CHAPTER 2: Deja Vu

"Who are you? What happened to that huge witch? What's the deal with your weird room? Why did you have my Soul Gem in there? How'd we get all the way to the mall? Why did you bring me here? Who the hell are you?"

"My, oh my, aren't you a pretty petit package of pointedly poignant questions?" The Mysterious Woman whipped out a pair of glasses as she took a seat in the booth across from Sayaka and scanned the restaurant's menu. "Why'd I bring you here? Because you're hungry."

"I'm not hungry." Sayaka's stomach audibly growled in contradiction to her response. Sayaka's face changed from indignity to embarrassment as she haplessly slid into the corner of their booth. "And besides…" She curled into the corner in a fetal-shape. "I don't need to eat. Anymore."

"You don't say?" The Mysterious Woman casually pulled a strange-looking wand from her coat pocket and pressed a button on it. Her odd-looking device whistled while its tip's glow transitioned to purple. "Nope." She pushed her glasses up with the wand. "My first scans were correct. I detect no sustenance nor nutrients within your entire digestive tract. Also, you have alarmingly-low levels of iron in your blood." She turned her focus to the menu. "What's the most iron-rich food they serve in this place?"

"What is that thing?" Sayaka asked, her self-pity and depression slightly quelled by her innate curiosity.

"Oh? This old thing?" The Mysterious Woman patiently tapped her wand on her sleeve. "It's my Magic… uh, Multitool," her relaxed, confident greyish-blue eyes meeting Sayaka's own exhausted baby blue eyes.

"Magic?" Sayaka's curiosity was spiked with the mention of that particular word. "Are you telling me you're a Ma-"

"Though I suppose that term wouldn't accurately describe it. It's really more a portable computer. And I uh," she scratched her temple with it. "I use it to scan lifeforms. And examine stuff… And tap into computer systems… And open stubborn jars… But mostly it picks locks. Lots and lots of locks. It's the best at pickin' those locks."

"Good morning ladies." The Mysterious Woman discreetly tucked her wand up her coat sleeve once the restaurant waitress noticed them and approached. "What will it be today?"

"Coffee." The Mysterious Woman subtly tapped her chest. "Just start with coffee."

Both The womens' gaze turned onto Sayaka, who defensively stayed firmly curled in her booth corner. "I told you. I don't-"

"What's the most iron-rich food you serve?" The Mysterious Woman asked.

"Iron-rich?" The waitress wasn't certain how to reply to such an oddball question.

The Mysterious Woman waved the waitress closer to her. "This young lady is extremely iron deficient." She leaned toward the waitress, addressing her in a not-at-all-secretive tone.

"I… I guess I could eat a hot dog." Sayaka sheepishly relented, her face still buried between her curled knees.

"I'm sorry, miss, but we don't serve that until lunch."

Sayaka's stomach made a loud, dejected growl.

"Ooooohhh! Breakfast menu's got eggs! And bacon! Even toast and a bagel!" The Mysterious Woman was obviously just reading the menu straight through the list.

"I'll Tell you what: We'll start with Eggs and bacon and a bagel, some iced tea, and I'll see if I can get the cook to scrounge you up a hot dog, too." The waitress politely intervened. She tilted her head Sayaka's way. "Does that sound Okay?"

"Ffffffffffine." Sayaka gave in, just wanting the woman to go away. The waitress courteously bowed and moved on to the patrons on the other side of the restaurant.

An awkward silence lingered for the next few minutes until Sayaka worked up just enough courage to peek between her knees and examine the woman sitting across from her. The Mysterious Woman was humming a certain tune, her elbows on the table with her fingers steepled, tapping them together and patiently waiting for breakfast. Sayaka was trying to place where she'd heard the tune before, when their eyes accidentally met, at which point Sayaka closed her knees.

The woman looked young-ish, perhaps in her late twenties, or early thirties in age. She was wearing a long, unbuttoned leather coat with a somewhat-worn grey hooded sweatshirt underneath. A definite westerner, her face was decidedly feminine and in Sayaka's own judgement was quite pretty, but she also appeared as if she wasn't particularly interested in maintaining her appearance. Her mid-length hair reddish-brown was unkempt and she only seemed to be wearing a minimal amount of makeup. She again noticed Sayaka was peering from behind her knees. "Yes?" She cocked her head and smiled. "Welp. We're alone again. Would you care to resume your little line of questions?"

That flood of questions instantly rushed back into Sayaka's head. She anxiously uncurled from her booth and lurched her body over the table, ultimately deciding to start with her original question: "Who are you?"

"Me?" The woman shifted in her seat as she gathered together her thoughts. "Hmmmm… I'm nobody important." She leaned closer and whispered, "Merely a visiting alien from outer space."

"What?" Sayaka said in disbelief.

"I'm an alien." She pointed up to the sky. "From outer space."

"Naw. For reals?"

"Uh, 'For reals.' Yes."

"But you can't be an alien!"

"Oh?" The woman playfully smiled. "Why can't I be an alien?"

"Because you don't look like an alien."

"Why thank you!" She giggled. "I take great pride in all my disguises!"

"Are you like a lizard or a spider or something under your skin?"

"A lizard? Er, no!" She chuckled. This face is my face." She checked her reflection in a decorative mirror hanging on the wall. "For now."

"For now?" Sayaka didn't press her on it. "So, Um, if you're an alien, what planet did you come from?"

"I came fresh from Hephaesta Four." She took a momentary, pensive breath. "But if you're really asking where I call my original home, I'm from the planet Gallifrey."

"Gallifrey? That sounds made up."

"I assure you, it is not."

The waitress returned with a coffee in hand. "Here's your coffee, Miss. And I have good news, young lady… Since we're having a slow morning, the cook has agreed to fix you up a hot dog. Your food will be ready shortly."

"Uh, thank you." Sayaka appreciatively nodded.

After the waitress left, Sayaka went on, pointing accusingly at the woman's coffee cup. "How would an alien from outer space know anything about coffee?"

The Mysterious Woman perked a cheery smile. "Ah, Well you see, the thing is, I've been to this planet before. Lots of times." She dipped her finger and licked the liquid on its tip. "I mean, It's not really my favorite world to visit, admittedly, I do seem to oddly find myself to be… a semi-regular guest..." her voice trailed. "Player here." She sniffed her coffee then set it aside. "Ah. Hot. Let sit for a bit."

"Soooo if you've been here before," Sayaka continued, apprehensively trying to look her in the eye. "Is that why you can speak Japanese?"

"Japanese?" The Mysterious Woman thought for a moment. "Oh, yes! That's right! Languages." She eagerly jostled her fingers around. "Actually, I don't speak your language at all. When you talk, I can perceive you as speaking to me in my language, and when I talk, you perceive me as speaking Japanese. That's a fundamental function of the translation matrix of the TARDIS." She noticed Sayaka was already having trouble following along. "The TARDIS." She re-positioned herself. "The TARDIS. That would be my spaceship. My alien spaceship."

She stopped her explanation right there to allow Sayaka a moment to add all the details together. "Alien spaceship? Th- Tha- You mean, that was the weird room we were in? No way!"

"Yes way!" The Mysterious Woman gave an approving smile.

"So why is it a vending machine?"

"I told you right when you stepped outside. It's got a Chameleon Circuit." She continued. "I suppose you could call it a type of 'camouflage', it's a little feature that lets it land on a world, analyze its surroundings, and then disguise itself in such a particular way that it doesn't get noticed by the planet's locals. So It's a spaceship that only looks like a vending machine while it's here. Hiding right there in plain sight."

"B- But hold up. H- how is it crammed in a vending machine when it's like a…" Sayaka confusedly gestured her arms. "Whole entire room?"

"How indeed?" The Mysterious Woman mused over the question. She took a deep breath, rested her arms along the booth seat as her head tilted against it. "How quite do I explain it..." Her polite smile persisted. "It's… Dimensionally Transcendental." She glanced back momentarily at Sayaka, who was visibly baffled. She patiently pushed her glasses up, scratched behind her ear, and parsed through exactly how best she should distill the Laws of Interdimensional Cohabitation and Differential Geometry down to something that a troubled teenage human girl might understand. "You see, it exists in its own pocket dimension, albeit one with all the shared fundamental physical laws of this one such as gravity or electromagnetism. And from the safety of its own dimension, its crew can travel through normal spacetime instantly via…" She could tell by Sayaka's face that she was lagging. "Okay, I'll keep it simple: My race created technology so sophisticated that it allows things to be bigger on the inside."

"Oh. Okay. I get that." Sayaka at least understood that last part, but she was way too hungry and far too tired to process any sort of complicated scientific concepts at the moment. Her tired head drooped, lower and lower until it practically rested flat on the table.

"Here's your order, young lady!" The waitress returned with a smile and a tray full of delicious food.

"Thank you." Sayaka rolled her head and slid the hotdog ever-so-slightly inside her mouth. "So you're saying those are like, your cars?" Sayaka pressed, "Does everyone on your planet just go zipping around, and visiting other worlds with these wacky' spaceships?"

"No, just Us Time Lords." She noticed her own reflection again in Sayaka's iced tea, and picked up her glass. "Oh yeah. Time Ladies, I mean."

Sayaka took a couple of incrementally-larger bites of her hot dog. "'Time Lord'? 'Time Lady'? What do you mean by that?"

The Time Lady put Sayaka's glass down and slid it over to her. "Because I'm female. Y'know?" She nodded once at Sayaka. "Like you are."

"Wh- What? N- No, no." Sayaka unwrapped a straw on her tray then stuck it in the glass. "Why do you call yourselves 'Time Lords' and 'Time Ladies'?"

The Time Lady seemed bemused by her question. "Why do you creatures call yourselves 'Humans,' and not 'Earthers,' or something? Just because our planet is named 'Gallifrey' doesn't necessarily make us all 'Gallifreyan'." She reached for her coffee, about to take her first sip.

"What? No, that's not what I mean." Sayaka took a large bite off her hot dog, then thirstily sipped her tea through the straw. "Why are you called ' Time ' Lords? Why ' Time ' Ladies?"

The Time Lady's eyes instantly went wide, like a deer in the headlights, once she realized what Sayaka was actually asking about. "Ohhhhhh riiiiiight. I see. That's what you meant. I guess you haven't yet pieced that part together. Whoops. My bad." She set her coffee down without sipping. "I regret to say that in my whimsiness, I may have accidentally buried the lede on you." Her smile faded, her face red as she scrambled for a way to break the bad news to Sayaka in such a way that wouldn't cause Sayaka to emotionally erupt and cause a scene. "The TARDIS… It's kind of an acronym. The closest translation to one of your Earth Languages would be 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'." She apologetically took Sayaka's hand. "My spaceship is also a spaceship that can travel backwards and forwards through time."

Sayaka instantly stopped drinking her tea, and she let out a shocked gulp. She sat and stared at The Time Lady in silent shock and horror. "I'd say by the evidence, you and I traveled back in time… About a month… Or so." The Time Lady wet her finger and stuck it in the air as if she were examining the difference as though it were a shift in the winds. She added "That'd be my calculation. By the sights and sounds…" She looked over her shoulder. "Of everything around here."

Sayaka pulled her hand away and immediately curled back into her fetal position in the booth corner. After a few minutes of coping with that detail, she finally spoke again when she watched the waitress pass

"Excuse me, uhm, M-Miss. Can you tell me, uh, what day it is today?"

"What day is today?" The waitress replied. "It's Wednesday."

"No." Sayaka looked up at her. "What's today's date?"

The waitress pulled her flip-phone from her side pocket. "It's March sixteenth." She showed the screen to Sayaka, folded it back in her pocket, and continued serving her other customers.

"Th- Thanks." Sayaka faintly replied, her eyes tearing as a profound realization dawned upon her. "S- So th- Tha- That Witch. Whe-" Sayaka tried to speak soberly, but struggled with her words.

"A 'Witch'? If ever there was an inadequate term for a major 'Transdimensional Cross-Rip' event..." The Time Lady mused as she itched her chin.

"Wait, y- You saw it too?" Sayaka's tone changed from somberness to exasperation.

"Yes. I saw it. I also saw you were running straight towards it. So the question I'd much like to ask is: Why would a person like you run toward such an astoundingly dangerous phenomenon?" The Time Lady slowly reached her hand across the booth, sensing that this young lady was about to do something very rash.

Sayaka launched to her feet, slamming her fists on the table. The Time Lady barely caught her by the arm before she could make a jolt for the exit.

"Sit down." The Time Lady commanded. "Right now."

"No! Let me go!" Sayaka tugged and protested.

"No. Just calm down, sit, and finish your meal." The Time Lady replied, in a manner that tried to sound both authoritative and considerate. "And please, answer my question."

"Don't you get it?" Sayaka tried to jerk her arm away from The Time Lady's grip. She grabbed the Time Lady's tightening hand with her other hand. "That Witch is gonna-"

"That 'Witch,' as you call it..." The Time Lady finished Sayaka's assertion. "Is going to appear again in a month or so, and cause this city a great disaster. Yes, dear Sayaka Miki. I'm keenly aware."

"You-" The flustered Sayaka jerked again at her grip. "H- How the heck do you know my name?"

With her other hand, The Time Lady slipped Sayaka's wallet from her inner coat pocket. "This was in your pocket."

"How did you-?" Sayaka suddenly remembered seeing a brilliant white light on the train car, it was the last thing she could vividly recall. "That l- That was you?" Sayaka gasped. "You took me away from there, didn't you?"

"I confess." The Time Lady solemnly nodded. "'Twas I."

"Then you've gotta take me back !" Sayaka raised her voice, loudly enough to draw attention from the waitress and what few onlookers were present. She leapt to her feet and pleadingly grabbed The Woman's coat. "Please! I have to go back there!"

"What? Why would you want to go back ?" The Time Lady asked.

"Just do it! Use your time machine or spaceship or whatever-the-hell-it-is and take me back there! I've gotta sa-"

"Don't be ridiculous!" The Time Lady interrupted, raising her voice. "We barely escaped with our hides intact the first time around! Besides, I couldn't-"

Sayaka let go of the Time Lady's arm and lunged for her wallet, a blatant move to distract the woman into letting go of her own arm. The Time Lady, seeing right through Sayaka's brash little ruse, tossed the wallet high into the air. With a singular motion, her wand slid out from her sleeve and up her hand. She double-tapped the button on the side. The ring on Sayaka's finger emanated a blue glow then instantaneously transmuted, where it formed into its egg shape at the tip of the Time Lady's wand. Sayaka leapt and caught her wallet in time to realize that her getaway gambit had just cost her her Soul Gem. Sayaka recoiled and fell to the floor in anguish. The Time Lady promptly released her arm.

"Is everything all right?" The waitress stepped in. The Time Lady nimbly hid her otherworldly items behind her back.

"Oh, yes! Everything's totally fine!" She reached her hand back to Sayaka on the floor. "She just dropped something is all!" Sayaka looked up at the Time Lady who was looking back at her with an unwavering, triumphant smile.

"I dropped my wallet. I found it." Sayaka took the Time Lady's hand and sulked off the floor. She dejectedly slunk into her booth, and curled back into her protective fetal ball. The waitress gave a courteous bow before walking away. A curious onlooking old couple turned the other way and dismissed what they'd just seen as a teen's temper tantrum.

"I can't take you back." Whispered The Time Lady, tying to sound both apologetic and conciliatory.

"You mean you won't take me back." Sayaka's voice choked as her eyes welled up.

"No." The Time Lady corrected in an and even more hushed tone. "I can't ." The Time Lady took a deep, pensive sigh. "My TARDIS is damaged. It doesn't have enough power to go anywhere. It barely has enough juice to sustain its basic functions. And even if there were enough power, it doesn't have access to the extradimensional plane that allows it to move through time. Whatever that phenomenon was, it caused a... Transdimensional tsunami that swept us right out of that place. Honestly, we were extremely lucky just to survive our trip here."

"What?" The distressed Sayaka was right back to being confused. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that," The Time Lady confessed. "I'm not what brought us to these temporal coordinates. I haven't a clue what did!"

"So I really can't go back?" Sayaka unsuccessfully choked back her tears. "I can't help-"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Time Lady wadded some napkins fresh from the dispenser, sympathetically wiping the tears from Sayaka's eyes. She slid the food tray toward her. "Please eat. Your food's getting cold." Sayaka slowly and dolefully took a bite of toast. The Time Lady gave her a mollifying smile. She released the gem from the tip of her wand and slid it back towards Sayaka.

"I do concede that I haven't been accommodating enough with my answers so far." She raised her palm as if she were about to swear an oath. "Just, sit, eat, and hear me out. I'll tell you my whole story, straight from the top." She paused and studied around the room, collecting her thoughts.

"I'm a, sort of a… How does one describe my job? Sort of what you'd call an 'Independent Investigator'. A freelancer, if you will." She put her palm to the table and traced a squiggly path along it with her finger. "I spend my life and my time, travelling throughout all of space and time in my TARDIS, solving all sorts of big and little problems for alien peoples in some faraway future over here. Or resolving an honor dispute between roundtable knights in the not-so-distant past over there." She squiggled a path in the opposite direction. "Rescuing the helpless in a pinch in one place. Ending thousand year wars in another. You could say it's my raison d'être." She locked eyes with Sayaka, who had again yielded to her hunger and started nibbling on the bacon, listening intently.

"So you help people out, for a living?" Sayaka condensed it.

"That's what I do, yup." The Time Lady nodded.

"So… Was that why you rescued me?"

"Yes."

"Why me?"

"Why not you?" She shrugged. "You looked like somebody who needed help!"

"Are you paid for it?" Sayaka uneasily asked. "Because I don't h-"

"Oh, no," The Time Lady interrupted. "I don't do payments. Not unless somebody straight-up insists. Even then I'll take like, little trinkets and sentimental stuff. Stuff that'll furnish my ship." Sayaka let out a relieved sigh. "I'd say," She continued, "I've been doing this job for…" She paused as if trying to recall. "Probably hundreds of years now. Or maybe closer to a thousand."

"For reals?" Sayaka dropped her bacon. "But you don't look old at all!"

"Thank you!" The Time Lady giggled at the unintentional flattery. "But my race ages… A bit differently from yours. We live for quite a long time."

"So how old are you?" Sayaka picked her bacon up.

"Good question…" The Time Lady mused. "What's the oldest thing you can think of off the top of your head?"

"I don't know." Sayaka rolled her eyes. "Those big Pyramids in Egypt."

"Ah, those. Yup. I'm older than that." The Time Lady remarked. "Way. I think."

Sayaka's bacon dropped from her mouth. "For reals? How do you not know for sure?"

"After the first three thousand years or so I just stopped counting." The Time Lady snickered. "Plus, having a time machine makes keeping track of that type of thing seem a bit… Unimportant." She shifted in her seat and tapped her fingers on the table. "Anyway, I think we're getting a little sidetracked. Can you try to hold off on the side questions until I'm done, please?"

Sayaka submissively nodded. "Fine."

The Time Lady continued. "You see, I just happened to be passing through this quaint little cosmic neighborhood, when my ship detected this humongous temporal anomaly concentrated around the Earth." Sensing Sayaka was about to interject with another question, the Time Lady backtracked. "A temporal anomaly: That would be something that has gone terribly wrong with the normal flow of space and time." She let Sayaka take another bite of food before continuing. "Anyway, some force, something, or somebody, very powerful, has displaced this poor world from the normal progression of The Universe. And whatever that thing is, I traced its epicenter to right here, this fair city of yours."

"That Witch?" Sayaka said through a mouthful of bacon. "You think?"

"I'm not one to jump to immediate conclusions," The Time Lady, momentarily looking away, dispensed a few more napkins and flipped them over to the young lady. "But it would fit the facts as we presently know them." She continued, "So I swooped in closer, landed, and tried to investigate the situation. But navigating a TARDIS inside a spacetime anomaly like one of this sort is a very tricky ordeal: Stick the landing wrong and I'd be flung off into some deranged space between the spaces, land it really wrong and I blow up and die. Fortunately, after a false start, I succeeded in making it here, but not quite in the right time or in the spot that I wanted to." She looked away a second time, to see if anyone was watching while she pulled out her wand. "After poking my head around a bit, I scanned the area for any strong, well okay, more on point, Straaaange ..." She double tapped the side button. Sayaka's Soul Gem leapt from her pocket to the tip of the wand. "Energy signatures." She concluded, pointing at the Soul Gem. She pushed her glasses up with a smile. "And I detected this little eggy here."

"Hey! Stop that!" Quite irritatedly, Sayaka gestured to give it back. "How are you doing that, anyway?"

"My multitool is attuned to a resonance frequency that attracts your, uh, 'Soul Gem', as you called it. Not a perfect analogy but think of it as a sort of magnetic attraction." The Time Lady picked the blue gem from the wand and held it at eye level between them. "So I locked on to this particular signature, followed its trail, and it led me straight... To you ." She tilted her head to an angle, looking past the gem and at Sayaka. "And now that I've told my side of the story and answered your questions, I think it's only fair that you extend that same courtesy to me."

Sayaka nervously grabbed her Soul Gem from the Time Lady's hand. "M- My story?" She nestled it in her lap under the table, glumly gazing upon it. "I don't have a story. Not Anymore."

"Anymore?" The Time Lady leaned in closer to Sayaka across the table.

"No." her body tensed up. Awful memories from her recent past swarmed through. Sayaka cradled her Soul Gem between her hands in her lap. Of seeing Mami's death: "I'm useless..." Of fighting Kyoko: "And stupid..." Of learning the ramifications of her when back in her bedroom: "A worthless rock that's pretending to be alive." Of her spats with Homura: "I'm beyond help..." A single tear formed from her eye, thinking of her last conversation with Madoka. "Beyond hope..." The tear hung precipitously on her cheek. Then she tried to remember what it was all for, the reason was fighting in the first place. "A fool." But all she could recall was the face of some boy. The tear dropped. "I was such…"

"Hm. It's interesting," Sayaka looked down at her Soul Gem and saw that The Time Lady had caught her tear mid-fall. She analytically rubbed the tear between her fingers. "I'm old." She lifted Sayaka's chin as she spoke. "I've visited thousands upon thousands of worlds." She gave Sayaka a warm smile. "But I have never, ever met a rock that cried. I'm confident when I say that rocks can't cry. Just people."

Sayaka jerked back in her seat. "But I am a rock!" She insisted, sniffing both back snot and tears in an exasperated fit. "I am a stupid, foolish, no good, useless rock !"

"Never heard a rock shout that it's just a rock, either." The Time Lady flippantly countered. "Humans. So dramatic sometimes."

"I am a rock!" Sayaka jumped up and slammed her Soul Gem on the table, trying to hammer the point that she was in fact, being literal. "I'm this stupid, useless, foolish, helpless, hopeless, glowing rock."

"Oh, you mean that? Why, that's a container of Ectomatter. Albeit a very pretty and overly decorated one, I must say." She picked up her coffee and at last took her first sip of it. "Bleh. Bitter. I'll manage."

Sayaka didn't know whether to be offended, annoyed or bewildered by the Time Lady's frivolous attitude. "Eck- ta- whaaaaat? Don't you get it? M-My- That's my soul! M- My soul was taken right out of my body and stuffed into this stupid thing !" The old couple sitting near had taken notice again.

"Shhhhh!" The Time Lady pulled Sayaka back down to her seat. "I understand that. I really do. So how did something like this happen to you?"

"Kyubey." Sayaka answered after a traumatised stare. "Kyubey did it to me." She used to think that name and that face were cute. But no longer.

"Kyubey?" The Time Lady sipped. "What, pray tell, is a 'Kyubey'?"

"He's a- uhm-" Sayaka stopped herself. It's not that she lacked the vocabulary to properly describe him. It's that every attempt to picture that face took her right back to that awful night in her bedroom, and seeing Kyubey's torturous demonstration on her Soul Gem.

"He's… A cat, kind of rabbit-like little white furred creature." She finally said as she closed her eyes. "And he's always got this same sort of goofy smile on his face that makes him look like a plush toy." She also reflexively clutched her gut.

"A little cat, rabbit-like creature'. Same 'look on his face'. Hmmm." She took a bigger sip of her coffee and winced as she swallowed. "This Kyubey… I'd venture it's not a local lifeform. And it doesn't ring a bell to any of the aliens I've met."

"Alien?" Sayaka finally blinked. "What? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I said." The Time Lady took another sip. "Kyubey's not a creature from this planet."

"Of course he's not… He's… He's a Magical… Animal!"

"A Magical Animal?" The Time Lady chortled mockingly while she sipped. "I like that. Somewhere out there in a faraway galaxy spins The Great world known as 'Magic.' A most exotic place populated by millions of little Bunnycats and alien magicians pulling out even more little bitty Bunnycats from their funny magic tophats. Haha."

"Stop that!" Sayaka blushed. "I didn't ask him where he came from, okay?" She didn't appreciate this woman making jokes at her expense.

"Sorry." The Time Lady put down her coffee. "I get what you meant." She leaned over the table and pointed at the Soul Gem. "If it's not too intrusive of me to ask… How did he do… This …" She leaned over the table and lightly tapped it. "To you?"

Sayaka closed her eyes and tried her best to picture that long ago evening when she contracted. "I'm not sure exactly how he really does it. I... Remember standing on a rooftop with him. I asked him if he could really grant..." She reflexively clutched her beating chest. What was it that she asked of Kyubey? That boy's face suddenly popped back into her mind.

"Grant?" The Time Lady repeated.

"Graaaant…" Sayaka heavily tailed off. She definitely knew that face. And the name that belonged to that face: Kyosuke Kamijou. Yes... Her whole ordeal was something involving him.

"Grant something." Sayaka tried to move on. "Kyubey said it would be no problem. Then asked if I was ready. And I remember being really really nervous, but I'd made my mind up. I told him I was ready. He flexed his ears, or whatever those were, and I remember they grabbed my chest."

"Grabbed your chest with his ears." The Time Lady let out a stifled laugh. Sayaka shot her an unamused glare. "Oop. Sorry. Go on."

And then I think I must have closed my eyes, as I heard Kyubey say something like 'There! Accept it! This is your destiny'."

"Destiny." The Time Lady repeated. A word she was all too familiar with.

"And then the next thing I knew, I felt like I was floating down, and I opened my eyes and grasped at this bright blue light glowing in front of my face. And then the next thing I knew, I was wearing different clothes, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, rushing to save my friends."

"Your friends? They were in danger?"

"Yeah." Sayaka thought back. "Kyubey told me they were in danger."

"I see. Is that them?" The Time Lady motioned toward Sayaka's pocket. "Those girls in the photograph?"

"Yeah." Sayaka pulled the picture from her wallet. The picture was of her and two girls next to her. "The shorter one, in the middle, The one I've got my arm around. That's my best friend Madoka." Sayaka breathed. "And the tall one, on the right side with her hands together, she's Hitomi." She slid the photograph over to the Time Lady, her face doleful.

"They both look quite lovely." The Time Lady picked it up.

"They're the best!" Sayaka longlingly agreed. "See Madoka and I go-" Sayaka stopped. Merely mentioning Madoka by name brought forth the tragic circumstances of their separation. The pain of when she lashed out at Madoka at the bus stop, berating her for not fighting witches and only watching while Sayaka was the one getting hurt. The regret, for lashing so ruefully, then running away and never apologizing for it. And the self-loathing, for failing to come to Madoka's side as she faced that massive witch alone. She was choking up again, trying to hide the tears with the cuff of her sleeve.

"Oh, there's no call that now." The Time Lady assuaged.

"Yes there is!" Sayaka sniffled. "I couldn't- I fa- I fa-" She

"I mean, not when you have all these napkins right here." She flipped a dozen Sayaka's way. "Crying is good. First step toward healing. But your clothes look like they've already been through enough misery as it is."

"Thanks." Sayaka managed a small, stilted laugh. She hurriedly wiped her tears and blew her nose. Sayaka checked on the Soul Gem in her lap. It was glowing a little brighter than it was a few minutes ago. "What was it that you called my Soul Gem, again? Wh- What was the word?"

It was a pretty naked attempt to steer the conversation away from the topic that was making Sayaka so upset, yet the Time Lady decided it both helpful and prudent she indulge in the young lady's question. "It's 'Ectomatter'." She replied.

"That sounds made up." Sayaka sniffled and cleared her throat as she spoke.

"Well, I grant you, it's merely the technically accurate term, A bit like describing water as 'Dihydrogen monoxide'. Too clinical. So my people have a boatload of other terms for it."

"It's my soul." Sayaka whined.

"Who said that? That 'Kyubey' thing?" The Time Lady questioned.

Sayaka nodded. "Was he right?" She moved it from her lap to the table. "Is it me?"

"Ectomatter is an energy that constitutes the spiritual essence of life, yes."

Sayaka stared at her, dismayed.

The Time Lady sat back and fingered through her hair. "My people, they discovered a long time ago that space and time…" Her voice tailed while she collected her thoughts. "That is to say, all matter, all the planets and stars, this Universe as governed by the laws of physics…" She put her open hand on the table. "It isn't really separate from the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the lifeforms within it..." She put her other open hand on the table. "We figured out that there is a symbiotic relationship. That if a sentient being exerts enough pure thought, emotion and sheer will, and projects it into the physical realm…" She put her hands together. "Then that being could physically affect, or change a physical aspect of reality itself." She held her hands out towards Sayaka's Soul Gem. "Ectomatter is the substance, a substance within us all, comprised of all the thoughts and emotions of a creature, with sentient life having it in much more abundance. Do you understand now?"

Sayaka stared at her blankly. "You mean we all have magic in us?"

The Time Lady let out a hearty laugh. "Sure. You can call it 'magic'." She rested her chin on her hands as she gazed longingly into the distance. "Honestly, my grades in Transcendental Metaphysics were kinda lousy. My tutor was a long winded rambling bore, and a girl's gotta get her beauty rest somewhere..." The Time Lady's gaze drifted off into the distance, as though she were reminiscing about something. Sayaka waved her gem in front of the Lady's eyes to bring her back. "Oh! Totally spaced. Sorry." She pulled out her wand then turned a dial, activating it on Sayaka's glowing Gem.

"Hey! Would you stop that, already! Geez!" Sayaka jerked in her seat.

"Felt that, didja?" The Time Lady smirked with a coffee sip.

"Yes!" The annoyed Sayaka admitted. She turned her gem back into a ring on her finger covering it with her other hand.

"The 'Soul Gem' object, the container itself is pretty interesting to me, too. 'Cause it looks like it's made of Gallifreynium."

Sayaka raised her brow. "That word sounds ma-"

"Yeah you got me." The Time Lady interjected. "That word I did make up. Just now."

Sayaka tilted her head, questioningly. The Time Lady hunched over her coffee while she slurped more of it. "Well I ain't calling it 'Substance E-123 Omegium'. No way, no how. Hated that guy." She drew her wand closer to Sayaka's Gem. Sayaka reflexively pulled her hand back with a shake of her head.

The Time Lady looked down at her drink while she resumed her explanation. "Gallifreynium's one of the only known artificial substances that can both contain and channel Ectomatter. So my working theory is that this 'Kyubey' critter has some kind of tech which takes a person's inert emotional energy, i.e. Ectomatter, condenses and coalesces it, then initiates a chain reaction that in turn activates it, which converts it into a form that allows it to readily interact with and alter the reality around it. Then he seals it inside a portable, egg-shaped container. A container, somehow made of Gallifreynium."

Sayaka ate her food while The Time Lady motored on. "Now if my theory is correct, then that would raise more than a few rather disconcerting questions." The Time Lady scratched her chin with her finger, rolling from thought to thought. "Chiefly: How'd he obtain that sort of technology in the first place? Ectomatter's some pretty potent stuff. The Shadow Proclamation bans any and all research into the subject, so clearly this 'Kyubey' or whatever race it belongs to, is not an adherent. That we Time Lords know of the stuff, is only because we discovered it first. Secondly, what use would that stuff be to him?" She scratched the back of her head as she continued rambling. "On the small scale… Perhaps profit? Could be. But any substance that alters matter on the small scale and distorts reality on the large scale obviously undermines the very economic principles of scarcity or supply-and-demand. Propulsion? Nah, he obviously got to Earth on its own somehow. And he'll probably leave the same way. Awfully wasteful use of it anyhow. Weapons? Maybe. Something that totally screws with reality would very quickly rid you of your enemies. Enough of the stuff could make 'em straight up un-exist. But man, that'd be overkill. Still, it's compelling though." She squinted. "Lastly, is Kyubey the ringleader of this operation? Or simply the lackey, or the middle man?" She fixed her eyes back upon Sayaka, who was quietly finishing her food. "Oh! My goodness! I was just babbling. Oopsie. I suppose the real, chiefest question, at least pertaining to the two of us sitting here and now, would be: Why would you agree to have the Ectomatter inside you, plucked out and placed inside a Gallifreynium container?"

Sayaka dropped her bagel on the floor. "Kyubey, he granted my-" She said, wincingly. It still pained her to remember the intricate details beyond mere names and faces.

"Appeal? Request?" The Time Lady tried helping her along. "Favor?"

"No," Sayaka stared into the distance. "A lot more than a favor." She suddenly recalled the boy having a badly damaged hand. And of him utterly in despair. It would never ever get better. Not unless miracles or magic exist. "... But miracles and magic are real." She whispered. "A miracle!" She answered. "That was it! A wish! I made a wish! He made a miracle happen!" Did all her misery and misfortune really cause her to forget all about it? A wave of shame suddenly engulfed her psyche.

"A wish?" The Time Lady tried to keep her talking. "What sort of miracle did that entail?"

"I don't wan-'' Sayaka stopped herself. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters now."

"What doesn't matter? That the thing you wished for, doesn't matter?"

"No! The thing I wished for! It un-happened!" Sayaka snapped.

"Ohhhhh." The Time Lady nodded to herself. "So the thing you wished for matters . It's just that our little trip through time undid whatever it was that you wished for. Sorry." She paused in thought, pursed her lips, took a sip of coffee and made a suggestion. "So just change it back again."

"What are you talking about?" Sayaka narrowed her eyes, adding "I already made my wish! Kyubey can't-"

"Kyubey can't... He can't do anything." The Time Lady countered. "Kyubey is not a Genie. He's not a magical creature. He's not the component that made whatever miracle you wanted a reality." She took a deep breath before her next thought. "Perhaps in my motor mouthing I didn't quite make this point explicit enough for you." She tapped Sayaka's ring on her finger with her wand. "If what I'm thinking is right, then going by what you've described, I believe that Kyubey utilizes a technology that facilitates an Ectomatter chain-reaction, physicalizes it, then contains the reaction inside that shell. But while he does it, you are concentrating , you are focused , you are opening your mind to a whole new realm of possibilities that existence can offer, and then reshaping reality as you do it. In other words, the thing that granted your wish all along… Was you! Your mind. Your soul. Your will. Your power." She gave a little smile as she sat back. "And that's all still sitting in the pretty little package before me. So change it back again."

Sayaka's mouth fell straight down, her revelation was a lot to take in. Was it really as simple as this woman claims, she wondered? And if it was, would she even want to do it again? That tidal wave of terrible memories washed into her brain. She remembered Kyoko's warning, that wishing for someone else's sake always turns out badly, and everything that happened to Sayaka after that seemed to bear that out. She thought of the other thing Kyoko told her, that someone's happiness had to be balanced out by someone else's suffering. All those things she went through… Finding out that her soul was real and put inside a gem… Watching helplessly as her friend Hitomi confessed her love to Kyosuke… Eventually Losing her ability to feel any pain, and with it, her very sense of humanity… Was all her suffering The Universe's way of keeping things in balance? Wouldn't fixing Kyosuke again just put her through all that misery again?

"I am still curious, by the way…" The Time Lady impeded Sayaka's internal machinations. She took another sip of coffee before continuing. "... What was it that mattered so much to you, that you'd agree to have that creature pluck your Ectomatter right out of you, and deposit it inside a shiny little container?"

"I didn't know that's what he'd done to me at the time! He tricked me!" Sayaka defensively blared. "I thought he needed my help!" She frustratedly twirled the ring on her finger, somewhat fixated on the strange shapes etched on its surface. "I thought I'd been chosen to do something special with my life. I thought I was taking on a job. A role."

"Chosen? The Time Lady raised her brow. "For a role? What exactly did he have in mind for you?"

Sayaka hesitated to phrase it. "He wanted me... To become a Magical Girl."

"A Magical Girl?" The Time Lady's brow raised higher. "Okay. You are a Magical Girl. What sort of job does that entail, precisely?"

"We fight Witches. Witches that spread curses. We protect people from that. In secret." Sayaka stated flatly. Then she took a deep, uneasy breath. "We spread hope. Defeat despair."

"Uh-huh." The Time Lady knit her brows. "Witches… Such as that gigantic transdimensional cross-rip from which we narrowly escaped with our lives." The doubtfulness in her voice was apparent.

"The other ones I fought weren't anywhere near as huge as that!"

"So what exactly makes a Magical Girl, a 'Magical Girl'?" The Time Lady pressed. "I get that you get this so-called 'Soul Gem' for it, but what else do you get that would make you think you'd be qualified to face down such… Monstrous threats as Witches."

"Well, uh, lots of stuff." Sayaka elaborated. "I can leap really high, uh, jump really far, I can run much quicker and not get tired. I can heal like, really fast when I'm injured." Sayaka reflexively rubbed her arm. "For a while, that was cool."

"That's pretty much the bare minimum." The Time Lady pooh poohed. "As far as humanoid physical enhancement is concerned. Though rapid cellular regeneration does have its additional benefits."

"And, we've got weapons, too!" Sayaka defensively took a big bite of her hot dog. "Mami had big guns and ribbons. Kyoko had a spear of some kind. Homura had her own guns and a little shield on her arm."

"I see." The Time Lady replied. "That makes four." She muttered inaudibly.

"And I fought with swords." Sayaka spoke through her food.

"Pointy sticks and projectile launchers." She quipped. "Takes more than that to face the terrors of this realm."

"We get our own costumes too, just like superheroes." Sayaka finished.

"Coooooool." Sayaka was growing irked with the Time Lady's apparent flippancy.

"Did I mention we also all have the ability to communicate telepathically?" Sayaka bragged. 'It's pretty handy, too!' She boasted in her own thoughts.

"It's not as handy as you'd think." The Time Lady's voice retorted in her mind. Sayaka stopped chewing and gawked at The Time Lady in surprise. "Alien with a different brain." She pointed at her temple with an irreverent smirk.

"So this isn't even a magical power?" The disappointed Sayaka replied in her head.

"I'm afraid not. It's actually a dormant ability present in every humanoid's brain. But it offers no particular evolutionary advantage to Earth humans, so in you guys it generally stays untapped." She resumed speaking aloud. "Mind reading's a just parlor trick, anyway. I prefer we keep these talks verbal. Superhuman athletics, hacky-slashy weapons, trend-setting outfits and rudimentary telepathic abilities aside, that still sounds like you're getting the short end of the stick." She opined.

"I thought I could handle it." Sayaka said. "But then it got to be more and more of a burden." She let out a pained sigh. "But I wasn't even that good at fighting Witches. I didn't have the talent for it." Sayaka detachedly stared at the food in her hand. "So eventually I learned how to block the pain out completely." She realized that while she was eating her food, she wasn't actually enjoying her food. To her still-dullened senses it was purely a mass of tasteless, odorless chemicals. "And then I stopped feeling most everything else too." She tossed it on the plate. Starving for food she couldn't enjoy. What a sick joke, she thought.

"So what was so important that it would make you take such a job?"

"Why do you want to know?" Sayaka pounded the table with her fist.

"What do you mean by that?" The Time Lady startledly replied.

"You can read minds, can't you?" Sayaka jumped to her feet and stared squarely into the Time Lady's eyes. "You want answers, take them!"

"I'm just trying to be polite." The Time Lady was taken aback.

"Sure you are!" She sarcastically snapped. "You're feeding me! You're talking to me like you want to help me, and say that helping is what you do. But then you make these stupid jokes and don't take me seriously after I tell you all I've been through!" Sayaka spoke while maintaining an accusatory glare. "And then there's that look in your eyes!"

"My eyes?" The Time Lady questioned. "What look?"

"I know that look. That's the look of somebody who's keeping all the things she really knows to herself!" Another unfortunate memory from her recent past had sprung to the surface. "It's the look of some who disapproves of what I did and is just patronizing me! It's the look of somebody I know I don't like!"

"You got all that from my eyes? That's pretty perceptive! Must say I'm impressed!" The Time Lady simpered.

"You took me onto that ship, asked if I had any regrets," Sayaka huffed.

"That?" The Time Lady interrupted. "Okay, that was just a ploy so I could get your assistance, I confess. We didn't have a lot of time, and the autopilot was shot. I figured being cryptic was the fastest way to get you to do what I wanted. And it worked beautifully ."

"See? You don't really care about my situation or my feelings!" Sayaka cried. "You just see me as something useful! As a means to get what you want! Well I'm sick of trusting aliens!" Sayaka pushed her food scraps aside and stepped out of the booth. "You've pumped me enough, I told you all I know! Let me fix my wish on my own. It's my business! Go track down Kyubey with your Shadaloo People!"

"'Shadow Proclamation'". The Time Lady corrected. "They're sort of The Outer Space Police." The Time Lady reached for the wand in her pocket.

"Whatever! Stop keeping me here and leave me alone!" She slid out of the booth.

"You made some sort of agreement with this 'Kyubey' creature. And in the agreement, he granted you what you wanted, and in exchange for getting it, you agreed to battle these 'Witches'. That explains this gem." The Time Lady recounted.

"Yeah." Sayaka sighed, then added "He called it a 'Contract'." She turned her back and folded her arms.

"And with this 'Contract', you gained magical powers and with them you took up the fight. But quickly you realized that you weren't terribly suited to the job." She stopped stroking her wand and stared at its glowing center. "Fighting Witches took a bigger and bigger toll on your body and mind." She sighed "Far too much for you to bear on your own."

"That's what I know." Sayaka grunted. "Can I go now?"

"You were right. I do disapprove. A girl your age should not have any reason to-"

"Because I wanted to be a hero, okay!" Sayaka exasperatedly blurted out. "I thought that I was being recruited into becoming a Secret, Super Ally of Justice." Sayaka threw her hands up. "My grades suck… I'm not smart at all… I'm not rich. I'm not famous… I'm not artistic… I'm not gifted at anything. I'm a big nobody!" Sayaka walked over to a window and rested her body against it. "I thought becoming a Magical Girl would change my life. I thought it would give me a purpose. Give me a destiny that I could strive for. And I really did think I could use my power to help others! I thought I could use it to protect the ones I care about! I thought that it would turn me into me into someone that's worthwhile!" She stared enviously at the unaware mall goers living their contented lives. "Into someone worth... Loving!"

"And the appeal of it sounded so great to me. And watching Mami... Gosh, she made it look so cool, too! But then she died… Died horribly. And then Kyoko came to town and she showed me exactly how crummy this world really was. We butted heads over territory. We butted heads over my wish. We even almost fought to the death about it. Yet I still believed I could do it. But by the end I was so overwhelmed that I… Even... Started regretting all the things I did. Even helping others and saving lives. The world would never appreciate me for it, anyhow. So what good is it?" Sayaka stared at her anguished reflection in the window. "And why should I care?"

The Time Lady came up and put her hand on Sayaka's back. "I care. I appreciate it."

"Do you really?" Sayaka's head turned to her skeptically.

"For 'reals'." She compassionately smiled. "What did you wish for?"

"I…" She at first hesitated, but by this point the entire chain of memories had finally come back to her. If she didn't share it now, she worried she might forget all over again. "I... healed the injured hand of a boy I liked." She relented. It didn't really matter whether this woman really cared or not. Sayaka simply wanted someone to know of her act. "So that he could play music again. He's really good at playing the violin. A prodigy, you know?"

"I see." The Time Lady mused, also looking out the window.

"Kyoko thought that stupid. That I was stupid. She said that I shouldn't worry about the lives of others. Just look out for myself. And even Mami... Before she died… She warned me that wishing for someone else's sake may not work out." She rested her head on the glass. "But I was stubborn. I didn't listen to them. I thought that eventually he'd come around and we could be together."

"And then it didn't turn out that way." The Time Lady gently rubbed Sayaka's shoulder.

"No." Sayaka sobbed. "Once I found out what Kyubey actually did to my soul, I couldn't… I couldn't tell him. Because I didn't feel human anymore. I thought I'd been turned into a freak. I mean, who could ever want to love something whose real body is a shiny rock? The only reason I had to exist after that was to kill Witches. So I killed them, and I killed their Familiars too, I didn't give a damn about what happened to me or my body. Then Madoka tried to tell me what I was doing wasn't good, I lashed out at her in anger, and ran off." Her tears dripped slowly down the glass window. "Those last few days are all a blur. I only remember killing and sleeping. Killing and running. Killing and hiding. By the time I got to that train, I only wanted to die. Or so I thought." Sayaka stared into her own pitiful eyes in her reflection.

"It was never going to work out, you know." Sayaka glanced through her tears and into the Time Lady's eyes, surprised to see a tearful gaze looking back at her. "With that boy, I mean." She offered her a handkerchief from inside her coat. "Prodigies like that," She smiled. "Their only real commitment is to their talent. You probably made it worse when you healed him, 'cause then he won't take that talent for granted. He would've worked harder at it and became the best of the best, at the cost of becoming incredibly oblivious to the needs of the people closest to him." She took a deep, resigned sigh. "Yup. I feel oh so sorry for whomever he does end up with. Definitely in for a project."

Sayaka wiped her tears on her sleeve. "How can you know all that?"

"Bitter experience. With my first love." The Time Lady wiped her tears on her coat sleeve. "Did so much to get his attention yet he didn't even notice. I guess in that regard we're birds of a feather."

"What you said earlier… About changing it back? That it was my power? Did you really mean it? Or was that another ploy?"

"Not at all." The Time Lady gave an earnest smile. "You can change it again."

"So if I wanted to make my wish come true again, could you help me do it?"

"If you want me to. Sure thing. I'll do that." The Time Lady held out her hand, Sayaka gratefully took hold of it.

"Say, Sayaka…" The Time Lady adjusted her glasses. The expression on her face abruptly changed from one of earnestness to glare of pure disdain. "That Kyubey creature..." She tapped her glasses and pressed her face to the window. "You said he looked like some kind of cat-rabbit-ish plush toy?"

"Yeah. Why?" Sayaka looked at her puzzled.

"I just spotted him."

"What?" She looked out at the courtyard. "Where?"

"Far side of the courtyard." The Time Lady ripped off her glasses and handed them to Sayaka. "There in the rock garden. Have a look." Sayaka took the glasses and reluctantly examined them. "They're magnifiers. Just look." The Time Lady kept her squinting gaze on her target. Sayaka put her glasses on. Right there was Kyubey, perched atop a rock, his tail raised, his head tilted, that creepy expression of his never changing.

"That's him, right?"

"That's him." Sayaka flatly confirmed. Kyubey was on the move. He leapt from the rock, onto another rock, up to another rock, onto a ledge above the garden. He trotted along the ledge, stopping momentarily to peer across the courtyard, and changed direction. "What's he doing here?" Sayaka asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." The Time Lady gestured to have her glasses returned. She put them on, took out her multitool, adjusted a switch and activated it. "I can't get a scan lock on him. Crap." Kyubey jumped from the ledge and into a higher window, disappearing from their sight. "Do you suppose we oughta…" The Time Lady didn't even have to finish the suggestion. The two girls wiped aside their tears, set their emotional connection aside and booked fast for the exit.

"Hey!" The waitress returned minutes later to an empty booth. "Wait! You didn't pay for the meal!"

It was too late, the two were well out of the waitress's sight.

"How do you see him?" Sayaka asked the Time Lady as they walked around the mall's interior.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just... Normal people can't see him." Sayaka stated.

"'Normal people'? Remember, I'm hardly what you call 'Normal people.'" Sayaka heard her reply in her own head. "More than likely he has a Perception Filter of some sort." The Time Lady continued aloud. "Perception Filter… It's a sort of mental manipulation tech that allows its user to fool the senses of those around. A lot like how my TARDIS blends in, but for living things. Stops working when either the user reveals themselves to their subject, or the subject itself is immune."

"Not magic?" Sayaka asked.

"Oh, I'm demystifying all sorts of stuff for you today, aren't I?" The Time lady let out a small laugh, just as she stopped in her tracks. "Still no scan lock. Damn. What the heck?" She flicked the tip of her wand with her fingers, and shot Sayaka a flummoxed look. "Um, so I also just realized… I don't know where we're going. I've never been here before." Her face blushed.

Sayaka raised her hand. "I can show you around, you know."

The Time Lady smiled and stood aside. "By all means, Miss Mitakihara Tour Guide, take the lead. Tell me where I'm going."

"Let's see…" Sayaka scanned around. "We're on the side of the mall that has mostly restaurants, grocery markets and bakeries."

"Okay. Parked in the food stuff." The Time Lady mentally filed that fact.

"It looked like Kyubey was headed for the side with the arcades, electronics, recreation centers and sporting goods stores."

"To the fun stuff." The Time Lady commented.

"To get there, we'd either have to go through the part with clothing stores, hardware stores, boutiques, drug stores, and offices."

"Through the boring stuff." The Time Lady tapped her foot impatiently.

"Or through the construction area. But that's off limits."

"Pssst. That's never stopped me."

Sayaka subtly shook her head. "I think we should head to the open air food court. That's where all the sections join up."

"Your choice." The Time Lady patted Sayaka on the back. "Let's move." They continued walking fervently through the mall corridors, making their way onto an escalator.

"Sayaka Miki… " The Time Lady broke the silence. "I still have a few questions."

"So do I." Sayaka glanced up at her.

"Okay. We'll take turns. I ask a question, you answer. You ask a question, I answer. If it's too uncomfortable, you can pass, but I get to ask two questions the next time. 'Til we get to where we're going. Deal?"

"Fine." Sayaka scratched the back of her head.

"On the subject of Witches… " The Time Lady put her hands behind her head. "You're a Magical Girl. Your job is to fight and kill them. What else might you know about them?"

"Uhm…" Sayaka pressed her lips in thought. "Not all that much. They're these really ugly things that Kyubey said were creatures born from curses. He told us they sowed the seeds of disaster all around the world. Suicides and murders without reason or motive, that kind of stuff Mami said were usually caused by them. But they hide themselves in barriers that normal people can't see. But occasionally people do wander into them and end up inside their labyrinths. Like me and Madoka did… That one day." She briefly paused as she remembered the other events of that fateful first encounter, then gasped at a thought. "Hey, do you think Witches might be aliens, too?"

"It's hard to say for sure, without seeing one for myself." They got to the end of the escalator and continued walking. The Time Lady flipped the switches on her multitool while she dwelled on the question. "There have been invaders from other planets and dimensions in this neck of the woods before, so it is possible. But I'd have to get up close, get a good scan of one, to make a conclusion. That Kyubey, though, now that I've seen him firsthand, that's definitely alien."

"What do you mean, 'Invaders from other planets and dimensions around here before'?" Sayaka asked, her interest latching on to that part of the Time Lady's answer.

"Ah, ah! My turn, remember?"

"What?"

"You asked if witches were aliens. I answered. My turn now. That's the rules." She reminded Sayaka as they walked past a clothing store. "Just keep telling me whatever you know about Witches, okay?"

Sayaka tried to recollect the other things Mami told her. "They tend to be found around places where accidents happen, like car accidents and stuff. And around those seedy red light districts, where fights break out. Or secluded places people go to kill themselves. Or at hospitals, where they go after people who are already weak from illness. That's what we learned from Mami."

"Places of concentrated human misery, basically."

"Yeah." After a second's pause, Sayaka reasked her question. "So 'Invaders from other planets and dimensions around here before'... What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what you think it means. Earth's a surprising hotbed of alien activity. Many, many races and monsters have tried to set up shop on this quiet, little galactic backwater before." The Time Lady hid a modest, knowing smile. "None have succeeded, of course."

"But I've never seen any aliens. Besides you. And Kyubey."

"Because there are people out there, protecting you in secret, fending the monsters off. Both galactic authority figures, like The Shadow Proclamation, or freelancers, such as me. Fighting in secret so that you humans can live out your lives, in blissful happy ignorance."

"It's not really that different from us Magical Girls." Sayaka remarked as they passed a bookstore.

"Ah, but the key difference is, I'm an old, wandering soul who's chosen this path in life for my own reasons." Sayaka could hear the disapproval in her voice. "And you're a young one who's been drafted by somebody offering up a one-time bribe."

"That's not true!" Sayaka contested. "We got other rewards, too! We got Grief Seeds from beating Witches!"

This nugget of information stopped the Time Lady immediately in her tracks. "A Grief Seed? What, pray-tell is a Grief Seed?" Sayaka stopped and turned to see the Time Lady giving her a very strange look.

"They're these… uhm, little round, black jewels that Witches sometimes carry. They drop them after we defeat them. Mami called them a Witch's 'egg'." Sayaka sensed the Time Lady's disconcertion. "Sh- Should I have mentioned that before?" Sayaka's gut was suddenly uneasy.

"Yes. Yes you should have." The Time Lady stepped towards Sayaka, got on one knee and clutched her shoulders. "It's fine. Just answer, of what use are these 'Grief Seeds' to you?"

"Well you see they… Uhm." Sayaka held out her hands to mimic holding a Grief Seed. "Magical Girls use them to clean our Soul Gems and restore our magic." She inched that hand closer and closer to her other hand, the hand with her Soul Gem. "We use them to replenish our magic until they're completely black, and then Kyubey takes them." This got her another curious look. "He claimed it was one of his 'duties'."

"Oh, I'm sure it is ." The Time Lady rose back to her feet, motioned for Sayaka to continue the lead. Sayaka walked up and clutched the Time Lady's hand, uneasily leading them ahead. "Ectomatter can reach different energy states. It's like conventional matter… Think of it like solid, liquid, and gaseous forms. Most of the time it's inert, low energy and found within forms of all life. And then more rarely, there's the Activated stuff. That stuff's much more concentrated and thus more potent. As I said before, that type can alter reality on a localized level. That would be your 'magic'. And then… Well there's what we call 'Depleted' Ectomatter. Densely concentrated, extremely energized. Theoretically, with enough Depleted Ectomatter, you could alter the very Universe itself." She clutched Sayaka's hand tighter. "Theoretically, you could gather so much to such a degree, that you could become like a God!"

Sayaka's face became very pale. "So a Grief Seed is… ?"

"A core of pure Depleted Ectomatter, I reckon. He makes you a Magical Girl, you do his bidding. You fight these horrible creatures animated by their cores of Depleted Ectomatter, i.e. the dirty work. Then you take that core, and the reaction with it revamps your Soul Gem a bit. But then he takes the byproduct of that transfer and makes out with it. Like a bandit."

"I just wanted to help people." Sayaka uttered in a dispirited voice, her steps dragging.

"I know." The Time Lady tried to help her keep going. "You see suffering or injustice all around you. You want to do something about it. You want to be useful. But you're too young, too weak, so you can't do anything for them. It's a feeling of helplessness that gnaws at the back of your conscience, every single day. Slowly that feeling corrodes at your sense of self-worth." The Time Lady consoled. "But then one day someone comes along and tells you all the suffering is the work of monsters who lurk in the shadows. That there's a war going on between the light and the dark. And you're one of the lucky chosen few who can fight back. And he can grant you the power to fight back. Finally you can be useful. You have a sense of purpose and a clear objective. From that perspective, okay, I finally get why you'd agree to fight. A lot of people would. Human nature, I'd like to think. I get it now."

The ladies soon arrived at a fork in the road. "Which way do we go? Left or right?" The Time Lady asked.

"We go left." Sayaka pointed towards a clothing store. "Down one more escalator. Then we'll be at the food court."

"Whose turn is it to ask a question again?" The Time Lady followed-up.

"It was yours." Sayaka replied. "But you just asked which direction and whose question. So it's my turn."

"Touché." The Time Lady chuckled.

"Why do you do it?" Sayaka inquired.

"Huh?" The Time Lady looked back at Sayaka.

"Why do you fight? Why do you help people? Why do you travel? Why do you do the things you say you do?" Sayaka clenched the Time Lady's hand more firmly with each rephrase.

"Good question." The Time Lady sighed. "I'm not... Completely certain myself. It's not to best someone. Nor because there's anything I hate. Nor do I do it to shame or blame. And definitely not because it's easy or fun." The ladies arrived at the escalator and stepped onto it. "It's not because I was the first to do it and I would never claim to be the best at it." She comfortingly massaged the back of Sayaka's hand with her thumb while she talked. "And I'm not such an egotist to say that what I'm doing is always the right thing. But I know that I have power. And I know that I trust my sense of values. And that I use that power and my values to guide me. To be wherever I need to be. Show kindness to whomever has never known it. Fix whatever must be fixed. Face whatever I may. Maybe that's real justice… Maybe it's not. Does that answer?"

"I don't know." Sayaka responded with a sigh. "To be honest, I was more asking myself." She twirled the ring on her finger with her thumb.

"I know." They reached the bottom of the escalator and disembarked. The Time Lady peered up to the open skyline. Now they were in the food court, the ceiling giving way to a view of skyscrapers surrounding the mall. "We're here."

"Now what?" Sayaka asked.

"I was kinda hoping you'd tell me, Miss Mitakihara Tour Guide." The Time Lady pulled her multitool from her coat. She briefly examined the switch settings, turned the knob, and gazed at it. "Hmmmm. He may have a means of obfuscating my tech." She tossed her tool into her other hand and promptly slid it back in her pocket. She stuck her index finger into her mouth, wetting her finger as she pondered, and audibly popped it out with an insightful smile. "Let's try something different!" She eyed Sayaka, whose bewildered stare the Time Lady was now accustomed to. Then, she took her raised, wet finger, and stuck it. Right into Sayaka's ear canal.

"Ow! What the heck was that for?" Sayaka fussed.

"Levity! Now let's go find a place a bit less noisy." The Time Lady took Sayaka's hand as they headed into a Janitor's Closet. "If we want to find the bunnycat, find him quickly, and most of all, find him without drawing attention to ourselves, the best way to do it would be with our combined telepathic power." 'Do you hear me, Sayaka?' The Time Lady's voice echoed in Sayaka's mind.

"Y- yeah."

'That's good.' The Time Lady stood face-to-face with Sayaka, leaned over and closed her eyes. "Now close your eyes, too." Sayaka obeyed. The Time Lady began gently rubbing Sayaka's temples with her middle and index fingers.

"Kyubey may have the ability to fool eyes and ears and tools, but he can't hide his thoughts. You have heard his voice before. You've touched a part of his mind. With that as a guide, we can locate him. Working together, we can amplify our telepathy. We can waft from mind to mind. Sift through the flotsam of random thoughts. Listen for Kyubey. Pinpoint Kyubey. See what he's up to."

"… Bread… Eggs… Rice… What was that last thing Mariko wanted me to get?" Sayaka heard a male voice in her mind.

"… She beat my score in 'Dog Drug Reinforcement'..." A female voice this time.

"… Where's the kitty? I thought I saw the kitty around here? Where'd the kitty go?" A very young female voice.

"Woah!" Sayaka marveled.

"I know, it feels eerie." The Time Lady said aloud. "Try not to get too hung up in specific thoughts. Just listen for the matching voice."

"… Gotta find the right…" Male voice.

"… Knew about the day..." Female voice.

"... I should try out for the…" Male voice.

"… Most ice cream I've ever…" Female voice

"… Caught that sucker in the act…" Male voice.

"... He's way too tall…" Female voice.

"... Doesn't know who she's..." Male voice.

"... That bitch! Who does she think…" Male voice.

"… Wants a fight…" Female voice.

"... Where was I…" Female voice.

"… Going out with her…" Female voice.

"… Won't say…"

"… I can't keep…"

"… Shouldn't stay…"

"… Someone to find…"

"… Speaks softly…"

"… Locate that…"

"… Discovered a magical..." Now that voice sounded familiar. Sayaka jerked backwards as her bloodshot eyes popped open.

"Wow! Even I felt that reaction." The Time Lady said aloud. "I take it that was him?"

"Yeah. That was Kyubey. Definitely."

"Alright. Close your eyes again." The Time Lady reiterated. 'Focus on that voice'.

The Time Lady pressed her forehead against Sayaka's. Sayaka suddenly felt as if her whole soul had become unbound to both her Soul Gem and body. She was perceiving more than just passing thoughts, from the other minds she could paint a vivid picture of everything happening around the food court. Passing by that foreign family taking pictures in a photo booth. Slipping through the young couple buying baby clothes. Right past the teenage girl tapping away on her cell phone. Back across the food court. Around the other corner. Between the potted plants. Into the ventilation duct. There he was, Kyubey! With his glowing crimson eyes and unchanging smile, Sayaka and The Time Lady were seeing him move as though here were there right in front of their eyes. "That anomalous signature is nearby. Further investigation of the subject is imperative." With a cat-like agility, Kyubey leapt out of the duct, on top of a clothing store sign, onto a window ledge, and down to the floor. " This is completely illogical. " Kyubey mused. He trotted along the mall's interior, carefully minding the foot traffic of the oblivious humans walking around him.

"I know where he's at." Sayaka spoke as her eyes snapped back open.

"As do I." The Time Lady confirmed. "C'mon! Let's see what's got him so intrigued." The Time Lady grabbed Sayaka's hand as they bolted out of the closet.

"I'm going to make her my wife." Sayaka passed by a man holding a small box. Sayaka stumbled a little as she passed him.

"Oh, yeah. That's right! We're getting a transfer student next week." A girl in a Mitakihara high school uniform was checking her phone. She wasn't moving her mouth. Sayaka watched her enter the arcade on the other side of the food court.

"It's all my fault ! I should have done something to help!" She heard a man say as he sat alone.

"I guess I just had a change of heart." She heard a woman in a jewelry store on the other side of the mall. Sayaka's stomach suddenly felt very queasy.

"This is the happiest I've ever been!" She heard a girl, who was kissing a boy.

"Is there something wrong?" The Time Lady looked back at Sayaka and asked.

"I'm still hearing voices. And thoughts. And seeing things." Sayaka whimpered.

"Oh?" The Time Lady knelt down and looked into Sayaka's eyes. "Shit! Your pupils are heavily dilated. I think I might've hyperstimulated your brain. It's having trouble flipping back from extrasensory to normal cognitive perception." She checked Sayaka's pulse on her wrist as she clutched her hand. Just keep going, stay calm, breathe in normally, and don't dwell on all those stray thoughts and flotsam around us. Can you do that?"

"I'll try." Sayaka mewled.

"Good Girl." The Time Lady surveyed the court around them. "'Cause he's closing in. Now where would be a good, discreet vantage point?"

"The anomalous subject's identity has been confirmed. " Kyubey's familiar voice sprang into her brain.

"He's here. I can hear Kyubey." Sayaka's already labored breathing got faster.

"So can I." The Time Lady reflexively pulled out her multitool. "And I still can't get a damn scan lock on the little pest."

"Over there!" Sayaka pointed across the food court. Right on cue, Kyubey stepped out of the shadows. Sayaka stumbled over her own feet at the sight of him. In the nick, the Time Lady caught her as they scrambled into an alcove underneath a set of stairs.

The Time Lady adjusted her glasses. She momentarily peeked out from their hiding spot. "Got sight of him. Don't think he's noticed us, Fortunately."

"The subject has been scouted as a potential magical girl candidate before. It was scheduled that first contact would be made with her soon. She was projected to contract and become a capable but otherwise unremarkable magical girl. However her Karmic Potential has unexpectedly increased somehow, to such an exponential degree that should not even be possible."

"What's he on about?" The Time Lady sneered. "Whose Karmic Potential shouldn't be possible?"

"I know exactly what he's talking about. I know who he's after." Sayaka's heart was racing, she was curled into a ball on the floor, breathing heavily and sweating bullets, but she could still clearly see the individual who was piquing Kyubey's interest: It was Madoka Kaname, her best friend. "He's after Madoka." She was seeing Madoka clear as though she were standing right in front of her, innocently browsing the swimwear at the clothing store across the food court.

"I swore to protect…" Sayaka was also picking up the thoughts of a male sitting at a table.

"You can see her?" The Time Lady pressed her multitool up to her glasses.

"In my mind." Sayaka confirmed. "And more."

"Where?" The Time Lady surveyed the food court.

"There. In that store." Sayaka pointed across the court to the women's clothing store.

"Okay then. Just remember what I said. Calm. Deep breaths. Don't dwell."

"I'm not gonna lose to the likes of her!" Thought that girl at the arcade.

"It appears that there is another magical girl candidate with her as well." Kyubey's observations flowed into Sayaka's increasingly frayed mind. Yet still she knew exactly who the other girl was.

"Oh, shit!" The Time Lady dreaded. "Crapola. Just. Breathe. Deeeeep."

At that moment, any lingering doubts she'd had about whether they had actually traveled back in time had vanished. The details of this particular day were all coming back to her. There was no school, because of a Teacher's meeting. Hitomi was at dance practice. Sayaka had been saving money to buy a rainbow-colored bathing suit with accompanying blue swim trunks. But a cheaper, orange-striped bikini had also caught her eye. Madoka was helping her decide between the two. Like a ghost, she was seeing past herself, perceiving the events unfold the same way all over again. "It's me!" Sayaka was aghast. "Holy crap, that's me!"

"Ta-dah! What do you think?" Sayaka Miki pulled away the changing room curtain.

"The other one looks cuter on you." Madoka remarked.

"But this one shows me off more." Other Sayaka proudly clutched her breasts. "Don't you think? Plus it's on sale."

"But you were saving your money on that other one for so long! You shouldn't change your mind on a whim like that. You might really regret it later."

"If I wanted a buzzkill and a lecture I could sit here and wait for Hitomi to get here." The other Sayaka grumbled.

"This girl has been scouted previously as well. But she was initially rejected as having only a marginal return value." Kyubey's examination of herself coursed through Sayaka's mind. A chill was sent down her spine.

"This was like, more than a week from when we first met him." Sayaka flatly muttered.

"He tricked her! Aw, That lousy no-good son-of-a-..." Creeped in the thoughts of somebody else.

"Seems he's been watching you lot for a while then." The Time Lady peeked. "What a Creep."

"Her potential has increased as well. However, she is still nowhere near as valuable as the other." Kyubey observed. Sayaka swallowed hard and intensely glared in his direction.

"Have I been misjudging things the whole time?" Another stranger's thoughts passed though.

"Initial evaluation projected that she would be very likely to contract. And though her level has increased, she would still only serve as a mediocre magical girl, at best. She is eminently disposable." Kyubey assessed. Sayaka was visibly shaking now.

"Mediocre? Disposable? He was scouting you, not because he thinks you'd be particularly well-suited to the job… But because he knows you wouldn't be? What the hell!" The Time Lady was outraged.

"Okay, Madoka… You win. Rainbow two-piece, let's give it another go." The Other Sayaka pulled the curtain back.

"She's got no future with him. He barely even thinks of her." Another unwelcome stray thought from somebody around.

"She could still prove useful, however. She could potentially serve as a means to lure the more valuable one into making a contract." Kyubey surmised.

"Just who the hell does he think he is, using lives as pawns?" The Time Lady snorted.

"Oh, God… I'm going to lose him and there's nothing I can do about it!" The wave of thoughts, and now memories kept splashing through her mind.

The Other Sayaka pulled open the curtain. "Amazing! You're so cute! I'm jealous!" Madoka lept towards her friend's open embrace.

"I didn't deserve any of this. I just wanna give up… I don't care anymore." Yet another unwanted thought.

"Thanks, Madoka. You were right all along. I'll get this one." The Other Sayaka conceded.

"With so much magical potential emanating from this girl, a witch attack will almost certainly be imminent. That is when first contact shall be made. With her contract, our quota will be met. Until contact, their movements should be closely monitored." Kyubey deliberately walked towards the clothing store. Sayaka struggled to her feet. With every ounce of her diminished strength, she wanted nothing more than to snuff that horrid little cat-rabbit's life out.

"I know what you're thinking. Don't do it." The Time Lady pulled at her. "It's not worth the risk."

"I don't care! I won't let him do that to us again! Get outta my way!" She stood up, with whatever energy her legs could still muster.

"Listen to me! Right now, our only asset is our discretion! Don't blow our cover out of rage!"

"I don't care! Get. Out. Of my way!" Sayaka positioned herself to charge.

"I was so… Stupid. "

SPLAT!

An instant later, they both noticed Kyubey's body was splayed wide open. The force of whatever had hit him sent his remains rolling under a table. He was dead. But it was not from any act of Sayaka's.

"Wha-? What the hell just happened?" The Time Lady's mouth dropped. The ladies stood there unmoving, staring at the creature's remains. Both were completely astonished by the unexpected turn they just witnessed. The Time Lady bobbled her head as she collected herself, took a slight step forward, and pointed her multitool at the body. "I've gotta sca-"

"It seems that there is an interloper with apparent hostile intent. Taking precautionary action."

"My phone's dead all of a sudden." They overhard a man sitting at one of the tables notice.

"Mine's dead, too! I thought Funny, I charged it this morning. How odd." The female sitting across from him tapped at a blank black screen.

The Time Lady jerked her head in their direction and spotted an identical-looking Kyubey flounce from out of the shadows and into the light. This one proceeded toward its dead counterpart's remains, maneuvering from table to table, from person to person in a deliberate method so as to not expose itself to a follow-up strike.

"Such a waste." The Kyubey scurried over to the largest chunk of remains, whereupon he hastily feasted upon it. The Time Lady could only stand there and watch him eat with a morbid fascination. " This does not alter the plan, however. More careful measures will be taken in pursuit of the subject. " Kyubey strategized as he gulped the last pieces of his corpse. Suddenly, he stopped and his gaze shot in their direction. The Time Lady jumped back into hiding in the nick of time pulling Sayaka with her. " Yes. This girl must make a contract. She is all that matters. "

The Time Lady backed up slowly. She gripped Sayaka's arm. "We should really to get back to the TAR-"

"Blaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggh!"

The Time Lady had whipped her body around just in time to be the unintended victim of Sayaka's projectile vomit. Sayaka collapsed to the floor.


"Student 139 - 119, stand straight and pay attention!" Her gruff, old tutor snapped at her.

"Y- Yes, Teacher, uh Sir!" The Young Gallifreyan girl hurriedly corrected her posture and readjusted her headdress, so that the elder wouldn't notice the bruise mark on the side of her face.

"... That this new generation of Gallifreyan children, gathered before us here, at the dawn of a new, great age, shall one day…"

One of The Founders of Time Lord civilization was delivering the Ceremonial Address, but the Gallifreyan Girl wasn't paying attention during the introduction, so she didn't actually know which Founder it was, nor did she really care. She replayed in her mind an event that had happened to her earlier that day. On her long trek to The Academy, she happened to come across a slightly younger, soon-to-be new classmate, someone who was being viciously harassed by a rather physically imposing bully. She rushed to their aid, and together they managed to overpower the bully, but not without taking a few nasty licks of their own. Reflecting upon it, she'd realized that she'd gotten really excited in the middle of that fight. Maybe too excited.

"... Learn and worship those profound wisdoms of The Ancient Covenants of…"

The tutors' back had turned, the Gallifreyan Girl had her chance to make a quick search for her new friend among the assembled class, but her task wasn't easy. Every student was wearing the same drab, magisterial robes and headdresses, their attention slavishly hanging onto every single one of The Founder's words. But she was at least hoping her new friend was doing the same, searching around that gigantic room, trying to find her.

"... What we have created, what we have built, what we must protect from…"

"Student 423 - 815, stand straight and pay attention!"

"Yes Sir! Thank you, Teacher!" She heard a familiar voice straight behind her. The tutor stormed past the Girl, toward the offender. The Girl poker-faced on an attentive gaze as he stormed past.

" … Do I make myself clear?" She overheard The Tutor say.

"Yes, Sir! Absolutely clear!" The voice replied. Once the Tutor was sufficiently past, she turned her body to see her new friend looking back toward her. There they were, her and her new friend, donning a headdress placed in such a way as to hide the cuts on their faces. The two friends let out a pair of gleeful, muffled giggles to themselves. In that small, shared moment, they knew they could face anything, so long as they stuck it out together.

"Student 139 - 119!"

Crap.

" … With our sturdy leadership, and your collective wills, we shall ensure the triumph of…"

"Student 139 - 117, what's the prognosis on that one?"

"Above average academically overall, specializing in administrative and organizational skills. From a minor house." A Time Lord elder rotely read off the screen to his colleague, inside a secluded chamber above the class gathering.

"Wonderful! Another crusty Councillor, or tutor, or librarian, it would seem." A younger apprentice remarked.

"Or they'll just take our jobs!"

"... Please !" The two men laughed heartily with that punchline, and moved to the next on the list.

"Student 139 - 118, what's it say on that one?"

"Below average academically, but is quite well-disciplined, does as told, and communicates well. Improvises brilliantly, when properly stressed." The elder thumbed his screen through the projections. "And quite the outgoing type."

"... For this has been Gallifreyan dogma for many eons…" The Founder's voice echoed through their chamber.

"Soldier, then?" The apprentice punched the predictive calculations.

"From a rather noble house."

"Ah. So clerical work, then?"

"Or they'll inevitably be put into the officer's ranks, should they go military."

"Indeed." Agreed The Younger Time Lord. "Next?"

"Student 139 - 119. Above average academically in the sciences and arts, but well below in history and civics. Reportedly a bit mischievous and rude but otherwise well behaved. Nothing atypical for a child of that age. Socially adept, but brash. Hmmm…" The Time Lord cleared his throat as he rhythmically drummed at his podium.

"Though from a fairly respectable house." The Younger Time Lord read the screen. "Not much else to say about this one." He entered the data into their Predictive Matrix. He read the results. "Prognosticates to serve as a rather middling Time Lord. At best."

"A workaday sort." The Elder concluded. "Probably best-suited to minor functionary roles. Or Service Sector Shifts. Ne-."

"Hold on, it's changed!" The Elder Time Lord was reaching to the screen to wave on to the next subject, only for his hand to be abruptly grabbed by his subordinate. The Younger pounded his fist on the computer terminal.

"What are you doing?" He jerked his hand away. "How insubordinate of you!"

"A thousand apologies, Sir." He pointed at the predicted outcomes on the screen. "But have a look!" He read the text slowly and deliberately. "The Matrix is projecting this one will... Lead a revolution... Among the Great Houses."

"That's quite the unassuming face for a revolutionary." The Aged Time Lord dismissively jested while he impatiently drummed with his hand.

"Now it's saying… This one will…" His apprentice tilted his head in utter bewilderment.

"Leave Gallifrey and… Alter the course of the entire Universe?" The Elder read the rest as in a tone as baffled by its forecast as his protege.

"Extraordinary!"

"...It's a systems glitch!" The Elder Time Lord concluded. "Has to be! No Time Lord has gone renegade and left our world in fourteen millenia." He pounded their machine again while the screen flickered.

'ERROR! CODE: 31-91' The screen flashed.

"Baaahh! A mere Service Worker! Ne-"

"Or," His colleague intervened again. "We've identified a potential radical." He checked the communicator strapped to his wrist to find their stated guidelines. "Forgive my impertinence Sir, but Isn't there a procedure we're supposed to follow when one of those appears?"

"The Deca Protocol?" The elder scoffed. "Don't overreact. Run a full diagnostic, double check the code matrix, and I'm sure you'll find that first assessment to be the correct one. There's no need to waste Lord President's time on this ordinary, lowly insignificant soul."

His colleague nodded. "Very well." He retracted his grip on the other's arm. "You're probably right."

"Of course I am. I've only been doing this for nine hundred and eighty years." He kept drumming on their podium. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Forty-eight." The dejected junior replied.

"Carry on!" His elder ordered.

"... For Gallifrey! May it reign supreme for a thousand eons more!"