Chapter Five: Who You Gonna Call?

"This is fear. That's good then, I had forgotten what it felt like."

-Atsushi Ōkubo, Soul Eater

The first sensation Makoto felt once he drifted back into consciousness was of something pressing on his chest.

He felt it being removed, then someone above him saying, "Okay, at least he's not dead, he has a pulse…"

Makoto's eyes fluttered open, revealing a girl standing above him who was definitely not Sekai. Instead of long, dark brown hair that hung loose, this girl had much lighter hair that was tied into a ring on either side of her head. Furthermore, this girl had green eyes instead of blue ones and looked much less serious than Sekai.

"Oh! You're awake," the girl said. "Can you stand up?"

Makoto felt sore, but it was nothing like what he'd been experiencing before he blacked out. With only minimal groaning, he managed to lift himself to a sitting position and slowly get himself out of the machine. His legs felt weak, but at least they didn't give.

"Well, that's helpful," the girl said. "Now come on, follow me. Everyone's shifts end in about fifteen minutes, and we need to get you ready before that. Come on, we're wasting time, let's go!"

The girl hurried out the door, with Makoto following the best he could. He wasn't a great athlete on the best of days, but after lying down for who-knew-how-long and still hurting all over from being zapped by the strange bolts of energy, he was staggering forward like a drunken grandparent.

It felt like it took forever to get to where they needed to go, but they were only about three blocks away from where they'd started when the girl stopped in front of a particularly wide alley smack in the middle of an indistinguishable block, waiting for Makoto to catch up. Once he did, she gestured into the alley, causing Makoto to freeze for a second.

"Wait, we need to go in there? You do realize what happens to girls who walk through dark alleys, right?"

"That's not going to happen, I've got you with me," the girl said. "Plus, the one time anything even close to that happened here, the guy got a face full of pepper spray. No one messes with you after that. At least, nobody sane."

"So you're saying there are insane people who use this alley?"

"Occasionally. But I think they like me," the girl said, before slipping off into the alley, Makoto stumbling along behind her. When she got to almost exactly the halfway point, she pulled out a key from who-knew-where and jammed it into what appeared to be nothing more than a divot in the wall. However, it turned, soon revealing a door that Makoto would have walked right past had the girl not been there.

She turned to Makoto as if she was expecting approval. "Cool, right?"

"Yeah, cool," Makoto said. The girl slipped in, and Makoto followed, making sure to close the door behind him.

The second the room was light enough for him to see what was in it, he realized he'd set his expectations way too high. Instead of the cartoonish, over-the-top aesthetic that had dominated both their uniforms and their attitudes, this room was incredibly minimalistic. There weren't any windows, so the room was lit by nothing more than a handful of lightbulbs dangling so low Makoto had to duck to make sure he didn't burn his head on them. The furnishing of the room was similarly limited, with nothing more than a few chairs facing a television that looked at least a decade out of date. Said television was on a simple wooden stand, which had nothing else on it except for a landline phone.

Over in the far corner, three bicycles, which Makoto recognized as the ones that the heroes had used during the whole train incident, leaned against the wall. Above it, four hangers on a rack held four different outfits, each with a name tag. Makoto scanned each of them, and while one of them read 'Makoto' (which was over something that looked like what a stereotypical ninja would wear), to his dismay, none of them read 'Kotonoha.'

"Sorry if you don't like your costume," the girl said. "We don't know what you can do yet, so we had no idea how to make your costume match your ability. Thus, we just grabbed the first thing we thought you'd like."

"It's fine," Makoto said. "As long as it hides my face, I really don't care."

The girl handed Makoto his costume before taking the one below the name tag reading 'Hikari.' "You don't have to put it on yet, you only do it when we have a job to do."

"Makes sense," Makoto said. "I saw the name tag above the outfit you took… you're Hikari, right?"

"Yes I am," Hikari responded. "By that same logic, I assume you're Makoto, right?"

"Of course," Makoto responded. To his surprise, he quickly remembered that Hikari was also in his class at school. The primary reason he knew that was because she was one of the only girls who hadn't made a concerted effort to move away from Taisuke after the first week of class. Makoto had even caught her staring at Taisuke with a strange look in her eyes a few times. (He'd considered telling him the first time, but had gone against it, figuring if Taisuke acted anything like his usual self he'd get around to flirting with her eventually.)

Suddenly, the door reopened, jolting Makoto out of his thoughts. Two more girls had entered the room, neither of whom were Kotonoha. Instead, one of them was very obviously Sekai, still looking exhausted from her shift at the restaurant, whereas the other Makoto recognized from his class as well, although by face and not by name.

Hikari turned to face the other two. "Sekai, Nanami, I'd like you to meet Makoto, our newest member of the team."

"Pleasure," Nanami said, extending her hand for Makoto to shake.

"I just saw you a few hours ago, but nice to meet you," Sekai said, doing the same.

Makoto shook each hand as it was offered, saying, "Same here."

The two girls walked over to their costumes and took them off the racks, but like Makoto, did not put them on. Instead, they sat down in two of the chairs, still holding the costumes as they did. Hikari followed them, and after a brief hesitation, Makoto did the same, taking the seat at the far end.

However, no one was seated for long. Before anyone could get comfortable, the phone on the counter rang quite loudly. Makoto almost covered his ears to block out the noise- it sounded like his alarm clock placed next to a megaphone.

It didn't faze Sekai, though. She jumped up like she'd been struck by lightning, yelling, "I got it!" In less than three seconds, she'd darted to the phone, yanked it from its base, then placed it on the counter. Based on the expression she had, Makoto was half expecting the phone was going to explode.

"Stay quiet," Sekai said, pushing a button on the phone. When a voice started erupting out of it, Makoto instantly recognized she'd activated the phone's speaker.

Only one sentence came out of the phone, but that didn't stop it from being quite terrifying. "You better get to the shopping mall before I blow it up!" After a few seconds of insane cackling that would put most witches to shame, the call hung up.

Hikari turned to Makoto with startling speed. "Get your costume on, we have to go."

"Wait," Makoto said. "That was serious?"

"It always is," Nanami said while putting on her costume, that of White Mage. "For whatever reason, Doctor S likes to call us to tell us exactly where she's going to attack or what she's going to do before she does it. I'm not sure why, maybe it's some sort of validation thing? Either way, we've learned not to ignore calls like that."

Thankfully for Makoto, his costume was somewhat loose, so it didn't take him long to put it on. By then, the girls had already mounted their bicycles, preparing to ride like crazy towards their destination. Makoto moved to do the same before realizing that there simply wasn't a bicycle for him to ride.

None of the girls seemed fazed by that. Hikari, now Short Fuse, even told him, "just sit on my handlebars."

"But what if I fall off?"

"You won't. Just get on!"

Makoto sheepishly followed her instructions, then was utterly unprepared when all three of the girls put the pedal to the metal and raced out of the alley. Makoto gulped, gripping the handlebars as hard as he could as the girls pedaled for the mall as fast as possible.

They'd been biking for several minutes before anyone spoke (part of which was because they wanted to save their breath, but they also had very little to say). And when the silence was finally broken, it was by Sekai (in her Third Eye costume) uttering a not-very-subtle swear word, then saying, "Did anyone remember to let Magical Heart and Magical Word in on what's happening? I forgot..."

"I notified them, don't worry," Nanami said. "They'll probably be at the mall before we are."

"Good," Sekai said before returning focus to pedaling. The mall wasn't much further away, but every second they weren't there was another second something horrible could happen.

They'd just arrived at the parking lot when the first explosion occurred. It wasn't a very large one, but it still caused just about everyone there except them to stare at the disaster, run away from it, or somehow do both at the same time.

"That can't be good," Sekai said. "Come on, let's go, let's go!"

When they got as close to the mall as possible, all three girls threw down their bicycles (nearly sending Makoto tumbling in the process) before they all hurried inside, bypassing the entrance and making haste to the central area of the mall, which functioned as a dining area, a food court, and a shopping complex all at once, with balconies ringing the edges above them leading to even more stores.

But unlike usual, it wasn't packed with shoppers. Instead, the area seemed almost devoid of people. However, robots existed in abundance- there had to be at least a dozen drone-like machines swarming around someone who was definitely Doctor S, still flying even without the aid of a machine.

Magical Heart and Magical Word, still dressed in their usual ridiculous outfits, appeared to be soaring around Doctor S, both of them trying to get clean shots at her. However, whenever either of them got close, several of the drones immediately swarmed them, forcing them to change their course and try for another angle. Their progress was nigh nonexistent, and Doctor S wasn't getting any less aggressive.

"Okay," Makoto said. "I'm sorry for not asking this earlier, but what the hell should I do to stop her?"

Suddenly, one of the drones fired a laser that struck Magical Word in the side, knocking her off her broom. With a frantic screech, she began plummeting towards the floor, seconds away from a painful (if not fatal) impact…

Until Magical Heart thrust her wand in a different direction, changing her intent from keeping the drones off her to saving Magical Word. She managed to rotate herself upright (with Makoto noticing a smoking hole in her outfit but no serious damage), taking the remaining drop in stride before dashing over to the group. Her broom, as if it had sensed her motion, seemed to follow her. Doctor S tried to knock it out of the sky as well, but it was just too thin a target.

Magical Word caught her broom without looking at it before turning to face the group. "Oh, thank goodness you're here! This is getting completely out of hand, we have to stop it!"

Another laser fired at the group caused Makoto's focus to falter for a second, but for the first time, he finally was able to get a good look at Magical Word's face.

The instant he compared the features- brown eyes; long, dark hair; soft angles; cute-looking expression (even though she was quite obviously terrified)- Makoto connected the dots. He knew it without a doubt now: Magical Word and Kotonoha were the same person.

By the time he'd been jolted out of his stupor, the group around him had left, all going to fight Doctor S. The only exception was Kotonoha, who'd just boarded her broom and was carrying what appeared to be a large saw in her hand.

"Whoever you are, let's go," Kotonoha yelled at him as she began flying away. "We need all the help we can get here!"

"I'm not even sure what I can do to help," Makoto thought, "but I better try."

With that on his mind, he charged into the fray as well, the cackling of Doctor S providing the background music for the insanity that was to occur.