Why are we being attacked, anyway? Maybe the squid are just pawns in some crazy interstellar political game. That'd be crazy, but it'd make some sort of sense, at least.

- Lieutenant Jessica Winterly, 2nd Platoon, D Company, 4th Battalion, 38th Regiment, 10th Assault Cavalry Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile

With the squid, it's always been wave after wave after wave of infantry. On the one hand, I admire their tenacity. On the other hand, this seems like a really stupid strategy, even if they are kicking our asses.

-Major General Min-seo Heung, 8th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Mekong

Like all magical girl outfits, Rene's ballet costume was a beautiful thing to behold. It sparkled with sequins in the morning light, the first rays of dawn glinting off of her as flecks of bright amber and clear gold. This also made it a bit scratchy to wear and to hug. Despite this discomfort, Emma held Rene close as she cried, ignoring the bite of the sequins digging into her cheek.

It took several minutes for Emma to calm down properly. Decompressing from emotional suppression was not unlike being shot full of stimulant medication and then dropping off of the high, and Emma grimaced as she struggled not to be sick into Rene's costume.

"Ah, jeez, you are always weepy after a serious bout of suppression," sighed Rene, rubbing Emma's head consolingly. "Are you going to be alright?"

"It's stupid," mumbled Emma. "I… I wasn't watching, and I got one of the newbies killed."

"Killed?" asked Rene with some trepidation.

"No, like, I had to.. I had to destroy her body, but we saved her gem," reassured Emma. "It's.. I wouldn't say that someone dying was stupid."

"Oh, right, right," said Rene, sighing. "My.. It's just that my teammates are a little… cold-blooded."

"So, yeah, that's that, I guess," said Emma, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "S-sorry for using you as a handkerchief."

"It's fine," said Rene sardonically, patting Emma on the head. "We have all gotten used to it, by now."

"Oh. Wait- hey, I'm not that bad," protested Emma. "I do not fall to pieces every time there's a big fight!"

"Yes, you do," said Rene, helping Emma sit up. "Especially the first time they sent us through the sims. With the tanks?"

"We barely survived the first run through the sims, that doesn't count," countered Emma, hiccuping once and looking away. "Just, shut up, I'm recovering here."

Rene laughed slightly but dutifully shut up, giving Emma the space she needed to pull herself together.

Tracy would be fine. Emma didn't know the details, but all medical centers were equipped to restore a magical girl from her gem. It wasn't a pretty procedure, apparently, but it could be done. There were plenty of girls out there that had made full recoveries. Tracy would even get an award out of it.

She still couldn't shake off the feeling that she was responsible for Tracy's death.

It was irrational and dumb, but there it was. On top of that, Emma knew that she should have been keeping a closer eye on her platoon, and this was a direct consequence of her getting careless and too focused on combat. But there was no point focusing on what had already happened, because she needed to move on and do better, but how could she possibly have forgotten to-?

With a growl Emma whacked herself on the head. Emotions were frustrating.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Rene, raising an eyebrow.

"It's nothing, really," said Emma, shaking her head. "I- we've done it before, having to, um, to evac someone's gem."

"...I'm not sure I believe you, you are being very vague," said Rene. "And the sim is limited. It is very different doing something in real life."

"Well, there's a reason I was under suppression," said Emma. She breathed in deeply, then slowly let the air out of her lungs. There. She'd managed to make peace with it for now. Emma stood up with a small wobble and waved off Rene's offer of help. "I'm fine, I'm fine. But like I was saying, it's really freaky to do it in real life. But I have a handle on it. It's standard operating procedure, after all."

Rene gave Emma a doubtful look but didn't press the point. "If you say so. Let's get back to the men, we both have duties to attend to."

Their platoons had linked up while Emma had been decompressing. Their IFVs could be seen a few miles east, labeled on their implants as a line of markers, at a bridge across the river where a few squid had attempted and failed to make a stand.

"Lieutenants," greeted Ingrid as Emma and Rene jogged up. "We were just clearing the bridge of mines or traps while we waited."

"Oh, alright then," said Emma, blinking, then nodding. "We turned out okay, in the end?"

"Losses were within expected bounds, and we had access to quick resupply," said Ingrid. "Overall, though, the battalion is down to about fifty percent strength."

"Will we pull reinforcements from the militia?"

"Negative, we would reduce our useful strength with the encumberment," said Ingrid. "There is currently nothing to be done about our numbers, we will need to fight more conservatively and concentrate more deeply."

"Alright, then, uh," Emma began, paused, breathed deeply, then continued. "Then, since we don't have orders otherwise, let's get the platoon back to the school. We should try and rest as much as possible before the next wave. Leave the militia the rest of the work, they have the reinforcements to back them up."

Ingrid nodded. "I was going to suggest the same myself."

"Are you sure about that?" interjected Rene. She was giving Emma a doubtful look. "The Militia aren't as experienced as the Heavy Infantry are, they could run into trouble."

"I'll take that risk," Emma returned, a tad sharply. "I don't want to leave my platoon in a lurch because they haven't decompressed properly."

Rene was unamused. "There is a job to be completed now, though. You cannot leave tasks half-finished."

"The militia will be fine," said Emma firmly. "I don't really see where you're coming from on this."

"It is- oh, forget it," said Rene, shaking her head but waving Emma away. "It is a personal thing, I suppose. It is simply not my style to leave any task unfinished. If you must, go rest your troops."

"I will," said Emma, glancing at Ingrid before nodding. "I'll see you around, Rene."

"Bye, Emma," said Rene, waving as she turned towards the bridge. Emma watched her go for a moment before heading the opposite direction, following Ingrid.

"Was she a friend?" asked Ingrid as she and Emma walked amongst the remains of the platoon, greeting the men and checking up on the wounded who hadn't gone back to the med center yet.

"Yeah," said Emma. "We got paired up often during training. What's up?"

Ingrid hummed. "It's your own business, but you might talk to her about priorities."

"What do you mean?"

"A short academic discussion, to see each others points of view," clarified Ingrid. "I have found it helpful to do so with my fellow commanders in the past. It improves unit cohesion."

Emma was rather dubious. "I'll, uh, take that under consideration. Have you seen Bridgette?"

"She went back to the medical center with some of the more injured," said Ingrid.

"Is she hurt?" asked Emma with alarm.

"Not seriously, she lost part of her arm late in the fighting," said Ingrid. "She'll be fine in a few hours."

Emma bit her lip and nodded. "R-right, that's true. I need to get a few fingers regrown myself, so I'll visit her in a bit. The men are ready to go, we should mount up."

"The vehicle is on it's way," said Ingrid."A Company has been notified of our imminent departure, and a milia platoon is two minutes out."

"Good," said Emma as the IFV roared in and skidded to a halt. "Let's head out then."

The ride back to Public School 7S was short, and gave Emma a chance to get a detailed update on the men in the platoon. Everyone seemed fine, but the exhaustion levels were high, and Emma was now certain they needed the break before the next attack. After making sure everyone was situated, Emma caught a medical drone back to the medical center.

Naturally, Emma chose to ride on top, and trust in her physiology to keep her safe from harm. It wasn't a very bumpy ride, of course, the suspension being linked to balance the vehicle near-perfectly as it drove. Emma even had a chance to relax, lying on the roof and letting her mind wander until they passed into the city proper.

The streets of Helsinberg were surprisingly packed. While Emma had known that it was impossible to fully evacuate the citizenry, especially given the suddenness of the Cephalopod onslaught, she hadn't really understood what that would look like. While she had been running around helping supply the defensive lines, the people of Helsinberg had secluded themselves into their homes and prepared for the worst. But now that the latest attack had been repulsed, people were up and about taking care of what business they could before they had to hide inside their homes again.

From her position atop the medical drone, Emma could see clearly the income disparity on the streets between the tall towers of sparkling polyglass. The rich and affluent wore sensibly fashionable clothing of distinctly higher quality material. Those of lower income wore clothing no less sensible but much lower in quality, with small nicks and tears that betrayed long use over many years. Governance colonies were obligated to keep all citizens fed and clothed, but the rich cotton-silk blend of the wealthy, closely woven and impregnated with a variety of coatings to give it properties beyond just fabric, was of a completely different nature to the basic psuedocotton that the more frugally obligated wore.

Emma grimaced in distaste. At least the city hadn't descended into chaos like some places had during the Unification Wars. There were stories of armed mobs storming mansions and apartment complexes to pillage the wealthier classes of their goods. It was true that the ideal situation meant that everyone had access to the same protective outerwear in a crisis, but at least there was no need for Emma to lead her platoon into a mob to quell a minor uprising.

The income disparity aside, however, Helsinberg proper was apparently a well off and well constructed city. From what Emma could see on the way to the medical center, the commercial areas of the city were well developed. They probably made a lot more money in a year than she could adequately fathom, not having been in any sort of economics track. The roads and sidewalks were well maintained in this part of the city, with plenty of recessed lamps to stave off crime.

It also turned out, according to the battlenet, that there were very few magical girls in this part of town. There were probably more near the medical center, but the route Emma was taking was largely normal military or civilian in nature. In this respect, riding atop the medical drone was a mistake, as it made it blatantly clear who and what she was. The drone was soon swarmed by a gaggle of children, ranging from a few years older than herself to the very young.

"Ah, hi, hi," said Emma as the drone slammed onto its brakes and went into a crawl to keep from running anyone over. "Hey, sorry, but could you please let me through? Ack, watch out, the little boy — thanks."

The gaggle was completely unresponsive to her request. Embarrassed and unsure of what to do, Emma decided, with a few helpful suggestions from her TacComp, that smiling and waving was probably for the best. This had the unfortunate result of demonstrating that she was missing two fingers and sparked further oohing and aahing and crowding closer to see her.

It seemed Emma would have to hold a small press conference of some kind, in order to get through. At her command, the drone pulled off to the side in order to let the onflow of traffic past,

"Alright, alright, please, one at a time," said Emma, scooting to the side of the vehicle and sitting with her legs dangling over the edge. The crowd of children followed her, opening up the front and letting the medical drone speed up slightly. "Um, hi everyone..."

"I like yur costume!" called one of the children. Emma couldn't see which.

"Thanks," said Emma sheepishly, somewhat self-conscious of the brightly colored ensemble she hadn't untransformed from. She wasn't used to being complimented on her clothing.

"Are you wearin' armor?" asked another.

"Yeah, I added it on after I transformed," said Emma, knocking on an arm guard with a grin. "It's really useful."

"Doesn't your costume come with that sorta thing?" asked someone older than Emma, apparently one of a few chaperones. "Seems kinda dumb for the Incubators not to include armor as part of the package deal."

"Well, you'd think," said Emma, giving her costume a bemused look. "I mean, the chest plate came with it, but I know plenty of girls who don't have any armor. It's kinda weird."

"Oh who cares, it looks cool!" said one of the boys. "Man, girls are so lucky…."

The boy's friend gave him a look. "Ew. You want to wear a dress?"

"Nah, but-" the boy glanced at Emma for his nomenclator to kick in "-Miss Sinclair's got a cool outfit that isn't a dress an' she has magic powers an' stuff!"

"Yah, but still-"

"Where're you from, Miss Sinclair?" asked a girl, shouting out over the brewing argument about whether magic powers were worth the risk of ending up in a dress (or if perhaps the magic overrode dresses in general).

"I'm from Earth," said Emma.

Another round of oohing followed this revelation. The dress argument was derailed.

"What's Earth like?" asked another girl, hopping up and down eagerly. "Is it as big as Helsinberg?"

"Well, I'm from a city on Earth, called Mitakihara-"

"Ooh! Ooh! Do you know Mami-san? She's from Mitakihara, right?"

"Yeah! Or Kyouko? Or Yuma?"

"No, I don't know any of the Mitakihara Four personally," said Emma, laughing a little sheepishly as the collective's face fell. "Sorry, I'm not that cool guys."

"It's okay! What's it like fightin' the squids?" asked a boy enthusiastically, punching the air with childish ferocity. "I bet it's like a whoosh and a bang and a pow and a-!"

"It's a little like that, yeah," said Emma as the kid became distracted fighting imaginary enemies and tripped over himself. "Uh, someone help him up?"

"Beh, Matty'll be fine," said one of the older girls, just a little younger than Emma. "What sorta powers d'you got?"

"I"m a wind mage," said Emma, holding out her uninjured hand and summoning a very weak vortex sphere. The football sized ball was just barely held together. "I can't do much here without risking damaging something, but here, catch."

The girl blanched as the ball sailed towards her. She nstinctively adjusted her stance to catch the vortex sphere atop her head, bouncing it upwards even as the sphere popped with a whoosh of air.

"Molly, you were supposed to catch it!" groaned one of the little girls, tugging at Molly's shirt hem.

"Sorry," said Molly, rubbing her head in mild wonderment. "Was that supposed to happen?"

"Yeah, my magic pops on contact with something else," said Emma. "You play football?"

"Yeah, there's a league for us street rats," said Molly with a grin. "Top of the leaderboard, right here."

"Street rats?" asked Emma.

"Formal name's 'Street Wanderer'. Don't you have those on Earth?" asked Molly.

"No."

"You know, people who're saving money by wandering the streets, 'cause they can handle the exposure?"

Emma shook her head, surprised and a little stunned. "I mean, sure, most of us can do that with implants, but why can't you get a place to live?"

"Beh, who needs an apartment or a house to live in?" asked Molly. "It's not that we can't, it's that we don't care enough. We're happy wandering the streets, right guys?"

The gaggle of children cheered their assent at Molly's assertion. Emma wasn't sure what to make of it.

"And, uh, school?"

"Oh, sure, but it's not like it's ultimately that important, right?" said Molly with a shrug. "Child labor laws don't let us work until we're sixteen anyway, so most've us just muddle our way though."

"I… okay," said Emma, shrugging. Education never really interested her either. "Anyway, what other stuff did you guys wanna ask?"

The small interview session spiraled about for a little longer, with the typical questions that children would ask. Eventually, a good deal of them had run out of things to ask, and were beginning to wander off. To keep the group of children together, the older children began to split off and the group quickly disintegrated. Emma waved goodbye at the last stragglers as her drone lurched forward continued towards the medical center.

What a strange city.

The medical center was a small hub of activity. Emma jumped off of the drone outside the main doors and made her way past the throngs of military personnel. Missing fingers were a relatively minor wound, especially for a magical girl, and so Emma was placed on the low priority list for treatment.

"I've got a friend who's being treated for a missing arm," said Emma after being forwarded her timeticket digitally. "Can I go visit her while I wait?"

"Affirmative," said the adminitrative VI, its holographic bubble avatar bouncing. "What is the name of the inidivudual you wish to visit?"

"Bridgette Hayer."

"Lieutenant Hayer is on the seventeenth floor, room 7718," said the VI. "Please use the internal transportation systems to reach her room, in order to preserve the cleanliness of the medical center."

Emma took the elevator up to the seventh floor. The elevator projected a pleasing landscape of a Samsaran beach onto the walls as they went. The effect was rather stymied by the doors malfunctioning and not projecting the image at full resolution.

Emma left the elevator and stepped into the sanitation suite for the seventeenth floor. UV rays buzzed across her skin, followed by the disconcerting little cleaner drones that crawled across her to remove debris and other particulate matter. Emma wondered if anyone had taken the opportunity to reprogram the drones to do a particularly deep exfoliation, though it did run the risk of being creepy.

The sanitation process over with, Emma made her way through the exit to the examination rooms. The floor, like all medical areas had been for millenia, was laid out along a large grid. Room 7718 was down one of the center hallways. Emma knocked on the door.

"Come in," said Bridgette.

Emma poked her head in. "Uh, hi Bridgette."

Bridgette breathed in sharply, before doing her best to quell obvious nervousness. "Oh. H-hi, Emma."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing."

"You're shaking."

"I am? O-oh."

Emma was confused. Bridgette was clearly trembling underneath the sheets that covered the lower half of her body. The damaged arm was encased in a blue, sterile, plastic mold, generically arm shaped and translucent. It was almost as if she was…

...afraid of Emma.

Unexpectedly, Emma felt a stabbing sensation in her chest. "Bridgette, I'm not going to- I mean, it's okay, you don't need to be-."

"I h-heard what happened to Tr-Tracy," stammered Bridgette, rapidly beginning to tear up. "I c-can't believe that- that you could-!"

"I- it was-," stammered Emma, "Bridgette, she was going to die!"

"B-but you didn't have to burn her!" cried Bridgette, wiping at her eyes with her remaining hand. "N-now there's nothing left even to b-bury!"

"Why does that matter?" asked Emma.

This was not the right thing to say.

"W-why? What do you mean 'why'?!" shouted Bridgette. The running feet of the orderlies could be heard down the hall.

"I- I mean-"

"How could you not even understand?! Go away, I hate you, you-!"

Emma ran.

Ayane found Emma on the roof.

"Are you okay?" she asked, touching down to Emma's left and stepping forward, biting her lip. "I- the battlenet said you needed to talk to someone, and I was closest."

"Go away," mumbled Emma. She was sitting on the edge of the roof, slumped over and staring down at the streets.

"No," said Ayane. She stopped a few feet back from Emma. "What happened?"

"I said go away," said Emma, shuffling away from Ayane.

Ayane frowned, then jumped with a small burst of magic. Emma started as Ayane fluttered down right next to her.

"I'm not going away," said Ayane, grabbing ahold of Emma's shoulder before she could jump away. Emma let herself be pulled down as Ayane took a seat, swinging her legs over the ledge and letting the cleated boots she wore in her costume clack against the wall. "Emma, you need to talk about this."

Emma gave back only stony silence, staring out over the city. There was a slight breeze.

"You know, it's really odd," said Emma, eventually. "The things they tell us to do in training."

"Like what?" asked Ayane.

"Well, there's the whole don't-worry-it's-just-an-arm thing," said Emma, summoning a vortex sphere and bouncing it up and down with her magic. "And then there's how we're not actually in these bodies, you know?"

Emma manifested her gem into it's bauble form, holding it up in her hand. "If I dropped this, right now…."

"Emma, stop it, you're making me nervous," said Ayane, fingers clenching on the ledge. "Please put your soul gem back on."

"Silly Ayane," Emma said, smiling slightly. "I'm not going to do something like that." Her gem flashed and returned to her body, clipping onto her ear. Emma took it off and tucked it behind her chest plate. It was too bad it was too vulnerable to leave it hanging like that in combat, she looked rather nice with it on.

"I guess you're right though," said Ayane, pulling her braid over her shoulder and fiddling with the end. "When you put it that way, it's a little weird. Technically, you and I could both jump, and so long as we left our gems up here, we'd be fine."

"Fine's not really the way I'd put it," said Emma, arching an eyebrow.

"Well, you didn't go through the combat sims I did during the ride over," said Ayane wryly. "You… get used to dying, somehow. I've lost my body in the sims at least a dozen times."

"I'm sorry," said Emma, a little disturbed.

"Ah, don't be, it was only because I didn't have the experience," said Ayane, smiling away the moment. "You know, you do a immelman 'cause you're scared, but there's two missiles not one, so you have to drop your gem befor, er."

Emma was looking a little green.

"Sorry," said Ayane sheepishly. "The, uh, the point being that it's no big deal, you know?"

"I guess," said Emma, sighing heavily. "But why do I feel so bad about it?"

"Eh? You didn't die though."

"I… some of the new girls, who are kinda talented, are being assigned as extra firepower to the support platoons," said Emma. "I had two."

Ayane looked at Emma out of the corner of her eye. It wasn't entirely obvious, Emma's mood.

"I'm guessing things didn't go well," said Ayane neutrally.

"No, I-" Emma paused and swallowed. "I got one of them badly hurt."

Ayane held her breath and counted to ten. Finally: "Tell me about it?"

"It was stupid," said Emma, sniffing. "I was going through the field and wasn't paying attention and got blindsided somehow. At first it was a grappling fight, so it wasn't that bad, but then one of them came out of nowhere and tried to help me."

"And then?"

"Then another squid shot her in the back. She- she wasn't experienced and she was panicking and-." Emma stopped talking.

Ayane frowned. "Did you… take care of things?"

"What do you think?" snapped Emma. "Of course I did."

"Then what's there to worry about?"

"Because it feels wrong!" Emma shouted. "And because she was my responsibility! I was supposed to take care of her because she's my subordinate, and now-!" Emma stopped and looked away, gritting her teeth angrily. "And now nothing, because she'll be back in a few days and there's nothing to worry about, right?"

"...That's… not true," said Ayane. "I've had to... take care of my teammates before, after they've been shot down in the sim. It's not fun, because the person you've talked to and known is the thing you're destroying. But we have to get used to it eventually, right?"

Emma didn't respond.

"And, because she'll be okay, I think you should take this as a learning experience and move on as best you can," continued Ayane, pulling out a filigreed dagger and turning it about in her hands. "I had to figure that out, quickly."

"Yeah, well, you didn't get yelled at by one teammates for doing the right thing," said Emma bitterly.

"But, isn't your team-?"

"I had two subordinates, now I only have one," said Emma. "And she might apply to transfer, so."

"Oh. This one, she doesn't really get it?"

"No, and now she hates me and is afraid of me."

Ayane pursed her lips, then sighed. "Well, fuck her."

"What?" asked Emma.

"I said: Fuck her," said Ayane, frowning. "She's what, like half a week old?"

"Three days."

"Then fuck her opinion, she doesn't know what she's talking about," said Ayane, shrugging. "We're magical girls. Our bodies are disposable."

"Uhh, I mean, I'm rather attached to my body…"

"Well, you're not in CAS Magi, so there is that," said Ayane, shrugging again. "Don't panic when I lose my body the first time, okay? Just try and get my gem. And if you can't, I don't blame you."

"Ayane…"

"No, seriously," said Ayane, poking Emma in the shoulder. "You got that? The Magi Caeli have the right idea. Our bodies are our vessels, our soul gems are our cockpits. Nothing more and nothing less."

"Do you really believe that?" asked Emma.

Ayane swallowed. "I do." Her voice wavered faintly, but Emma didn't notice.

"Okay then," said Emma, turning away and looking out over the city again. "I guess that makes sense."

Truthfully, Ayane wasn't sure she believe what she said. But Emma had cheered up considerably, so, in the end, it was worth it.