CHAPTER 1: Heaven Sent

"Five girls. A Shared Destiny. Do your best."

Those eight words echoed through her mind as she steadfastly input the target coordinates into the TARDIS console. Exactly why the details of this mission were kept to just those eight words, she reasoned, was most likely to avoid either the creation of, or causing her own entrapment within a fixed point in time. Even so, she would have much preferred having something a bit more specific to go on. Who were these girls? What sort of destiny did they share? And on a more personal level, why was she the one judged best-suited to aid them?

As she quietly pondered those questions, her first clue flashed repeatedly on the console's display screen: 'Planet: Earth (Level '5' Planet). Year: 2011. Historical Period: Twenty-First Century (Local 'Gregorian' Calendar). Set Geographic Coordinates: Mitakihara City, Japan. WARNING! WARNING! TEMPORAL CAUSALITY LOOP DETECTED! PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!' The TARDIS Cloister Bell rang, underlining the sudden urgency of her situation. DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

"Alright, Alright! Enough with that stupid noise. I get the message. 'Stick the landing or die'." She said, flipping a switch that temporarily silenced the alarm bell. "Scan for any viable entry points. Let's find a way into this temporal loop."

'SCANNING… ENTRY POINTS FOUND. FOUR FLUCTUATION POINTS DETECTED.'

"Wow, that was fast." She glanced over the results on the display screen. "Okay. Heading for the earliest entry point. Eeeeasy peasy. Here we goooo… Through door number one." She flicked through a set of blinking switches, pulled the landing system's lever down and zeroed in on her target destination.

"Shit!" She realized she had just made her first mistake. The walls of the TARDIS ominously creaked. Sparks instantly shot from the underside of the console. "Not good!" She defensively leapt back. The controls had overloaded. The cloister bell's ring resumed, this time even louder. DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! "Shearing forces? Not good at all! Appears this causality loop's been going on quite a bit longer than I expected." The Time Lady hurriedly stepped up, flicked the switches and raised the landing lever back up, but it was too little, too late. The TARDIS was caught and being dragged inside.

She turned her focus back on her display screen: 'EMERGENCY WARNING! ACCESS TO TIME VORTEX UNAVAILABLE! SYSTEM ON INTERNAL POWER!' It flashed. "No turning back now." She replied. "It's straight into the storm we go!" She reset the warning screen. Another wave of sparks flew from the bottom of the console, as the creaking around her escalated into a full-fledged rumbling. "Crap, oh double crap!" She rechecked the scan results. Attempting to ease her way in on that first landing was a miscalculation that already cost her the earliest entry point. Now tumbling into the causality loop's event horizon, she had mere moments to decide which of the three other possible entry points was her best remaining option.

"Nope! Point four is a no-go! Much too close to the loop's reset point and I'd prefer not to have to try this again. And entry point three, only leaves a day or so. Far too little time to act." As she fixated on the second point, the rumbling was joined by a fierce reverberation. A third panel explosion from the console knocked her backward. She defiantly leapt right up, circled around to the console's emergency landing lever and clutched it. She swallowed her breath, "Door two it is," She whispered to herself, committing to her decision.

But an unexpected message on her display screen caught her attention right before she engaged. 'ATTEMPTING ANCILLARY SCAN. SCAN RESULTS: COUNTER ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED. SHEARING FORCES WEAKEST AT DESIGNATED FLUCTUATION POINT' The message flashed twice. Her TARDIS's navigation system seemed to be insisting she try the third entry point. Her choice was thus: Trust her own judgement, or take a chance and trust this vessel. A mere moment from betting it all on her own self-assurant nature, she unexpectedly recalled a piece of advice a friend offered not long before they parted ways: It will always guide you to where you need to be. So trust it. "As you wish," She kissed her hand and pulled the lever "We shall do things your way. Take me in!"

She pressed a blue button, flicked the proper switches, and lowered the lever halfway. The creaking, rumbling and vibrating diminished with every second as the tension finally eased. 'LANDING SUCCESSFUL. Planet Earth. Location: Mitakihara City, Japan. Local Date: April 27th, 2011. Local Time: 22:30. STATUS: MAIN POWER UNAVAILABLE. AUXILIARY POWER UNAVAILABLE. SYSTEM IN LOW-POWER MODE. VOCAL INTERFACE DISABLED. DISPLAY COMPLETE TARDIS DAMAGE REPORT?'

The Time Lady breathed a small sigh of relief, then opened a small compartment at the side of the console. She pulled out a keyboard and began manually keying her next instructions, talking aloud as she was keying. "Enter recovery mode. Initiate all self-repair protocols. Deploy repair drone units. Divert power from all non-critical systems. Use of lower deck life support systems as power as emergency reserve is authorized. Attempt reinitialization of main power every seventy-five minutes. Attempt reinitialization of auxiliary power every forty-five minutes."

She inspected the console's fried underside, putting out the burgeoning fire with her coat's thick leather sleeve. "Initiate fire control procedures. Ventilate system. Utilize the local planetary atmosphere in lieu of life support power." She tucked the keyboard away, clicked off the display screen, and headed out the exit door.

Once outside, she took a quick mental snapshot of where she'd parked. "Not much time. So where to begin?" She took a few apprehensive steps forward. She then pulled a strange-looking wand with a glowing tip out of her pocket, adjusted a dial on the instrument's bottom, and raised it to the air. "Mystery One… What possible force could be so immensely powerful that it could create a self-contained causality loop so…?" She stopped and glanced back toward her wounded TARDIS. "So... Terribly turbulent?"

She lowered the wand to her eye level and pushed a button on the instrument's side. The glowing end lit with a blue hue, as the instrument made an audible 'whistling' noise. "Hmmm. Not detecting tachyon particles." She turned the dial and pushed the button again. "Nor any natural temporal anomalies." She turned the dial and pushed the button again. "No artificial ones, either." She turned the dial. "No time corridors nor any signs of time vortex manipulation." She paused for a moment, thinking back those eight words again. "Hmmm. Five girls..." She turned another dial, a dial attached to the glowing light on the instrument. She pressed the button one more time. The device's glow changed to green, as the whistling noise raised its pitch.

"Ah. I see." The device's sensors had detected something. "So that's where we begin." She whispered to herself with an intonation that carried both an air of fascination and dread. She extended her arm, in front of her body and followed its lead.

As she walked, she further surveilled her surroundings. The navigational computer told her it was an urban center in early 21st century Japan, and while the presence of late 20th century skyscrapers, communications towers, brightly-lit billboards and the sheer abundance of human noise and Information Age technology made this pretty self-evident, she couldn't help but think there was something a little bit amiss about this particular place. The colors around her seemed to her to be a bit muted, the smell of the fresh air was dullened, and the sounds were playing with a toneless, droning timbre.

And although it was certainly an urban center, there seemed to be a distinct lack of the typical bustling human activity. The reason could certainly have been because the local hour was so late, but what few people she'd walked past all appeared though they were listlessly going about their lives. Not under anyone's particular control per se, but rather behaving as if they'd done this all before.

As The Time Lady breathed in the stale air, took in the pallid sights and monotonous sounds, her Gallifreyan senses couldn't help but feel a palpable dread emanating from the whole environment. These buildings, the trees, the birds and the clouds, everything around here all behaved as if it was on an inevitable march towards a total doom, as if every single atom around was in some subtle way aware that whatever disaster was coming had stuck many times before, and was unavoidably going to happen again soon. It was that familiar feeling of death and despair. It was a feeling she had grown all too accustomed to in her advancing years.

This town in Japan had to be the epicenter of the time loop. She implicitly knew it. And she knew, her mission was to end it before it cascaded into something far more disastrous and tragic.

The glowing light on her device again switched from green to yellow and began to rapidly blink, indicating that whatever it had locked onto was drawing close. She double-tapped the button which locked it into homing mode, its distinct whistling sound pointed her in the direction of a nearby train station. "Alright. At last we have a clue…" her voice trailed off as she picked up the pace.

"Next destination: Downtown Mitakihara City!" said an automated announcement. "We thank you for using Mitakihara Metropolitan Public Transit, and remind you to keep your trains clean! Please pick up all your trash and put it in a proper waste disposal container!"

Two men got up from checking their phones on a nearby bench.

"Let's roll, Shou!"

"Bitch still hasn't answered her phone." Growled the sitting man. "She knows better than to ignore me. Once I find her I'm gonna really bring her slutty ass to heel!"

"Heh! C'mon!" His chuckling friend replied. "She's probably still at the cabaret!"

"Whoops! My sincerest apologies for disrupting your travel plans, gentlemen." The Time Lady abruptly popped in front of them, a few meters from the train car's entrance. She pulled an identification card from her inner coat pocket. "By the orders of The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Emergency inspection. Just got a report of some faulty… Uh, wiring. Safety protocol dictates I can't let you board this car. Again I apologize for the inconvenience."

The two men glared at her angrily. "What kind of stupid bullshit are pullin', lady? First of all, you don't look like you're from The Ministry of Whatever!" The man the other referred to as 'Shou' tugged irritatedly on her coat. "You look more like you're some kind of lost idiot tourist!" Second, even if you were with the government, no dumbass bureaucrats would do an inspection at this time of night!" He leaned his reddening face closer to hers as he made his final point. "And last…" He grabbed her by the wrist. "This piece of paper of yours is blank !"

"Ahhh… Not taken by psychic paper, huh?" She muttered. She nervously pulled her wrist from his grip. "Welp." Her eyes speedily examined their appearances. "You boys don't look like either aliens nor geniuses, nor would I presume you're trained in any of the psychic sciences." They were clearly unamused by her analytical musings. "Just a pair of unimaginative twits, I guess." She shrugged. That comment made them furious.

"Lady, what the-"

"I will speak on your cognitive level, then." She interrupted, checking the wand in her pocket, its glowing tip lit red and was pulsating rapidly. "Look, fellas… Whatever's on this train is highly dangerous. Much too dangerous to allow you humans anywhere near it. I implore you, find an alternate means of getting to wherever it is you were going. This is your only warning." Her smile waned as their anger reached its breaking point.

The two men pushed her upper body aside and looked into the doorway, they were not going to listen. "Now you listen up, ya' foreign bitch! Either you get out of our way and let us on that train, or…"

"... We'll make you get out of our way!" The other finished the sentence, pounding his fist into his hand. "We're gonna knock your dumb bitch ass out. Put ya' in ya' place!" He grinned wickedly.

"My place ?" She winced as she spoke, absolutely certain that things were about to get violent and painful. But not for her.

For them.


Sayaka Miki sat alone on the seat of a train car, her thoughts growing bleaker and bleaker as she tried to get a fleeting bit of rest. She had done nothing but fight otherworldly, terrifying monsters in her last few days. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept. She hadn't even bathed. Such activities, those mundane things that civilized humans had long taken for granted, were, in her woeful mind, not practical for the creature she had now become. And the most disheartening thing was, she had done this to herself by choice.

Sayaka touched the ring on her finger. It transmuted into the shape of a decorated glowing egg. Adorned with an elaborately-patterned gold base at the bottom, and a "C"-shaped insignia capping it at its top, this strange jewel was Sayaka's "Soul Gem". The glowing, swirling matter at its transparent core, was for all intents and purposes, her . It was her essence, her human soul, made manifest into a physical form by a small creature called 'Kyubey', so that she could become a 'magical girl,' and more effectively face the monsters she'd only recently known existed. But that bright blue shimmer from when it was first forged had since darkened, it was nearly pitch black by now, what little blueness remained was eclipsed. Instinctively she knew this meant that her end was drawing near, yet she was too numbed to fear its approach. The withering husk that was once her human body had been too worn down to care about mounting any resistance. She was utterly without hope, ready to die, her mind swamped by regretful thought after regretful thought, her mind reeled through past month's chain of events.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Why did all this happen to me?"

Poor Mami Tomoe. A girl who portrayed this role of fighting monsters with such elegance and grace. She dedicated her extended life to helping others. A true ally of justice. Cool and perfect in every way. Sayaka had at first wanted to be exactly like her. Yet now she couldn't picture anything else beyond that terrified look on Mami's face, her last moment exhibiting pure shock, fear and distress, as a seemingly-vanquished foe unexpectedly sprung forth a larger monster that closed its gaping mouth around her neck. Then it ate her remains in a gory haste while Sayaka nearby helplessly watched in horror.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Why did she die instead of me?"

Her mind flashed to Kyoko Sakura, a rival of ruthless brutality, who walloped the fledgling Sayaka in their first meeting. So quickly, did that duel in the alley spiral out of control. Helping humanity and living for others was wrong, Kyoko insisted with an intimidating grin, only the strong deserve to survive. But to the heroic Sayaka, such an attitude was intolerable. This girl was no different from the monsters that they were supposed to be fighting. But once Sayaka had seen ruins of Kyoko's church, upon hearing Kyoko's story of her late family, sensing her great lingering pain, she realized Kyoko was no monster. And to be Kyoko's judge, Sayaka did not have the right. But Sayaka also could not adopt Kyoko's world weary philosophy.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Why would she ever try to help me?"

The next face in her mind was Homura Akemi, an aloof transfer student to whom Sayaka took an immediate dislike. Oh, such a patronizing attitude that girl had, it really pissed Sayaka off. Homura always seemed to be a step ahead, appearing and disappearing mysteriously as the battles climaxed. She outright rejected Mami's outstretched hand of friendship. Then she waited for the moment for Mami to be killed and eaten so she could take the spoils for herself. That girl must have been plotting something. Yet she suddenly remembered that it was Homura who broke up that fight with Kyoko. It was Homura who retrieved her Soul Gem, after it had deliberately been tossed away. Did Sayaka's life really not matter at all to her, as she claimed?

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Does that girl really hate me?"

She next thought of Kyubey, the little creature, and how he insisted the fight against darkness desperately needed allies. It didn't matter that Sayaka was a novice, with Mami gone someone had to look after this city. Gaining superhuman powers were just a perk, the real satisfaction was in saving lives and setting a good example. Then she learned the truth about her Soul Gem, her memory of that ghastly night with the creature in her bedroom, where it demonstrated upon her Soul Gem what a truly dehumanizing process she had actually undergone. Kyubey's red eyes and that eerily unchanging expression, a face she once perceived as cute but now only perceived as menacing, completely indifferent to her cries as it inflicted upon the anguished Sayaka the unfiltered trauma of a stab directly into her stomach.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Why would he do that to me?"

Lastly, oh, Madoka Kaname, her first friend, her best friend. Madoka stuck with Sayaka through every ordeal. She served as Sayaka's emotional support in her first heroic moment, even as Sayaka had never felt more self-assured. She was there for Sayaka when Kyoko so brazenly imposed herself onto them. She tried to help Sayaka when she and Kyoko's rivalry culminated atop a bridge, where in her own desperate act of benevolence threw Sayaka's gem onto a passing truck, a huge but well-intentioned mistake. She was there to be Sayaka's shoulder to cry on, as Sayaka's suffering and torture mounted. But Sayaka could only recall their last moment together, in a downpour at a bus stop, where in a sorrowful rage Sayaka lashed out at her, for the crime of not being supportive at all, not having the will to take on the fight for her. Why Sayaka would say such cruel things, her addled mind could not comprehend.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Could she ever forgive me?"

Face after face, memory after memory, regret upon regret swirled throughout her increasingly addled mind. Confused thoughts and repressed emotions were brewing inside the core of her soul, degenerating into a whirlwind of anguish. She could only sift quickly through the wreckage of her life as its end drew ever closer.

Why did she do this to herself? Why was she so eager to become a magical girl in the first place? What even mattered to her so much, that she'd toss away her normal, happy life and face a world as harsh as this one? What was the point of it all? She tried desperately to remember the reason, but something in her mind kept steering her back into that storm of pain and regret, tormenting her at every turn.

Mami's face… Kyoko's fury… Homura's disdain… Kyubey's torture… Kyubey… Glowing red eyes.

"I should've saved Mami. I'm so worthless."

Strange eyes that pierced into her soul. In return for fighting, Kyubey did her a favor.

A cacophony of distracting noise echoed within her deepest inner mind.

No… It wasn't a simple favor, what Kyubey did was for her far greater. But what was it?

She tried to recall, but the racket and noise intensified, ever louder and louder.

"I should have heard Kyoko out! Miracles should only be for yourself!"

That's what it was… A miracle. Kyubey granted a miracle. But she didn't listen to Kyoko.

That thundering, dreary commotion had an odd pattern to it. Still she tried to block it out.

"I want my miracle back! Give it back!"

Such a shameful thought. Why would she ever think such a thing?

Music… That was the agonizing sound panging in her head. A sorrowful melody.

"I should never have said that Madoka! How could I hurt her like that?"

Because someone had hurt Sayaka like that once, too. But who? She saw a faint glimpse of his face. As well as another's, a girl whose face she could not recognize, yet whose visage engendered such anger and hate within her.

That unbearable melody was getting louder with every moment. As though whatever was playing it absolutely reveled in driving her self-loathing. It coveted her descent into madness. It craved her despair. And strangely, she was growing increasingly willing to let it take her. It didn't matter. She just couldn't care anymore.

Sayaka's tired eyes drifted up as she caught a glimpse of a brilliant light draw closer and closer. Was this the end at last? Had Death finally heard her cry for mercy? Was it that "white light" in all those stories? Her body growing increasingly useless, Sayaka still tried to brace herself, even as her regretful thoughts were firing off with increasing rapidity. In a sudden, frenzied panic she was hyperventilating.

"No!"

She realized she couldn't go out like this! Not with far too many regrets!

"I don't wanna die!"

She clutched her soul gem in her fist.

"I want my miracle back!"

She tried to protect herself in the fetal position. But her body was too limp to move.

"Please! I don't want to die! I want my miracle back! Give it back! I want my-"

The Delta wave induction function was a rarely used, battery-intensive secondary function of her device, but the Time Lady saw no alternative but to use it here. If the Time Lady's scans on this train car were accurate, then the powerful energy source she had locked onto appeared to be coming directly from this girl. Now that the young child fast asleep, the Time Lady was free to engage in a more thorough analysis. She promptly flipped a switch on her device, and waved it slowly over the girl's unconscious body.

Paradoxically, while this young girl was showing no outward signs of physical damage, her scans were showing conclusive evidence of numerous recent contusions, literally dozens of lacerations, a partially fractured skull, both a broken leg and a broken arm, as well as a rather severe case of iron deficiency.

"What the heck has she been doing to herself?" The Time Lady pondered aloud.

"The train heading for Downtown Mitakihara City will be departing soon. Please find your seat at once." The public announcer's voice stated.

Further stipulation would have to wait for the moment. The Time lady stuck her wand back inside her coat pocket. "I'll have to look her over back in the TARDIS." She knelt down, scooped her arms underneath the girl's back and lifted her off the seat. But as the girl's arms slacked outward, a rather peculiar-looking item dropped out from her unclenching fist, clinking onto the metal floor and rolling underneath the seats.

"What the hell is that ?" The Time Lady heard it drop, picked it up and examined it. "Some kind of… Oddly decorated egg?" Her mouth wide open, she immediately suspected the glowing egg to be the actual source of energy pattern she'd been tracking. The Time Lady adjusted her embrace of the girl, and spoke directly at her sleeping face. "Now why would you , a human female child , be carrying around a-"

The train started moving. "This train is leaving the station. Thank you for riding Mitakihara Metropolitan Public Transit."

"Crap! Better move fast." The Time Lady hastily exchanged the egg for her wand in her pocket, pressed a button, and the locked train's side door slid open. She leapt from the slow-moving car, back onto the station platform.

"You WITCH! What the hell'd you do to us?" The deeply enraged male shouted from across the station, the face of both him and his cohort both swollen from a punch, their hands scraped from fighting. They stumbled to their feet, and ran toward her.

"Oh really? You fellas are still conscious? Little tougher than you appear it seems. Uhm, Shou, your name was it?" She pointed her wand to the far side of the station. "See that wall there? Be so obliged to run headfirst into it. Will you please?"

On command, the man's face went blank, as he turned his entire body around and started running toward the wall.

"Shou… What the he-" His friend looked on in shock, powerless to stop Shou's charge. Shou hit the wall, face first, and collapsed straight to the ground.

"To you I give a choice. You may either run headfirst into the wall as he did, or you can pick him up and seek the necessary medical attention. Tell them you fools got inebriated and fought at a bar. You will remember nothing else of this night. Now off you go."

"Wh- what... The hell... Are…" The expression on his face also went suddenly blank, he turned around and shambled toward his cohort. With her minor distraction fully addressed, the Time Lady raced toward her TARDIS, the Japanese teenager still tightly held and asleep in her arms.

"Display systems restoration status report!" The Time Lady ordered as she kicked in the door of the ship. The central console display screen promptly came to life. RECOVERY MODE PROGRESS: FIRST REINITIALIZATION ATTEMPT OF MAIN POWER SYSTEM FAILED. FIRST REINITIALIZATION ATTEMPT OF AUXILIARY POWER SUCCESSFUL. PARTIAL AUXILIARY POWER AVAILABLE. VOCAL INTERFACE RE-ENABLED. DISPLAY SYSTEMS REPAIR PROGRESS?

The Time Lady carefully laid her patient onto a futon in an alcove on the far side of the control room. She quickly and quietly as she could, dusted and fluffed one of the pillows before placing the girl's head on it. She picked a blanket off the end of the futon, tucked her in and went back to studying the strange egg she was carrying. Walking back toward the control console, she pulled out her wand, clicked a switch, pressed its tip against the egg, and held the button that was on the instrument's underside. As it's whistling shifted up and down in pitch, she turned her attention to the console's display screen.

She hastily skimmed the status screen results. "Life support is... Partially restored. Good. All fires suppressed. Nice. Maintenance drones dispatched to repair other critical systems. Okay. Do we have access to the time vortex?

ACCESS TO TIME VORTEX UNAVAILABLE. "Posited reason?" POSITED THEORY: CAUSALITY LOOP HAS ISOLATED THIS LOCALE FROM SPACETIME CONTINUUM AND ALL SUBDIMENSIONAL PLANES.

She already knew the answers to her question and the reason behind why, but the computer's concurrence was reassuring of both the system's functionality as well as her own competence.

Her instrument's scan completed, she approached the console and placed her wand into a specially-shaped indentation on the console's side. INTERLINK INITIATED. DATA UPLOAD SUCCESSFUL. She placed the egg on top of the console, her eyes firmly affixed on its swirling, darkening colors. "Analysis of object scanned, please."

MATERIALS ANALYSIS: TRANSMUTABLE RECEPTACLE. ENERGY SOURCE CONTAINED WITHIN. MATERIALS SPECIFICATION: RECEPTACLE IDENTIFIED: -. ENERGY SOURCE IDENTIFIED: -. She rolled her eyes at the sight of the computer's selective redactions, muttering "Yes... Supremely Classified Time Lord Pantheon knowledge. Whatever . Thanks for confirming what I strongly suspected."

ALERT: ENERGY SOURCE UNDERGOING CHAIN REACTION. PROCESS IS ACCELERATING. The Time Lady turned her head back towards her patient, very grimly concerned. "That so? You mean it's going to…"

ERUPTION IMMINENT: TIME ESTIMATION: APPROXIMATELY 100 - 180 MINUTES.

The Time Lady put her hand to her mouth, turned her back from the screen and started pacing in a circle. "Ohhhh… That definitely means something bad." The thing the young girl had in her possession it seemed, was effectively a ticking bomb. As The Time Lady paced, she muttered her options under her breath. "Could it be contained, perhaps? Maybe build a small temporal suspension chamber and put it in stasis? Hmmm. Naw, no… No. Not nearly enough time. Procuring the materials necessary and making it would take much too long. Or perhaps, I could channel the chain reaction." She briefly studied the TARDIS control paneling. "Use it as an emergency power source." She dismissed this idea just as quickly. "No, no no... What am I thinking? That'd be an even more complicated build! " Her pacing got faster. "Can't constrain it, can't channel it… Could I dump it all elsewhere?" She huffed. "Dammit… I'm way overthinking this… Quickest and easiest thing would be to separate the impurities. But how?"

She stopped pacing and started tapping her foot on the floor, and her index finger against her temple. "Think! Think! Think! No time! No time! No time!" She breathed a frustrated grunt, her head tilting up toward a retractable panel on the ceiling. "What would you have done?"

"If I have to be practical," She turned and reexamined the sleeping girl. "Everything in this world is about to reset. Saving this girl needn't be a priority. I have the data. The priority here should be on repairing key systems and getting the TARDIS ready to survive the next reset."

She walked up to the egg on the console, clasped the egg in her hands, and closed her eyes. "I should simply dispose of it."

She grit her teeth as she squeezed the egg in her hands. She was going to crush it with her raw strength. "The chain reaction only persists so long as it's inside a containment vessel. Just crack it open and criticality cannot be sustained. Quick and painless." Her eyes flashed at the ceiling piece one more time. "And kind," she whispered. She took deeper and deeper breaths as she squeezed, resolute that this was her only logical choice.

Suddenly, she stopped squeezing and opened her eyes and took a deep, subdued breath. Another option had just popped into her head. "No... I am wrong. Logical maybe, but wrong." She took another deep breath. "I could serve as a means to separate the impurities. As a biological receptacle."

She set the egg aside, proceeded over to the girl on the futon, turned her sleeping head towards her, thoughtfully caressed her forehead and ran her fingers through the girl's hair. "This could be a wee bit of a presumption, but I believe you might just be one of those 'Five Girls' I'm looking for." She checked her pulse on her neck. Yes, this girl was very young, barely into human adolescence. She gently inspected the rest of her body with a light, careful touch. "Oh, you poor, poor thing. I wonder, What sort of chain of events have led to you ending up so hurt, and then all alone and abandoned in a train?" She maternally stroked the girl's cheek with two fingers. "And worse, you've probably already been through this ordeal, many, many times before. And you don't even know it. How could fate want to be so cruel to you?"

The Time Lady discreetly reached into the girl's school uniform pocket. There was a used-up closed portable cosmetic kit with a mirror. The Time Lady briefly glanced at her reflection in the mirror. "Hm. N-teenth time's the charm. Not a big fan of the ears, though." She closed it and slid it back into the pocket. Next she found a small wallet. She parsed through the wallet's contents. "Excuse this small trespass. Just getting to know you a bit." She flipped through some paper currency, there was a bus pass, and a train pass. She came upon a card with the girl's photograph on it. It was her student ID. "Sayaka Miki. Mitakihara Middle School. Born in 1997. Fourteen years. So young." Behind the ID was a photograph of the young lady and two similarly-aged girls flanking her wearing similar clothes. "Your friends I presume?" She reached into the other pocket. It contained a small technological device, plus some sort of shattered disc. She examined the disc. "A broken mirror?" She brought it over to the console, picked up her wand and more closely examined it. "Nope. Analysis, please?"

MATERIALS ANALYSIS: LATE 20TH CENTURY EARTH DIGITAL INFORMATION STORAGE UNIT. UNIT CONTAINS AUDIO DATA. PLAY AUDIO DATA?

"Sure. Play on." It was a song. Human music. Orchestral. Considered old in the time where she'd arrived. But it was certainly older than anything this girl should otherwise be listening to. The Time Lady even recognized the melody. "Le Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin. Claude Debussy. Neat." She chuckled to herself as she combed through her own hair. " Really takes me back."

Feeling suddenly wistful, she danced back toward the still-sleeping girl. "You fancy this sort of music, my dear? Do you know I always happen to admire that man's beard? His work was pretty commendable, too." Humming along with the song, she reached into her inner coat pocket and pulled out a gold fob watch. She opened the watch and balanced the girl's egg squarely on the watch's face. With steady, deepening breaths, she spoke as she focused her thoughts on the egg. "What I am about to do to you is quite stupid, completely illogical, strategically unwise and terribly dangerous to attempt, and that's not even mentioning the eventual toll it's going to take on me!" Her continued humming is briefly interspersed with more chuckling and a third glance at the ceiling. "But it's kind. So It's what I'm doing."

A shimmering, golden glow emanated from her face toward her hands. "Whaddaya know… It would seem that I am a compatible biological receptacle! Ha!" She chuckled again. "Perhaps it's our similar musical tastes." Still humming away, she opened her eyes and her hands so that she could witness the effects of her effort.

In an instant, the blackness within the egg scattered, diffusing from inside the egg and spilled into her watch. A rush of black matter travelled up her arms, and trailed down her body. The golden glow briefly coalesced within the center of the egg, then it dispersed throughout the egg and faded gradually until its glow was brightly blue again. The Time Lady stopped humming, gasped in intense pain, and instantly collapsed to the floor. The rejuvenated egg separated from the watch, dropped to the floor and then rolled underneath the futon.


"Why do I have to wear this, Papa?" Little Sayaka Miki said with a groan as she spoke.

"Because you look really nice in it. And it took your Mother a long time to find that in your size."

Sayaka hated wearing long dresses. No matter how careful she tried to be, she couldn't help but get them dirty while playing. Or worse, she'd tear a seam somehow. "Sayaka, that dress was really expensive and we don't have that much money!" Her Mama would say. "Can't you be more careful on the playground?" She didn't want to upset her Mama. So she quickly took to wearing pants and boy's shirts. They were easier to move around and play in, plus they were cheaper for her parents to buy, so quickly she came to prefer dressing in boys' clothes.

"How many people are here?" Sayaka asked, looking into the crowd while standing on her seat in the front row of the concert hall. She wanted to see if anybody from her preschool was here too.

"Sit down, and sit still." Her Mama replied, as she grabbed her wrist and pulled her down.

"A lot of people. Theater seats a thousand." Her Papa answered, with an assuring smile.

"1… 2… 3... 4…" Sayaka was counting her fingers, trying to figure out how many fingers a "thousand" was.

She got up to peek over her seat again, but this time her Mama held her down by the thigh. "It's going to start soon." Her Mama said, while looking at her watch.

"What?" Sayaka wondered.

"You'll see soon." Her Papa spoke as he gently took her hand.

"Promise?" Sayaka asked.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." Her father smiled. "Stick a needle in my eye." The two of them said together.

Sayaka played with the flower-shaped clip in her hair, now just trying to pass the time. Then suddenly everyone inside fell silent. The lights in the concert hall went dark, as the curtain in front of her pulled open.

A young boy walked out onto the stage as the spotlight shined down on him from above. Sayaka recognized him right away. It was Kyosuke Kamijo, a boy from her preschool. Kyosuke had brought something with him, a strange wooden object with strings on it, something Sayaka didn't recognize. Realizing that he was what everybody had come to see, Sayaka was very confused.

"Why does everyone want to watch Kyo-"

"Shhhhh!" Her Mama interrupted.

Kyosuke held the wooden object in one hand, his fingers on the strings, while leaning on the large end against his neck. He pulled out another wooden object with its own string with his other hand. Together, they made sounds. It was music. Kyosuke was playing music.

"It's called a 'Violin'." Her Papa whispered a mere moment before she could ask.

"Shhhhhh!" Her Mama glared at them both.

Sayaka was amazed. She had no idea this boy from her class could play such beautiful music! And he was playing it so well! How? He couldn't even figure out that Sayaka was cheating when they were playing board games together. How could he be so gifted, she wondered as she watched in awe.

"Le Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin." Her Papa whispered again right before she asked.

"Rah-Fir-Ah-Shey…" Sayaka tried repeating.

"Shh!" Her Mama was very annoyed.

She would never forget that night, watching Kyosuke play so beautifully on stage, he had filled Sayaka's heart with joy. He had filled her imagination with ideas. He had blessed her young soul... With hope.


DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

Sayaka woke up with a deep, shocked gasp. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Wasn't she dead? Was this supposed to be the afterlife? She opened her eyes and looked around the room. No. This place, wherever it was, was definitely not the afterlife. "I- I'm alive…?" She reluctantly stood up and wandered towards the center of the room.

DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

"Is that a bell?" She wondered. "Where's that sound coming from?" Her attention was so fixated on this room and that ominous sound that Sayaka had failed to notice the still-unconscious woman laying on the floor beside her, and her Soul Gem underneath the futon. Finding no obvious source for the ringing inside this room, she instead tried looking for a way to get out of this room.

The room itself was rather minimally designed, like a waiting room, it was only furnished with a coat hanger, a few chairs, a work desk, a mirror, a matching pair of cabinets, a hope chest and a grandfather clock. The walls were uniformly lined with a pattern of backlit, circular indents. There were two doors at opposite ends, one smaller door with a simple door handle attached, and one larger one with a touch scanner on the wall beside it. At the center of the room, was a hexagonal console. Certainly the most standout object in the room, the console was faced with numerous buttons, keypads, dials, gauges and levers on every side. Protruding from the console's center were a series of glowing rods, each extending all the way to the white ceiling and each lit with a pulsating glow that repeated at a consistent rate. Connected to the rods was a display screen, attached in such a way that allowed it to swivel one hundred and eighty degrees around the console. Sayaka slowly approached the screen so that she could read whatever information was on it, when suddenly the lighting around her shifted from soft white to a dim, apocalyptic red.

DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

"I've gotta get out of here!" Sayaka looked to her left: The door with the handle. She looked to her right: The door with the scanner. She ran for the door with the handle. She barged at top speed through the door, but she immediately got stopped, dead in her tracks by the horrific sight she was witnessing before her eyes.

Mitakihara City was under a massive attack! Buildings, roads and bridges were being ripped apart, piece-by-piece! The sea was raging, wave-after-wave of water crashing through the city's streets! Violent explosions booming all around! Chaos reigned, nature was twisting itself into a knot, Sayaka turned her head up to the sky to where she witnessed the cause of it all: A massive creature, a monster, at least a hundred meters tall! An upside-down, theatrically-cloaked human-esque figure affixed to a set of humongous, turning gears! "It's a-" She stammered. "It's a Witch! Wh-" Sayaka was unable to say anything else, her mouth as frozen in terrified awe as her eyes.

Sayaka's awe was snapped by a series of bright flashes happening around the behemoth. Her eyes darted back towards the ground, where she caught a fleeting glimpse of the person responsible: It was Homura Akemi! A magical girl, like Sayaka, though not considered an ally in Sayaka's mind. Homura was dashing back and forth, appearing one moment and disappearing the next, firing volley after volley of increasingly-powerful munitions, attempting to bring the monster down.

Undamaged by Homura's assault, the massive thing countered by tossing humongous skyscraper fragments in Homura's direction. Homura disappeared under one fragment, only to reappear attop the next, seemingly trying to get closer and closer to the behemoth's main body. Her effort was for naught, just as she reached the last fragment, a cadre of smaller creatures were waiting on it in an ambush. They pounced, knocking Homura off, as she fell away and out of Sayaka's sight.

Seeing Homura so handily defeated shook Sayaka from her frozen state. She lurched a few more steps forward before stopping again, this time at the sight of another familiar figure standing atop a twisted platform. It was a girl, this one Sayaka recognized even from so far away. It was Madoka Kaname, her best friend! Madoka stood alone, atop a twisted tower of wreckage, looking as though she was prepared to face this monster alone. And worse still, the monster had noticed, turning its massive body and flying in her direction.

The sight of her friend in such immediate danger forced Sayaka to move. Impulsively she charged ahead. She had to save her best friend, dammit ! What good was having magical girl power if she couldn't do something so simple? Sayaka's arms gestured to her body as she ran, attempting to transform into her magical girl persona. Only nothing was happening. Sayaka stopped and looked at her hand. The ring on her finger was gone! That ring, her Soul Gem, her essence made material, the proof that she was a magical girl was not where it needed to be! Sayaka hesitated, tears barely held back as she scrambled to think of what she should do next.

"No! No! I'm not some stupid rock!" Her hands clenched into fists as she cried out. "I'm not!" She shouted as she ran toward her friend. "Madoka! I'm sorry! I didn't mean what I said! Please forgive me!" But the further she ran, the more sluggish Sayaka's movements were getting. Her body was weakening as the distance between her soul and its former container was growing. She collapsed to her knees, defiantly crawled on, until then her legs gave out completely. Her body growing ever limper, she persisted, dragging herself by her arms. "I'm not a rock! I have to save her!" She whimpered with a wheezing cry! She flopped over from her belly to her back. "I'll… Save you... Not a ro... I have to… Ma… do… ka …" The last thing she could manage to do was turn her head away and close her tear-soaked eyes, too ashamed of herself to watch anymore. " I'm sorry! I'm so useless. "


"Why do I have to wear this, Father?" The young Gallifreyan Girl groaned as she looked at herself in the mirror.

"Because you look nice in it." Her father replied, his hands gently clutching her shoulders. "Academy students must wear the traditional garb colored by the Great House they represent, and I must say, you wear the colors of our House well My Dearest."

To The young Gallifreyan Girl, the garment just reminded her of a dress. She disliked wearing dresses. She can't play with the other children in a dress. They tear too easily. They get dirty too easily. The adults always get upset and tell her to be more "careful". As if it was her duty to be the Grand Keeper of her clothing.

"Will you and mother be allowed to visit?" She had been selected to attend The Time Lord Academy, but she absolutely dreaded the idea of not seeing her loved ones again for such a prolonged time.

"Once we have the Administrative Council's permission," Her Father reassured her. "You'll see us promptly." He straightened her headdress. "And I've heard it's going to be a big, big class this year, now that They've begun allowing students from The Lower Houses and The Plebian Castes to attend. Such a progressive time, we now inhabit." He smiled warmly and whispered into her ear, "I'm certain you'll make friends so fast you won't miss us at all."

"Such a 'Progressive Time,' oh pish-posh." Her mother mocked while entering the room. "It's the same grandiose masters, and the same staid mentors, with their pompous rituals, preaching the old dogmatic views, it doesn't matter if the number of students attending have increased. It's not progress. It's the elites reinforcing their rule through systemic indoctrination."

The young Gallifreyan Girl could sense her father's discomfort with her mother's opinion. "Your mother. I coupled with her because she was so upfront with her opinions, but can't help but sometimes feel I'm hitched to a cynic." He straightened his daughter's collar as he waited for his wife to bring in their daughter's ceremonial shoulder piece and headdress.

"You did choose a cynic, my dear. A cheerful one!" She pecked a kiss on her husband's cheek as they positioned the final pieces of their daughter's attire on her. She visually inspected her daughter's appearance. "Wearing the drapes. The one fashion that no civilization will ever deem fashionable. Truly as timeless as The Time Lords."

"But she pulls it off." Her father was trying to lighten her mood. But seeing his daughter in full regalia was really exacerbating his burgeoning separation anxiety.

"Still, even an old cynic like me can sometimes be an optimist. Not everyone student's going to fall prey to the lure of the opulent marbled porticos and the technological wonders. Some might leave with their minds and their souls intact."

"Leaving itself would be a huge act of defiance." Her father muttered laconically as he straightened out her headpiece.

"You'll be one of them, I'm sure darling." Her mother pecked a kiss on top of her daughter's head. "One of those who leave, and then return with the will and the means to usurp those old masters. Rassilon himself will come to know your name."

"Become the next." Her husband confidently took his wife's hand. "Keeper of the light of hope." The couple said together.


DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

The Time Lady slowly opened her eyes. "Ughhh… Stupid, lousy bell. Hate you." In a daze, she stumbled to her feet. She checked her pulse. "I guess that hit me a bit harder than I anticipated. Wonder how long was I out?" She lurched over to the console to check on the status of the TARDIS. The status message on the screen quickly whipped her mind back to focus.

PROXIMITY ALERT! PROXIMITY ALERT! LARGE TRANSDIMENSIONAL PHENOMENON IN VICINITY!

"Oh, crap!" The Time Lady looked back at the futon to discover Sayaka's absence. "Double crap!" She bolted out the TARDIS exit. "I must've been down-and-out for more than a day! I'm completely out of time!"

The Time Lady immediately stopped upon opening the door, trying to process the chaotic scene playing out in front of her. All reality was coming apart at the seams, a massive, nightmarish creature floating in the sky above. The Time Lady instinctively reached for her wand in her coat pocket, but she stopped mid-gesture at the sight of Sayaka in the distance running toward the danger. Or at least, she was trying to run. "Wait! Stooooop!" The Time Lady called out. It was in vain. Her voice could not penetrate the cacophony of noise and destruction happening around them. The Time Lady sprinted after the Sayaka, watching the girl's panicked run falter to a crawl, then she flopped to her belly, where at the top of a debris pile she went motionless.

The Time Lady kneeled down to check if Sayaka had been injured, but the only visible sign of trauma was the tears still going down her unconscious face. The Time Lady hastily scooped the girl up, turned around and made a hasty retreat to the TARDIS. Her curiosity still prodding, She peeked over her shoulder and saw an intense beam of light penetrating straight through the behemoth's body and onto the sky. Fighting every instinct to observe, she entered the TARDIS, slammed its door, and stepped up to the control console.


"Stop it! Give it back! Please! Give it back!"

Sayaka heard a girl crying out as she rounded the street corner on her way to school. She looked around the hedge to see two boys teasing a smaller girl. The two were tossing the girl's umbrella back-and forth, as the poor girl was jumping around and out-of-breath, desperately pleading for its return. The taller boy tossed the umbrella to the shorter boy, then he pushed the girl in her back, right to the ground she fell on her face.

"Hey! You two! Give that thing back to her now!" Sayaka dropped her backpack. Without hesitating, Sayaka ran up to the smaller boy, ripped the umbrella from his hands, and tackled him right in the gut, pushing him straight into the hedge. The taller boy started to run, only for Sayaka to catch right up. She pushed him right in the back, and down on his face he went.

"Are you all right?" Sayaka held out her hand.

"... Th-"

Before the girl could finish that thought, the two boys rose to their feet. Sayaka swiftly grabbed the girl's umbrella holding onto it as if it were a baseball bat, and shot the boys a threatening look. The two boys took the hint and ran off.

"It's broken!" The girl whimpered.

Sayaka opened the umbrella. The fabric had partially torn from its frame.

"S-Sorry!" Sayaka apologized glumly. Tears welled up in the girl's eyes. "D-don't cry!" Sayaka scampered to her backpack, "Here! You can take mine!"

The diminutive young lady didn't know what to make of Sayaka's kind gesture. "I-I don't-"

"It's okay! It's fine! I'm fine with it!" Sayaka pried the girl's fingers open to facilitate the exchange, but the girl reflexively clutched Sayaka's other hand.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" The girl asked outrightly.

Sayaka blushed. What a silly question that was. Sayaka looked down at herself. Blue polo shirt, blue shorts, blue shoes, long socks and short cut hair, maybe the question wasn't so silly. "Wh-What's your name?" Sayaka asked, trying to change the topic.

"My name is Madoka Kaname." The girl sniffled as she answered.

"Where were you going?" Sayaka followed up.

"To Mitakihara Elementary School. My family just moved here. It's my first day of school. My Papa wanted to take me but I wanted to show him that I knew the way and could walk by myself but then those boys-"

"What grade are you in?" Sayaka interrupted.

"Kindergarten."

Sayaka remembered her teacher mentioning something the other day about a transfer student coming soon. "Hey, I'm in Kindergarten too!" She gave Madoka a welcoming smile. "That means we're gonna be classmates!"

Madoka was clearly pleased with hearing this news. She clutched Sayaka's hand tighter. Their hands together, smiles on their faces, the pair resumed walking to their destination. "Let's you and me meet here every day from now on, and walk to school together. That way, bully boys won't be a problem again! I promise!"


DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG!

Sayaka gasped as her body jolted back to life. She found herself in that strange room again, this time sprawled on the floor.

"Well hello there! So glad you could finally join me." A female voice greeted her. She was standing behind her at the console in the center of the room.

Sayaka immediately shot to her feet. "Wh- Who the heck are you? Where am I? What the hell is going on? Where's-"

The entire room suddenly jerked to one side, throwing Sayaka right off her balance.

"What the hell was-"

DOONNNGGGG! DOONNNGGGG! DOONN- "Yeeaaaahhh! Dangerrrrrrrrrrr! Dangerrrrrrrrrrrr! Got the message!" The Mysterious Woman pressed a toggle switch on the underside of the console. "Enough with that stupid, silly bell now!"

The entire room jerked again, throwing Sayaka to her knees. On the floor, Sayaka spotted a small blue, glowing object rolling around under the futon. "M-My Soul Gem! How did-"

The entire room jerked again, accompanied by a persistent quaking. Sayaka crawled over to her Soul Gem, reaching to retrieve it just as another violent shake came and the lights went out.

This Mysterious Woman standing before Sayaka seemed to be completely unfazed by their predicament. She punched a set of keys, pressed a number of lit buttons, then turned a large dial and flicked a bunch switches, reading the words on the screen display as if she were going about her normal business. "Let's see… Time vortex, nope. Life support, minimal. Auxiliary power, hooray. Main power, partial. So miracles do exist." She punched in some quick key commands, then pulled a pocket watch from her inner coat pocket. "Judging by the intervals between the shimmies and shakes, and from the increasing severity of the tremors, I would say we have approximately one hundred and twenty-eight seconds left to live." Her eyes met Sayaka's stare under the futon. "So now would not be the best time to be shy, my dear. One hundred, three seconds."

Sayaka crawled forward, stepped to her feet, and stood face-to-face with This Mysterious Woman.

"Better. Now tell me, young lady, do you have any regrets?"

"R- Regrets?" Sayaka said, giving a perplexed look.

"You know… Is there perhaps a sin you'd like to atone for, maybe an argument you'd like to take back, a failure to act when you should have, y'know, the kind of stuff you'd wished you'd had a chance to do over again. Anything like that? Eighty seconds."

The tremors happening around them were getting louder. The Mysterious Woman pointed to a large lever on the opposite side of the console. "If your answer is yes, then would you please take hold of that lever? Sixty-two seconds."

A flurry of questions filled Sayaka's mind. Who was this woman? Was she a magical girl of some sort? Was she really offering Sayaka a second chance or something? What was really going on here? Was any of this really happening at all?

"Forty-eight seconds." Everything shook again. "Need an answer soon."

Sayaka trotted to the other side of the console and took hold of the lever. The Mysterious Woman smiled while she clutched an identical lever on her side of the console.

"Okay, when I say 'pull' you pull that lever all the way towards your body. Simple, yes?"

"Why am I doing this?" Sayaka meekly whispered to herself.

"In short, when the temporal shockwave hits, we're going to manually override the navigational systems, then ride the wave all the way back to its point of origin, whilst diverting all available power towards making sure we survive the trip. Fifteen seconds."

The Mysterious Woman flicked another set of switches as she fixed her eyes on her pocket watch. "Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… PULL!"

Sayaka pulled the lever, as hard as anybody's ever pulled a lever. And she clung to it as hard as anyone's ever clung to anything as she felt a sudden, immense rush of energy inside her. She stared at her unsteady hand. For a split second, she thought she was watching her entire body split apart.

"Haaaaaaang oooooon!" The Mysterious Woman warned, seemingly not noticing Sayaka's odd dilemma.

The room jerked violently to one side again, swinging from high angle to high angle like a pendulum, as the shaking reached its climax. As quickly as it started the energy rush subsuming Sayaka's body subsided. Still in one piece, she kept clinging to that lever, stumbling to her knees. She closed her eyes and practically hugged that lever, desperately wishing for the shaking and swinging and jerking to just end already.

The Mysterious Woman, meanwhile, clung to the lever on her side whilst keeping a defiantly upright posture. She took out her watch, interchanging glances between her watch and her display screen. "The stabilizers are conking out! We're going to have to reinitialize them! See that rod on the side that looks like a pinball machine plunger? Pull it out and let 'er rip!" Sayaka grabbed the rod and let it go. The violent jerking around them lessened.

"Good, thirty seconds to touchdown! When I say 'push', you raise that lever right back up, you got it?"

"O-okay…" Sayaka mewled as she hesitantly got back on her feet. She just wanted this crazy ride to be over.

"Fifteen seconds." She pressed a button and flicked more switches. "Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… PUSH!"

Sayaka pushed the lever. All the jerking, shaking and rumbling abruptly stopped.

"Touchdoooooown!" The Mysterious Woman waved her hands in gleeful celebration as she checked the display screen. "Alright, let's see here… Main systems down again. Expected. Back-up systems still plugging along. All in all, we're not that much worse for the wear." She pumped her fist. "Aw, hot damn, I'm good!" She turned her head around just in time to see the young girl flee through the exit door. "Hmm. Some gratitude." She sighed.

The onslaught of questions swimming through Sayaka's mind just seconds earlier needed to wait. Her wits barely recovered, and her Soul Gem back in her possession, the only thing she could think about was her friend Madoka. Her life was in danger. Her best friend needed her help. Her best friend needed her protector Sayaka to be there for her.

But as Sayaka made it outside, she discovered that she was in for yet one more rude awakening. Somehow, they ended up in Mitakihara Mall. That gigantic witch, the disaster it caused, all the chaotic horrors she witnessed, were gone. Sayaka stumbled on a few more steps forward to see all the bizarrely normal people in the world around her. The people shopping in the shops. The people playing games at the arcades. The people eating at the food court. The people were casually talking to each other, as if the nightmares Sayaka had just endured had suddenly unhappened. Mitakihara City was totally back to normal. Normal, that is, except for one thing: That strange room she had just spent time in. That same room she had just taken a ride in, that room that she just fled from in thoughtless haste… It seemed to be a room that was crammed entirely inside… Of a vending machine. She had just experienced the most chaotic ride of her life, inside of a magic 'Morning Rescue' Coffee vending machine. What the heck was going on?

The Mysterious Woman casually walked out of the vending machine, looked up to see Sayaka's mouth hanging wide open and staring at her. Quickly the woman realized that she wasn't the strange, out-of-place object that the young girl was fixated so upon. The Mysterious Woman blithely walked behind Sayaka, put her hands on the girl's shoulders, gave a relieved sigh and smiled.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, wonderful! How 'bout that? The Chameleon Circuit still works! Not much, but it's a start, at least!"