I'm happy people are reading. This chapter is a few days late so I apologize. Anyway, new chapter. Enjoy if you can.

Late morning, in the Atlas Training Arena B…

Mami watched with no small amount of interest the daily work-out session of one Kyouko Sakura. She had been passing through when she noticed the distinct wild ponytail of red that could only have been Kyouko's. Feeling mildly curious, Mami took a seat on the bleachers and watched.

Kyouko stood in the center of the arena, wearing only a training bra and cycling shorts, with a green jacket tied around her waist. She was most likely at the tail-end of her work-out as she had her weapon on her, Rossio Phantom. The animatronic ragdoll which served as the training dummy stood some distance away.

Without any warning, Kyouko closed the distance between herself and the dummy, opening with a straight kick to the chest, immediately followed by a latticework barrier behind the dummy, preventing it from flying too far away.

The lancer nodded at the red blinking light on the dummy's chest, satisfied with her opening.

She then began a series of complicated twirling motions with her spear, landing a number of hits with both the sharp and the blunt ends of her weapon, finishing with a low sweep that knocked the dummy onto its back.

Kyouko tilted her head at the dummy as it stood back up, as if wondering if she did a good enough job with her string of attacks.

There was a flash of red as shaft of Rossio Phantom split into a chain, the links separating explosively. There was a brief moment where chain merely floated in the air. Then Kyouko moved.

The chain was like lightning, violently whipping back and forth even as Kyouko herself circled and jumped over and around her target. The dummy soon found itself battered every which way in a wild maelstrom of aura and steel. It began beeping a high pitched warning sound before completely falling apart, its pieces scattering all around the arena.

Kyouko wiped the sweat off her brow, clearly unhappy with the turn of events.

It was in that moment that Mami decided to jump into the arena and greet the lancer good morning. Said lancer simply looked at her and smirked.

"Enjoy the show?" Kyouko asked, taking a swig from her water bottle.

"You showed quite a bit of skill." Mami glanced at the dismembered robotic arm at her feet. "Though the training dummy is hardly a worthy opponent…" She gave the arm a light kick towards Kyouko.

The lancer chuckled. "Yeah, I can agree with that."

Mami gestured towards Rossio Phantom, currently embedded into the remains of the dummy's chest. "May I?" she asked. Kyouko nodded in reply.

Pulling the spear out of the dummy, Mami examined the weapon. "Hmm… It's lighter than I expected, but still quite heavy. And it seems like the links are about to burst in my hands…" With a certain twist of the middle link, the six foot spear shaft unexpectedly broke apart into a twelve foot length of chain. "Case in point…"

Mami stared at the weapon curiously, waving it around in its chain form. "I wonder…"

Feeling experimental, she began small twirling motions and attempted some tricks. The chain obeyed her every command, weaving around her, becoming straight, and curving certain ways. When she finished, the chain lay in a neat circle around her.

"Rossio Phantom is a nice weapon," Mami concluded. "It doesn't quite reach my preference for flexibility but I can see why you use her. She's quite the energetic one."

Kyouko gave Mami a short whistle, looking impressed. "Wow, Mami. You're a natural. It took me at least a year to be able to work that thing even half as well as you're doing."

"I may have an unfair advantage in that regard," Mami said, reconnecting the links and handing Rossio Phantom back to Kyouko. "You see, my semblance is of a very specific kind. I specialize in the manipulation of ribbons. I channel my aura through them and it allows me a level control that cannot be matched by anyone. It doesn't necessarily have to be ribbons either - it can be chains, rope, wires, really anything long and flexible."

Kyouko gave her a sly look. "Even-"

"Yes, even that. I've been able to use it once, and it was with a student who thought it necessary to call my breasts Mami's Mammies. No, he did not say that to my face - if he did, he'd have experienced far worse."

Kyouko raised an eyebrow. "So boobs are a… ah… touchy subject, eh?" Mami angled her head towards Kyouko, a scowl of disapproval on her face. This earned another chuckled from the lancer.

"You know, it even works of people's backs," Mami said threateningly. "I could, say, twist a vertebra here and there and permanently incapacitate you."

"That sounds kinda dark for you, don't you think?"

Mami sighed, disappointed that her bluff was called. "Yes. I suppose it is…"

There was a brief lull in the conversation.

"You know," Kyouko began. "I was just about to do my cool-down stretches. If you're up to it, let's-"

"You don't happen to be asking me out to lunch, are you?"

Kyouko stared for a moment before grinning. "I was going to say let's go spy on Homura, but if you're offering…"

Mami smiled wryly. "I was a little bit assuming there, wasn't I? What's this about spying on Miss Akemi?"

"She's all aloof and secretive, right? Aren't you at least a little bit curious?"

Mami crossed her arms. "I won't deny that I'm curious, but I will not spy on Homura Akemi. For one, it's rude, for another, it's pretty much impossible to spy on a powerful huntress if your area of specialization is not stealth and espionage."

"C'mon, Mami. Don't be a stick in the mud!"

Mami debated whether to humor the lancer. It was cute and more than a little amusing seeing her act all whiny and childish. She could resist a little bit, and force out a little bit more of that cute, right? No, that would be mean.

"Very well. I saw Homura in the shooting range. We'll go to her. We'll try to hide while we watch her. But we will get caught."

At least I'll be able to tell her 'I told you so' when we get caught… Wow. Now that I think about it, that sounds really petty.

"Awesome!" Kyouko cheered. "Wait for me outside, I still need to do my stretches and take a shower."

"Just don't take too long. You're still taking me out to lunch"

Many years ago, Beacon Academy Shooting Range…

Homura was surprised to find Madoka in the shooting range. As always, she was using her bow, but instead of her usual dust-based arrows she was instead using standard arrows provided by the shooting range.

Unfortunately, the combination of the constant sound of gunfire from the other students and the sound canceling earmuffs they were wearing prevented conversation. Instead, Homura took the place right next to the archer and pulled out a submachine gun, a bolt-action sniper rifle, and a semi-automatic shotgun out of a large gun bag she was carrying, laying them all on the table behind next to her. She then pulled out the magnum semi-automatic pistol she had always been using from her Tempest Hourglass and aimed down the range.

What followed after sort of blurred together as she immersed herself in the recoil, rate of fire, and many other aspects of the various weapons she tested out. By the time she was finished with all of them, her shoulders were sore and shaking.

With a sigh, she returned all of her new toys in the gun bag and her one old toy back into her shield. She glanced at her side and found that Madoka was already gone. Homura frowned for a moment and then shrugged, moving to closest door out of the range.

To her surprise, Madoka was sitting quietly at a table outside the range, near a vending machine. When they locked eyes, Madoka waved hello, gesturing for Homura to join her. When she did, the archer pushed a can of iced coffee into her hands.

"It looked like you were really into it. I didn't wanna bother you," Madoka said. "Besides, it was too loud. I don't think we'd be able to talk much in there."

Homura smiled. "Yes, I sorta figured that out as well." She noticed that Madoka had a half finished can of iced tea in her hands - honey lemon flavor. Taking note of Madoka's preference, Homura opened her can and took a sip.

"Why'd you have all those guns, anyway?"

"I wanted to expand my arsenal, so I bought them," Homura explained. "I still need to find a new pistol, though. The kickback of the one I have now is a little too strong but I haven't found anything else that felt right."

"Isn't keeping four different kinds of weapons kinda… er…"

"Expensive?" Homura suggested with a slight wince. "Yeah. Normal bullets are pretty cheap but I always need to buy them in bulk so it costs me a pretty penny every time I need to resupply."

"Well, yeah, there's that, but isn't it also really time consuming? You'd need to do maintenance on all of your guns on top of needing to maintain Tempest Hourglass. I'm for one just glad Rose Rain just needs oil for her hinges and a change of bowstring every now and then. Anything more than that and I might mess something up."

Homura nodded in agreement.

The Rose Rain which Madoka was referring to was her foldable compound bow. It was a relatively simple and elegantly designed weapon, a kind of weapon overshadowed by the more popular and conventional modern firearms that Homura used. With the low number of moving parts, Rose Rain was definitely much more convenient to maintain compared to, say, Tempest Hourglass, whose components and design was comparable to that of an entire jet plane in terms of complexity. And what with Madoka's sporadic fits of clumsiness, it was a good thing that her weapon was simple and sturdy.

"Also, isn't using weapons that aren't yours sort of… inefficient? Like, back in my days at Signal, I used all kinds of weapons. None of them really felt right to me. The closest thing I had was a bow, and even then I was never really satisfied with them until I made Rose Rain. Give me any other bow and I'd be able to use it but I'll never be as good. Isn't it the same with you?"

Homura scratched her head nervously, unsure of how Madoka would react to her answer. She took a deep breath and spoke. "Not really."

Madoka blinked. "Eh?"

Homura smiled, shaking her head. She then laid her shield on the table. "Tempest Hourglass is my weapon, Madoka. Based on how you've seen me use it, can you take a guess at what kind of weapon I'm good at using?"

Madoka thought for a bit. "You use it to store your weapons. I've seen you fight bunch of different guns, bombs, and a golf club," she muttered. "I don't really see any correlation," was her conclusion.

Homura's smile persisted. "Precisely. All of the weapons I have? I've mastered none of them. That is because there is no weapon I can truly master. I can reach only a competent level of skill."

"But that can't be right. I've seen you clip the wing tips off a Nevermore mid-swoop with a pistol. That's more than just competent."

"Well then, let me rephrase it, though it'll sound quite arrogant." Homura leaned forward, interlocking her fingers in front of her face to hide her smile. "I am proficient with all weapons and I can master any of them."

Madoka leaned forward as well. "That sounds really cool," she breathed. "But I don't really believe you, though…"

Homura smiled wryly, looking away. It wasn't an unexpected answer but it was still a blow to her pride. Still, it was somewhat adorable how brutally honest Madoka was.

"What? It just sounds really far-fetched. Come on Homura, don't be upset, pleeeaaase~"

Present day, outside Atlas Shooting Range A…

Kyouko and Mami sat on the benches outside the shooting range, watching Homura through the reinforced glass separating the range from the hallway. Strangely enough, Homura wasn't using her bow but was instead shooting with generic fire-arms - high quality generic fire arms from the looks of it, but generic all the same.

"You ever notice how she has two emblems?" Kyouko asked.

"What?"

"Homura. She has two emblems. One is a black silhouette of the weird disk thing she always carries around and the other is a bow with rose notched instead of an arrow."

"Hmm…"

Mami didn't seem to notice of even care. Kyouko, however, saw it as something significant. An emblem was supposed to be a calling card - a representation of who that hunter was. Sure, not everyone used emblems that way, but the fact that Homura wore two had to have some meaning behind it. Was it the emblem of someone important to her? Was it entrusted to her? Does she wear it as a reminder of what was lost? All very likely reasons but there was no way for Kyouko to be certain.

"If you don't mind me asking, what is yours?" Mami asked. "I never really payed attention to emblems but you mentioning them has me wondering."

Kyouko grinned and undid her pony tail. She handed Mami a small key-shaped object with a red gem in the center. She then pointed on the left hand side of her jacket - it was a picture of the very same key.

Mami stared at the pin for a moment before giggling. "You know, this may be a coincidence, but you're not the only one who has a hair ornament that's also their emblem." She angled her head so that Kyouko had a better view of the hair pin she was wearing. It was tight spiral of metal bent into a flower shape with a golden gem in the center. "If I recall, Miss Miki has a hairclip with her emblem on it as well."

Kyouko looked at the hairclip, impressed with how finely crafted it was. "You made this, didn't you?"

Mami blinked. "Why… yes, I did make it. It was a simple matter of weaving lengths of wire around and bending them into the shape I wanted."

Kyouko smiled. "Looks good on you," she complimented.

"Yes. I'm quite proud of them."

As there was a lull in their conversation, Kyouko glanced back to Homura… who was no longer in the shooting ranged. The lancer jumped out of her seat in surprise when she saw Homura standing across the hall from them. "Ah! Whendidyougetthere!?"

Homura shifted her weight. "I saw you two talking back there and thought I'd jump in. Something about emblems? Anyway, what bring you here? Sakura, you use a melee weapon, and Tomoe, you don't necessarily use your guns to shoot targets. Obviously neither of you are here to practice shooting."

"Kyouko was taking me out to lunch," Mami explained. "We just happened to pass by and saw you. We decided to watch for a little."

"Wait, Mami doesn't use her guns to shoot?" Kyouko said, not really paying attention to Mami's explanation. Mami elbowed her sides. "Ow. Yeah. We're going out to eat." Kyouko returned the elbow with equal force. "And since Mami was the one offering, she's the one paying."

The exchange of elbows did not go unnoticed by Homura. The archer raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced.

"Seriously, though, you don't use your guns to shoot? How does that make sense?"

Homura shrugged. "Well, since I see you'll be busy, I'll be off now." She began walking away, giving them a lazy salute goodbye.

The two turned to each other. "I told you so," Mami said. Kyouko could only roll her eyes in response. "And since you so selfishly decided I'll be paying, you better not complain about what I treat you to."

To that, Kyouko laughed. "Please. I would never ever turn down free food."

Meanwhile, at the Atlas Shuttle Bay…

Sayaka's heart sank when she saw the flashing emergency lights on the approaching dropship. Please. Not them. Don't let it be them…

There was a crowd forming around the ship that Sayaka had to push past. Eventually she got to the front of was wall of people and ran up to one of the security guards. She held up her scroll, showing her ID. "Sayaka Miki, licensed huntress and trained healer. Is there anything I can help with?"

The guard jerked his thumb towards the ship. "Get in. They've got two wounded, one of them critical. He might not make it to the infirmary."

Sayaka nodded and ran for the door. Two wounded, one critical, she repeated in her mind. And the one critical is a 'he'…

She entered the dropship and was met with a terrible sight. Just as she feared, it was her teammates. Hitomi Shizuki sat at one side, her fingers purple from frostbite and blood dripping from her right leg. On the floor surrounded by medics was Kyousuke Kamijou, lying on the floor looking battered and bruised. He was covered with bandages but there was a line of red all along his entire right arm, starting from his wrist all the way to just above the shoulder, nearing his neck.

Sayaka rushed to Kyousuke's side. She turned to the medics. "How is he?"

"We have sewn the wound closed but he still lost too much blood," the medic replied. "We aren't healers so this is the best we can do. And his aura is completely depleted so he can't heal himself."

Sayaka grit her teeth as she removed the bandages and looked over the wound. Even after being sewn up, it was still bleeding a little.

As a new graduate, she was well aware of how weak she was compared to more experienced healers. They just had more stamina to use their auras to heal the wounds of others. But when it came to something as severe as this, she was far more capable. She specialized in things such as blood loss, severed body parts, headaches, and other things that aura couldn't normally heal. Sure, this was the first time she was healing something quite like this, but since it was her teammate's life on the line, she had to do something.

"Ready me some food and water," she ordered, hovering her hand over the gash. She'd use up most of her aura trying to supply her healing semblance. By the time she'd finish, she'd be exhausted.

Not wasting any more time, she summoned the power deep within her and began healing the wound closed. Please, Kyousuke. Don't you dare die on me!

End of chapter…

While I am a fan of KyouMami, this is not a ship fic. If the fact that they are flirting is upsetting to you in any way, keep in mind that the focus of this fic is not the romance. If you cannot look past the ship and enjoy what you actually like about this fic then perhaps you should read something else.

Mami's semblance is ribbons, as is her powers in the anime. Well, sort of. Her powers are the creation and manipulation of ribbons, with additional powers to transform her ribbons into various objects - mostly firearms. In this fic, it is merely the manipulation of ribbons and ribbon-like materials. She can no longer materialize ribbons out of thin air - and by proxy materialize weapons. It is a very substantial nerf, I understand, but it was necessary if I wanted to balance her with the other characters in this fic (Mami is legit the most powerful and most skilled out of all the puella magi from the anime)

The joke that Mami used her semblance on someone's penis is just that - a joke. A person's aura would probably prevent another person's semblance from doing harm to them so Mami's threats are more empty than Kyouko realized. Of course, if it were used on a person with sufficiently depleted aura, a person who did not unlock their aura, or on a creature of Grimm, it'd probably work.

Emblems have always been pretty interesting to me. Ruby's is a rose like her last name which she shares with her mother, while Weiss and Winter is their family crest which is also apparently their company's logo. What these characters use as an emblem says something about them, be it superficially or symbolically.

Homura, of course, wears both her own and Madoka's emblems. I don't think I need to explain what that symbolizes.

If anyone has something to say, go ahead and say it in a review or PM. I make it a point to read all feedback and any indication that people are reading is much appreciated. Until next chapter, then.