Whatever it was, it looked like a tapir, though it was about the size of a rabbit. Nagisa wanted to pick it up because it was small and pick-up-able, but she'd always felt somewhat averse to animals with trunks. It was in a cage anyway, so it wasn't like she could reach it, and given the number of sturdy-looking guards standing around it probably wasn't a good idea to get too involved. Not that she couldn't take them. But it would definitely be a nuisance for Erman. For all she knew, it was a very dangerous animal as well.

"Nagisa." She looked up at the sound of her name. Erman had called her from across the room and was waving her over to the far door. "Here."

He didn't need to raise his voice, considering how quiet the room was. There were people she assumed had to be scientists busying themselves all around her, working with odd-looking machines. Though she didn't know what the machines did, she figured it was a safe bet that the animal was some sort of lab rat. Of course, that meant its life expectancy was extremely low. She'd learned to live with that idea at least. No one used rare species for those purposes.

She walked over to Erman, deftly dodging a scientist that suddenly turned around and crossed right in front of her. Stopping just in front of the door Erman was waiting by, she gave him a sloppy salute. He motioned for her to go in first, so she did, finding herself in a much larger room. Upon closer inspection, she realized it might have been quite close to the same size as the other room, only appearing larger due to being rather empty of people. There were several boxes placed in various spots on the floor, each box painted a bright color, and a balcony overlooking the room. Very strange. It almost looked like a watered down American Gladiator.

Erman turned to her. "Nagisa." He looked a little concerned. "Red break. Blue break. Green move. Nagisa. Turn weapons off."

Simple instructions. Green move? She looked back to the boxes. Most of them were red or blue, but there were a few yellow ones. He hadn't given her much information, but it was enough to tell her that she would need to hide behind the yellow ones. And there was one green box, halfway across the room from her. And there were weapons... he wanted her to turn them off. So this was a test of her physical capabilities as well as her ability to understand his instructions. Whatever these weapons were, they would break through the red and blue boxes immediately, making them bad choices for cover, but yellow boxes were safe. The problem was several purple and orange boxes. They'd been over paint colors plenty enough, she suspected that came into play here.

She had to assume that was the case, at least, otherwise she could have pulled this obstacle course off as a regular human considering where all the purple boxes were. She had to treat them like they were the weakest, though. Orange and green would probably break eventually, but give her time to rest. Which meant she had to move quick when she picked up the green one as mobile cover. This sort of tactical thinking wasn't her specialty, but it didn't seem to be designed to test her own mental processes. More to test how well Erman could guide her. He really had given her all the information she needed.

She turned to thank him, only to find he was now standing up on the balcony. A few scientists or whatever had joined him, as well as the familiar General and what was probably his adjutant. They were here to watch. That was fine. She just wanted to get this over with and try to get some free time in the city. There had to be cake somewhere in this world.

One of the scientists turned to Erman. "So she knows what to do?" He had his hand hovering over a remote, waiting for the go signal. He was pretty clearly nervous about putting a living person through a test like this. They'd been briefed on the nature of Nagisa, but it was hard to swallow, so they were concerned about possibly killing a new and unknown life form.

Erman nodded. "We have spent enough time mixing paint colors, I expect she will not try to hide behind red, blue, or purple. She should also know that green moves, and green and orange do not last forever. I did not tell her anything about yellow, but we will know she understood me completely if she makes a point of hiding behind yellow for extended period of time. You can begin whenever you are ready."

For Nagisa's part, she was only a little concerned what these weapons might be. She glanced up at Erman. He nodded to her. Alright, so he'd be no further help. "Baka."

At the other end of the room, two chunky-looking machines rose out of the ground. They were identical to the ones in the other room. So they were the weapons she was supposed to shut down? She wondered how they worked, though she suspected it was beyond her understanding. She was many things, but scientist was not one of them.

Erman called down to Nagisa. "Go!"

First things first. Nagisa headed to the closest yellow box, ducking behind it. She would be safe here, but she needed to find out what the weapons did. Mainly to see how much she wanted to avoid getting hit. A glance at Erman told her that he was at least a little concerned. But he obviously wasn't allowed to get involved any more. She looked over the room one last time. The boxes weren't very tall, but enough that she could crouch behind them. She was curious to find out how movable the green box was, especially compared to the others. She would have to get there first.

There was a mechanical clicking sound that she guessed came from one of the weapons. Nothing seemed to have changed, but she had to move eventually. Sooner was better than later. The longer she waited, the more impatient she would get, and the more prone to mistakes she would be. Taking a deep breath, Nagisa bolted towards a nearby orange box. As soon as she was behind cover again, she heard another click. Nothing seemed to change this time either, so she was safe for the moment. Peeking around the corner of the box, she saw another yellow box just ahead, and the green box beyond it. She had an idea of what to do.

Another click, and this time she saw part of her cover simply vanish into thin air. That was not a good sign. She jumped out and ran to the yellow box, ducking around beside it just as the weapons clicked again. She didn't slow down, making a dash for the green box and sliding in behind it like it was home base. She nudged the box slightly, relieved to see it move rather easily. She picked up the box and ran with it towards the weapons, hoping to gain as much distance as possible before her cover disintegrated. As she feared, a couple clicks later and the box was half gone. There was still time before the weapons, whatever they were, took away the other half, but Nagisa was faster than the people setting up the test had probably anticipated.

Quickly making her way to the base of the weapons, she ducked behind one of them so the other couldn't aim at her. There was a big obvious plug, probably in order to make things simple for her. She ripped it out, and the machine drooped. This left her with the problem of how to get to the other one. There was clearly time between the clicks sounding, so either they were on easy mode or they had to recharge before doing... whatever they did. So she waited for it to click again, and the moment she heard the telltale sound, she ran from her cover behind the first weapon and dove at the plug beneath the other machine, snapping it off in a shower of sparks.

Probably this wasn't exactly what they'd wanted from her, but she was neither a soldier nor an athlete, unless they gave her an ocean and a surfboard. But they weren't about to do that, since there were no oceans in their enclosed world. So while the General looked content, he didn't seem excited or anything. She suspected he had been hoping she would be some sort of great asset, but the more he saw of what she was actually capable of, the more he was starting to think maybe she wouldn't be worth the investment.

Everything went by as kind of a blur for a while after that. Nagisa's mind had caught on something she hadn't quite thought of until just now. As she was being led outside, she was thinking more about how she'd arrived in the biosphere. She knew through Erman that these people didn't know about other planets or outer space, which meant they'd been inside their bubble for a long time. Perhaps they were even created in here. But then how did she get here?

She knew Madoka had set it up so that one of them would remain in their Witch form while the others slept in their human forms, and that the rest period was extremely long. Could it be that this biosphere had somehow been constructed around her? If so, how long ago would it have to have been for them to no longer know about anything outside? How could anyone have missed her being there while building the structure around her? Most importantly, where were the others? Was it possible they were somewhere in here as well? Were they hidden away from public eyes by the military like she had been, or still yet to be found? She needed to know where they had found her.

She looked up and saw Erman in front of her. It looked like he'd led her to a balcony somewhere overlooking the city. She took a moment to enjoy the view, and it was beautiful. Not very tall, most of the buildings, but quite lovely. It stretched on for miles and miles, until it stopped right at a wall. Like the whole city was in a bubble. Just like the farmland. She wondered how many of these bubbles there were. Where they came from.

"Erman."

He looked up at her, mildly surprised that she'd addressed him so suddenly. "Yes, Nagisa?"

"Where did you find me?"

A strange look grew across his face as he put the words together. Where? He let out a little laugh. "Nagisa, if I knew where you were from, no one could stop me from being there right now."

She was able to piece together basically what he'd said, so she let out a sigh. She wasn't from anywhere near here. There was no way they'd found her in her home town in Japan. "No, where did you find me?"

Catching her actual meaning this time, he just shook his head. "I do not know." There was silence for a moment before he continued. Then he added, "But the General does."

Did he now?

Nagisa's eyes turned downward to the entrance to the building, where the General and his entourage were approaching a motorcade to leave. He knew where she'd been found. So she had to get him to tell her. Maybe it wouldn't help to know, but maybe there was some clue there as to where the others had gone and why she'd been left behind.