocent pigeon or whatever as I flew towards space. I'd wrapped my magic around myself, so most human technology shouldn't be able to detect me.
As soon as I'd broken out of the atmosphere, I accessed more power and increased my speed until I had blown past the moon. There, far away from where I could hurt anyone, I set a path for home.
Janev's faux-star road was cool, though just not really my thing.
I concentrated my force and will, and a swirling tunnel of energy opened up before me, looking for all the universe to see like an impossibly long surf tunnel. Taking one look back at Earth, I entered the pathway.
I reentered my home dimension, and while in false-space I called the castle. I almost literally bumped into Charlotte as I walked rapidly towards the kitchen.
"Sayaka, how was—"
"I need a cake. Cheesecake. Something," I said in clipped tone.
"Er... what?"
"I need a... cheesecake, stat," I said, deciding on the particular dessert.
"Er... but what kind? How large?" the French girl asked, completely confused. "Do you want—"
"Go nuts," I told her as I reversed direction. "And tell them to get me loaded plate of stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Stuff."
I got back to my room and started to rip the sheets from my bed. Don't know how comfortable they could be, but I could try. I rolled them as tight as I could—which meant a lot tighter than if I'd just been a regular girl—and carried the bundle with me back into the hall. I needed to talk to Madoka. Hopefully I'd run into her—
"Yes, Sayaka?" I heard Madoka say from behind me.
Sheesh. I turned to her.
"So next time, do I just go 'Madoka, I summon thee!'?"
"I could give you an exemption and just make you think it," my friend said with a slight grin.
I snorted. "All righty. Um, Madoka, I'm going to need to be fast about this. Can I ask—"
"It's done," Madoka cut in.
"—You to... wait, huh?"
"It's done. Well, some of it. You'll have to put in some work yourself, you know. Go, now."
"How did you... How could you have...?"
She cocked an eyebrow at me, smile growing wider.
"Right. The answer to everything," I said with sigh. I slid past her towards the kitchen. I hope she didn't mind how rude I was being. "Thanks, Madoka!"
"You're welcome. And don't worry, I won't hold it against you."
I smiled to myself as I hurried back to Charlotte. That cake had better be ready.
With a bit of juggling and creative use of my energy, I managed to make it back to Earth without losing anything in the asteroid belt or burning up when I hit the atmosphere. The moon had just risen, so I hadn't been gone for more than a few hours.
Worked for me. I'd had plenty of time to think on the flight back.
I stepped back into the church and placed the stuff I had brought on the big table in the middle of the raised dais. I picked the bundled blankets back up and went back to Kyoko. She was still out like a light, but shivering badly.
Gently as I could, I removed her boots and dusty hoodie and bundled her in the blankets as well as I could. The benches weren't very large, so I had to position Kyoko so she wouldn't tumble off.
With a little more creative juggling, I had her warm enough so that she looked almost peaceful.
Task completed, I took a seat on another of the less dusty benches, leaned back as well as I could on the low-backed seat, and started to think.
