A Different Kind of Spark

by Fifteen1413

Shizuki Hitomi is a normal thirteen year old girl living in Mitakihara city in Japan. Her world is ordered, constant, and simple; everything she could want from life. So when a visitor from another world shows up without warning and offers to take her away from all that she knew, Hitomi couldn't have been more surprised - except, perhaps, at the fact that she said yes.

8. Chapter the Eight-Twelfths(April Fools)

Authors Note(VERY IMPORTANT): This is the April fool's day chapter. Please, do not take this chapter seriously. It is not required to understand the plot of the story, and it will most likely never be referenced again in any capacity. The events inside may be considered canon if you chose, as they technically do not contradict anything that I have planned, but I strongly suggest against it. This chapter does its best not to take itself seriously. This chapter includes content from the following works:

Real life

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

A Certain Scientific Railgun

RWBY

Child's Play, a RPG that I am trying to design

An unnamed RP that I DM'd once

The Academy Project, an unpublished completely original work of mine

Working knowledge of these works is not required to understand the chapter, but may help in its enjoyment. If you harbor a dislike for any of these stories, I suggest you don't read this chapter.

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Chapter the eight-twelfths, in which many random things occur and Hitomi experiences an astonishing number of crossovers.

Day of the seventh zenith moon, 05:53 AM – N/aN days, N/aN hours, N/aN minutes remaining.

Hitomi sat upright, clutching her head. She'd never had a hangover before, but from what other people had described, this felt very much like one. A groan escaped her lips as her head throbbed, feeling altogether too large for her skull. Her eyes burned lightly, and her teeth hurt subtly. She licked her dry lips, stopping suddenly as her head pulsed again, eliciting another groan.

She opened her eyes, looking around the room, trying to get her bearings. At least the light wasn't doing anything to her. She was in a small three meter by five meter room made of what looked like steel. A door on the far wall had a little red light blinking in the corner, and a small digital display was counting down from 380 next to it in what Hitomi assumed were seconds. There didn't appear to be any way to open the door from the inside, at least not from her position. Other than the light, which wasn't coming from any obvious fixture, the only object in the room was the upper bunk of a bunk bed, which Hitomi was laying in the bottom level of. Carefully, still clutching her hurting head, Hitomi crawled out from the bottom bunk and looked up, seeing who was laying in the top.

For a second, she could have sworn it was Alice, the long black hair tricking her mind for a second as she tried to think straight. But she was fairly sure that Alice was a good bit shorter than her, whereas this girl was almost the same size. Her hair was longer, too, and more silky...

Hitomi took a step back as her brain finally put matched the image to her memory. Without her school uniform, it had taken a moment, but the person in front of her was definitely miss Akemi. Wearily, Hitomi took five steps back from the bed, then found her hands pressed up against the far wall. The room was really small. And she was trapped in it with the girl who had exchanged mutual death threats with her. Her eyes glanced over at the little digital display. It now read 347. Hitomi felt a bead of sweat drip down her back. She had no idea where she was, why she was there, or how she had gotten there. She couldn't see Akemi trusting that she had nothing to do with this. This was going to lead to a confrontation if she woke up, Hitomi was nearly certain.

Akemi stirred, and Hitomi pressed herself against the far wall. Her eyes narrowed, and she prepared to cast her weapon attack if she needed it. Her left hand glowed, and a green pentagram etched itself into the wall behind her.

Akemi sat up. She opened her eyes immediately, blinked back tears, then steadied herself, managing not to hold her head in her hands as she reacted to what Hitomi could only assume was the same horrible headache she had. It was fading quickly, at least. Hitomi thought she might be free of it in another minute or two. Still, it would make Akemi even more cranky and less likely to think reasonably.

After a few more seconds, Akemi opened her eyes again, looking directly at Hitomi. She didn't say anything for a short while, her eyes briefly flitting about the room. She looked back at Hitomi.

"I am going to assume that you have no idea what is going on either, and work from there." Akemi said, and Hitomi felt relief flood through her. She let her pentagram fail, taking a single step away from the wall.

"Yeah. I was hoping you might, but I didn't think so." Hitomi said, as neutral as she could manage. "Do you have any memories of-"

"No." Akemi said. "I am just as lost as you, Shizuki." she stepped down gracefully from the bed, facing Hitomi directly. "I suggest we put our differences aside for a moment and agree to be allies until we know what is going on. I feel we should be capable of working together for at least long enough to get out of here. I do not consider you an enemy, despite what you think of me."

"Is it that obvious?" Hitomi said, smiling nervously.

"You hold your self quite stiffly around me, yes, but I was more referring to the death threat. That made your position fairly clear, I believe." Akemi said, walking around Hitomi and examining the door.

"I can't find any way through." Hitomi said. "There don't appear to be any latches, handles, knobs, or buttons. I don't think this door is meant to be operated from the inside."

After a moments further examination, Akemi nodded. "I agree with that analysis." she turned to Hitomi. "So, Shizuki, do you have any enemy's who might attempt something like this?" she gave Hitomi a long look. "My enemy's are the type that kill you if they find you, and of the two of us, only one has much use for a kidnapping. It seems likely that you would have a better idea of what is happening than I do."

"I don't know of anyone who would target me." Hitomi said. "Well, not anyone who wouldn't, as you said, just kill me first."

"We must have been drugged." Akemi said. "We are in different clothes then we had, unless you take to wearing stark white full body suits."

Hitomi looked down at herself. She hadn't really payed attention, but Akemi was correct, she was in a pure white jumpsuit. They both were. There was a thin silver band on her right wrist, which Hitomi touched with her left hand, activating. A hologram appeared above her wrist, displaying a counter ticking down from 279. A quick glance told Hitomi that it was the same number as on the display. Above the countdown was an icon which seemed to look very much like her face, next to a nearly full green bar. It looked almost like a video game character health display. Hitomi noticed Akemi following suit, a very similar display on her screen with Hitomi's faced replaced with Akemi's. Having a quick thought, Hitomi patted her neck, feeling her focus and sighing with relief. Of course she still had it. She had already used magic today, after all. After ten seconds, Hitomi's display closed down.

"Interesting." Hitomi said.

"But not very helpful." Akemi noted.

"Is there anything we can do?" Hitomi asked. "I don't think they would provide us beds and jumpsuits if they planned on gassing us or something, so I don't think we need to escape before the countdown finishes. I think the door will open then, at a guess."

"Hold on." Akemi said, and there was a flash of light. After a brief pause, Hitomi gasped. Akemi's outfit had transformed magically into a dress and leggings, a strong black and purple color scheme running throughout her costume. Hitomi noted that the silver band around her wrist had not transformed, staying exactly where it had been. On her left arm sat what looked somewhat like a small shield, with intricate clockwork inside. Akemi looked at Hitomi briefly. "Normal people aren't supposed to be able to see this." she said. "You have been an unending fountain of surprises, Shizuki." she deftly pulled a pistol out from behind her shield, rapidly emptying the clip into the door before Hitomi had time to object. Luckily, the bullets did not ricochet. Akemi dropped the clip and reloaded in under a second, but Hitomi put a hand on her sholder.

"The door isn't even scratched." Hitomi said, putting her hand against the slightly blackened patch where Akemi had shot, feeling the still smooth metal below. "There's no point in wasting your ammunition."

As if in opposition to her statement, there was a sharp burst of gunfire from what sounded like fairly far away, but Hitomi couldn't be sure, as it would depend on how well the rooms here were soundproofed. The reports of this onslaught hit a steady beat of fifteen shots per second, seeming to suggest an automatic weapon of some sort. It continued for about ten seconds before ending. After about five seconds, a single shot rang out from the opposite direction.

"So, there are at least two other groups trapped with us." Akemi said. "This is good to know."

"We still don't have any plan better than wait, though." Hitomi said. "No use fretting over it. We'd just be wildly guessing at this point. We should just wait and see what happens."

Akeim paused, looking at Hitomi. "And you do not have any questions?"

"What, about your magic?" Hitomi said. "I knew you could do something, so it's not that surprising to me. I figure if you want to tell me, you will."

Akemi sighed. "You have a very laid back attitude, Shizuki."

"Watching and waiting quietly has advantages." Hitomi said.

The two girls sat next to each other silently, the countdown slowly but surely ticking down to zero. When it reached 010 Akemi stood up, and Hitomi followed her to stand by the door.

"Be prepared. There could be hostiles right outside." Akemi said. "Stay behind me." Hitomi nodded.

"For the future, I am capable of holding myself in a battle." Hitomi said. "But now's not the time to mess with any plans you have."

The counter hit 000. There was a beep, and the light turned green. Silently, the door slid open sideways, revealing a well lit empty hallway outside. Directly across from them, a room marked with a large number 4 sat, its door sliding open a few seconds after theirs. A girl about their age, with short brown hair and brown eyes, stuck her head out from the doorway.

"Hey, you!" she called to Akemi, who stepped out of the doorway slowly. Hitomi followed, looking around. The hallway wasn't very long, holding only six rooms total, three on each side. The door to the room marked 5 was slowly sliding open now, while the door marked 6 was still closed. Rooms 1 and 2 were open as well, but no one else seemed to have exited their rooms yet, and Hitomi couldn't see inside of them from her position. Looking briefly behind her, she was unsurprised to find that the room she and Akemi had been in was marked with a 3.

"What do you want?" Akemi said flatly. Another girl with short black hair and a flower encrusted headband poked her head out from behind the brown haired one nervously.

"I was just wondering if you knew what was up here." the girl said. "From your response, I'm guessing that's a no."

"Indeed." Akemi said. "Though we are just as interested in escaping as you are, I assure you."

"Um, Misaka..." the black haired girl said, pulling on her lightly. "There's a purple pony walking out of door 2."

Everyone trained their heads towards door 2, where, indeed, a purple pony was exiting, seeming to eye the four of them wearily. "What... are you?" it asked, and everyone except Akemi took a sharp step backwards. The pony lowered its backside slightly, looking at them with wide eyes, seeming to be attempting to appear as non threatening as possible. "I don't mean you any harm." she said, obviously trying to inject as much calm into her voice as she could manage. Hitomi noticed that this pony was equipped with wings and a horn.

"Humans." A singsong, beautiful voice said from inside the room, and a much larger, aquamarine horse with wings and horn stepped out from the door. It had to duck to make it out. "They're intelligent, and usually fairly reasonable. There's no need to be so wary."

There was a bang, and a gray haired girl rushed out of room 5, fear clear in her metallic silver eyes. A laugh, filled with clear evil insanity, came from inside. "Oh, come on, Mimi. I'm just having a little fun." it said sweetly. "I didn't get to taste your blood last time, you know."

The girl, presumably Mimi, turned to the six others. "Close that door." she said shakily. "Don't let her out."

"Let me out of what?" An older girl, perhaps sixteen, with long pure white hair and blood red eyes, stepped over the threshold of room 5 and into the hall. "That little room? Oh, Mimi, that isn't very nice." she giggled lightly. "I was just playing around."

Mimi looked up at the other people, her face flushed with fear. She seemed to be very slightly startled at the two technicolor ponies, but was far too frightened right now to care. Slowly, she turned around to face the other girl.

"I-" she said shakily. "I won't let you hurt anyone else." Mimi drew a metallic sphere from her pocket.

"What, you're going to stop me?" the white haired girl said. "Sounds like fun. I wonder how much you've improved in the three years we've been apart." she licked her lips. "Though I doubt it will be enough, you know."

Deftly, Mimi flicked the sphere into the air, extending her arm to meet it as it returned to earth. Misaka seemed shocked, her eyes going wide before trying to turn away. Hitomi was confused.

There was a flash of light, a streak of blue-white energy slamming into the girl across the room faster than Hitomi could blink. The burst hurt her eyes. The sound of cracking glass was heard, then the light died, the girl across the room untouched, laughing softly.

"How cute!" she said. "You made it almost a tenth of the way through my shield this time."

"Is she really that dangerous?" Misaka said, tapping Mimi on the shoulder. Mimi nodded, looking into her eyes. After a moment, Misika turned away.

"Alright." Misika drew a coin from her pocket, flicking it into the air. In a very similar motion to Mimi, she made contact. This time, the streak of light was at least ten times as bright, sparks flying in all directions from the channel of energy. Hitomi had to turn away. There was more noises like shattering glass, but as the light faded, the girl was still untouched.

"Oh, wow. Mimi, I think you've been shown up." the girl said. "That one made it nearly half way."

Misaka let out a sharp breath, lowering herself, drawing into a combat stance. Mimi, however, had turned towards her and was blinking slowly.

"You're..." she said, awe in her voice. "Misaka Mikoto, aren't you."

"Really not the time." Misaka said, her eyes trained on the white haired girl.

Hitomi dropped into a combat stance as well, queuing a few quick attack spells in an array before her. The black haired girl with the flower band took a step back. The purple and aquamarine ponies took a step forward, their horns glowing. Mimi turned away from Misaka and looked back at the white haired girl.

Akemi extended her shield, activated the mechanism, and appeared in front of the girl, her gun jammed inside her mouth. Her arm reached around the back of the girls head, stopping her from withdrawing. The girl squeaked.

"Target neutralized." Akemi said.

"Hold on..." Mimi said. "Wait. Are you... Akemi Homura?" she turned around briefly. "Yeah, and you're Uiharu Kazari, and you're Shizuki Hitomi." Mimi shook her head. "Great. I must be dreaming." she glanced at the white haired girl. "Or having a nightmare, more likely."

"I think it's safe to come out now." A very young voice said from room 6. "It looks like the fighting is over." From room 6, an eleven year old version of herself appeared, and Hitomi blinked in surprise. She was followed by an eighteenish looking blond girl with indecently large breasts, who was caring what looked like a heavy machine gun.

"Sorry that we didn't help." the older girl said apologetically. "But we weren't sure what side to take."

"Urmuaph!" the white haired girl said around Akemi's gun.

"Um..." Everyone turned around, seeing a deep-red haired girl with blood-red highlights in what appeared to be a red cape stepped out of room 1. "Hi?" she said lamely. A blond haired older boy stuck his head out from behind the door, smiling with an obviously fake grin and waving at them. Hitomi looked at the girl with some confusion. How had she managed to hold on to the cape? She was in the jumpsuit like everyone else, but she seemed to be the only one who had been able to keep any of their original clothing.

Seriously, was that what she was going to concentrate on? There were more important things here.

"Okay, okay, wait." the purple unicorn-pony with wings looked around at everyone. "Look, perhaps we should introduce ourselves, seeing as we're all stuck here together. We're going to need to cooperate to get out of here, I'm sure, and I think it would be best if we had an idea of who everyone was."

"Yeah, set some ground work." the older blond haired girl nodded.

No one said anything, except for a few grunts and muffled sounds from the white haired girl. After a moment, the purple pony shook her head and stepped forward. "Alright, because I suggested it, I'll go first. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm a 22 year old alicorn from Ponyville. If possible, I'd like to be friends with as many of you as I can."

"Heh." the larger aquamarine alicorn took a step forward as Twilight stepped back. "My name is Spring. I'm a 6,253 year old alicorn, currently without a home. I intend to get out of here, and if you don't get in my way I don't have any reason to hurt you."

"Well, uh, my name is Ruby Rose." The caped girl said. "I come from the city of Vale. I'm with Twilight on the whole friend thing." she smiled awkwardly at the others.

"I'm Jaune Arc." the guy said. "Also from Vale. I have to warn you, I'm a bit of a lady killer." Ruby elbowed him lightly in the stomach. He shook his head. "Geez, it was a joke."

"My name is Mimi." Mimi said, looking around at the faces of all the others. "I'm 13, currently on the run. From her, among other things." she pointed at the white haired girl. "That is Crystal. She is the definition of evil. She's completely emotionally dead, almost unstoppable, and more than a little bit insane." Mimi looked at Akemi. "Honestly, I'm surprised you're not dead yet."

Akemi shrugged. "I do not die easily." she looked at the others blankly. "My name is Akemi Homura. I am 14, from Mitakihara city. I do not usually work with other people well, but I try to keep my relationships neutral if I can."

"My name is Shizuki Hitomi." Hitomi said, bowing lightly. "I come from Mitakihara city, and I'm 13 years old. It's a pleasure to meet you all!"

Her younger clone stepped forward. "My name is Lilly. I'm 11 years old and currently mobile. I just want to get out of here, but working as a group makes us stronger, so I urge you all to put aside your differences and join together if you can." she paused. "Perhaps not Crystal." Crystal harrumphed.

The blond eighteen year old stepped forward. "My name is Star. I'm 18 years old, and part of Lilly's little survivor group. Point me at the enemy and tell me to fire." she giggled, brandishing her machine gun, which must have weighed at least one hundred pounds, like it was a pistol.

Misaka shook her head and stepped forward. "My name is Misaka Mikoto. I'm 14, from Academy city. I'm really not sure what we're doing the declarative statements at the end for." she threw her hair, a few sparks of electricity zapping into the air.

"Uh..." Uiharu took a deep breath, then stepped forward. "My name is Uiharu Kazari. I'm 13, from Academy city. I'm not very good at fighting, and I don't really have much power, but I'll do my best to help where I can."

"So that's all of us." Twilight said. "All twelve."

"What do we do first?" Star asked. "I don't see any way out of this corridor."

"We should secure Crystal first." Mimi said harshly. "I'm sure Akemi doesn't want to be holding her like that forever."

"Does anyone have any rope?" Ruby asked. "Or chain, or clamps, or something?"

"Wermegraph!" Crystal spat. "Ermatargr Prorgraman Orgothorp." she rolled her eyes. Hitomi noticed thin blue blades extend slowly from her fingernails.

"Akemi, watch out!" Hitomi yelled. Akemi turned to her, then her eyes went blank. Her torso cleanly disconnected from the rest of her body, the blood spraying wildly across the room, pooling around her rapidly as she crumpled lifeless to the floor. None of the blood actually got on Crystal, her invisible force shield catching it and vaporizing it slowly. She did lick a drop off of the end of her glowing magical blades, her expression completely innocent.

"As I was saying," she started, as if nothing had happened, "there is another digital counter over the door on the far end of the hallway, currently counting down from 240. I think we're going to be released then." she smiled at the others. "Thought you might like to know."

No one moved. Crystal sighed.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" she said. "She started it."

"You weren't kidding." Ruby said flatly.

"No, I wasn't." Mimi said.

"Oh, come on. Even I realize I can't get out of here alone. Do you think that I would be stupid enough to kill the people I need to escape?" Crystal said, retracting her blades and putting her thumb to her lips, looking at them with a cute, scared girl look. "I'm just misunderstood, that's all."

"No, you wouldn't be stupid enough." Mimi said. "You'd know exactly what you were doing and do it anyway, because you can't help yourself. How many people have met you and lived, Crystal?"

"Let's see... there's Orion, you, uh... Ruby..." Crystal paused. "So, three." she sighed. "Just because I kill everyone I meet doesn't make me a bad person."

"And you thought I was evil." Spring said to Twilight.

"You are evil." Twilight shot back. "Just not insane."

"So, let's see." Crystal said. "The only person capable of stopping me is dead now, and the rest of you hate me." she gave them a sad look. "I don't think we're going to be friends, Ruby Rose, Twilight Sparkle. I hate to do this so soon, but I haven't had real fun in a while. Humans are so weak, you understand. It's no fun with them. But you've gathered ten super-humans here for me." she cocked her head slightly. "Try to make this fun for me, okay?"

Spring burst out laughing. Crystal looked at her. "What?" she said.

"Only person that can stop you?" Spring laughed. "I will admit, time control makes it easy, but... honey, I'm a goddess. You don't stand a chance against me."

"Oh, I love it when they think they're better than me!" Crystal said. "I can tell you're going to be very fun for me!"

"Er, no." Spring's horn flashed, and Crystal was hit with a wave of aquamarine energy, passing through her shield without issue. "You flinched from the heat of Misaka's electromagnetic pulse cannon. That pretty barrier of yours only blocks physical attacks."

Crystal grunted, but didn't move. After a short while, she sighed. "Paralysis, right?"

"Yep. Should last about six hours." Spring said. Crystal rolled her eyes.

Hitomi rushed over to Akemi. She didn't like the girl, sure, but she didn't want her to die if she could help it. Her mind flashed to Derick's face, and she shook her head. There had been too much death already.

Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything Hitomi could do. It hadn't been any kind of optical effect, and it wasn't a result of shock. Akemi lay in two pieces, sliced down fully through the middle. The cut was clean, less than a millimeter thick, splitting her at the waist, the disruption so quick that no blood had splashed onto her stomach or face. There wasn't any need to take a pulse or vitals. She was very obviously dead.

"I'm..." Ruby walked up to Hitomi, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You must have known her, right?" she said softly. "There aren't any words, I know, but... I'm so sorry, Shizuki."

"It's okay." Hitomi said, choking back tears. "She was my enemy." A tear dripped from her eye. "I didn't know her very well."

"She's going to be okay." Mimi said. "Crystal didn't hit her soul gem."

Hitomi looked at her, confused. Mimi shook her head. "Oh yeah, that's right, you don't actually become a magical girl. Sorry, it's been so long since I watched Madoka Magica. You see that purple gemstone she has on her shield? It's called a soul gem. As long as it doesn't get destroyed, she can't die." Mimi put an hand to her chin. "Though, in the series, none of the Puella Magi actually get torn in half, so I have no idea how this is going to work."

As if on cue, Akemi's soul gem began to glow with purple fire, and her body became encased in light. The light grew brighter and brighter, until Hitomi was forced to look away. The glow continued for a good few seconds longer, and Hitomi saw the others slowly turn away as well. There was a brief, brilliant flash, and then the light died.

"That never happened before." Akemi said, getting to her feet. She glanced at her soul gem. "And it looks like it cost me nearly a quarter of my power in one go." she looked around at the others. "Does anyone know where I might wash this blood off?"

"Time control and resurrection." Spring said. "Now, that's just unfair."

"Just wait until after Rebellion." Mimi said. "Then she'll be all-powerful, all-knowing, and capable of rewriting reality at will."

"Oh, wonderful." Spring said, rolling her eyes.

"How do you know these things?" Uiharu asked Mimi. "You recognized Misaka and me as well, right?"

"Er..." Mimi said, giving them a sheepish grin. "Where I come from... and, please, really, don't take this the wrong way... you are characters in a show I watched. You and Misaka are from the show 'A Certain Scientific Railgun'; Hitomi and Homura are from 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'; Ruby and Jaune are from 'Rwby'. I think I've seen Twilight around on things, but I never watched that show. Spring, Lilly, and Star are entirely unknown to me."

"What do you mean, characters from a show?" Ruby said. "I'm totally real."

"Yeah, I know." Mimi said. "I mean, I have some of Homura's blood on me, and I got to feel the heat of the Railgun's railgun." her eyes glossed over and she stared wistfully at Misaka for a moment, until she started giving her weird looks. Mimi shook her head. "This is very clearly real. But you're also fictional characters."

"I mean, we're obviously in an alternate universe." Spring said. "In fact, the twelve of us are from six different universes." she looked around at the rest of them. "This is basic quantum mechanics. Multiple worlds interpretation. Everything that could exists does exist in some universe. The plot of every story actually happened, in some world, somewhere in the multiverse."

"So, wait, are you saying that we are fictional?" Hitomi said, confused.

"No, no." Spring shook her head. "It's not that. Writing a fictional work doesn't make it real, it just happens that no matter what you write, it already exists. Every narrative happens to, due to probability, describe the happenings of one world, but it doesn't cause them."

Everyone looked at Spring blankly. She sighed.

"Okay, imagine you have three thousand coins. You toss them into groups of three, making one thousand groups of coins. In a different room, your best friend writes down that there is a pile of coins in the next room reading heads, heads, tails. If they walked into the room, they would almost certainly find at least one pile with that combination. In fact, it would be horribly unlikely for them to find less than one hundred piles with that combination. But, even though what they wrote down did describe what happened in the piles, they didn't make it happen, or effect it in any way. Those piles are like the different universes in the multiverse. And the description of the coins faces are stories you write. It's not that the stories you write make universes. It's that universes exist that are like any story you write, no matter how crazy it is."

"There would need to be an awfully large number of universes for that to work." Hitomi said. "I'd imagine you'd need more than a google, or even that 10 to the 500th number that they've been throwing around recently. I've always had issues with this interpretation of the multiverse for that reason. There are just too many possible combinations, and the numbers the equations give are too low to actually let that work."

"Well," Spring cocked her head, nodding around at the group. "I have predictive evidence."

"You... followed that?" Ruby asked Hitomi.

"I've always been considered intelligent." Hitomi said. "Besides, I like science fiction. I'm very familiar with multiverse theory."

"What... was that?" Twilight asked Spring. "When did you have the time to learn these things?"

"Twilight, Progress dreamed up quantum mechanics over fifteen hundred years ago. Your civilization is still playing catchup." Spring said. "I've had plenty of time."

"Speaking of time," Lilly said flatly, "the counter just hit fifteen seconds."

Everyone turned to face the door. Indeed, the counter now displayed 013. A quiet tension built. Everyone looked at the still closed door, hoping that their reason for being here, and method of escape, would be soon revealed. No one said a word and it ticked slowly down.

"You're all just going to leave me here, aren't you." Crystal said lamely.

The counter hit 000, and like their room doors, the end of the hall slowly slid open. A man in a suit stood beyond it, a smile plastered on his face.

"I hope you've managed to use the provided time to get used to each other." The man said, looking in at them. His eyes flickered to the paralyzed Crystal, Star's machine gun, and Akemi's blood soaked dress before returning to a neutral position. "I see that it has been a rather exciting five minutes."

"Who are you, and what do you want with us?" Akemi said flatly.

"I am your guide, tasked with leading you to the arena." he said, his smile never fading. "And you have been selected to participate in the 66th centennial multiversal games!" a clap track played, though it was impossible to tell where the sound was coming from. "It's a great honor, and you should all be proud of yourselves! You have an opportunity to represent your universe and earn great rewards beyond imagining. If, that is, you manage to pass the qualifier. Which is what I will be taking you to presently!" he spun on his heal and started walking out. No one followed him. After a moment, he turned around. "Food and water will not be provided, and the only way out is by cooperation. You will not be forced to do anything, but we would appreciate it if you would comply with us. It is much less entertaining to watch you die of thirst."

"Well, when you put it that way..." Misaka said, walking out through the doorway. After a slight hesitation, the others followed.

"And you?" the man asked Crystal. "Will you not participate?"

"I'm paralyzed." she said flatly. "I can't walk."

"Oh, dear." he shook his head. "Well, it's the spirit that counts, they always say." he pointed his hand at her, and Crystal floated off of the ground, drawn in to the group. "Now, follow me!" he resumed his walk, the others exchanging looks between themselves.

The walk wasn't very long. They stepped through seven sets of corridors which looked essentially identical to their own, then out into a lobby. As soon as they entered, the man turned around to face them.

"Unfortunately, due to an increase in the total available universes to provide contestants, the 66th multiversal games have approximately twice as many candidates as it has spaces. As such, it has become necessary to include a preliminary round in order to put our contestant pool back to normal size." The man said.

"Couldn't you have just taken one person from each universe?" Star asked. "After all, if you have about twice too many people, and you're taking two from each, it seems that there is a simple solution here."

"No, no! That would have been unfair. We do only select people from the top 1% of individuals in any universe to attempt to keep things fairly balanced, but choosing two makes it much more likely that one of the two will be fit for the games. It is supposed to be entertaining, after all, so we do our best to make sure everyone has a fighting chance."

"So, what, the twelve of us are going to go into the arena, and you're going to open the door when there are six of us left?" Twilight said. "That's horrible."

"No, not at all." the man shook his head. "First off, you'll be in teams of two. Usually, we team people from the same universe together, but it was decided that this century we would use random assignment for the teams, to make it more fair for everyone. Secondly, as I said, this is supposed to be entertaining. Nothing is more overdone than a simple death battle. No, we have a fun game for you twelve to play."

"In advance, I'm sorry for whoever gets paired with Crystal." Mimi said.

"What game?" Ruby asked.

"On the far end of the enclosure, there is a golden dragon who holds keys to the exit in its lair. Retrieve the keys, and use them to open the door you entered to pass." he said. "Very simple."

"And, let me guess, there are only three keys?" Lilly said. "And the door closes once two people go through?"

"Exactly!" he said. "Now, girls, I'm sorry to have to do this to you. Usually, our contestants are eighteen plus, but it looks like only three of you manage that. But the rules are the rules, and I'm not allowed to change them. Even for an eleven year old, as much as it breaks my heart." the man didn't sound particularly torn up about it. "The enclosure is about thirty-five kilometers across, so this is expected to take about two days to complete. You will all be provided three days food and water." the man snapped, and a backpack appeared on everyone's back, much to Twilight and Spring's discomfort.

"I can fly that in about thirty minutes." Twilight said, shaking off the constricting bag. "Fifteen if I really push it."

"Then you have quite an advantage, don't you?" the man said. "I would advise the others to break her wings as soon as they can. After all, if she claims one key-set in the first hour, all of your odds go down.

Silence fell over the group.

"This is for real, isn't it." Uiharu said, beginning to breath harder. "We're really here, and we're really going to die if we don't win this."

"Yes." the man said. "Sorry for the wake up call, sweetie."

Crystal giggled and licked her lips. "Just as a question, what happens if, say, I were to kill everyone?" she asked innocently. "Just hypothetically."

"Then your team would progress, and no others would. It's okay for us to be under capacity." the man said, and Crystal sighed.

"No, I mean everyone. You know, my team mate as well." she said.

"Teams are allowed to continue with a single member." the man said.

Crystal grinned. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun!"

"Are their any more questions?" the man asked. No one said a word. "Alright then. I will begin assigning teams now."

An apparatus which looked very much like a large slot machine with only two windows lowered down from the ceiling. The man tugged the lever, and the windows turned rapidly. After a few seconds, a print out ejected from the prize slot, which he caught. "The first team will be... Mimi and Misaka!"

Mimi and Misaka's silver bands turned green, and a number 1 appeared above them, spinning slowly. Mimi's eyes went wide.

"Oh. My. God!" she squealed, and Misaka rolled her eyes.

"The second team will be... Twilight and Shizuki!" the man said.

Twilight and Hitomi's bands turned red, and a number 2 appeared above them. Twilight turned to Hitomi, smiling.

"Glad to see that I'm stuck with one of the reasonable ones." she said.

"Yeah, me too." Hitomi returned.

"The third team will be... Crystal and Spring!" the man said, eying the two of them.

Crystal and Spring's bands turned blue.

Spring sighed heavily. "Well, if anyone was going to be stuck with her, I'm the best option."

"Now that we're on a team, will you take that paralysis spell off me?" Crystal asked. Spring gave her a long look. "I didn't think so." she said dejectedly.

"The fourth team will be... Uiharu and Jaune!"

Uiharu and Jaune's bands turned pink.

"Um, I'll do my best." Uiharu said sheepishly.

"Yeah, that was what I was going to say." Jaune said, looking around nervously.

"The fifth team will be... Akemi and Ruby!"

Akemi and Ruby's bands turned yellow.

"Um, you seem like one of those serious types who doesn't like anyone." Ruby said, laughing nervously. Akemi gave her a flat, emotionless stare.

"Whatever would give you that idea." she said in a perfect monotone.

"Right..." Ruby looked down at her shoes.

"And that leaves Lilly and Star as the sixth team!" the man said, putting down the sheet of paper.

Lilly and Star's bands turned white.

"Well, it had to happen once." Star said. "Just another wasteland full of hostiles to cross. We have plenty of practice."

"I've always trusted you." Lilly said. "We'll make it through this too."

"Well, now that the teams have been assigned, I think we're ready to go!" the man said. "Let the games begin!" there was a sound like a pneumatic system activating, and a large opening formed in the far wall. "Good luck to all our contestants!"

There was a squelching noise, and an irresistible wind whipped up, pulling the twelve inside and scattering them wildly across the inside of the arena, throwing some of them as far a a kilometer from the entrance. After about ten seconds, the door slammed shut behind them.

"Oof." Twilight said, getting up from where she had planted into the floor. "That was... one way of doing it."

"I don't think they exactly have our comfort in mind." Hitomi told her, removing herself from the tree she had been flung into and alighting onto the ground with a quick featherfall spell.

"Okay. So, we're on a team." Twilight said. "Perhaps we should discuss capabilities?"

"Sure." Hitomi said, rubbing her aching shoulder. "That sounds like a good plan. You want to go first?"

"Fine." Twilight said. "I'm a goddess." Hitomi coughed briefly with surprise, and Twilight took a step back, giving her a reassuring look. "I'm a very kind goddess." she said. "I don't tend to think of myself as anything other than simply stronger than other people. And I don't intend on claiming any divine right of leadership or something asinine like that. But that is technically what I am, scientifically speaking."

"Scientifically..." Hitomi said, then shook her head. "You come from an interesting world. Well, I guess the talking pony should have tipped me off to that one, actually."

"I have a huge amount of magical power, the ability to fly, the ability to control the weather, and class-II immortality." Twilight continued. "How about you?"

"I'm a spectral witch." Hitomi said. "Specifically, I'm the green witch in Alice's spectrum."

"Wait, you're a witch?" Twilight said, looking shocked for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. Where I come from, witchcraft had strongly negative connotations."

"It does where I come from as well." Hitomi said. "As far as I can tell, Alice and I are the exceptions, not the rule. Most witches seem to be fairly evil, from how other people react."

"So, what can you do?" Twilight asked. Hitomi looked down.

"Not all that much, actually. I know about fifty utility spells and four combat spells, none of which I'm very good with." Hitomi said. "I've only been a witch for about two weeks."

"Oh." Twilight said. "Well, that's okay. I'll keep you safe, don't worry. With me around, the only person we really need to worry about is Spring, and she'll likely just leave us alone."

"I don't know." Hitomi said. "Akemi is pretty scary, from what I've seen. Then there's those two railgun girls working together. And I wouldn't like to be in front of Star's machine gun either, if I can help it. Most of our opponents are pretty dangerous, from what it looked like."

"Yeah, but the rest of them looked like they were... well, if not good, definitely not evil." Twilight said. "I think we can count on them to not try to hurt us."

"What?" Hitomi said. "No, hold on. Only half of us are getting out of here. Everyone else is our enemy." Hitomi paused. "Though, honestly, I can't really see myself being willing to fight most of the others."

"That's exactly it." Twilight said. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like my escape to doom two others." Hitomi paused, then nodded after a moment.

"You're right. We have to save everyone. The other contestants aren't our enemies, the people running the show are." Hitomi agreed. "Why should we play their game?"

"As you said, everyone here seems fairly dangerous." Twilight said. "If we can get the ten of us to work together... or even the eleven, as Spring's probably likely to want revenge on whoever set this up... we'll be quite the team."

"I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that easy." Hitomi said. "We've been set in opposition, and fighting the people who set this up is going to be hard. It's going to take a little work to convince everyone to join forces when such a clear end goal is present and by far the easier path to success."

"But, as you said, we have to try. I'm not willing to hurt others for my own gain." Twilight said. "Besides, the rest of them looked like fairly good people. It shouldn't be that hard."

"So, we're going to break out of here? That's the plan from the beginning?" Hitomi asked. After a moment, she smiled. "Sounds good to me. Let's save everyone."

Twilight blinked at her for a moment."I'm surprised, actually." she said. "Most of the time, I'm much more willing to risk myself for others than most ponies I know." she gave Hitomi a nudge. "It's good. I don't mind not having to convince you."

Hitomi giggled. "Great, they stuck the two optimistic heroines together! With our combined powers of cute and plot armor, we can't be stopped!"

"So, we need a plan." Twilight said. "Our first order of business is collecting all of the people together and convincing them to join us. The issue, of course, is finding them."

"No it's not." Hitomi said, shaking her head. "Remember, we're all headed to the same place. We already have a meeting location. All we need to do is get there first, and we'll meet everyone as they arrive."

"I'm not so sure." Twilight said. "Think about it. It's going to take most of them a full day to cross that distance, then another full day to cross back. We only have the supplies for three days. And beyond that, well, quite frankly I don't have two days to spare. My country is in peril right now, and I'm one of the few ponies who can save it. Being absent for two days at a time like this... my absence could conceivably lead to the deaths of fifty, sixty, even seventy thousand ponies. While I agree that your method would be the simplest, I really don't have the time."

"Seventy thousand?" Hitomi said, shocked. "That's horrible. You're right, if that's the case we need to get this done as soon as possible."

"The problem is that I can't think of a good method." Twilight said. "I could take to the air, but the canopy is too thick for that to be too effective. I can tell where Spring is from her power signature, but I'm not sure we want to go to her first. None of the others have a energy signature I can detect."

"Okay..." Hitomi nodded briefly. "I might be able to find Akemi and Ruby by concentrating on Akemi's aura... but I've never tried something like this before, and it might not work."

"You do that, and I'll fly up and see if I'm lucky enough to see anything." Twilight said. Hitomi nodded. "Good luck."

Twilight spread her wings, and Hitomi closed her eyes, looking for wisps of familiar feeling.

There was a sound like rolling thunder, and a flash of brilliant light interrupted the two before they could proceed. Briefly, they turned to each other. After about three seconds of silence, as if instructed from above, the two in unison began to run towards the light.

"I think we might have found our Gaussian girls." Hitomi said.

"You think?" Twilight agreed. There was another flash of light, closer this time. Twilight's horn began to glow. "Though, the question becomes, what are they shooting at? And why did they have to shoot twice?"

"Right." Hitomi said, activating her spells and beginning combat preparation. Out of habit, she tapped where her belt would have been, and to her surprise, she drew her sword magically from thin air. Then again, Star had been allowed to keep a machine gun, so this wasn't that unexpected.

There was a rustling, and Twilight and Hitomi entered a clearing in the woods. It was a strange clearing, the trees bending up and around them, keeping the canopy solid while the space beneath the bows was fully open to them. Standing on the far end of the clearing were the two girls, Mimi and Misaka, standing combat ready, waves of lightning cascading around them. Mimi turned to them as they approached, and she flexed her hand, pointing at them. Hitomi had just enough time to duck out of the way as a ball bearing whipped past her head at 100 m/s. Twilight took a step forward.

"Hey! We're not your enemy!" Twilight called. "We just want to-"

Mimi threw her arm across, and three more bearings shot off in their direction. Meanwhile, Misaka took a step back, summoning a series of electric strikes to combat what looked like living shadows.

Twilight didn't react in time. She was too naive, Hitomi guessed, and hadn't expected the attack. Luckily, she was ready for it, quickly hitting the bolts with a net of green power, anchoring them to the ground with relative ease. "Move!" she instructed Twilight. "We're in combat!" she popped her three bolt spells which she had saved up, providing cover as she tugged the four times as massive Twilight out of harms way. After about a second of being stunned, Twilight snapped out of it, following Hitomi into the cover of the woods while casting a purple shield around them, managing to deflect another bearing strike before they safely passed out of sight.

"Why..." Twilight said, out of breath as they stopped running some few meters outside of the clearing, still close enough to get glimpses of the fight.

"Twilight, this is apparently a hard concept for you to grasp, but good people sometimes fight with each other." Hitomi said. "Very rarely in a battle is there a side of obvious good and obvious evil. When goals conflict, two people, both working towards a greater good, can come to blows. I told you, it wouldn't be quite as easy as you thought."

"Is this a human thing?" Twilight said. "Ponies I know never fight, unless they're acting directly for only their own gain. If you're good, you're good. The worse that happens is that two good ponies don't work together because one is putting their effort elsewhere."

"Well," Hitomi said, dropping the point, "perhaps they just didn't have time to think. They were in a battle, remember? Regardless, it makes sense for us to wait, one way or the other, until they're not currently in combat."

"Fine." Twilight said, but Hitomi could tell she was uneasy. Perhaps she had been projecting a little, after all. Twilight was a different species, and just because she acted mostly human didn't mean her brain worked the same way. The idea of conflicting sides of an event both being justified in some way might truly be a foreign concept to her. For a second, Hitomi let her mind drift into thinking of exactly what kind of world Twilight must have come from to get this outlook, and then she saw Twilight's horn glow and the shadow of something from the forest cover her.

"Ah!" Hitomi cried, then regained her composure, preparing to defend herself and her companion. To her surprise, Twilight had already sprung into action, bolts of purple energy lighting up the ground around them as she threw her awesome power into the fray. The creature screamed out in terrible agony, then dispersed into wind and fading darkness. There was a chill like death, and Hitomi turned to face five more of the creatures. She flashed her pentagrams, summoning her spectral blades to protect her as she held her physical blade at the ready. They seemed to have sufficient force to keep the creatures at bay, but not nearly enough to destroy them as Twilight had. Hitomi was forced into a slow retreat.

Twilight followed her, fighting a small host herself. It wasn't long before they were pushed back into the clearing, though by then Twilight had managed to kill four of hers and was beginning to give Hitomi support. Hitomi briefly allowed herself a glance at the other two girls. Her eyes met Misaka's first this time, and she gave her a little nod.

"Form up!" Hitomi yelled, and Twilight broke combat and followed her retreat to the other girls. Mimi turned towards them, but Misaka tapped her briefly on the shoulder, and she held her attack, instead turning back to support the older girl with the creatures. Misaka and Mimi moved towards them slowly, and the four met somewhere about two thirds of the way across the clearing. The creatures stepped in from all sides, surrounding them.

"On three, everyone goes hard." Misaka said. "Ready?"

Hitomi nodded.

"1..." the creatures closed in on them, gathering into groups to prepare their attack. Hitomi counted twenty or so total, though blessedly no more seemed to be coming from the woods. "2..." they snarled at them, and Hitomi felt fear begin to crawl into her, turning to energy as she used it to trigger her form shift. "3!" Misaka yelled, and chaos erupted. The first row of creatures lunged forward, being caught mid-air by a wave of purple energy as Twilight scattered omnidirectional blasts. Hitomi burst into form three, the nearest creature simply vaporized by her light as she quickly drew three score of spectral blades to hold the perimeter. A second of delay, and two twin bursts of brilliant light scattered through the creatures, punching holes clear through eight of them all combined. Mimi took the space cleared by Hitomi as an opportunity, leaping over the other girls and slamming into the ground with a shock, sending whirling spikes of ferrite soil in rippling coils out from her point of impact. Hitomi cast a wide net of energy out, trapping four of the creatures beneath her power. With a sharp constriction, they burst into dust. Misaka lit up the surrounding area with lightning, frying everything farther than five meters from her without regard. The electricity arced between the creatures as they one by one shattered into flaming soot. By the time Twilight had finished providing the others with shields and was ready for her next attack, everything was dead.

Hitomi turned around to see a ball bearing floating only a few centimeters from her head, gasping involuntarily. Twilight gasped as well.

"Mimi, no." Misaka said.

"They're the enemy." Mimi said. "I don't want to hurt them, but..."

"Why don't we work together, then?" Twilight asked pleadingly. "No one wants to hurt anyone else here. We all have a common enemy, the people who set this horrible trial into motion. We should be fighting out against them, not each other!"

"You two want to take down the establishment?" Misaka said. "I think that makes us three to one."

"But..." Mimi started.

"Yes, it means we as individuals have a lower chance of success." Twilight said. "But I'm not willing to win at the cost of consigning other people to death, not unless there is no other option. Until I have exhausted every other possibility, even ones with risks associated with them, I will not be willing to let my self-preservation guide me."

"Mimi." Misaka said. "You said I was your hero because I never stopped fighting against things I thought were wrong, and never stopped trying to help other people even when it put myself at risk." she looked at her. "This is your chance to join us in that."

"Urg!" Mimi said, kicking at the dirt. There was a ripple and the dirt hissed lightly and changed color. "Fine. I'll be a hero, for today only." she said. "This isn't really my style." she gave them a solemn look. "It's gotten too many of my friends killed."

"We won't be one of them." Hitomi said, giving her a reassuring look. "We all have far too important things to be doing. We can't stop now."

"So, where do we head next?" Twilight said. "I have some ideas, but now that I'm one of two 'natural leaders' in our collection, I feel it would be best if I don't try to take control all the time."

"Hey." Hitomi said, and Twilight put one of her hooves up in protest, standing in a manor which Hitomi would have assumed impossible if asked.

"No offense, Shizuki." she said. "But it's true, you don't seem to be that suited to taking charge of situations. You're capable when you need to, which is more than I can say for most, but you don't naturally aspire to it."

Hitomi paused, then sighed. "Yeah, that's fair."

"See? Exactly what I mean." Twilight said. "It's not a problem. If everyone tries to lead, then nothing gets done."

"So, well, leader, what should we do?" Misaka said dryly. "We need to find and convince the others, obviously, but you sounded like you had some more thought though plan."

"Um..." Twilight sat down. "No, actually. That's as far as I got."

"Great." Misaka sighed. "Well, we should get moving before any more of those things show up. We made enough noise and light for Shizuki and Twilight to find us, so you can bet we alerted plenty of other people, too. We can talk on the move."

"Sounds good to me." Twilight said telepathically. "I've created a telepathic network for us. It should work at short ranges, and make us much more quiet."

"I'll keep watch behind us." Hitomi said. "You two, there isn't a trick to it. Just think. It'll take a few seconds to get used to, but trust me, it's the most natural thing in the worlds once you've become accustomed."

"Is this right?" Misaka asked.

"Yep, receiving you on all channels." Twilight indicated.

"HOW ABOUT ME?" Mimi said, her voice amplified considerably.

"No need to concentrate that hard." Hitomi said. "You're going to give me a headache."

"Sorry." Mimi said sheepishly. "I knew a telepath once, and we always had to yell in our heads for him to read it."

"It's all okay." Twilight said. "These things always have a learning curve."

"So, follow me, I guess." Misaka indicated, and the others followed slowly through the woods after her.

They walked through the forest arena with little trouble, making fairly good time as they searched for the other parties. Twice more they ran into the shadow creatures, but they acted quickly enough to avoid drawing attention to themselves, keeping their combat and energy expenditures at a minimum. Nothing of much importance happened as they endeavored to cover as much ground as they could.

After about two hours march, the four girls decided to take a break in a small clearing, sitting down in a small circle and unpacking their bags, looking for their supplies. Hitomi was surprised to draw some corner sandwiches and bottled water from her pack. She had expected combat rations. There was even a little bag of cookies. She shook her head. None of this made any sense, but, then again, neither did the whole concept of being randomly abducted and forced to take part in some crazy contest. Things were already strange enough. She looked up, the 'sky' above her convincingly blue, a few clouds lazily crossing it. She knew that the sunlight was fake, that somewhere above their heads the sky became a ceiling of hard metal, but it looked real. She wondered how they had done it. Who ever set this thing up was obviously an advanced civilization. Type II, maybe even Type III. Hitomi got a sinking feeling in her stomach. The twelve of them were competent, sure, but she wasn't convinced that they would be able to overcome a nation-state on her home-world, let alone a society advanced enough to build something like this for entertainment. Perhaps it would be better to just claim a key and escape.

"We haven't found anyone." Misaka said, turning to the others. "They have to be around here somewhere. The enclosure was big, but it wasn't that big, and we're all headed to the same place. We should have run into someone else by now."

"Maybe they got held up?" Hitomi ventured. "I mean, who says that the shadow things are the only creatures in these woods? Or perhaps the other teams moved significantly quicker than us, or took a roundabout path to avoid other teams, or got lost, or anything."

"Yeah, but still. It's been two hours, and we met in about five minutes." Misaka said. "We should have met someone else..."

"You're worried about Uiharu, aren't you?" Twilight said. "That's really what you're getting at."

"Maybe." Misaka huffed. Twilight smiled.

"It's okay. Being worried for friends is reasonable." she said kindly. "If one of my friends were stuck here, I'd tear apart the forest to find them. But I'd also know that they'd be fine, because I trust them. I'm sure Uiharu is more than capable of protecting herself."

"You say that." Misaka said, and the look in her eyes told Hitomi just how not capable of protecting herself Uiharu truly was. "She'll try her best, that's for sure, but I'm not sure Uiharu could defeat a normal, unarmed man, let alone any of these creatures."

"Then Jaune will protect her." Hitomi offered. "He seemed like the type to risk himself defending the 'damsel in distress'."

"Eh heh heh..." Mimi said nervously. "Actually, Uiharu and Jaune are the least combat capable characters in their respective works. Jaune is a bit better then Uiharu is, I guess. He might be able to handle, say, one of those things at a time."

"Oh, thanks." Twilight said dryly as Misaka's face dropped again. "That helped a tonne, Mimi. Good work."

"Hold on." Mimi said, and Twilight rolled her eyes.

"What, was that secretly an encouragement?" Twilight said sarcastically.

"No, I just think I hear something, and would appreciate it if your hatred of me could take backseat to our survival for at least five seconds." Mimi said shortly.

Twilight opened her mouth for a second, then closed it, letting Mimi listen. Hitomi flashed a pentagram, boosting her hearing and scanning around her. She didn't think there was anything out of the ordinary.

"Yeah." Mimi said. "There's definitely some running water. It's not that loud, and doesn't sound very deep, so perhaps a stream or brook within 500 feet."

"500... feet?" Misaka put a hand to her chin, looking pensive. "How big is a foot, again?"

"Uh..." Hitomi cast her eyes upwards for a second. "It's a little less than a third of a meter, right? So 500 feet would be about 160 meters, give or take a few."

"How do you not know what a foot is?" Mimi said, surprised.

"You must be from the United States." Misaka said, shaking her head. "The rest of the world uses metrics, you know."

"None of this is important." Twilight said flatly. "The question is, what's so important about a stream? This isn't even the first one we passed. I've heard maybe two others before it."

"Really? And you didn't think anything strange about it?" Mimi said.

"No." Twilight said. "This is an enclosure made to act like a forest. Forests have streams. It's just another detail."

"Really?" Mimi said. "Nothing strange about it?"

"Oh!" Hitomi said, looking to Mimi suddenly. "You're right, that is strange."

"..." Twilight looked to Hitomi, then to Mimi, then back to Hitomi, before the light went on in her eyes as well. "Well, I'll be." Twilight said. "That is suspicious. And quite clever of you, Mimi."

"What are the rest of you on about?" Misaka said. "It's just a stream."

"Yeah, a steam." Hitomi said.

"You know, with flowing water." Twilight said.

"Drinkable water." Mimi said, prompting.

"..." Misaka looked between the three of them. "You really want me to get this on my own, don't you." she said flatly, and the others nodded slowly. Misaka sighed, looked pensive for a moment, then pounded her fist into an outstretched hand. "Wait!" she pointed at Mimi. "A stream has water! Of course! One of the things they chose to limit our supply of was water. If it was just lying about everywhere, there wouldn't be much point. They have to make it impossible for us to get water for this thing to have the pressing nature they want."

"So a stream becomes very suspicious." Mimi finished. "Exactly."

"So it can't actually be a stream." Hitomi said. "But what is it, then?"

"Only one way to find out." Mimi said. "I think the sound is this way." she waved the others on, and they followed, preparing themselves for what they might find.

What they found was an ordinary looking stream.

"What." Misaka said. "That can't be right."

"Maybe there's something wrong with the water?" Hitomi said. "It could be poisoned or something."

"We have various abilities, from witchcraft to divine magic. I don't think they have anything they could know would poison us all, or that we wouldn't just have some way of purifying. Not to mention that Twilight isn't even in our species." Mimi said. "It's got to be something more basic than that."

Twilight walked up to the stream and stuck a hoof in it, lightly brushing the surface. She withdrew it quickly, screaming in pain, her horn flashing rapidly. There was a few seconds of pause as she went through spasms, then she stood up.

"2 molar Hydrofluoric acid." Twilight said after a pause. "I would advise against touching it."

"Uh, no kidding." Misaka said, looking at the stream with much more apprehension.

"So, streams of Hydrofluoric acid. That sounds lovely." Hitomi said. "Guaranteed to make the sound of running water without providing anyone with anything they can drink."

"What gave you the brilliant idea to stick you hoof in the unidentified liquid, anyway?" Mimi asked Twilight, who was giving herself a more through healing with her magic now that the pain had been taken care of.

"Well, the rest of you didn't seem to be doing anything, so I took action." Twilight said. "It worked, and it only put myself a risk."

"Are you sure about that?" Mimi said, suddenly going quiet. Everyone looked to where Mimi was looking. In the woods, a small group of dark, silver-black two meter tall wolves were gathering. "I think they heard you scream." Mimi said.

"Oops." Twilight said, her horn aglow again as she prepared to defend herself.

"As long as we keep the stream between them and us, we should be okay. I doubt they enjoy HF any more than we do." Misaka said.

"They're two meter tall wolves." Hitomi said, backing up a bit. "I don't think they're going to have much trouble leaping a half meter wide brook."

"Fair point." Misaka said, preparing herself for the attack. The wolves snarled at them, and Hitomi felt her leg throb suddenly with the ghost of her injury. She winced and did her best to ignore it. It was mental, her mind projecting the past onto the present due to the similarity of the situations. Her leg throbbed again, and she felt her knee buckle, almost loosing balance before she managed to regain control. Her eye flickered to her leg for a moment. It was mental, right?

"They're just standing there, growling." Misaka said. "What are they doing?"

Hitomi dropped to the ground, moaning. The pain was sudden and intense, and the others turned to look at her as she struggled to maintain control.

"Shizuki! What's wrong?" Twilight asked, concerned.

"My leg... I got bit there once, about a week and a half ago, by something that looked an awful lot like those wolves." Hitomi said. "It suddenly started hurting again, even though I got it magically healed a week back."

"They're changing!" Mimi said, and the others looked over at the wolves. Hitomi couldn't see as another wave of pain took her. She heard Mimi gasp, and drop to the ground as well, doubling up in pain.

"The creatures are taking the shape of whatever has hurt us the most." Twilight said suddenly. "They must be hurting us through that, somehow." she extended her wings. "We need to stop them before we..." she suddenly tensed, then dropped to the ground. "Misaka, now!" Twilight called, then shuttered in pain, joining the other two on the ground, curled up in her projected agony. Hitomi couldn't see most of what was happening, but she guessed the things would be transforming into whatever had hurt Misaka the most next. Once the four of them were incapacitated, the creatures, whatever they truly were, wouldn't have any trouble taking them.

There was a flash of energy as Misaka unleashed a wave of lightning at the creatures, and Hitomi felt her pain lessen for a moment. Suddenly, she felt power surging back into her. This pain had another memory associated with it, one of her protecting her friend when they really needed it. She drew on that power again, using it to keep the pain at bay, fighting through it as she had before. She heard Misaka gasp. There was another wave of electric power, a slight lessening of the pain again, and then Misaka screamed, dropping as well next to her. Hitomi shuttered, but struggled to her feet slowly. The real thing had hurt worse than this anyway. Her will propelled her through the pain, as she rose to her feet to face the creatures as they approached. They weren't much of anything to look at now, just clouds of dark, multicolored dust. They slowed as she watched them, seeming wary of her. Hitomi raised her arm, pointing at them shakily and deliberately. From her pointer finger a pentagram of emerald light flashed into existence, and she aimed it at the densest group of clouds.

"Why... fight?" the cloud said, it's voice broken and scratchy in her head. "We... stop... pain." Hitomi felt her leg burn again, but she forced herself to stay standing. "Why... not... stop... pain?"

"You can't hurt me!" Hitomi screamed. "Not when I have people to protect." her pentagram flashed, and with a flick of her wrist a web of energy cascaded into the approaching cloud. There was a brief silence, and then what sounded like broken laughter in her head. The cloud began to approach again, faster this time.

"You... may... pass... will... saves..." it croaked, "but... you... have... no... power... girl."

Hitomi threw a few bolts at it, then a cascade of spectral blades, but nothing seemed to have any effect. The cloud laughed louder in her mind. Hitomi felt the pain getting worse.

"Hey! It's unsporting to attack someone when they're already hurt, you know." A voice said from the far bank, and Hitomi turned her attention to the figures of Star and Lilly before ducking to the ground as Star began to open fire. The cloud turned to the other two, seeming to try to transform, but the bullets were disrupting enough that it seemed unable to maintain control. Hitomi felt the pain lessening, slowly at first but then quicker. The cloud appeared to be shrinking as it was torn at by fifteen shots a second. The volume of fire was great enough to damage even the incorporeal beast. It screamed, they tried to flee. Hitomi felt the pain dissipate suddenly, and the others rose to their feet quickly, looking stunned for a second before regaining their senses and watching as Star reduced the cloud to whips in seconds. Finally, the gunfire stopped. Star slung her machine gun onto her back, dropping her spent ammo belt and walking up to the others. "You all alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, thanks." Misaka said. "That's quite the gun you have there." she seemed wary of the older girl, unsurprisingly.

"Oh, I know, right?" Star said. "Custom. Built it myself. Quite proud of it, to tell you the truth."

"You killed a cloud with it." Mimi said. "You shot a cloud so much it died."

"Yeah?" Star said. "So?"

"It's a cloud." Mimi said. "They usually don't mind getting shot."

"I have yet to find a single enemy that can't be killed with enough firepower." Star said. "Why should a weird cloud-beast thing be any different?"

"O-okay. Sure." Mimi said. "But, like, you shot a cloud to death." she seemed to be having a hard time accepting this fact, from what Hitomi could tell. As for her, it was just another thing to add to a very weird day.

The little girl, Lilly, stepped out from behind her. "I have a suggestion for you four to consider." she said, in a steady voice that made Hitomi feel that she had been through far to much for someone her age. She was only eleven, right? She shouldn't be speaking like this. "I plan on trying to get out of here without use of the keys. I think we should take the fight to the people who threw us in here, instead of destroying each-other. Together, I'm sure-"

"Oh, so you'll join our party then?" Misaka said. "Sorry, not that you speech wouldn't have been lovely, but that's already our plan. No need to bother trying to convince us."

"Well, that makes things easy." Lilly said. "So, that's six of us now. Half the number."

"Any idea how to find the others?" Misaka said. "We've been looking for a while, but you're the first we've come across in two hours."

"You are our first as well." Lilly said. "We don't really have any effective way of tracking the others, as far as I know."

"Well, we could use the band things." Star said innocently. The other five looked at her. She tilted her head slightly. "What?" she tapped the band on her wrist, and the display came up, showing her and Lilly's little status bars. Flicking through it like a touchscreen, she showed the others a little mini-map, little colored dots marking the locations of the other teams. "I found this while looking through the functions of the piece. It only showed Lilly for me to start with, but it flashed to this view about thirty minutes ago." as she spoke, some of the other dots flickered, like they were getting static.

"And you didn't say anything about this before now... why?" Lilly said.

"You seemed like you had a plan." Star said. "Besides, you were telling me off for playing with the thing, so I figured that I'd keep the fruits of my 'play' to myself, if you were going to be so unappreciative."

"Where is team 4?" Twilight asked. "There are no pink dots here."

"Uh..." Star said after a moment. "Well, I'll be. That's right, isn't it? I didn't notice."

"Uiharu..." Misaka said quietly.

"I'm sure they're fine. Maybe they managed to break it after figuring out that it was tracking their location?" Hitomi offered. "It doesn't mean that anything happened to them."

"So. Team 3 is still less than two kilometers from the gate, and team 5 appears to be about a kilometer ahead of us." Lilly said, giving the view a good look over. "We should try to get Team 5 as quickly as possible and head back. I think that should be our next move."

"Should we contact team 3 at all?" Twilight said. "I mean, it's Spring and Crystal. They're the two least trustworthy of anyone here."

"But they're both incredibly powerful." Mimi said. "I've seen Crystal destroy entire military bases when she gets bored, and come out without a scratch on her. And Spring took her out in one move. It's going to be hard to control them, sure, but we need them to help us. I wouldn't be surprised if they were #1 and #2 in terms of power in our group."

"I guess Spring will be reasonable, at least. And she almost certainly hates these people more than us right now." Twilight said. "If you're willing to work with Crystal, I guess I can work with Spring. I'm not happy about it, but I'll do it."

"Oh, hell no. We don't work with Crystal. We get her to work at the same thing as us and put a few walls up in the space in between." Mimi said quickly. "Unlike your Spring, who seems to be the lawful evil type, Crystal is distinctly chaotic evil. She will, no question, just randomly kill some of us while working if she gets in the mood, no matter the risk it puts her in. She really can't help herself. I don't know exactly what is wrong with her, but whatever it is, it's really, really wrong."

"Fine, but you get what I mean." Twilight sighed. "I don't want to work with Spring, but I don't think she's just going to turn on us in the middle. She knows she needs us as much as we need her to get out of here. As much as I hate to say it, you're right, they're too much of an asset to let go."

"We'll deal with that later. First, let's catch up with Ruby and Akemi." Lilly said. "They're still on the move."

"Right." Hitomi nodded, and the others seemed to calm down and apply themselves to the task at hand.

"We should go quiet again." Twilight said.

"Oh, a telepathic net!" Star said. "We've got a friend who can do this, too."

"Why did we stop using this, anyway?" Hitomi asked.

"It gets taxing for me to keep it open all the time. But now that we need to catch two people who will be suspicious of anyone approaching, making as little sound as possible, especially as little talking as possible, will keep them from evading us for as long as possible." Twilight said.

"Then let's catch us a huntress in training and a time-stopping magical girl." Mimi said. "What could go wrong?"

The six began to make their way through the woods, traveling as quickly as they could manage. Their target was moving ahead of them, but at a much more relaxed pace. It took them only ten minutes before they were almost on top of them.

"I think I see them." Twilight said. "Thirty meters ahead of me. They seem to be stopped. Approach with caution."

Hitomi drew in, following the muffled sound of their voices. After a few seconds, she drew in close enough to hear them.

"-point in looking for them." Akemi said, her tone as neutral as always.

"Don't tell me you're not at least worried for that Shizuki girl. There are three keys, you know. We could find her, and Jaune, and all get out of here." Ruby's voice was almost pleading.

"We need to protect our own interests first." Akemi said. "Forget about the others. Your attachment can only lead to disaster."

"Look at you, talking like friendship was a curse!" Ruby said, exasperated.

"It is not a curse. It is, however, a social structure which confers both strengths and weaknesses to those who have it. In particular, it makes people inside of your group of 'friends' more likely to help you at a cost to themselves, and makes you more likely to help them at cost to yourself. Depending on the situation, this can either be an overall positive or overall negative effect. In a challenge such as this, it is negative." Akemi said. "We have been set in opposition to each-other. If we attempt to help others claim the limited resources available, we hinder our own chances of success."

"But we can't just abandon them." Ruby said. "That would be..."

"We can, and we must." Akemi said curtly, turning on her heal. "I refuse to discuss this with you further, and would appreciate it if you did not bring it up again." she began to walk out.

"Then I'm not coming with you." Ruby said.

Akemi paused for a moment. "I do not need you to succeed in this challenge. You are free to do what you wish." she continued to walk away.

"Perhaps we should step in?" Twilight asked.

"Before they get away, yeah." Star said. There was a rustling, and Ruby and Akemi turned to face Star as she stepped out of the forest around them. "Oh, hi there!" she said cheerily.

Ruby clicked something off her back, and drew a large red scythe from what appeared to Hitomi as thin air. Akemi activated her shield, disappearing and reappearing just in time for Lilly to drop down on top of her before she could fully secure Star. Lilly trained her duel pistols at Akemi's head.

"No sudden moves. Trust me, I'm faster pulling a trigger than you are starting that shield of yours." Lilly said flatly.

"Star!" Mimi said, stepping out. "Seriously. That was not the way to great someone. I would have gone on the attack if you'd popped out on me like that too."

"You'd have gone on the attack regardless." Hitomi said dryly.

Slowly, the small clearing filled with the eight gathered people. No one spoke. Ruby slowly put down her scythe. Lilly got off of Akemi. Akemi stood up and brushed herself off, looking around at the others.

"Just one question." Akemi said, glancing at Star and Lilly. "How did you manage to stop me so quickly?"

"You can thank Sky for that." Star said.

"We have a friend in our group back where we come from who has a power very similar to yours. We're used to dealing with people who can stop time." Lilly informed her.

"So, what are you going to do with us?" Akemi continued. "I see you already made a group of six. I was worried that someone might. You're already at maximum."

"We were hoping you'd join us." Twilight said.

"The eight of us will stand a better chance of busting out of here than the six of us." Star said.

"Together, we have most skills covered." Hitomi noted.

"The people who threw us in here are the real enemy, not each other." Lilly said.

"And we can't abandon our friends." Misaka affirmed.

"I'm just going along with it because the rest of these idiots are." Mimi said.

There was a brief stretch of silence, in which Akemi and Ruby stared at the others with uncomprehending expressions. Then Ruby smiled wide and clapped her hands together. "Ha. Told you." she said pointedly to Akmei, skipping over the the others. "See? Everyone else is trying to work together. It's just you being suspicious." she nudged Hitomi lightly as she turned to face Akemi with the others. All seven kept their eyes trained hard on her, waiting to see what she would do. She looked around slowly, then sighed.

"Well, it looks like I don't have much of a choice. I can't very well take all seven of you." she said flatly. "Let's break out of here."

There was wild cheering from the others, which Hitomi joined after a moments pause. Akemi rolled her eyes, walking into their circle.

"We'll be fine." Hitomi told her. "We'll make it back, okay?"

"Had a change of heart?" Akemi asked.

"Maybe a little." Hitomi said, nodding. "You're certainly not very nice, but I think you're good, when you get right down to it. I don't think you want to hurt anyone." she paused. "I'm okay with you shadowing Madoka. I won't try to stop you."

Akemi didn't say anything to that, simply turning to the others as they began to calm down. "So, where do we go from here?" she queried.

"We're off to pick up team 3." Star said. "Then it's on to the assault!"

"Where's Jaune?" Ruby asked suddenly.

"Oh, uh..." Twilight said, looking down. "Well..."

"Team 4's locational markers are not showing. We have no other information." Lilly said. "Any other speculation will only serve to distract us."

Ruby didn't seem too happy with that answer, but she didn't say anything more.

"That seems reasonable to me." Akemi nodded. "I am prepared to handle Crystal again if the need arises."

"And I think I can convince Spring without too much trouble." Twilight said. "So, we're ready, then?"

The others nodded. "Well, onwards!" Misaka said, waving them on, her band displaying the map to get her bearings. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we get to leave."

The return trip was uneventful, which surprised Hitomi. It seemed that most of the creatures in the forest were avoiding them now. Perhaps they didn't want to try to take eight at once. Still, they didn't sight a single creature on their path. Hitomi couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

They found Crystal and Spring quite suddenly. They were sitting with their backs to a tree, not looking at each other. Spring raised an eyelid as the others approached.

"Oh, there you are." she said. "What took you so long?"

Twilight seemed to flush slightly. "Well, you could have gotten up and met us." she said, then shook her head. "Wait, why am I being civil with you?"

Spring got to her hooves, giving the others a tired look. Hitomi honestly believed they had woken her from a nap. Either that, or she was very good at acting. "So, you got most of the others already. I would have expected no less from you, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight flushed again, turning away from her. "Yeah, whatever." she muttered. "Are you going to help us or not?"

"Well, I don't see why not." Spring said. "After all, I want to put my hoof down the throats of whoever interrupted my glorious return just as much as the rest of you. I could probably get out on my own, but rest of you would get awfully mad at me if I left you here. Besides, I'm hardly stupid enough, or narcissistic enough, to not realize that the rest of you do make my chances of success higher. Figuring out a counter to nine people is much harder than figuring out a counter to one, no matter how powerful the one may be."

"And what about Crystal?" Mimi said.

"Oh, her?" Spring turned. "She's taking a little nap. Should wake up in about three hours, give or take."

"I see." Mimi said. "So, I guess she won't be helping us, then."

"Oh, why would you say that?" Crystal said suddenly. Spring rolled her eyes.

"How long have you been up?" she said flatly.

"Oh, about ten minutes now. But you were so cute sleeping I didn't want to wake you." Crystal said, giggling lightly. "Besides, I already killed you. Twice. I got it out of my system."

"You say that now." Spring said flatly. Crystal giggled.

"So I have issues." she said, pouting slightly. "Doesn't everyone?" she tilted her head slightly. "Besides, you came back to life. Everyone seems to be doing that now. I don't see what you're so upset about."

Spring just rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Oh. My. God." Mimi said, shaking her head. "Those two are perfect for each other."

Spring shot Mimi a scathing look. Crystal turned to Mimi slowly. "Oh, Mimi, you know I have eyes only for you." Crystal said, and Mimi shivered involuntarily.

"Look, this is all nice." Misaka said, stepping up to the front of the group. "But we do want to get out of here at some point."

"Indeed." Akemi said. "We have gathered all whom we can easily locate. I believe we are ready now."

"Okay then." Spring stretched out, then turned to face towards the entrance with the others. "Lets get started."

"What's our plan of attack?" Hitomi asked.

"Well, I was thinking something along the lines of 'blast the wall until it breaks'." Star said. "I mean, we don't need to be subtle. They're watching us, remember? This was 'entertainment' for them. They already know what we're trying to do."

Hitomi gasped. "Of course. That's what has been unsettling me! We've met no resistance this whole time. You'd think, if we were doing something they didn't want, they'd have stepped in by now."

"So, what your saying is that they expected this?" Misaka said.

"That, or they're absolutely certain we'll fail for some reason." Hitomi said. "Either way, there's something they know that we don't, and I don't like it."

"Well, there's only one thing for that." Ruby said. "We'll just have to show them how stupid it is to underestimate us!"

The ground shook slightly, and a crashing sound was heard from behind them. The ten turned slowly, peering out over the trees beyond. They couldn't see anything for a moment, the world quiet around them. Then the ground shook again, and a flash of gold caught the light, above the height of the trees.

"Right. They did have a dragon, didn't they." Mimi said flatly.

"Formation!" Spring shouted, and everyone looked at her strangely. She sighed. "Worth a shot. Okay, then, everyone for themselves!" she streaked into the air, blasting down at it with a wild flurry of aquamarine bolts. She disappeared into the distance.

"Say, why don't we wait about a minute to see if she retreats first?" Star said.

"Oh, that would give me plenty of-" Crystal started, but Akemi already had her tied up before she could get farther than that. She rolled her eyes. "Plenty of time to clear the area. Or not. We can fight in the thick of the woods if you prefer."

"Don't let her out." Lilly said.

"I was not planing on it." Akemi affirmed.

There was a roar, a sound like a rocket engine, and then silence. Ten seconds later, Spring landed next to them, her coat lightly singed.

"Well, that didn't go so well." she admitted. "I think I managed to tick it off, and that's about it. The damn scales have some kind of magical resistance to them, so my straight attacks don't work."

"How about your shields?" Twilight inquired.

"They held, but that fire is something else." Spring shook her head. "They won't hold for long."

"Can you clear the area of trees?" Star said. "We're going to need the space."

"Now, that's something I can do." Spring's horn flashed, and the ground vibrated as the trees disintegrated into small five-centimeter cubes. She frowned. "Trees aren't supposed to do that. They're supposed to uproot."

"The trees are fake. We should have expected as much." Misaka said. "Everything here is fake."

"Well, it makes this easier, actually." Spring grunted for a moment, and every tree within fifty meters exploded into the cubes, which she easily stacked in one corner of the enclosure.

The ground trembled again, and this time they saw the trees knock over, the dragon's head rearing above them.

"Oh, yeah. Perhaps I should mention." Spring said as it drew near. "The dragon is about thirty meters tall."

Hitomi didn't really have time to react to that, as the dragon stepped into the clearing with a defining crunch, roaring down at the gathered group. Nothing happened for about two seconds. Next to her, Hitomi heard the loud cocking of a gun, and Star started screaming, the air erupting with the sparks of her weapon. The tide broke. Hitomi leaped sideways, getting out of the direct line of attack while attempting to entangle the beast in as many nets of power as she could manage. There was a sound like rolling thunder as twin arcs of light struck the side of the dragon. It screeched, blowing a wave of flame at them from its mouth. Before impact, dual shields of aquamarine and violet blanketed the group, deflecting the blast.

"We have incoming!" Mimi shouted, pointing to the shadow creatures who were now gathering around them in waves.

"On it." Akmei said. She turned to Lilly briefly, who responded with a curt nod. The two girls both drew double pistols and went back to back, tearing apart the creatures while the other seven dealt with the dragon.

Hitomi's nets seemed to be having some effect on the dragon. It was slowing down, unable to shake them. She tried hitting it with a charged burst, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Spring was right. It looked like magical attacks didn't work against it. The dragon swiped its claws through her nets, tearing them apart. Hitomi growled frustratedly.

"No, you're doing great!" Twilight said. "Just hold it for a second longer..." her horn lit for a moment, and a bolt of water condensed out of the air, slamming into the dragon. There was an aquamarine flash, and the water turned to ice, the dragon howling out as it expanded between its scales.

There was another flash of light, and the dragon wheeled wildly, letting loose another burst of flame at Misaka. Akemi appeared briefly in front of her, then the two were on the other side of the clearing. Spring and Twilight were trying various magic-based physical attacks, though it seemed that each one only worked once before the dragon became immune. Hitomi began to feel her power failing. Lilly screamed out as she was overtaken by the shadows. Star cursed as her gun jammed. Ruby's scythe clanged uselessly against the dragon's scales, and she turned to back up Lilly. Mimi bellowed, throwing another railgun-burst at the dragon, Misaka following with another of her own. They weren't loosing, not yet, but they really weren't making any progress, and they were starting to get worn down.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Crystal yelled, ripping herself free from the burning bonds that had been holding her. "You all are pathetic." she extended the blades from her fingernails, and rushed the dragon. It swiped at her and she cut off its claws with one strike. Swinging up onto its arm, she sliced it over and over as she ran up the length of its body, jumping onto its stomach and sliding down its front, leaving eight fifteen meter long gashes in its flesh. The dragon screamed out in horrible agony, then let a burst of flame at Crystal.

Spring put up a shield right before impact. As the dragonfire raged behind her, Crystal turned to the others.

"You keep talking about teamwork and how wonderful it all is." she said. "So why aren't you using any?" she tilted her head. "Not even I can take this thing on my own. Everyone doing their own thing is just going to get us nowhere."

Everyone looked between themselves for a second. The dragonfire stopped, and Crystal smartly walked to the remainder of the group before she could be singled out for attack.

"Retreat!" Twilight yelled. "We need a few seconds to plan!"

"On it." Spring's horn flashed, and they found themselves some few hundred meters away instantly.

"Okay." Star looked around. "What do we know?"

"Magical attacks don't work." Twilight said.

"Though it's not immune to magic itself, because my nets still function." Hitomi noted.

"The only physical attacks that are strong enough to get through its scales are the railguns and Crystal's blades." Misaka said.

"So, then, I guess we put Ruby, Lilly, and Star on shadow defense. Spring and I will continue to provide distraction. Shizuki will continue to slow it down as much as she can, and Misaka and Mimi will give it everything they have. When an opening presents itself, Crystal can jump in and give it hell. Akemi stays as support and goes wherever she's needed." Twilight said.

"On the count of three." Spring said, preparing to teleport them back. "One... two..." Hitomi felt herself go numb as she let her power take her. "Three!"

Hitomi screamed, bursting into form three as she let loose a wave of power, creating a net large enough to pin the dragon fully to the ground. Mimi grabbed Misaka and whispered something to her, and the two of them began to prepare something. "Give us twenty seconds!" Mimi shouted.

"On it!" Crystal yelled, giggling as she leaped across the clearing and began to slice into the dragons legs, letting the blood spray her as she danced around its clumsy strikes. Every time the dragon managed to break part of her net, Hitomi threw a new one on, creating a patchwork network which slowed the dragon by nearly fifty percent. Twilight and Spring easily deflected the flame, flying around it in circles and blinding it with flashes of light. Ruby was obviously in her element, having no trouble slicing her way through tens of the shadow creatures. Star and Lilly hit anything that got behind her as she tore through the mass, the three of them repelling the whole of the army of shadows. Akemi flitted in and out, providing necessary support where she was needed.

"Ready!" Misaka yelled. "Cover yourselves!" she picked up a coin and flicked it into the air, like usual. Mimi dropped down to one knee in front of her. There was contact, and the coin shot forward. As it flew, the white light burst into a rainbow pattern as Mimi accelerated it further through her magnetic bubble. Like a spiral of pure energy, the particle beam struck the dragon square in the chest, knocking it backwards fifteen meters. The impact blew a half-meter wide hole half-way through the dragon, and it shrieked in agony. Mimi grinned.

"Extend the magnetic barrel by ten meters, and you get ten times the speed." she said. "And ten times the speed means a hundred times the force." then her eyes rolled into her head, and she collapsed, unconscious.

"Mimi!" Misaka yelled, catching her as she fell.

"We don't have time!" Hitomi said. "The dragon's still-"

She didn't have the time to finish that statement, as the dragon let loose another burst of flame. Spring and Twilight had been too distracted by the previous attack to react in time. Hitomi screamed, then saw everything take a shifted view.

"Come on." Akemi said. "Keep holding my hand."

Hitomi nodded, walking out of the way with Akemi. "What about the others?" she asked.

"They will have to deal with it themselves." Akmei said shortly. "I am only helping you because-"

"My death would cause Madoka undue stress. I know." Hitomi sighed. "I don't know why that's so important, but I know."

Akemi let time retake its course, and the burst of flame hit the others. There was a second of silence, then Misaka stood up, her clothes charred but seeming otherwise unhurt.

"Don't you know?" she said. "And I can't believe I forgot this until now, but flame is a charged plasma."

The dragon heaved back again, preparing to torch them once more. Misaka put out her hand, and the flame balled up inside the dragons mouth, forcing its way back down the dragon's throat. The dragon gave a furious howl, attempting to retreat.

"This is it!" Twilight yelled. "It's trying to get away! We're hurting it! Let's finish this!"

Hitomi took her cue. She pulled her nets tight around the dragon, and they began to glow with bright emerald flame. The dragon found itself entirely unable to move as she held it. "You have fifteen seconds!" Hitomi yelled.

Star pulled out a lever on her gun, firing a rapid selection of high-caliper shots into the air at reduced velocities. They burst mid-flight, turning into a cloud of over five hundred marble sized chunks. Spring and Twilight dived, Spring picking up Misaka and Twilight picking up Akemi. They flew them twenty meters into the air, dropping them onto a magical platform, the two girls standing hand in hand as the cloud of shot reached its peak and began to fall. Akemi activated her shield. Misaka turned to the others, smiling. "And this is why you don't see shows where the person with time control has access to high damage outputs." she said, turning to the cloud of debris just as it reached head-height. There was a pause of silence, as if the universe was holding its breath. Then five hundred railguns went off simultaneously, and the dragon broke into tiny pieces. Hitomi saw the light through her arm, and the heat gave her mild burns at a distance of forty meters. Akemi and Misaka alighted on the ground, Misaka grinning, Akemi's expression unsurprisingly blank.

"We did it." Twilight said, landing next to them. "We killed the dragon."

"Woo!" Star yelled. "That was awesome! Can we do that again?"

"Mimi's unconscious, I've used most of my power, Shizuki's used most of her power, Akemi's used most of her power, and we still need to tie up Crystal again before she realizes the rest of us are tired." Misaka said. "I don't think we could do that again."

"Oh, you have that right." Hitomi said, dropping out of form three and nearly falling over. "I'm barely able to stand at this point."

"That really was something, though, wasn't it?" Star sighed. "Six people contributing to an super final attack."

"And we couldn't have done any of it if Mimi hadn't helped us weaken it beforehand." Lilly said. "And without Ruby, we would have been fighting on two fronts instead of one. Really, the only person we could have done without was me. If any of the rest of you nine were missing, we would have lost."

"Though Misaka MVP'd hard there in the end." Ruby said. "That was amazing."

"If Shizuki hadn't been able to hold a dragon for fifteen seconds on her own, I wouldn't have been able to make the shot." Misaka said.

"I wouldn't have been alive long enough if Twilight and Spring hadn't deflected all of the dragons attacks." Hitomi said.

"And none of us would have been able to do any of this if Crystal hadn't called us out." Twilight said.

"See, I was useful." Crystal said.

"Yeah, thanks." Spring said, hitting her with another paralysis spell. Crystal just rolled her eyes.

"So, what now?" Hitomi asked.

"Well, we should get a little rest, and when we've recharged again we'll see if the wall can take Mimi and Misaka's combined Gauss cannon attack." Spring said. "It's the highest output single attack that we have... actually, it's the highest output single attack I've ever seen, to be frank. If they can't punch through the wall, we don't have much of a chance anyway."

There was a rumble in the ground, and Hitomi looked over at the source of the disturbance. Her eyes widened. "No..." she said numbly.

There were three more dragons coming, each as large as the first. Flanking them were two large helipads, guns trained on them. Misaka dropped to her knees. Twilight seemed shocked. Spring sighed. Star cocked her gun and stood in front of Lilly. Ruby dropped into a combat stance.

"We give it all we have." Ruby said. "We can't lose anything from trying. Get up, Misaka. We can still do this."

"OH, I'M SORRY." a voice called from the helipad, a voice Hitomi recognized as the man from earlier. "YOU TEN HAVE EXCEEDED ALL EXPECTATIONS, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT. UNFORTUNATELY, THE SHOW MUST GO ON, AND WE CAN'T HAVE YOU ESCAPING US JUST YET." The dragons roared, and the guns began to whir to life. "PARTY'S OVER, GIRLS!"

Hitomi closed her eyes. This was it. Better to go out in a blaze of glory then die screaming. She readied herself for a final assault, drawing into herself for any power she might have left. She opened her eyes, looked straight at the helipad, into her oncoming death...

"YEAH, YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!"

Another voice, young and female and strong, blasted over the air. No one said anything for a second. The world went quiet, the dragons stopped fidgeting, the hum of the helipad engines became the only noise. Misaka started to laugh, slowly at first but building in volume. The sky went dark, and emergency lighting flooded the entire dome.

Misaka took three steps out in front of the rest of the group. "Hey, Uiharu, what took you so long?"

"THESE ADVANCED ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS HAVE GOOD FIREWALLS." Uiharu said defensively. "OH, AND I OWN 51% OF YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM NOW, IN CASE YOU'RE CONFUSED." she informed the man. "I COMMEND YOU ON YOUR CYBER-SECURITY. IT TOOK ME ALMOST TWO HOURS TO GET THIS FAR." The helipads turned, pointing at the dragons. They opened fire suddenly and destructively, the dragons screeching as they were reduced to slag from the violence of the attack. When they had finished, one of the helipads turned and destroyed the other. "ALL ABOARD!" Uiharu said, and the others climbed aboard their newly acquired transport.

"This is impossible." The man's voice said from the much smaller speakers inside of the vehicle. "How can you possibly own 51% of our computer system? The code isn't even written with symbols you recognize!"

"53% now. It's much easier once you're already over the 50% mark." Uiharu said. "And I did say it took two hours."

"So, should we come pick you up?" Twilight asked.

"Is Jaune okay?" Ruby said, forcing her way to the speaker.

"Oh, hi, Ruby!" Jaune called. "Yeah, I'm fine. You know, this Uiharu is a little bit scary with computers."

"Uh, yeah, why don't you come get me." Uiharu said. "I think they've tracked where I am now. I see things starting to close in." there was a brief pause. "Please, hurry!" the markers for team 4 appeared suddenly on the map.

"On it." Lilly grabbed the controls.

"Wait, we're letting the eleven year old fly it?" Twilight asked.

"I know what I'm doing." Lilly said. "Trust me." she pulled up on the joystick, and the craft rose gracefully into the red sky. Deftly, she flicked through the switches across the cockpit and the craft started moving smoothly through the air.

"As soon as they get you from that terminal, you're going to lose control of the system." the man said over the speakers. "And one helipad is nice, but we have over thirty-five million of them in storage in this cite. We've converted the whole planet into a gaming center. You twelve don't stand a chance against a whole world."

"Eleven. We left Crystal behind." Lilly said.

"Whatever. Even worse odds, then." the man said. "You can't possibly beat us."

"But we don't have to." Uiharu said. "I've already downloaded a map of the outside, and there's a universal transmat less than fifteen kilometers from the exit. If we can get to it, we can go home. That's all we care about, you know. We're not trying to kill you all, we're just trying to get out of here."

"And you think it isn't guarded?" the man said.

"No, but I think the ten of them killed a dragon in less than two minutes with no technological support. You may be underestimating us." Uiharu said.

"You don't know what you're getting yourselves into, girls." the man snarled. "We have ways to make-" the voice cut out.

"Finally tracked down where he was broadcasting from." Uiharu said. "A little peace at last."

"I see you." Lilly said. Hitomi peered over the edge of the helipad, finding Jaune and Uiharu standing near a computer terminal on the wall. They waved the others down, and Lilly was careful to make sure the Helipad crushed most of the shadow creatures to clear a path for them. With a few last frantic lines of code, Uiharu separated herself from the terminal and ran with Jaune to the open doors of the helipad. Lilly took off again as soon as they were inside.

"I've got the code to open the door here." Uiharu said, typing into the helipad's computer. "I've set it to open for us upon approach. The code should hold them for a few minutes, but I can't promise much. We need to get there fast. He was right, now that I'm away from the terminal, it won't take them very long to undo what I've done."

"Full speed ahead, then." Lilly said, gunning it to the entrance. "The doors will open automatically, right?"

"It should." Uiharu said. "Wait, Lilly, you don't intend-"

Lilly pressed the accelerator down harder. There was a hiss as the door opened, and one second later, the helipad flew through the little gap and into the lobby. It was too large to fit down the hallway, the engines popping off and the sound of metal scraping on metal filled the air as they slid through the narrow hall. Lilly jumped back from the cockpit as they smashed through the first hallway door, the windshield shattering. They weren't going quite fast enough to break through the second door, being stopped by it with a gut-wrenching lurch. After a moments recovery, Lilly turned to the others.

"That went well, all things considered." she said. "And I even got us through the first door."

"Never do that again." Twilight said.

"I doubt I'll have the chance." Lilly said.

"Ugh..." Mimi said, blinking herself awake. "What did I miss?"

"I'll explain later." Misaka said.

Star climbed out of the windshield, straining against the partly busted door. Hitomi was about to tell her to stop when there was the sound of rending metal, and she forced it open. "Phew." she said. "That was tougher than I'd like. Well, come on."

The others followed her out into the hall beyond. There were little cell locked rooms here, just like the ones the twelve of them had been trapped in. They looked empty. Hitomi turned to Uiharu. "How many halls are we going to have to go through?" she asked.

"There are twenty of them like this, and then there stop being doors." Uiharu said. "So we still need to get through eighteen doors before we're out."

"How?" Ruby asked. "Nothing we have can scratch the metal."

"Crystal could cut it." Mimi said. "We'd have to go and get her, and somehow get her to just cut the doors..."

"Not really an option anymore." Spring said. "Not without transport."

"Wait." Hitomi said. "I might have something." she closed her eyes, reaching out with her power along her magical connection. She'd never tried this before, but from what Alice had said, it should work. She hoped it worked.

"What?" Jaxx said, popping into existence, then shaking his head and rubbing against Hitomi. "Oh, it's good master Hitomi!" he said, purring.

"Jaxx, I need your help." Hitomi said.

"Anything I can do for my master." Jaxx said, purring loudly.

"Can you get Alice to send me something that will fool an electronic door into thinking we have access rights?" Hitomi said. "A fake key-card, or broadcaster, or something."

Jaxx looked around the room. "What have you gotten yourself into?" he asked. "This is a different time-space, isn't it?" he chuckled to himself briefly. "Oh, you'll be dealing with plenty of that later. No need to start early."

"Jaxx, please, it's important." Hitomi said. "I need you to stay on task, okay?"

"I'll see what I can do." he said.

"Thank you." Hitomi said, and Jaxx disappeared. She sighed. "Familiars. At least he's earnest."

Akemi seemed concerned, giving Hitomi a strange look for a moment. "Familiar?" she asked.

"Yeah, a witch's familiar." Hitomi said. "I'm a spectral witch." Akemi seemed startled by that statement. Hitomi's eyes furrowed, and she looked at Akmei confusedly. "Is there something wrong with that? I'm a good witch."

Akemi didn't say anything to that.

Jaxx reappeared, a key-card on a lanyard around his neck. "She says this should work. Oh, and you say hi." Jaxx said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." he disappeared, leaving the key-card behind. Hitomi picked it up.

"Utility magic comes in handy." she said, swiping it at the door. It opened for them. "Come on." Hitomi said, waving the others on.

They passed through a few more doors, not really meeting any resistance on their way. Hitomi's key-card had no trouble opening every door they came to, despite the fact that none of the doors actually had key card readers. It took them only three minutes before they were in the open halls, able to transverse the great facility at will.

"The transmat is this way, I think." Uiharu said. "We're not that far. If we hurry, we could be there in about two hours."

"Two hours?" Ruby said. "That's plenty of time for things to go wrong. Anyway we could speed that up?"

"Not that I..." Uiharu started, then Mimi tapped Ruby's shoulder.

"Like that?" she asked. Hitomi turned to see where Mimi was pointing. There was what looked like a little trolley making its way down the hall. "I think we could take it."

"Hey, what are you people doing?" a voice called from the trolley. "You're not suppose to be here!"

Hitomi, Ruby, and Mimi exchanged looks, then nodded. Ruby sprang forward, Hitomi summoned her spectral blades, and Mimi trapped the trolley in a magnetic lock, holding it. Ruby smashed through one of the windows, laser blasts shooting out from the ray guns the men carried as they tried to hit her. Hitomi sent her blades in through the hole. There was a few flashes of green light, and then the laser blasts stopped. Ruby opened the door after a second.

"Well, get in." she said.

The others shrugged and climbed inside. After tossing the bodies of a few of the men out of the windows, there was just enough space for them all to fit, though it was very cramped. Mimi waited until everyone was inside, then released the trolley. It trundled back into action, but it was moving altogether far faster than they could have walked. Uiharu accessed the control panel and reprogrammed the device to take them to the transmat. The device helpfully told them that they had an ETA of about ten minutes.

Slowly, the walls of the facility around them began to lose their color, turning white. They passed fewer and fewer doors as they made their way, and objects outside of the trolley began to lose some definition. Hitomi peered out, confused.

"Is it just me, or is there something weird going on with the walls?" Twilight asked. "Actually, everything outside looks weird."

"Yeah, I thought so too." Misaka said.

Hitomi nodded, as did some of the others. She felt the trolley slowing. After a few seconds, it came to a gentle stop. The world was completely silent outside. The door slid open with a light hiss, and the little overhead screen told them that they had reached their destination.

Cautiously, the eleven stepped out into the white expanse beyond. They couldn't make out the edge of whatever room they were in, nor could they locate the passageway they had entered by. There was no horizon, the sky and ground the exact same color, the light emitting from seemingly everywhere with equal strength. Hitomi took a few steps out from the trolley, looking around curiously. The others, with the exception of Spring and Akemi, did much the same. Spring seemed to be thinking, and Akemi just had the same blank hundred meter stare that she always had on, appearing disinterested in their situation. Hitomi looked down at her hand. It was weird to see it like this, with no shadows. It seemed so artificial.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about this." a voice said from behind her. Hitomi turned to see a boy and a girl standing about ten meters from them, having appeared in the middle of the room from thin air. The boy had spoken, from what the voice had sounded like. He appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, with dark brown hair and eyes and a black hoodie on. He had a scruffy beard, and a fairly neutral expression. There wasn't anything particularly special about his appearance. He looked quite average and unimportant, though not off putting in any way. The girl, on the other hand, was certainly exceptional in appearance. She was stunningly beautiful, with white hair and golden eyes. She looked a bit younger than the boy, perhaps sixteen, and she was smiling kindly.

"Who are you?" Misaka asked.

"This is Purity Winters." the boy said. The girl bowed lightly. "As for me, I don't tend to put my real name online, so you can call me 'the author'."

There was a brief silence. Star tilted her head slightly. "Wait, what?" she asked.

"Sorry, sorry. This must be a bit much for you." the boy said. "Let me explain. This, the whole scenario that you've been dealing with, is an April fool's day chapter. I'm adding it to my fan-fic because I wanted to. I'm not really very funny, so my only option was to go for ridiculous and hope for the best. But, knowing me, one thing led to another, and it quickly got out of hand. This, what is going on right now, is me ending the chapter. You see, we just passed 19,000 words for this chapter. It's almost a third as long as the whole of A Different Kind of Spark already. That's a bit much for an April fools chapter, I feel. Besides, it's already 11:30 PM on March the twenty-fifth. I have to call it somewhere. I was going to have a final showdown at the transmat, and introduce Kar-Vitsatal, and have a big flashy victory where you get to mess with the people who did this stuff, but I don't have the time, and this has already run too long."

"Wait, we're in a fan-fic?" Twilight said. "What even is a fan-fic?"

"You're a fan-fic writer?" Mimi said. "I'm surprised we haven't had lesbian kissing fests yet."

"Not all fan-fic writers are like that." the boy said, blushing.

"Who, may I inquire, is this a fan-fic of?" Akemi asked.

"A Different Kind of Spark, a Puella Magi Madoka Magica fan-fic with Shizuki Hitomi as the main character." the boy said.

Purity tapped his shoulder. "Um, n-not to interrupt you, but is this really the time for explanations? Aren't we running long already?" she blushed. "Sorry. That was rude."

The boy looked down. "Sorry." he sighed. "Guilted by my own characters. Just my luck."

"So, what are you?" Misaka asked Purity. "I mean, other than associating yourself with Mr Thinks-He's-God over there, you seem nice."

"I'm..." Purity said, looking down. "I'd rather not say."

"She's a character in The Academy Project, my first fully original work." the boy said. "Isn't she great? I had just finished watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya at the time, and I needed a new character. So I made the cutest, sexiest, shyest, kindest, and meekest little all-powerful reality warper in existence." the boy hugged her, and she squeaked. "Isn't she just adorable?"

"W-we just passed 20,000 words." Purity said. "I know you said you wanted to keep it below 20K." she looked down. "Not to stop you or anything."

"Right, right, sorry." the boy said. "I can talk for hours about my works, you know." he straightened. "But we do need to get this over with. Purity, can you do the honors?"

"O-okay." Purity stepped forward. "All I have to do is erase their memories and send them home with my power, right?"

"Yeah. Should be easy for you. You're the second most powerful character I've ever created, so you shouldn't have too much trouble." the boy said.

Purity nodded, walking across up to Mimi, who was the closest. She tapped her on the forehead, and she collapsed, then faded slowly from existence. Purity moved along slowly, tapping the people in line one by one, sending them home. She came to Spring, who leaned down. She tapped her, and nothing happened. Purity cocked her head, then tried again. After a few more attempts, the boy shook his head. "I should have never given her eidetic memory. Just send her back. I don't really write Test of Time anymore anyway, so there shouldn't be that much of an issue." Purity nodded, and Spring faded, a half-miffed half-amused look on her face. Eventually, only Twilight, Hitomi, Purity, and the boy remained.

"Now, you two." the boy said. "Twilight, I'm sorry that I didn't write you very well. In my defense, it was literally the first thing longer than five pages I had ever written. I hope you can forgive me." Twilight seemed troubled, but she nodded after a moment. He turned to Hitomi. "Hitomi. I'm sorry for putting you through such a terrible situation. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But, I promise, it will get better. I'm a strong believer in the idea that people need to earn their happy endings, but I do like happy endings." Hitomi nodded.

"Well, off with you, my two little heroines." the boy said. "Take care of yourselves."

Purity tapped them on the forehead, and all was dark.

---

If you want to read the much, much shorter second part of this story, you can find it at www . /story/208443/14/test-of-time-arc-1-awakening/chapter-128-april-fools-day-2015