I promised to myself that I wouldn't write Author Notes.
However, I have a good reason to do that now. First of all, there's some people who I want to thank.
Karrin Blue aka Firemagic, for the constant betaing, suggestion and listening-to-my-crazy-ideas work.
Gamer, drinker and Atreidestrooper, for their constructive criticism. This chapter has been revised according to it. In fact, what I want to talk about is related to that.
Beng told that your story is flawed sucks. You feel bad, especially if you put a lot of effort into it. But guess what? Those are the reviews who actually help you to improve. If nobody tells you your mistakes, you will never be able to correct them.
So, if you are a fanfic author and receive constructive criticism, listen to it. If you are a reviewer and spot a mistake, tell it in the review.
We may be amateur writers, but this doesn't mean that we are allowed to be sloppy writers.
And now, a little bit of bragging. Looks like I've managed to end up on the TvTropes Fanfic Recs for the Puella Magi Madoka Magica series. This means I have to do my best to be worth of it.
Chapter 2 - Thirty Xanatos Pileup
In the following days, Homura started hunting witches again. She noticed that there were a lot less witches than in the previous timelines, but she didn't think about it much. Maybe that was another effect of Madoka's wish, and it also meant that she had to steal less weapons from JSDF and US Army bases.
The evening before she was to resume school, Homura entered yet another barrier. Inside, the city landscape quickly turned into a creepy forest made entirely of gray, dead trees and hideous looking rocks. Several familiars, shaped like the skeletons of a werewolf-like creature and armed with axes, noticed her and attacked.
She pulled out a FN Minimi machine gun from her shield and wiped out the first wave with ease.
The second and the third didn't last longer.
I've killed all of you before. And I'm going to do it again, until Madoka will be finally safe.
Homura kept advancing towards the barrier's center, using her magic to sustain the recoil and rate of fire of her gun and using the rocks as elevated shooting positions.
In the middle of the fourth wave, Homura had emptied the Minimi's magazine. The familiars took advantage of the interruption and closed in... only to find out that Homura disappeared, leaving several primed M26 grenades behind. The ones who survived the blast were finished off by controlled bursts from Homura's Howa Type 89 assault rifle.
The witch was waiting at the center of the barrier, inside a clearing. The Puella Magi went towards it, and was greeted by even more familiars. She started shooting again, but the slower rate of fire and smaller magazine of her assault rifle weren't effective enough to her tastes. Homura dodged their attacks, and was going to turn her shield to stop time, reload the machine gun and drop some more explosives when she heard two artificial voices speaking what sounded like English.
[Axel Shooter.]
[Plasma Lancer.]
Orbs of pink energy and arrows of yellow energy wiped out nearly all the remaining familiars. Homura instinctively reloaded her assault rifle and finished off the ones still standing.
"Are you OK?" a voice from behind her said. A familiar one. Homura turned around... and was surprised to see who had helped her out.
"Nanoha? Fate?"
"Homura...chan?
Homura sighed.
"Don't tell me... you are Puella Magi too?"
Nanoha and Fate glanced at each other.
"Puella magi? We are mages."
"Mages?"
Homura was even more surprised. They didn't seem to have contracted with Kyubey, and in fact their staffs didn't match usual Puella Magi weapons. Mami's muskets and Kyoko's spears never talked, after all.
"We work for the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Fate is an Enforcer, and I am a First Lieutenant."
Homura never heard of the TSAB before, but the name made her realize that they were indeed something different from a Puella Magi. And potential allies, too.
"Homura-chan, what is a puella magi?"
As a response, Homura flicked her hair.
"I am one, but I'll explain that later. Let's deal with the Witch first."
The Witch was shaped like a giant, gray tree planted in the ground upside-down, with a ragged red cape tied around the trunk. She attacked swinging her tentacle-like roots around like... well, tentacles, but luckily the three girls had no problems dodging them by either flying or time-stop jumping and returned fire.
The Witch screamed in pain under the wall of Axel Shooters, Plasma Lancers and plain old bullets that hit her, but managed to soak up a good part of the damage using the tentacles as improvised shields.
"We should get rid of the roots first!" screamed Nanoha while flying out of the Witch's attack range.
"I'll deal with them. Bardiche, Haken Form!"
[Yes sir.]
Bardiche's head rotated, and an energy blade formed under it.
"Haken Saber!" Fate also added "I'm not going to let you use your naughty tentacles on Nanoha, monster!" in her thoughts.
The blonde girl swung Bardiche, launching the blade in a boomerang-like fashion. It cut through a lot of the roots, leaving an opening to the Witch's main body.
"Nanoha, Homura, now!"
"Yes! Raising Heart, Buster mode!"
[All right.]
While Raising Heart transformed, Homura took a RPG-7 rocket launcher from her shield and aimed it at the Witch.
"Divine..."
Homura fired the RPG-7, the rocket-propelled grenade hitting the trunk and nearly killing off the Witch.
"BUSTER!"
Homura stared in awe at the beam of pink energy that Nanoha shot, vaporizing the Witch completely. She had never seen such an attack. It wasn't like her little purple beam, it was thick enough to completely engulf a person and lasted much longer. It was like somebody amped up the strength of one of Madoka's bolts to Tiro Finale-level power, maybe even a bit more.
I must ask Nanoha to teach me that, she thought.
While the barrier disappeared, Nanoha and Fate landed.
"Geez, I miss using cartridges."
"Don't even think about it, Nanoha. Shamal will kill us both if you break your cartridge ban."
"But it will be over next month! What would be the difference?"
Homura didn't understand what they were talking about. Probably something related to their powers, but... cartridges? They weren't wielding guns, although Nanoha's staff had what looked oddly like a STANAG assault rifle clip.
"Nanoha, I think we should go home and clarify things with Homura now."
"You're right, Fate-chan." Nanoha agreed, "Do you mind if we go to your house, though? Mom's going to have an heart attack if she discovers that Homura-chan is a magical girl too."
"Not at all. Let's go."
The three girls untransformed and started walking towards Fate's house. Homura was the first to start talking.
"So... What is this Bureau you were talking about?"
"It's the Time-Space Administration Bureau." Nanoha explained, "It's... uhm, how can I explain it? A multidimensional police? An interplanetary peacekeeping army?"
"You said... Interplanetary?"
"Yes. It is based on the planet Mid-Childa. Fate's from there, actually."
Homura stared at the blonde girl like she was an alien. Well, she technically was...
"... Something wrong, Homura? You're creeping me out."
"Nothing. It's just that the other alien I know isn't exactly trustworthy."
Homura turned away his stare from Fate, and kept walking.
"So... The TSAB is keeping an eye on several planets?"
"Yes," Nanoha confirmed, "A whole lot of them. For example, Earth is Unadministered Planet number 97."
"Interesting." The Puella Magi was already thinking about her possibilities. The TSAB was probably an organization big enough to be actually capable of handling Walpurgisnacht, if not even stopping the Incubators completely if their magic system was good enough.
"What about mages?" Homura asked, "How does your magic work? It seems to be completely different than mine."
"Well, there are several different styles of magic, but all rely on the practicant's Linker Core to link together mana and form spells." Fate explained, "But I guess you know that already, right?"
"Actually, no." Homura answered, "I'm afraid my magic comes from an entirely different source. Go on."
"Our spells can have different forms, simple proiectiles, beams, binds, even healing and database, basically anything as long as the proper calculations are done and the caster's Linker Core can provide enough mana. The Linker Core is an organ present in the human body, and even in some other species, although not everyone has it. For example, here on Earth, it's fairly rare."
"Interesting. But does that mean that you have to do those calculations every time you have to cast a spell?" Homura was rather disappointed by that, as it was clearly a limitation.
"That's what our Devices are for." Fate answered, "They are highly advanced computers that can record the data about our spells and reproduce the calculations during battle. There are several kinds of them, with varying degrees of self-awareness."
The two mages showed their Devices to Homura. Raising Heart's current form was a translucent magenta marble, while Bardiche's was a small triangle of golden metal.
"This is Bardiche, and Nanoha's one is called Raising Heart. Both of them are of the most advanced category, Intelligent Devices. As the name says, they have a fully sentient AI, making them much more than tools: they're friends and partners in battle, and in fact a perfect tuning is necessary to make the Mage's brain and device work together in perfect harmony. As you have seen during the previous battle, a Device can have different forms, each suited for a different kind of spells."
"I see. Speaking about that, I saw what looked like an assault rifle clip on Raging Heart-"
"Her name is Raising Heart." Nanoha corrected her.
"Sorry. I was saying, you two were speaking about cartridges earlier. Do Devices work as guns too?"
"Actually, not." Nanoha explained, "While cartridges do look like blank rifle rounds and are cycled in our Devices in the same way, they actually contain compressed mana. They can give a power boost to the spells, although they also put more strain on the user and his Device."
"That's one of the reasons why you are currently banned from using cartridges, Nanoha." Fate sighed, " You use too many of them. Two cartridges for a single Divine Buster are way too much, let alone six."
"I learned my lesson, Fate-chan!"
Homura stared in shock at her cousin. Her Divine Buster was already a powerful attack without using cartridges. What was Nanoha's true power?
"So..." Homura recapped, sitting on the couch in Fate's house, "This TSAB is a sort of interdimensional magical police force?"
"Yes." Nanoha answered, "We go mostly after magic-using criminals, but we deal with magical monsters too. Speaking of which, you called the one we fought together a 'witch'. What are they?"
Homura sighed. It was her turn to explain things.
"May I use your computer, Fate?"
"Sure."
Homura pulled out a USB pen drive and connected it to Fate's computer. Luckily, Fate had it modified to accept Earth's media devices too, as Universal Serial Bus isn't an universally universal standard.
"As you can guess, my magic is very different than yours. Puella Magi gain their powers by contracting with Kyubey."
An image of a cat-rabbit like animal appeared on the holographic screen.
"When we contract, we get to have a wish fulfilled, and our magic abilities depend on the nature of the wish. We also get this:"
Homura removed her ring from her hand. It turned into a purple, egg-shaped gem in a golden casing.
"This is my Soul Gem. Its brightness shows how much magic I've got left. The only way to recharge it is to use one of the Grief Seeds that Witches leave behind when they die."
Homura put the Grief Seed from the previous battle near her Soul Gem. The Grief Seed absorbed what looked like a black mist, leaving the Soul Gem brighter. Homura put several images of Witches on the screen.
"Witches are our enemies. They feed on human despair, and can cause weak people to become either suicidal or homicidal. For every human they cause to die, Witches can make new Familiars, like the ones we fought before the Witch. Familiars can hunt humans on their own too, and when they have killed five people, they turn in a copy of the Witch that spawned them."
"They're... horrible." Nanoha commented. "But at least you Puella Magi fight them, right?"
"Yes... but it isn't as heroic as it sounds. As Grief Seeds are a limited resource, Puella Magi tend to be very territorial, and some even avoid fighting Familiars at all. This is because a Puella Magi with a fully-tainted Soul Gem is finished. Literally."
Nanoha and Fate stared in shock. Homura sighed.
"And I'm not even at the worst part. First of all, our Soul Gem is our soul. It is ripped out of our bodies to give us inhuman strength and endurance, but if it breaks or is more than one hundred feet apart from our bodies... we keel over dead. And that's if we are lucky. If a Soul Gem becomes tainted beyond repair, not only does the Puella Magi die, but she becomes a Witch. There is no way back, and despair and other negative emotions speed up the process exponentially. Obviously, Kyubey... or Incubator, doesn't tell us this before."
Nanoha and Fate were utterly terrified by the truth about Homura's magic system.
"But... but what is the point in all of this?"
Homura glanced back at her cousin.
"Entropy."
Nanoha and Fate exchanged a confused look. Thanks to TSAB lessons on dimensional physics, they had a faint idea about what entropy was. But what was the correlation to doomed Magical Girls?
"The transformation in a Witch creates an enormous amount of energy in the form of despair, which Incubators harvest from the Grief Seeds and use to prolong the life of the universe. The amount of energy is directly related to the strength of the Puella Magi's emotions, and that's why Puella Magi are also Magical Girls. Prepubescent human girls like you just happen to have the strongest emotions among all human beings."
"Like... us?" Fate asked.
"Fate, I'm not human anymore. What you think is me, is only an empty husk. And my true body is doomed to give birth to an abomination. Unless I get killed first, obviously."
"No." Fate walked right in front of the Puella Magi, with determination burning in her eyes.
"Look at me, Homura. I wasn't born as a normal human. I was cloned from a dead girl by her mother. I am what on Mid-Childa is called an Artificial Mage. But people still treat me as a normal human, because I have a soul. It doesn't matter if it is in an artificial body or a little jewel: as long as you have it, you're human!"
Nanoha too walked to Homura, and put an hand on her folded arms.
"And even if you aren't human, we aren't going to care about that! You're my cousin, remember?"
Homura sighed.
"Truth to be told, Nanoha, I don't think I am the Homura you knew."
"Well, you seem to have been changed a lot since the last time I saw you, Homura-chan." Nanoha admitted. "Were you already a Puella Magi then?"
"No, I wasn't. In fact, the day I contracted on is going to be in a month."
"What?"
"Nanoha, my wish was to go back in time to be able to protect a dear friend of mine. My magic power is time manipulation. I've been through several timelines, because I... I... I kept failing."
Homura told the two mages about her quest to save Madoka. Short clips of her struggle appeared on the screen in a way that could be explained only with "magic".
"So, I will keep repeating this time loop until I find a way to save Madoka, since she kept saving me and others. Will you help me?"
"Of course!" Nanoha answered, "Didn't we help you already in the previous... er... loops, Homura-chan?"
"You couldn't." Homura sighed. "Nanoha, in all the other timelines you died when you were only three years old. This is why I am not the Homura you knew until few days ago. I don't have memories of the past that you experienced instead."
Nanoha was shocked, but managed to still bring out a smile.
"Well... This explains why Witches went unnoticed by the TSAB in the other timelines. If it wasn't for me and Hayate-chan, Earth wouldn't be of much interest for the TSAB at all. But still, why I am alive only in this one?"
"In the last timeline, as I already said, Madoka failed to change the laws of the universe. But I have reasons to believe she used the energy she had to save our family. Madoka's just like that."
Fate nodded in agreement.
"I can believe it. She's one of our classmates, and while we aren't close friends, I can say for sure she's a really kind girl."
"So..." Nanoha added thoughtfully, "I am in debt with Madoka too. Well, that means just one thing."
Nanoha shifted in a more determined stance.
"We are going to stop Kyubey before he makes a contract with Madoka, and then take Walpurgisnacht down, full power!"
Homura took that stance too.
"Yes. This time, we are going to give them hell."
Fate instinctively stepped back. Great, now we have two destruction-happy Takamachis, she thought, Mom will freak out at this.
Admiral Lindy Harlaown was drinking her usual green tea with sugar and milk when she suddenly shivered. Why do I have this bad feeling?
Simultaneously, Nanoha felt like an atrocity against Japanese customs had been perpetrated, and also a compelling need to prepare green tea the proper way.
"So... You would do anything to save Madoka, right?" Fate asked to Homura while Nanoha was in the kitchen.
"Yes. I made her a promise, and I am not going to break it." Homura answered, her coolness at full strength, "Saving her is my only goal right now. Nothing else matters."
"I see... She's more than a friend for you, right?"
Homura stared at the blonde girl, her coolness quickly becoming a blush. How did she?...
"Don't worry, I don't mean anything bad. In fact, I feel the same way towards Nanoha. In a way, she saved my life."
Homura glanced at Fate.
"Five years ago Precia Testarossa, my mother, gave me the task of recovering twenty-one artifacts of great power, called Jewel Seeds. A TSAB ship had an accident, and they had fallen on Earth. Unbeknownst to me, she was hoping to use their power to reach the lost world to Al-Hazard and so find a way to revive her natural daughter, Alicia. I was, in fact, a failed attempt at reviving her by cloning."
Fate sighed. It was clear that she didn't say all, and these were obviously very painful things.
"I didn't know that either. While searching them, I met Nanoha. She was helping Yuuno Scrya, the young archaeologist who discovered the Jewel Seeds, to recover them. She wanted to know why I was after them, and even wanted to become friends with me."
Fate sighed again.
"I didn't listen to her. My only goal was bring the Jewel Seeds to my mother. I hoped that after that, she would become again the kind mother I remembered. She... wasn't being very nice to me, you see?"
Homura noticed the sad expression on Fate's face, and put an hand on her shoulder. The blonde mage clearly had more than her fair share of suffering, just like the black-haired Puella Magi.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No, I want to. It's just fair, considering what you just told us. Anyways, I kept obeying her and ended up clashing against Nanoha several times. After all the Jewel Seeds were recovered, we had a final all-out battle."
Fate smiled softly.
"You can guess who won. In fact, I was barely able to stand after the battle. But my trial wasn't over. The TSAB ordered my mother to surrender, but she didn't. She gave no thought to the fact that they had captured me, she even admitted that I was just a tool. I think I fainted just after that. My whole world had shattered. When I woke up, I discovered that she was trying to open a path to Al-Hazard despite the fact that she didn't have enough Jewel Seeds, causing a dimensional quake. Nanoha, despite being still tired from the battle, headed out with the TSAB officers to stop her. I felt useless. Then, Bardiche spoke."
"What did he say?" Homura asked.
" 'Get set.' The confirmation message he says when I ask him to set up the Barrier Jacket and his weapon form. He was heavily damaged from the battle, and still he didn't want me to give up. It's only then that I realized something important: Nanoha had fought to protect people since the very beginning. In fact, she even realized that I was sad, and she had decided to defeat me just to be able to talk to me and eventually help me. It was my turn to help her out."
Fate sighed for the third time.
"We managed to stop the dimensional quake, but we weren't able to convince my mother to give up on her foolish plan. Even when the Garden of Time, the asteroid where we lived, crumbled into pieces, she refused to surrender."
It was clear what was Precia's ultimate fate. The two girls remained in silence for a little while.
"Since then, Nanoha and I have been through a lot of battles together. She is my best friend, and the most important person in my life."
Fate managed to bring out a smile.
"So..." Fate resumed, "Should we help out each other towards our true goals?"
Homura smiled, and the two girls shook hands.
Nanoha and Madoka shivered simultaneously. None of them managed to figure out why.
The following morning Kazuko Saotome, Nanoha's teacher, wasn't in a happy mood.
"I have something important to discuss with all of you today. Make sure you pay attention. Should a sunny-side up be hard or soft?! What do you think, Nakazawa?!"
Several students sweatdropped while the poor Nakazawa tried to answer the teacher.
Sayaka turned her head towards Madoka.
"She probably just got rejected again."
"Yes, it must be that."
At the other side of the classroom, Fate sighed.
"She's at it again."
"It's hard to believe that last week she went on for an hour saying that that guy was going to be the perfect husband." Nanoha added.
The teacher took a deep breath, and went to the next announcement with a smile.
"Okay. Now I have a transfer student to introduce to everybody. Please come in, Miss Akemi."
Homura entered the classroom. Several students, both males and females, were stunned by her looks.
"Whoa, she's hot!" Sayaka commented.
"She walked in just like a grown up woman." Fate noted.
"And to think she was such a cute and clumsy girl until some months ago..." Nanoha added.
Madoka, instead, couldn't do anything but stare at the new student. Homura looked just like the girl she saw in a dream that night. Then, she realized that Homura was staring her back.
"Akemi is also Takamachi's cousin, so please treat her well."
Saotome sweatdropped, while the rest of the class shuddered. Everybody still remembered what happened when a boy started picking on Fate for her shy behaviour.
After lunch, he was found in the infirmary, in confusional state and muttering something about pink lights. While there was no evidence against Nanoha (or anything that could explain what happened), she had an unusual grin that day.
Homura sat next to Nanoha.
"Sunny-side up eggs again?"
"Er... Yes."
Homura sighed.
"I quite hoped that Madoka had changed that too..."
"Speaking of her, do you know why she's so nervous after seeing you?"
With a quick nod of her head, Nanoha pointed at Madoka. The pink-haired girl kept turning her head around... mostly towards the Puella Magi.
"Last time, she was under the impression she already saw me somewhere. It may be an effect of my time travels, but don't ask me how it works."
During the following break, Homura was overwhelmed with her classmates' questions. Mainly about her hair. Again.
"I'm starting to get jealous," Nanoha commented to Fate, "I want to have silky hair like you and Homura-chan!"
Somehow, Homura heard that and shot her a "not you too" glance.
"I'm sorry, girls, but our teacher said Akemi has to take some medicine during the breaks."
Madoka, despite being quite uneasy around the new student, went on with her duty as health representative. Homura got up from her desk without saying a word.
"Madoka, do you mind if I come too?" Nanoha asked.
"Of course not. You're her cousin, right?"
The three girls exited the classroom.
"Er... The infirmary is..."
Before Madoka could finish the sentence, Homura already went in the right direction.
"You.. already know where it is?"
Homura didn't answer, and kept walking.
"Er... Akemi?"
"Just call me Homura."
"Homura...chan?"
Madoka's insecurity about calling Homura by first name was like a stab through the Puella Magi's heart. Once again, all time spent with Madoka and their friendship never happened.
"What is it?"
"Er... nothing, really. I just think you have a cool name."
Homura suppressed a scream. Those words hurt even more for every single time Madoka said them. The Puella Magi turned around, and faced her.
"Madoka Kaname, do you think that your family, your friends, and your own life are precious?"
Madoka was quite put off by the question.
"I... I do?"
"Really?"
Nanoha followed the exchange in silence. What was her cousin trying to achieve? Madoka was obviously scared by those questions.
"Why... Why would I lie on such a thing?"
"I see. Your family and friends think you're important too. So, don't do anything stupid. Don't become anybody else. Don't... sacrifice yourself."
"Sacrifice... myself?"
Nanoha corrected her previous thought. Madoka's not scared by Homura-chan... She's terrified by her! What is she doing?
"All you need to do is to be Madoka Kaname, and nothing else."
Homura resumed walking, leaving Nanoha and Madoka behind.
"I'm sorry, Madoka. Homura-chan had quite a bad time and..."
Nanoha didn't manage to find a way to excuse her cousin's behaviour.
"I... I'll go with her, OK? You can go back to the classroom."
Nanoha ran after Homura.
"Just what were you doing?"
Homura was quite surprised to see Nanoha angry at her.
"I warned her."
"'Warned her', you say? I think 'terrified her' fits more. Do you think she's going to listen to the ominous warnings of the strange new student? Wasn't she supposed to have been your only friend, too?"
"Says the one who makes friends by blasting them."
"What?... How did you...?"
Homura flicked her hair.
"Fate told me."
"But... But it was only because she didn't want to listen!"
Homura answered with a glance.
"Do you mean... she wouldn't listen too?"
Homura let herself fall on a nearby bench.
"Exactly. The truth about the contract is hard to believe, and Madoka would make one even for little things like saving a cat's life. In fact, in the first timeline she did exactly that. And in the last two, she did it despite knowing what would happen to her afterwards."
Nanoha sat next to her cousin, all the anger gone.
"And so, you are trying to scare her away from the contract?"
Homura sighed.
"It's the way that worked best so far. If I have to be a complete stranger to Madoka in order to save her, I'll do just that."
Nanoha shook her head and clenched her fists.
"There's no need for that! This time, you aren't alone! We can save her without using such methods, we just have to work together!"
Homura couldn't find an answer.
"So... Let's plan a strategy together, Homura-chan, shall we?"
Homura nodded. For once, she could let somebody else take the lead. Besides, she didn't want to see her cousin angry again.
Especially since being on the wrong side of a Divine Buster seemed a painful thing.