You don't really know what to expect, the first time you meet your platoon. Is it the same as the sims? Is it different? You don't know. You can't ever know, because people are people, and they're always different.

-Captain Elena Winterset, 9th Battalion, 5th Magi Oplon, 1st Army Group of the Yangtze

Most people never really understand the massive logistical issues the modern military unit has. Hell, even in the 21st Century, the supply chain for a single soldier could be immensely convoluted. It has not gotten better with age. If anything, it's gotten worse.

-Surgeon General Frieda Steinbach, 5th Battalion, 7th Medical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Rhine

The Salvation reached the Third Fleet of the Nile a day later.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of ships," said Varsha. The wall of the Rec Room had turned artificially transparent, giving the girls an excellent view of the shuttles flying back and forth from the frigates to the transport cruisers of the Third Fleet. The over six hundred transport cruisers of the Third Fleet, carrying the sixteen divisions of Magical Girls and three times as many regular infantry of the Nile Sector's Second Army Group.

"They've pulled in the entire Group," said Ayane, scanning through the immense roster on her implants. "I… wow, they've even got a regiment of human SpecOps."

"What're we going to do with them?" asked Rene. "It's not like they can do much compared to the Black Heart."

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of something," said Rebecca. "They have personal shield generators, after all."

"In any case, we should get down to the airlock with our things," said Ayane. "Our shuttle is scheduled to dock in a few minutes."

Nobody moved for several seconds, still watching the ships of the fleet. Finally, Emma picked up her bag. "Ugh. Let's just get this over with."

The five girls filed out of the Rec Room, falling into step with each other as they shouldered their backpacks and joined the slowly growing line waiting for the shuttle.

"So, Varsha, Rebecca, how did you two sleep?" asked Emma.

"Very well, thank you!" chirped Rebecca. "The ship gets a little cold sometimes."

"Rebecca," growled Varsha.

"All I'm saying was that it was nice, and thank you for not throwing me out of the bed when we woke up."

"W-well, don't expect anything more like that from me."

"Oh, not when you're sober at least…"

"Rebecca!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, you can argue about your relationship status later," said Ayane, rolling her eyes. "Let's not make a scene right before deployment."

The shuttle arrived before Varsha could compose a suitable retort, and the girls filed into the shuttle for the trip to their transport cruiser. It was a short trip, the mood dampened considerably by the oncoming responsibility they all faced. Emma kept to herself for the time they were in transit, allowing the others to chatter and make themselves more comfortable with the situation however they wished. Varsha and Rebecca appeared to be having a fairly intense private discussion over telepathy, if their expressions were anything to go by, and Ayane was analyzing the latest updates with Rene. She tapped Ayane's arm and then at her own temple, asking to be included in the telepathic discussion. Ayane nodded, before continuing.

"So as I was saying, it seems like the amount of power we'll need to sustain operations is going to be a lot higher than we dealt with in the sims," said Ayane. "Most of what we've worked on so far is defensive, and there's not much running around."

"It looks like that is the case, yes," said Rene. "What I'm worried about is the supply issue. Do you think we'll have enough ammunition?"

"We can only bring as much as we can carry down to the planet as it is," said Ayane with the mental equivalent of a shrug. "As long as the fleet can maintain position over us, we should be okay."

"The predictions for enemy fleet size are immense though," said Rene.

"It's true, but there's a seventy-percent chance of the defensive grid taking care of thirty percent of that fleet. I think our chances are pretty good."

"I guess… I dunno, I feel like it might be best to make sure our supply lines are clear on the ground."

"That's not our problem to worry about. We'll have to rely on our commanders for that."

"Well, 12th Division isn't really all that old, or up to full strength."

"But it's been in combat before, so at least all of the girls have an idea of what they're doing."

"That's true…."

The shuttle docked with the airlock with a clunk, cutting short the discussion. Emma and Rene said their goodbyes, confident they'd meet the others on the ground, before stepping into the airlock. The heavy clunk of the shuttle undocking came almost immediately after the airlock sealed behind them.

"You nervous?" asked Emma as the hiss of the air pressure normalizing filled the room.

"Yes."

"Me too."

The hissing came to an end, and the far doors opened, letting them onto the Quartering Deck of the HSS Damascus.

The Damascus was a Bursa-class transport cruiser, designed to fit an entirely battalion of 1,024 soldiers inside its hull, then drop them from orbit to the ground in dropships the size of a small frigate. Each dropship could carry an entire platoon's worth of armored personnel carriers, as well as each soldier's equipment and spares besides. Emma and Rene would be deploying in the up-armored and up-armed infantry fighting vehicle version of the standard APC, the same one they'd been fighting in during the last sim.

"Well, I've been assigned to A Company," said Rene, nodding towards the bow of the ship. "2nd Platoon. I'll be headed that way."

"I'm in C Company, 3rd Platoon," said Emma. "I'm headed the opposite way. I, um… well. Good luck."

"Good luck," said Rene, extending her hand to shake. Emma grasped it and shook it firmly, looking Rene in the eye before turning away. They were as ready as they could be, they just needed to do the best they could.

The Quartering Deck ran nearly the length of the vessel and was several hundred meters long. For expedience, it was easiest for Emma to take the ship's transport tube system to get to her quarters. It was slightly disconcerting, falling up in relation to where she was standing and then getting whipped up to several dozen meters per second by virtue of air currents and artificial gravity, but the ride was short and Emma barely had time to be surprised before she was falling back onto her feet to land outside the quartering block for C Company. Space was at a premium when you had to fit 1,024 soldiers into a single vessel while servicing and docking sixteen dropships, so Emma would be bunking in close proximity to her platoon for the duration of the flight to Samsara. Each platoon had its own section of rooms in a single long hallway, with the rooms of the platoon commander and executive officer furthest within the ship and the platoon's common area at the opposite end. Each room held four soldiers, for eighteen rooms per platoon. Each company's halls opened to an adjacent common area, allowing for troops and magical girls from the entire company to mingle.

The transport tube came out right outside Emma's door. It made sense, since if the ship came under attack, it would be most expedient for everyone to get away from the hull and any breaches from enemy fire. Down the hall, Emma could see that much of the platoon was gathered in the common area, either chatting idly or linked into an entertainment system. She decided she would talk to them in a moment, but would first set her things down in her temporary quarters. The door opened for her automatically.

For a room dedicated to meeting an absolute minimum of what was necessary, the officer's quarters were surprisingly well set. Her bed was on the far wall, with a desk beside it for any administrative work she'd need to do. A chest of drawers for clothing and equipment sat opposite the desk, although of course it was entirely empty, given that she summoned all her equipment and had carried everything else with her. The walls and carpet were a soft tan, with the covers and sheets color coordinated to match with them. All in all, not bad. Emma wondered how much the enlisted rooms were like this.

Emma sighed and set her backpack down on top of the drawers. She'd only be in here for the next day and a half or so, needing the remaining time to kit up and get her platoon ready for combat. She took a moment to cleanse her gem of any corruption, and was surprised by a call from her Warrant Officer.

"Hello?" said Emma, holding a grief cube up to her gem.

"Lieutenant Sinclair, I'm Warrant Officer Ingrid Jones. I received a notice that you were on board, do you have a moment?"

Emma glanced at her chronometer. "I mean… I was planning on heading to the common area to meet the guys."

"I'd like to talk about some possible problems and nip them in the bud. I feel like it'd be best if we spoke before you did that."

"I... guess," said Emma, checking her soul gem again. It sparkled cleanly, but could do with another cleaning. "I mean, if you really think it's that important, but I'd like to keep it short. There's really not that much time until we need to leave, after all."

"Well, why don't you come to my room. It's across the hall."

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit."

"See you soon."

Emma ended the call and examined her soul gem. It glowed brightly, almost cheerfully, though she wasn't entirely sure how a gem could glow with any emotion. With a roll of her eyes, Emma returned it to her finger and walked across the hall. Ingrid's door opened automatically.

"Lieutenant," said Ingrid, standing from her chair and offering a salute. Heavily augmented for battle, she stood at two and a half meters tall. "Welcome to C Company, 3rd Platoon."

"It's a pleasure to be here," said Emma, returning the salute as the door closed behind her. She felt tiny in comparison to the giant looming over her. "I'd like to keep things less formal. If, er, you're okay with that. It just feels to… stiff."

"You can call me Chief, then, Emma," said Ingrid. "Please, have a seat."

"Alright," said Emma, taking the chair Ingrid had been occupying while the experienced soldier sat down on her bed. The Executive Officer's quarters were laid out identically to Emma's, with Ingrid's chest of drawers temporarily filled with her weaponry and set of armor plates, designed to bolt onto the nano-composite bodysuit Ingrid wore underneath her battle dress uniform. The threaded nubs where the plates attached could be seen at the wrists and ankles when Ingrid moved.

"I assume you've seen our last after-action report?" asked Ingrid, crossing one leg of the other and folding her hands atop of them.

Emma fidgeted. "Yeah, it's… well, it was pretty bad. You, er, lost your commanding officer, right?"

Ingrid nodded. "Lieutenant Madeline Adler. We had to pull back quickly, and she was part of the rearguard holding the LZ for our shuttle."

"Um, well, yes. If you need to talk about it…."

"You have enough problems as a magical girl," said Ingrid, shaking her head. "An old woman like me can find a therapist easily enough if she needs to, there's no need to make a younger generation bear my burdens."

"But it's, um, kind of my job to make sure you're okay for this, " said Emma. "I don't mind listening, if you need to just vent. Or something."

Ingrid blinked. "I appreciate the concern, Emma, but I've been at war for five years. I can deal with this."

"O-oh. Okay."

"But on the subject of problems, I wanted to decide on how much you will be taking command of this platoon," continued Ingrid. "As you know, there are plenty of girls who only work with other girls while their Warrant Officers take care of everything else. I believe that it would be best if you followed that example."

Emma bristled. "You're saying that you don't think I can lead this platoon."

"Quite frankly, Emma, you only have two weeks of combat experience. That's not enough to take over a platoon that just lost its commanding officer."

"It's still combat experience! You don't just forget everything after you get out of sim, Chief. I know what I'm doing."

"You've never managed a team for longer than a week at a time. How do the decisions you make early on effect things later?"

"I- that's- There's no reason to confront that! You don't second guess yourself, that's just stupid. Especially in combat."

"But out of combat?"

"What's the difference?! It's the same principle!"

Ingrid sighed. "And that's what I'm talking about. It's not the same principle, though it shares some of the same traits. Just because you can work with a squad to take down an armored assault doesn't mean that you're ready to command fifty plus soldiers."

"I- grlm…" Emma squashed her next argument. It wasn't like this was going to make a difference. Ingrid had a stubborn expression Emma had seen before. On her parents.

"You adults are all the same," Emma spat, standing up with a clatter of chair legs skidding along the floor. "Fine, if that's how it is, then I'll be your battle flag, but on one condition."

"What's that?" asked Ingrid placidly, legs still crossed as she looked at Emma with infuriating impassiveness.

"You're going to teach me what you're talking about, so I can actually do something in the future," said Emma, punctuating the order by jabbing a finger onto the Warrant Officer's desk. "And after that, I'm going to actually take a role in commanding this unit, because that's my job. Not to be the cute doll that everyone has to protect. I can and will do more than that."

"That's fine," said Ingrid, nodding. "I'll be sure to do that whenever we're off rotation."

"Then if that's all, I have some requisition orders to look over," said Emma, spinning and making her way to the door. "I'll send them to you for a double checking before approval."

"If you want to."

"Oh, I do," said Emma sarcastically, pinging the door open and stepping through to the hallway. "Wouldn't want to miss something important like an uncrossed "T", would I?"

The door slid shut with a quiet thunk.

Emma sniffed and glared angrily at the top of her desk, flicking away yet another requisition order and pulling up the next one. The desk simulated a three dimensional space for working in, allowing her to organize the information and see how her platoon was kitted out. Quite frankly, she didn't like the situation at all. They had enough fuel, but they were short on autocannon and rifle ammunition. On top of that was added her various platoon members' requests for specialized ammunition or weaponry, which had to go through her before they could be loaded on to the dropship. This made the logistics of the situation actually annoying rather than simply worrying, and gave Emma a headache.

A drop of water hit the top of the desk, and Emma scrubbed it away hurriedly. She was not going to cry over something this stupid. It wasn't like she was being pushed aside even though she'd trained hard for this.

With a snort, Emma returned to her requisition orders, squashing her anger and resentment and hurling it as far as she could mentally. She should probably apologize to Chief Jones later, actually. She was hardly being professional about this. It just… stung. A lot.

"New appointment, Company Preparedness Meeting," announced Emma's TacComp. Emma paused as it continued. "All platoon leaders are expected to have completed their requisition orders and have evaluated their troop preparedness levels before 0300. A virtual meeting will be held in VMR379 at 0315."

Emma checked her chronometer. It was 2342 hours right now, leaving her with just over three hours to complete all her work. A glance at the "pile" of requisition orders confirmed that she really didn't have that many more to do.

Ehh….

Emma quickly wiped her eyes once more, made sure that she didn't look like a crybaby on the first day, and went outside. The common area was still relatively empty, but a long range nomenclator scan told Emma that a good mix of the various subgroups in her platoon were gathered around the entertainment console.

"So… what's up?" asked Emma, leaning against the back of a couch.

"Oh, there's a football game up between New Athens' two league champions," answered Corporal Lewis. "The Eastern Hemisphere Champs are the- ohshitOFFICER ON DECK!"

Emma had to jump back as Corporal Lewis fairly leaped to attention, snapping everyone out of their trances and making them come to attention as well.

"At… ease," said Emma eventually as she took in the sight of a dozen people saluting her at once. "Um… I just wanted to know what you guys were up to. There's no need to be so formal."

"Corporal Lewis is rather jumpy," answered Sergeant Baker as he relaxed back into his seat beside Corporal Lewis. "Then again, he's on demolitions, so I'm not surprised."

"That happen a lot?" asked Emma as the room of grumbling soldiers returned to the game.

"Well, it's a question of blowing up an emplacement while being shot at, isn't it?" asked Sergeant Baker as Corporal Lewis slowly returned to normal, watching the game on his implants. "And, you know, lost most of his squad last engagement. Bit of a problem, that."

Emma winced. "Yeah… the, um, last squid attack was… well. Um. Ahem. So, football. Do you guys follow any other leagues?"

"Well, some of us are from Earth, so we keep up whenever we can with the Eurocup and stuff like that," said Sergeant Baker, biting his lip. "The colonials amongst us follow their colonial leagues, as you might expect. You into football?"

"Yeah, I was a footballer back when I was ten," said Emma, logging into the entertainment condole and setting the game into the top corner of her vision as she continued talking to Sergeant Baker. "We moved to Mitakihara though, and I didn't get a chance to play after that. Where are you from, er…"

"Chips is fine, sir."

"Call me Emma."

"Er, I… I'd rather not, if that's alright," said Chips, looking away. "It's…"

"I understand," sighed Emma. "Where are you from, Chips?"

"I'm from the colonies, Nova Terra's tangent systems specifically. We've been fortunate not to have many attacks. Some of the other guys aren't so lucky."

Emma glanced around, her nomenclator providing the places everyone was from. "Yeah… Arrenius was hit pretty hard. Is Sergeant Han doing alright?"

"She's… doing okay, I suppose," said Chips, glancing at the Chinese woman sitting alone to their right. "I… I wouldn't talk to her about it. Frankly, sir-."

"I know, I know," said Emma, scowling and resting her chin on her hand with a sigh. "Too new and everything. I'm surprised you're talking to me."

"I didn't know Lieutenant Adler that well, to be honest," said Chips. "Not as well as the others, at least."

"You're relatively new then?"

"I transferred in a couple of weeks ago," explained Chips, "I'm a fortification specialization, so I was in the back a lot. Only ever saw Lieutenant Adler from afar, but we had a few conversations. I was sad to see her go."

"Sergeant Han knew her well, then," said Emma. "My nomenclator says that she's on the command team."

Chips nodded. "Unless you change her assignment."

"No, I'm not going to mess with the organization a day before deployment," said Emma, grimacing. "It seems like I should talk to her."

"I wouldn't recommend it," said Chips. "She's seeing a therapist at the moment, but, well…"

"Yeah, I understand," said Emma. "I'll go talk to the others then."

Emma continued her rounds, chatting with whoever was willing to talk to her. It seemed that, like Chips, only the newest members of the platoon were interested in conversation. The others weren't disrespectful about it, they simply withdrew as soon as they could. Trying to talk to them was a little like trying to get that one very frustrating instructor to explain what he meant in more detail: the more you probed with questions, the more it seemed like they were deliberately avoiding the subject. A cat wandered through at some point.

By the time she was finished, Emma really just wanted to flop back onto her bed and take a nap. Instead, she dropped into an empty chair, squishy and low backed, with a sigh and rubbed her eyes. The same cat from earlier walked over and hopped into her lap. Absently, she scratched the cat behind the ears as she watched New Athens East begin a spirited semi-aerial offensive, bouncing the ball back and forth across friendly heads and feet.

"Mmmm…." purred a voice in Emma's head as the cat butted its head against her hand. "Oh, you're really good at this, new girl. Not bad."

Emma started as she realized that the voice came from the cat. She pinged it with her nomenclator. "Oh, um, hello Alanis."

"Hello," said the magical girl as she curled up in Emma's lap and closed her eyes. "Keep it up, new girl. This is niiiiiice."

"Don't you find this degrading at all?" asked Emma a moment later as she continued the gentle scratching. "You're, well, you're five years older than me and a combat leader to boot."

"Eh. Would you ever turn down a back rub?"

"Well… no."

"Exactly."

"But… I'm treating you like a pet."

"That's because I am a pet, for the moment."

"But you're a magical girl?"

"Don't think about it so much, just keep scratching my ears," said Alanis, glancing up at Emma to roll her eyes before returning to her previous posture. "Where're you from, new girl?"

"My name is Emma, and I'm from Earth," said Emma. "What about you?"

"New Volgograd," said Alanis. "To the right a bit- yeaahhhh…"

"…I'm starting to suspect that you're really only here so I can scratch your ears," said Emma.

"Pretty much," said Alanis unabashedly. "Sergeant Phan does a good job too, but I needed to make the rounds."

"Oh, shit, I still need to finish my requisitions and teamcomp analysis," said Emma, glancing at her chronometer and realizing she only had an hour to do both. "Um. Should I just-?"

"I got this," sighed Alanis, standing up and leaping off of Emma's lap. She glowed a wispy blue for a moment before landing in a crouch, much more human than before.

"Ahh, it's too bad you can't stay around," said Alanis, stretching and yawning mightily to reveal pointed canines. Emma was more focused on the fact that Alanis had retained her tail and cat ears to notice this. "Well, whatever, I guess I'll see you around, new girl."

Emma blinked as Alanis walked off, rolling her shoulders.

Back in her room, Emma dropped into her chair with a groan and worked her way through her stack of work as quickly as she could, making sure she didn't miss anything important and sending an order for a cup of coffee to the synthesizer. A small delivery drone left it beside her elbow, and Emma quickly gulped a few mouthfuls before finishing off the last of her requisitions. Still wiping the dregs from her lips, Emma lay down on her bed to log into the virtual meeting space. It took a moment as her TacComp established a connection, before her vision cut to black.

Emma's vision returned as she appeared in the virtual conference room set up by her company commander, Fatima Kosey. She, her executive officer, and the other platoon leaders were already seated. The virtual conference room held a circular table ringed by high backed leather chairs, one of which Emma was already seated in. A few scattered potted plants, for visual flavor, were the only other decorations.

"Ah, there she is," said Fatima. "Finishing your requisitions?"

"Um, yeah," said Emma, blushing slightly and rubbing the back of her neck. "I finished all of them just now."

"Hmm. Get started a little earlier next time, yeah?" said Fatima, slightly amused. "Anyway, let's get introductions around before we get started. I'm Fatima and my XO is Mei Ling." The Chinese girl seated next to Fatima inclined her head with a flat expression. "I'll let the platoon leaders introduce themselves then."

"Well, we've met already," said Alanis, nodding in Emma's direction. Her ears bobbed as she continued. "New girl's pretty good with the ear scratching. I like her."

"Of course that's all you needed to like someone," said the next girl, of mixed ethnicity and hair dyed a deep blue. "Emily Cross, Water Elemental, 2nd Platoon. Alanis is in charge of 1st, if you didn't know already."

"And I'm Qing Duo Yu, 4th Platoon leader," said the last girl, also Chinese with a streak of lime green dyed into her hair. "I'm a barrier generator."

Emma nodded politely to each of them in turn as she took the remaining empty seat. "My name is Emma Sinclair, Wind Elemental. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to business," said Fatima, folding her deep brown hands in front of her mouth and nodding at the table. A map of the galaxy popped up, displaying the cephalopod advances in near-real-time.

"What business, exactly?" asked Emily, head propped on one hand with an infinitely bored expression on her face. "It's not like our TacComps don't give us updates on this sort of thing."

"Sure, sure. I guess you already know about the projected numbers for the squid offensive. What are they again, can you remind me?"

"….um," said Emily awkwardly, realizing that she hadn't checked the updates in a while.

"Exactly," said Fatima pointedly. "And so, as I said, on to business.

As you know, the situation is rather poor. As of this time, the projected cephalopod arrival is almost on the dot with our arrival in the system. You've all been appraised of our supply situation and, fortunately, I have good news. 12th Division is scheduled to secure the manufacturing centers in the Kolasi Basin, so you should be adequately supplied after landing. This has been forwarded to your platoons, so there's nothing that should be a problem. 12th Division will need to hold the line and provide for escort duty until the caravans are handed off to 7th Cavalry for the rest of the trip. The exact routes will be plotted based on enemy troop movements, so keep flexible and prepare for a lot of boredom. If we're lucky, the squids will be forced to dig in across the initial front and we'll hit a protracted siege almost immediately."

"Isn't standard doctrine to try and force a siege?" asked Emma.

"Think of the larger picture," said Fatima, shaking her head. "The squids are going for a massive offensive. Given the numbers we're looking at, we may not be able to force a siege early."

"If we manage to get a siege at all, that is," added Alanis. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy, new girl, so don't count on it."

Fatima nodded. "It's the best case scenario, that's true, and what do we all know about best case scenarios?"

"They never happen without half the company dead anyway," answered everyone but Emma.

"Exactly, so let's not get our hopes up too high," said Fatima. "Now then, status updates. Alanis?"

"First platoon is ready," said Alanis confidently, her ears twitching upright for emphasis. "Our dropship is already provisioned, the IFVs are fueled and bombed up, and the men are confident."

"Good. Second Platoon?"

"We don't have enough men," said Emily with a sigh. "We'll do the best we can with what we have, but Second Platoon is only at 55% strength. The plus side is that everyone's completely stocked on ammo, but that's not much of a silver lining, all things considered."

"I'll try to keep Second Platoon out of too much action," reassured Fatima. "Third Platoon?"

"Well, the men don't want to talk to me much," said Emma. "It's understandable, but it makes things more difficult. I'm certain that 3rd Platoon will do its duty, but I can't guarantee anything more than that. As to our supply situation, we're about as well equipped as we can get without cannabalizing stocks from other platoons, and everything's supposed to be loaded up by 0500."

"Yes, let's not make C Company unpopular in the regiment," said Fatima dryly. "As well as can be expected, I suppose. 4th Platoon?"

"The situation is not much different from 3rd Platoon," said Qing Duo. "My platoon's morale is as high as you can get in situations like this, but we will do our duty."

"Good, then it sounds like we're about as prepared as we can be," said Fatima. "Mei Ling, anything to add?"

"No," said Mei Ling. "Despite being at only 75% strength, C Company appears to have sufficient numbers and morale to complete its mission and defend the Kolasi Basin. I have been able to secure the provisions for the company, so there are no problems there. We won't know more until the drop."

"Alright, then let's get started on combat exercises," said Fatima, standing up and changing sims. The simulated furniture flicked and vanished, leaving the group standing in a fifty meter by fifty meter, flat, metallic arena. Emma blinked, and Fatima had transformed, spinning a sledgehammer in one hand and adjusting the hem of her many-zippered leather jacket with the other. She unzipped one of the pockets and pulled out a lollipop. To Emma's left, Qing Duo had transformed into a hugely long sleeved gown of greens and light blues, a large and ornately bordered plate glass mirror standing up from magic on the ground in front of her. Emily now had a large water gourd slung across her back with a sash and an ankle-length jacket over a pair of black pants and shirt. Analis was now simply a huge tiger, and Mei Ling was wearing some sort of asiatic monk's outfit.

"Emma, you're with me and Mei Ling," said Fatima, gesturing with her sledgehammer for Emma to transform. "Rules are simple: three on three deathmatch. Team with the highest kill-to-death ratio wins. The sim won't be that high fidelity, but it'll work well enough for now."

Hurriedly, Emma summoned her soul gem and flashed into her outfit, summoning a halberd as she did so and quickly jogging over, "Um, why are we-?"

"Well, since you're new, we need to integrate you into the team's power dynamic," said Fatima, pulling more sledgehammers down from the air as Analis, Qing Duo, and Emily formed a triangle, with Qing Duo leading behind a giant plate-glass mirror. "We don't have the time, really, to teach you about platoon level combat, but we need to make sure that we can all work together as a team. We'll start with you piggy-backing on me and Mei Ling, then rotate you around."

"Oh, o- wha, hey, I can hold my own!" said Emma indignantly.

"We'll see about that," said Mei Ling blandly, body crackling with electricity as she and Fatima stepped forward. "Match start in three, two, one."

Emma was immediately ordered to support with her vortex spheres. Growling in distaste, Emma strafed left, launching spheres up and over the heads of her teammates in a typical blanketing attack. Green light lit up the enemy position, obscuring Emma's vision briefly. She paused to clear her vision, and nearly had her head taken off by a flying mirror. Qing Duo had summoned a dome of her mirrors, then waited until Emma had paused to launch all of them at high velocity.

Coming out of the instinctual roll, Emma was immediately beset on all sides by whips and streamers of water. As she tried to parry, they snatched her halberd out of her hands. As she tried to block, they flowed around and punched her square in the chest anyway. Emma was driven back, stumbling over herself, to land heavily on her rear beside Mei Ling.

"Ah, I see you are doing well," said Mei Ling in her furiously bland voice as she deflected a mirror with a lightning-charged machete. "Here, let me give you some help anyway. Fatima!"

A swirl of sledgehammers flew around them, soon charged with a horrendous amount of electricity, before Mei Ling set the charges flying into Emily's searching water whips. The water mage, barely had time to launch her water away from her before they struck, saved only by her combat instincts. A brutal sledgehammer blow to the sternum knocked her out almost immediately after.

"Aim to knock your enemy off balance, not just for the kill," advised Mei Ling as she pulled Emma to her feet and ran, avoiding a series of summoned mirrors and the Qing Duo reflections that leaped out to crush them under yet more mirrors. "For example, I will now attempt to electrocute Qing Duo's reflections. If I succeed, you take the opportunity to chop all their heads off."

"R-right," said Emma, pulling up a halberd and readying herself. Mei Ling suddenly stopped and pivoted. The reflected images dropped out of the mirrors now scattered around the small field, poised to summon yet more mirrors to reflect yet more images. It was a recipe for massive over kill, if allowed to continue. Mei Ling simply took a deep breath, then pushed outwards with her hands.

A wave of electricity jumped outwards, causing the reflections to scatter. Those who were too slow were immediately paralyzed and quickly executed by Emma, a burst of light all that remained of their false existence.

Suddenly, Emma realized that one of the reflections was holding much farther back than the others. It was not a great feat of logic to conclude that this was the original. Take her out and the reflections go with her.

"I've got Qing Duo in my sights," Emma called out to Mei Ling telepathically. "I think I can make it."

"Fatima?"

"It's probably a terrible idea," said Fatima, her telepathy carrying a distinct air of resignation. "Go for it, we'll try and pull your ass out of trouble if needed."

"That's… comforting," said Emma, pausing to parry a mirror and duck under the reflection's kick.

"What, losing your confidence?"

"No, no, I got this. Here I go."

Emma gathered her magic and pushed outwards. A swirling pillar of cutting wind blew through the reflections, scattering them in flashes of light and homing in on the original. Qing Duo pulled another mirror out and ducked behind it, the wind scattering against it harmlessly. Emma was on top of her almost instantly.

She immediately regretted it.

Qing Duo's reflections didn't respond as quickly or as violently as Qing Duo herself did. Emma's first blow was redirected into the ground, before the more experienced magical girl thrust her palm inside Emma's guard and materialized a mirror. Emma barely escaped getting her sternum crushed by twisting to the side, but a roundhouse kick to the back of her knees dropped her to the ground. She rolled, trying to avoid the curb stomp that followed, but looked up to see a mirror over her head and already whistling downwards.

The sim cut her senses before the edge of the mirror shattered her neck.