CHAPTER 5:
A TERRIFYING MISSION
Moni had been through many a situation that, for most people, would be utterly terrifying. Even leaving aside Magical Girls, Incubators, and Witches, he had faced off against Daleks, Cybermen, and the Infinite Warriors of the Eminence(1). He had fought off beings so abstract, they could hardly be said to exist at all, let alone bleed and die, and yet, he made them do both. In his fourteen years of life, he had killed, and nearly died a thousand times over.
And yet, one of the things that terrified him was going undercover to a high school on a Level 5 planet, so primitive they had only primitive space flight and nuclear fission. Where they hadn't even begun colonising any nearby planets or satellites, despite having the capability.
It wasn't the first time he had had to do so, and he never really wanted to do it again. Unfortunately, to achieve his goal, it would be better to observe some of the important players in this perverse tragedy, as well as covertly begin disrupting the plans of Kyubey. Homura was his partner in crime, and they had decided to plan a means to allow him to ingratiate himself with Madoka and Sayaka and divert them away from the path leading them down the road of being a Magical Girl.
One common time that Madoka and Sayaka met Kyubey was at a shopping mall when a Witch attacked. A few times, Homura used that opportunity to try and kill Kyubey, only to drive Madoka to help it. Moni, after discussing things with Homura, decided to use that. She would try to kill Kyubey, and he would help stop her, as part of a bluff to help convince Kyubey, for the moment, that Moni was on its side.
Of course, that meant going to school to observe them. Moni hated that. His civilisation had mastered Block Transfer Computation, and while they kept to themselves, they were far more advanced than humans were at this point. Which meant that Moni had to be careful not to correct the worst of the contradictions in these people's knowledge, and try to…socialise.
He shuddered. He wasn't good at socialising, and with good reason. His psyche was a mess after what happened in his childhood. In many ways, he was far older than many of these students. And in many ways, he was far more immature. He was better at socialising with older people, and often people who were centuries older than him. In fact, that probably helped. Moni felt isolated, and who better to understand isolation than those who lived for centuries, and watched others who lived mere decades wither and die? The Doctor was a particular comfort in this regard. He had watched travelling companions come and go, and some even die.
But he would need to socialise enough for the mission. He needed to do something in contrast to Homura's by-now ingrained aloofness.
A bit of fiddling with the school records and bureaucracy ensured that he was listed as a transfer student from Logos High School in the UK. His story was that he was a British-born part-Japanese whose guardians had moved back to Japan. There wasn't any such school, but a perception filter on the applications made sure that nobody would question it. If need be, he knew some of the Doctor's old contacts in the UK to vouch for him, like some from UNIT.
So, for this mission, he was Moni Knight(2), and it was under this name that he introduced himself to the class, rather nervously, not long after Homura had introduced herself in her cool manner. And it was here that he saw Madoka Kaname and Sayaka Miki for the first time.
Madoka looked younger than she was, with distinctive pink hair in pony tails, and a seemingly perpetually cheerful disposition. Sayaka had blue hair, cut short, and while not as childish-looking as Madoka, still had a cheerful nature to her. The two looked to be good friends, but Moni knew that, in some of the timelines, that went badly.
He sat down near them, and the two of them began pelting him with questions about the school he went to. After all, he wasn't just a transfer student, but also from another country. He could only imagine the attention he would receive if he let slip he was from another world. He had spent time on Earth before, and particularly in Britain, so he was able to answer the questions with some confidence. But he also noticed how Madoka's eyes kept flickering to Homura, like she nearly recognised her.
Déjà vu, Moni realised. Sometimes, those caught within a time loop retained vestiges of memory of what came before, and Madoka, according to Homura, was at the very nexus of the loop. Sometimes, those who were important within time-loops saw memories of past iterations in dreams. The amount of papers published on how memory was affected by time travel was ludicrous, even those not written by the Time Lords, but Moni knew enough.
He couldn't do much more before he was forced to turn to the subject matter at hand: maths. Bread and butter to a Logopolitian, true, but they were really only at basic algebra. He could use math to literally reshape the world if he wanted to, by a few mental calculations.
In fact, to amuse himself while they went over this child's play, he used Block Transfer Computation a few times to do a few things. The first was to weaken the structural integrity of the chalk the teacher was using, so it crumbled to dust in their hands. He then did the same to the teacher's pen, currently held in a shirt pocket, so that ink stained said shirt. Amusing, and, dry cleaning bill aside, harmless. One had to take the small amusements where one could get them…
He noted how Homura did very well in her subjects. And he knew that between classes, she had spoken to Madoka. Time would tell what that would do…
There was a scary moment where Madoka and Sayaka invited him to eat an early dinner with them after school. He did so, a bit anxiously, wondering why. Hopefully, just idle curiosity. He was a transfer student, after all, and from another country. If only they knew how far afield he had come from. They went to a nearby mall, as they wanted to do some shopping. Moni reckoned this was the same mall as the one where Madoka and Sayaka met Kyubey for the first time.
Sure enough, he was pelted with all sorts of questions, mostly from Sayaka. She seemed to be the more extroverted of the two, whereas Madoka was a bit more shy. He answered them as best as he could. He'd already answered some back at the classroom.
And then Madoka asked, hesitantly, "Do you know Homura?"
Ah, so that was it. Madoka was curious about Homura. If there really was a touch of temporally-induced déjà vu, then it stood to reason that she'd be curious.
"Homura Akemi? Well, I've met her before," he admitted, having discussed a cover story to cover any familiarity. "I got into an accident when I first arrived in Mitakihara(3). We met in hospital. She's…nice, but she's a bit of…what's the term you use? A kuudere(4). She's a bit distant, a bit cold. Don't try to force her to be friends with you. A bit like me, but I'm just a bit…unused to friends."
"You don't seem like a kuudere," Sayaka said.
"No, but…I'm a bit unused to dealing with people. My parents died when I was young, and my guardians, well, they meant well, but often left me to my own devices. I'm a bit of a hikikomori, sometimes(5)."
"You don't look like one," Sayaka said. "You seem too nice to be one."
"Well…thanks." He ran his hand through his hair sheepishly.
"She said something strange," Madoka said. "She said I shouldn't change who I was, no matter what."
Moni chuckled ruefully. "Well, people change, all the time. It's a fact of life. Hell, it's even a fact of physics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy, which is to say disorder, will always increase in a closed system. It's what defines the direction of time." Not to mention an important concept when dealing with Incubators.
"Wow, you're so smart," Sayaka said. "I mean, we saw you work out those maths problems, and you're as good as Homura."
"Well, I like to read a lot. I read that book by that Stephen Hawking guy, A Brief History of Time. It's pretty good if you want to know the basics of interesting physics."
"Yeah, well, you're cool. But Homura…she's a bit loopy, isn't she?"
"Eccentric is what we'd say back in England," Moni said. "I've met weirder."
"Well…" Madoka said uncertainly, "it's like I've met her before. You're gonna think I'm weird, but I thought I saw her before…in a dream."
Ah, so there it was. Echoes of the future entering Madoka's dreams. Sayaka laughed, but Moni merely smiled. "Oh, come on, Moni, do you believe her?"
"Pretty weird stuff has happened in England, stuff I have seen. Besides which, déjà vu is a noted phenomenon. And you could have met her before, or at least seen her before, but just forgot where." Which wasn't far from the truth, technically.
They had gone to an electronics store when Madoka heard something through headphones while listening to music. Moni didn't hear anything, nor did Sayaka, but he guessed he knew what it was. Madoka was following the voice of the Incubator, and it could call out to potential Magical Girl candidates. He followed the two girls, as he knew from what Homura had told him that this place may very well become a Witch's den very soon, and if things got really ugly, he might need to protect them.
Of course, that would blow his cover, but he'd rather do that, and have to deal with the Incubators afterwards, rather than let these two girls die. Of course, Mami, according to Homura's intel, would probably show up in time to save them.
They went into a part of the centre that was being renovated, darkened and decrepit. Almost immediately, his instincts were screaming at him. A Witch was definitely lurking somewhere deep within, and her influence was growing. Or its influence. For all the fact that Witches were often created from Magical Girls, or else from the Familiars, they shed gender, along with any trappings of humanity, when they transformed.
He grabbed a pipe along the way. Alone, it wouldn't be much more protection than his bare hands. But he smiled to himself when he remembered an anecdote the Doctor told him about a baseball bat, a Gallifreyan superweapon, and a Dalek(6).
BTC: Hand of Omega, he thought to himself, putting the bare minimum of power into the computation. Within seconds, the pipe began to hum, imperceptibly, filled with power. Unlike Ace's baseball bat, which had been supercharged with electricity from the surrounding air, this construct was considerably more sophisticated, only harming anyone he wanted to harm with it. In other words, Madoka, Sayaka, or Homura wouldn't be hurt by the special properties of the pipe. Said special properties being that, on impact, it would briefly act as if the pipe was made of Dwarf-Star Alloy: very dense, and capable of warping space and time. He wouldn't feel it getting any heavier, but any Familiar or Witch that got hit would be hurting. It was all he could do not to grin like a shark approaching prey. The conditioning he had received hadn't completely worn off, after all.
They soon found their quarry, the Incubator being pursued by Homura. Moni played his part to perfection, as the surprised and horrified onlooker, while Madoka cradled the injured Incubator. Sayaka then distracted and blinded Homura with a blast from a fire extinguisher. The girl showed surprising resourcefulness, it seemed. Moni found himself liking her, despite Homura's contempt. To be a Magical Girl candidate, one still had to be above the norm in terms of resourcefulness and will.
He fled with the two girls and the Incubator, suppressing the urge to finish what Homura started. But he couldn't blow his cover yet. Though given the familiar feeling in the air, he knew a Witch was about to transform this part of the shopping centre into its demesne. They were wondering why Homura was suddenly in cosplay. If only they knew, he thought to himself.
And then, it happened. Strange images filled the air, like living hallucinations. Images of butterflies and cards and strange, abstract patterns. The world took on the air of some bizarre artist's collage of images, disjointed and unreal. They lost their way swiftly in the ensuing blur of images.
"Crap," Moni muttered. "Girls, we're in trouble."
"What's the matter?" Madoka asked. "What's going on? Why is all this weird stuff happening?"
"I know why it's happening," Moni admitted. "We need to find an exit as soon as possible. Because otherwise, we're dead. This place has become a Witch's realm."
"A what?" Sayaka demanded. "Did you say Witch?"
"Yeah. But…we're not talking pointy hats and broomsticks. We're talking about the sort of thing HP Lovecraft would write about," Moni said.
"Who's HP Lovecraft?" Madoka asked.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by what seemed to be living vines of barbed wire, writhing and snaking through the air. Scissors snipped at the air threateningly. Around them, what looked like living balls of cotton wool with moustaches babbled and chanted strange words and syllables.
"Familiars," Moni spat. "Entities created by Witches, and very lethal."
"You don't need to tell me that!" Sayaka yelped, looking at the scissors snapping in their direction. "How do you know these things?"
"Long story. Stay close," Moni said.
Suddenly, chains fell from the ceiling, surrounding them in a circle, which then flared with warm red and yellow light. Just in time, Moni thought. At least I shouldn't have to reveal myself yet.
"Well, looks like I got here in time," came the voice of Mami Tomoe. The teenager, still in her school uniform, seemed surprised to see Moni, who gave her a friendly wave.
"Who are you?" Madoka asked.
"Mami Tomoe. Moni there has met me, but you two go to Mitakihara Middle School too, right? Eighth graders?" As the Familiars began attacking the barriers, she sighed. "Please excuse me, but introductions may have to wait. Would you mind if I cleaned up?"
"Not at all," Moni said. It would be interesting to see Mami in action. Especially now that he had upgraded her Soul Gem.
Mami took her Soul Gem in hand, and began transforming, her school costume turning into her Magical Girl costume. She leapt into the air, and summoned a large number of massive flintlock weapons, which promptly annihilated the Familiars in a hail of gunfire. Normal guns, of course, would do sod-all against them. But these were magical constructs, or, to put it a touch more scientifically, block-transfer synthesised and enhanced weapons of sheer, Witch and Familiar-annihilating awesome.
Shortly after the Familiars disintegrated under the hail of bullets, the Witch's realm dissolved away. But Homura made an appearance, with Mami issuing a subtle but distinctive warning: don't go after Kyubey again. Moni struggled not to roll his eyes. Even the Doctor would not be able to stop Homura from going after Kyubey. Homura merely glared at Mami, before meeting the gazes of Madoka and Moni. With the slightest of nods to Moni, she left.
Afterwards, as Mami healed Kyubey, she said, "I'm glad you intervened in time. Kyubey's a good friend of mine."
Moni once more had to suppress a roll of the eyes. The Incubators considered friendship to be merely useful leverage. An Incubator, friends with a Magical Girl? Even a farmer was more likely to be friends with the cattle he had to sell to the abattoir. "Thanks for the save, Mami," he said out loud. "It's been a long time since I got caught in a Witch's realm."
"How do you two know each other?" Sayaka asked.
"We only met by accident," Mami confessed. "He ran into me, and helped me find my Soul Gem when I dropped it. I'll tell you about that later."
Kyubey chose that moment to revive. "Oh, thanks, Mami! I was afraid that I had breathed my last."
For the third time in as many minutes, Moni tried not to roll his eyes. If the Incubator's body died, it could synthesize a new one readily.
"Well, I had a little help, Kyubey. These three intervened."
Kyubey looked at them all. "Is this the boy you met before?" it asked Mami.
"Yes. Moni Knight," Moni said, holding out a hand for the Incubator to shake, before pretending to realise his mistake, and using it instead to rub the back of his head sheepishly. When it wanted to, the Incubator could speak and appear directly to anyone it wanted, so he could hear its telepathic words.
"And this is Madoka Kaname, and Sayaka Miki," Kyubey said.
"You know our names? You were the one who was calling out to me!" Madoka said.
"Of course. I was seeking you out, you see. I wanted to ask a favour. I want to ask you to make a contract with me," Kyubey said, adding to its smile by closing its eyes in a smile. "And become Magical Girls."
And here it is, Moni thought. This is the true beginning. This is where we must begin to steer Madoka and Sayaka away from this path.
He was determined to make this iteration of the time loop the last one. No matter what. And he knew that Homura wanted the same…
CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:
Jeez, I didn't know whether I'd ever finish this chapter (I had to hurriedly re-watch the end of the first episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica to get the feel and the rough gist of the dialogue right). I've been concentrating so much on my other fanfics and other pursuits, this one fell by the wayside. It's definitely a lower-priority fanfic than my other works, even In Spite of Obstinate Men, which remains paradoxically one of my most popular fanfics, even though my work on it is relatively slow.
This was one of the first fanfics I had attempted to write as well, and it shows, another reason why I was reluctant to come back to it. That being said, I might contribute more chapters in the future. My other fanfics take a priority.
If you're wondering where the narrative will truly diverge from Puella Magi Madoka Magica canon, then it will diverge massively starting from the end of episode three. However, there's still a lot of relatively small divergences before then.
For Doctor Who fans, I'm seriously considering a crossover between Doctor Who and BioShock Infinite. As with this story, I'm not using a new series Doctor, but a classic series Doctor, with the Seventh, my personal favourite, being the main contender for the Doctor who will appear in that story.
Quick review-answering for Innocnt Bystandr: Nice to see you are interested. As for the Incubators' talk of entropy being technobabble, keep in mind that Doctor Who is full of worse technobabble throughout its history. I mean, 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow'. Really? Also, I'm finding it a bit hard to understand what you mean when you said my 'narration stopped'.
1. The Infinite Warriors and their leader, the gaseous entity known as the Eminence, are a key adversary in the Big Finish Doctor Who audios, making their debut in The Seeds of War, having an origin story in Destroy the Infinite, and playing the role of a major adversary in all but one of the Dark Eyes boxsets, with their origins being revealed in the last boxset of the tetraology. The Infinite are basically zombies controlled by the gaseous Eminence.
2. Named partly in honour of Captain Knight, an ill-fated soldier in the recently mostly-rediscovered Doctor Who story The Web of Fear.
3. I'm pretty sure this is the name of the city Puella Magi Madoka Magica is set in.
4. Means outwardly cold, but inwardly caring. Roughly. I'm speaking for the Whovian audience who may not have heard some anime terms. Moni is lying somewhat: Homura does care about little else than Madoka, but I think given time, Homura will warm up a bit more.
5. Again, a translation for those unfamiliar with Japanese terms. Basically a shut-in or extreme recluse. Moni is really commenting on his lack of ability to socialise with people his age, rather than on a lack of ability to socialise in general, so the term is misused a little. But he is also covering for himself, in case he does anything strange.
6. For further details, watch Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks. The baseball bat in question was enhanced by the Hand of Omega, a Gallifreyan stellar manipulator that was also a potent weapon, and Ace used it to beat up a Dalek, and damage another one. You can see a screenshot of part of that scene in my current avatar.