CHAPTER 1:

FROM NIGHT TO TWILIGHT

It could have been a vision of Hell.

A monochrome landscape under a monochrome sky, as if the vast…thing (for there were few other ways to describe it) was sucking the colour out of the world. From the ground, it looked like some bizarre, vast bird, silhouetted in black against the bleached white sky. But some details didn't make sense. Gears, like malevolent clockwork, turned and churned somewhere on the figure. Part of it looked very vaguely humanoid.

Whatever it was, it radiated power, consuming joy and life and colour from the world. Broken skyscrapers and other debris orbited around it lazily, twisted planets paying homage to a malevolent deity. The landscape below was twisted and warped beyond measure.

Many watched in various states of terror. But of concern to this narrative were four participants.

A girl of fourteen with pink hair, staring in horror at the sight…and of what was happening to another girl of fourteen, who was confronting the entity.

Said girl, with long dark hair, bore a shield, and dodged and launched attacks with what was clearly supernatural skill and abilities. But even she clearly could not stand against the assault forever, and she fell as one attack too many from the entity above struck home.

Next to the pink-haired girl was a creature that could be called feline, if one had bad eyesight. It had red eyes, an almost perpetual serene smile on its face, and what seemed like two sets of ears, one long, the other pair short. And despite its virtually impassive face, it was conversing with the pink-haired girl.

But what of the fourth participant? Ah, there it is. Dressed in a black cloak, red eyes glinting beneath the hood of the cloak. Observing what is going on, before it swoops down on the dark-haired teenager, looking the very figure of the Grim Reaper, come to claim another soul…

"DON'T DO IT, MADOKAAA!"

She couldn't hear her, of course. Even with all her powers, Homura Akemi could not make Madoka hear her. Not at this distance. Not with Walpurgis Nacht(1) and its damnable powers and the howling wind. But she knew that Madoka was being tempted by Kyubey into the deal that would damn her.

Just like it had damned Homura.

Her body slipped off the structure she had landed on, and began to fall. She wouldn't feel much pain, but it wasn't good. She had reached her limits once more. She'd have to turn back time, just like she had so many times before, and…

She landed, hard. The breath was driven from her, an explosion of pain bloomed within her body. It had happened just like it had happened before. There were variations. Sometimes, Madoka would just die. Other times, she would suffer an even worse fate: transformation into a Witch. The curse of the Magical Girl. Death, or becoming a Destroyer. A curse that Homura had averted for herself time and time again, but she couldn't prevent Madoka from falling. Or anyone else. But only Madoka mattered. Only she had cared.

"Hmm. So you're one of the Axes," a voice mused quietly, nearly lost over the howling storm.

Homura opened her eyes, squeezed shut from pain both physical and mental, to find a strange figure standing over her. Dark, cloaked, and only a pair of red eyes could be seen glinting in the darkness. What? she thought, startled, to herself. This hasn't happened before!

"And the other…" the figure continued, looking thoughtfully…no. They were looking at Madoka!

"Now I see…" the figure murmured. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman. The voice was a bit androgynous, and the figure was slender underneath the robes, as far as she could tell. It then turned to regard Homura thoughtfully. "You'd better use it."

"What?"

"Either you or the girl over there is responsible for a chronic hysteresis," the figure said. "What you are doing is appallingly dangerous."

Don't I know it, Homura thought, before more angry thoughts chased them away. She struggled to her feet, and summoned her bow and arrow, aiming it at the figure.

"Don't threaten me, Magical Girl," the figure growled. Then it stretched out a hand. Homura felt something like the usual sensation she got when she sensed the energies of a Magical Girl being used. Except…there was something very different.

The weapon the figure had summoned was a sword, gleaming, elegant, and deadly. And it was then swung around to her throat. "Use it."

"What?"

"Whatever you use for the chronic hysteresis, Magical Girl! Use it now! This needs to end!"

Homura glared coldly at the figure. "It will end. But you don't tell me how to end it," she stated as she activated her power, and…

She was back in hospital. Again. Staring at what was once an unfamiliar ceiling. Again.

There was a saying in English. Familiarity breeds contempt. That was certainly true of Homura Akemi and this now too-familiar ceiling.

Had she imagined the figure? Or had she managed to leave them behind in that hellhole Walpurgis Nacht(1) was making of the world?

A groan from the floor at the foot of the bed suggested otherwise.

"Ugh, that's worse than a bloody Time Ring," the figure complained, scrambling to their feet. They paused, briefly, looking at the clipboard with her details at the foot of the bed. "Homura Akemi," they said, enunciating each syllable carefully.

Homura summoned her bow and arrow once more. "Stay where you are," she said.

This time, unlike the last time, the figure put their hands up. "Crap," they muttered. "That's what I get for panicking and going into 'portentous mode'. Trey's not gonna like this."

"Who is 'Trey(2)'? Who are you?"

"Well, put the bow and arrow away, and we can talk about that."

"No."

The figure sighed. "Oh well, worth a shot. BTC: Disarm."

Suddenly, the bow and arrow she was holding in her hands dissolved into cubical particles, before disappearing completely into motes of light. Homura gaped, surprised for the first time in a very long time. Before she could react any further, the figure flung back the hood.

Homura could have expected, if she had any expectations left, any number of hideous sights. Sights that would probably not have fazed her, admittedly, given what she had seen time and time again. But she wasn't expecting a teenaged boy.

He was perhaps her age, give or take. Rather thin, and she might have thought sickly pale, if it weren't for the fact that he had pure white hair, and red eyes. His face was long and thin and lugubrious, currently creased in an expression of worry and anxiety. He could have been European, an albino European, but something about him gave her pause. And those red eyes…

As he opened his mouth to say something, Homura asked the question pertinent to her mind. Not the fact that he had managed to disable her weapon, or that he had somehow managed to get dragged back to the beginning of the loop with her. "Are you with the Incubators?" she growled.

His eyes widened, and he waved his hands at her like a panicked chicken flapping its wings. "No! No, no, no…I saw one of them, though, with the pink-haired girl. Doubtless trying to get her to sign their little deal." He scratched his nose pensively, and Homura, while her suspicions were still there, was at least willing to talk. She couldn't help but notice the sneer that twitched at his lips when he spoke of 'their little deal'.

He blinked, realising something. "How did you know I wasn't human?"

"I guessed. I thought your eyes looked like the Incubators."

"Oh. Well, there are plenty of red-eyed beings in the cosmos, doesn't make them evil," he said, all but babbling. He turned his back for a moment. He then rounded on her suddenly, a determined look in his eyes. "Still a good question to ask when dealing with the Incubators, though. They're tricky little bastards."

And he has a mouth almost as foul as Kyoko, Homura reflected. "Who are you, then, if not with the Incubators?"

"Umm, my name is Moni. And, well, you could say that I'm part of a group that opposes the Incubators and their plans."

Moni? Weird name. But what was that he had just said? That he was part of a group that opposed the Incubators? How come they hadn't come to help here before?

She realised that he was standing next to her, his hand open. "Please, Homura. May I have your Soul Gem?"

"Why?" she asked, immediately, and understandably, suspicious.

"Because I need to check it. If you used your power, then…you know what happens, don't you? You are the source of the chronic hysteresis?"

"You mean the time loop, don't you?" Homura asked.

Moni nodded. "Yeah, sorry. That's what I get for spending too much time with time travellers."

"Spending too much time with…what?" She blinked, surprised again.

"Yes. I work with…a people experienced with time travel. I'm not one of them, but I work with them. And your time loop drew their attention. Of course, when they saw an Incubator and Magical Girls involved, well, guess who they sent in?"

"You?"

"Me. My full title is Paladin Monitor of the Order of Maxwell's Demon(3)." On her understandably blank look, he said, "One of the founders was fond of human culture. Maxwell was the scientist who discovered the Laws of Thermodynamics on your world." At this, he became more solemn. Older-looking, far older than he should look. Homura knew that look all too well. She saw it in the mirror each day. "And you know what the Second Law is, don't you?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"You do. You've fought the Incubators." With a sepulchral tone, he intoned, "Entropy, in a closed system, will always increase overall, and never decrease."

Entropy. The bane of the Incubators, and indeed, of all creation. Disorder. Lack of energy. Eventually, the universe would become a uniform soup of energy, but energy that could not do anything, for energy required difference in order to do anything.

The Heat Death of the Universe. That's what Kyubey called it.

And the Incubators, of whom Kyubey was their representative, were determined to stop it.

Hence, the use of Magical Girls. Kyubey would give them a single wish that it would grant. In exchange, the Magical Girls would fight Witches and their Familiars, beings of evil that tainted everything they touched, born out of curses and despair.

Of course, Kyubey deceived them. The creature didn't exactly lie, but had been economical with the truth in most areas, and twisted it in others. The Witches were born from despair and curses, but out of those of a Magical Girl whose Soul Gem was corrupted by despair, or else from a Familiar that had managed to murder enough people. The Soul Gems were literally that, containers for Magical Girls' souls, phylacteries that enhanced their abilities, and operating their now-vacant bodies like puppets.

The Soul Gems were what were vital to the whole plan of the Incubators. Teenaged girls were a particularly ripe source of emotions, emotions that, when harnessed by the Incubators, were able to reverse entropy, or at least hold it back. And because of the nature of a Magical Girl's existence, it was inevitable that they either died in combat (they were highly durable without souls, but far from invincible), or became the very monsters they fought. A seemingly perfect system that Homura had spent so long trying to beat.

Considering what he said, she then asked, "And what do you want with me?"

"I did say the loop has to end, one way or the other. Like I said, people are getting concerned. Time loops can degrade over time, and degrade the fabric of time as well. That makes you dangerous." Hastily, he waved his hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that. I don't want to hurt you or kill you. Though some people would. No, I'm here to stop the Incubators' plan for this world. I'd prefer that no people die in the process."

He sounds like Madoka, in his own way. And like me. He shares Madoka's optimism. And my nervousness. At least before I met Madoka. How long ago was that? I can't remember now. But I can't trust him. I can't trust anyone.

"You can't stop what's happening," Homura muttered. "I've tried. So many times."

"I know you've tried," he said, equally quietly. "But I've stopped the Incubators on other worlds before."

"And you're asking me to trust you?"

"Maybe that's a bit too much. But…you're one person, trying to change many. I can help. I know the Incubators, I know the ins and outs of the nature of Magical Girls. For example, I was able to disarm you."

"True," Homura conceded. "How did you do that?"

"Magic. Or rather, Block Transfer Computation(4). That's the real source of your magic. Clarke's Law.(5)" Moni then looked at her thoughtfully. "If I explain everything…would you make a decision?"

Homura looked at him. The time loop was wearing on her, she had to admit. Even though she tried changing the story, the ending remained, more or less, the same. Either with Madoka dead, or a Witch. And in truth, she was running out of ideas how to vary her actions with each loop. And if he was telling the truth, and she had attracted attention from others, then time was running out.

She nodded. "But explain everything. I want to know why you fight the Incubators. And why you're helping me."

Moni moved over next to her. "Well, are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin…"

ANNOTATIONS FOR CHAPTER 1

1. Walpurgis Nacht is the ultimate Witch, named for the German equivalent of Beltane (April 30th). Named, ironically enough, after a Christian saint, Saint Walpurga. Walpurgis Nacht is the eve before Saint Walpurga's Day. Supposedly, during this night, witches meet to do evil and wicked things.

2. Trey is the nickname given to a character (or rather, a particular incarnation) who, if I listed her real name, would be well-known to Whovians. Those who don't mind spoilers, I'll give a hint: she is played by Juliet Landau of Buffy fame.

3. Maxwell's Demon is a name for a theoretical phenomenon that allows for entropy to spontaneously reverse (that is, disorder turns spontaneously to order, like, say, if boiling water spontaneously turns into ice). I first read about this in the Mr Tompkins books by George Gamow. Incidentally, Whovians who have watched Logopolis may have noticed something with Moni's full name…

4. Block Transfer Computation is a key ability in the Doctor Who story Logopolis. While it is explained later in this work, a quick summary can't hurt. It is basically an advanced science for using the mathematical nature of reality to shape reality using calculations. Computers can't be used, as they would be too adversely affected by the changes in reality, but living minds still work. In the next Doctor Who story, Castrovalva, BTC is used to create an entire, if isolated and small, civilisation from scratch. I thought linking BTC and the Magical Girls' abilities an appealing idea.

5. Clarke's Law (more specifically, Arthur C Clarke's third law) states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Moni has an interest in human culture as much as many of his comrades do.