As soon as magical girls decide that all means are permitted in combat, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the darkness that they set out to destroy.

-Captain Christine Dawson, D Company, 22nd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division, 8th Army Group of the Nile

The light at the end of the tunnel is usually a squid tank cannon. In cases where this is not true, inform your Chaplain. Clearly, a miracle has occurred.

-Lieutenant Isabella McDonnell, 1st Platoon, C Company, 31st Regiment, 8th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Ganges

Emma and Sasha quietly thought over the situation as they retreated.

It was really very poor.

The IFVs were retreating as quickly as they could, their MG complements being sent to the rear while the soldiers delayed the onslaught as much as possible. This left only the two of them as the magical compliment.

Overhead, lasers continued to rip into the human formations. The squid were largely out of range, but they didn't need to open fire if the enemy was being blown to pieces from afar. Occasionally, Emma and Sasha would launch a blast of magic to help out a particularly distressed fireteam, but it was far, far too little.

At first, Emma and Sasha had tried to put up a fight, but the sheer volume of fire that converged upon them was too much. It was impossible to do anything substantive, the sheer number of infantry rolling over the horizon made the damage they did moot. Frustrated and with a limited grief cube supply, they could only run.

Emma looked up at the stormy sky and the ragged holes ripped in the clouds. She could just catch a glimpse of the ridiculously huge battle station hovering twenty miles back. A trivial range for most artillery, if it weren't for the fact that the "Airship" was the size of a squid cruiser, had enough shields to count as a frigate and had the firepower to match.

"Fucking Reapers," Sasha growled to herself.

"We'll take it out eventually," reassured Emma. She was still looking over the terrain as the two of them retreated, moving under cover of their backpacks' stealth generators.

No, what was needed was a large enough assault that would end up disrupting a large number of enemies. A nuke would be good, but Emma suspected that this was not strategically sound. Standard practice was to NOT irradiate a hugely fertile area if possible, and, absurdly, it seemed that the squid had similar ideas. It certainly explained why the human garrison was still alive, though admittedly Emma wasn't really sure of just what was available to counter things like that.

"There's a fireteam, to our right," said Sasha. Emma paused and glanced over. The small team of soldiers was strung out and falling back as best as it could. Another fireteam's worth of soldiers lay dead a few yards in front of them.

"Smash and grab," said Emma simply.

"Go," said Sasha, magic flaring around her in cold, icy white-blue.

Emma rocketed out of cover, using the charge she'd improvised earlier to bowl through the squad attempting to destroy the embattled fireteam. As the bodies flew through the air, Emma whipped the strands of magic around her into a localized whirlwind. Sasha froze it moments later. Troopers fell, limbless and headless and generally dead.

"Thanks for the assist, Lieutenant," said one of the troops. "But shouldn't you be—?"

"We're falling back, Corporal, don't worry," said Emma as Sasha appeared beside her to finish off one of the dying squid. "Keep your troops moving." Emma twitched as Sasha broke open the squid's chest with a kick, then froze its internal organs. "…We will follow."

"…Right," said the corporal, glancing at Sasha's kill and back to Emma. "Stay safe then, Lieutenant."

Emma nodded as the corporal turned and began running, the remaining members of the fireteam quickly moving across the field. The stealth generators on Emma and Sasha's backpacks finished recharging and reengaged.

"We're getting close to the main defensive line," said Emma as Sasha punched her harpoon through another squid in the groin, then ripped it out.

"Hn."

"…You should probably take a break, Sasha."

"Don't tell me what to do, Newbie," said Sasha, grinding the heel of her boot into the squid's ruined genitalia. The squid thrashed, trying and failing to remove Sasha from it. Slowly the movements faded as it bled out.

Emma checked Sasha's gem. It was still falling, ticking down a percentage point once every few minutes. This was not going to end well.

"At least stop doing that," said Emma, grimacing in distaste.

"Go fuck yourself, Newbie," said Sasha. "These bastards don't deserve any better."

"I'm just saying—."

"Second Lieutenant Emma Sinclair you Goddess damned IDIOT!" shouted Fatima telepathically. Emma nearly dropped to the ground in shock. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?!"

"I'm covering—!"

"Like HELL you are!" Fatima shouted. "You will fall back IMMEDIATELY whereupon I will COURT MARTIAL your ass so hard you won't be able to—!"

"There's a Reaper, Fatima!"

"That has no bearing whatsoever on your current status, especially when you know that the teleporters are tied up with the rest of the Goddess-damned line!" said Fatima. She was plainly furious. "I am not losing a girl because she has a misplaced sense of duty!"

"Fatima, there's no way we're going to be able to hold the squid off AND get the units back in anything resembling one piece!" Emma countered angrily. "Is one newbie more important than half a division?!"

Fatima was silent.

"You can't save half a division, Emma," said Fatima. "I understand what you're trying to do, but—."

"Like hell I can't!"

"Maybe if you burn your gem out but we are NOT that desperate!" Fatima shouted back. "Get back here IMMEDIATELY. That is an ORDER."

Emma inhaled furiously then bit her lip.

"…Understood," she said finally. "I will link up with remnants of the 24th and retreat to the first defensive line."

"Good," said Fatima. "We will have words about this later."

"Yes sir," said Emma. She turned to Sasha. "Let's go."

"You being recalled?" asked Sasha. She resummoned her harpoon and jogged up to match Emma's pace as she vectored towards the nearest working IFV.

"Yes."

"I guess I'll be alone then," said Sasha. "Nice knowin' you, Newbie."

"You need to come with me," said Emma. "You need to rest."

"I'll rest when the squid are all dead," said Sasha darkly. Her gem ticked another point downwards.

"If you don't rest, you'll be too tired to keep up the fight," countered Emma.

It was the first time Sasha had been made to give pause. She came to a full stop as she considered this.

"…Fine."

Emma grimaced. It would have to do.

They continued the run in silence, helping out along the way as necessary. Occasionally, they caught a glimpse of the enemy armored columns running across the battlefields, moving to encircle vast tracts of the retreating units. With the Reaper unbalancing human maneuvers with well placed and overwhelming firepower, nothing else could be done until the momentum turned and a response could be made.

Emma's TacComp pinged as it came within range of an IFV. The transmitter was still sending out enough of a signal that it was overcoming the squid jamming.

"Damn," Emma cursed as she looked at her newly updated map. There was more than one Reaper, and the entire front in this region was being carved up. Her immediate vicinity was already close to getting encircled. If she could just—

But no, she had been ordered to fall back. And she wasn't going to disobey Fatima like that.

"Lieutenants, what the hell are you doing here?" asked a soldier in the IFV.

"We're extracting right now," said Emma. "Can you pick us up?" She flagged her and Sasha's position on the local map.

"Doing so right now," said the soldier. The IFV and one of its fellows swung towards Emma and Sasha. The remaining two IFVs pulled together for greater coverage against the incoming artillery fire. Two IFVs would probably go unnoticed by the local Reaper.

"Contact right!" Sasha called out suddenly. The IFVs swerved, scattering as their autocannon swiveled and began firing. Flashes of fire blossomed across a nearby ridge-top, before a battery of missile fire streaked in.

Emma didn't let them impact. With a shout, she sent a wave of air down range. Sasha immediately froze the raindrops inside it. The missiles exploded far away from the IFVs.

"Jump for it!" Sasha shouted as they sprinted forward, lasers converging on their revealed position. Emma nodded, and they both leaped forward.

With simultaneous clangs, they landed on the incoming IFVs. Immediately, the vehicles pulled hard left turns and accelerated to maximum speed. The turboshaft engines screamed as Emma and Sasha gripped the tops of the vehicles with their magic, working on deflecting incoming missiles and shield against lasers.

"We're out of range," said one of the soldiers. Emma breathed a sigh of relief as she swung herself into the IFV. "Thanks for the assist, Lieutenants."

"Hn," grunted Sasha.

"You're welcome," said Emma, sitting down with a sigh and checking her gem's purity. "What unit are you guys from?"

"C Company, 8th Battalion of the 24th," said the sergeant in charge.

"You're pretty far from your unit, Sergeant."

"Everyone's scattered, ma'am," said the sergeant. Emma blinked at the word choice. "We're making our way as best we can."

"Are you speaking British English?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow.

"Er, yes ma'am," said the sergeant. "M'name's Sergeant David O'Malley."

Emma grinned. Irish though the last name was, a Brit was a Brit.

"You're from the UK then?" she asked, switching to British English herself. "Whereabouts?"

"Oxford, ma'am," said Sergeant O'Malley. "Whereabouts yourself?"

"London," said Emma. "Moved to Mitakihara though. Haven't heard British English in a while. It's good to find a fellow Brit."

"Heh, same here, ma'am," said Sergeant O'Malley. "We—."

Their TacComps pinged. The gap was closing.

"Shit," said O'Malley. "Can't this thing go any faster?"

"I should be able to give it a boost," said Emma as she looked over the map. It was a five minute run at a hundred kilometers per hour, three with her magic. "But we'll end up leaving the other's behind."

"I'll run interference," said Sasha. "When we get to the gap, drop me off. I'll hold off one of the pincers while the others catch up."

"No, you'll die," said Emma immediately. "Sasha, you don't have enough—."

"Get bent, Newbie," said Sasha. "You don't outrank me. Sergeant, do you hear me?"

"…Yes sir," said O'Malley in Human Standard. "Lieutenant Sinclair, I guess we'll…?"

"Yeah," said Emma. She climbed out of the IFV again and braced herself on the roof. The IFV to their right wiggled in its path, a salute of some sort. Emma sent a mental "good luck" at the soldiers inside, before forming her magic into a jet, the exhaust pointing behind to accelerate the IFV forwards.

She started slow, doing little except winding her magic into a tube, with well reinforced walls. With that complete, Emma began pulling air through it. There was a quiet whooshing noise, barely audible over the wind whipping past her and the turboshaft's howl, that quickly grew into a whistling shriek.

The IFV noticeably picked up speed as Emma pumped magic into the technique. The shrieking of the air jet grew louder as the IFV's velocity increased to one-ten, one-twenty, then one-thirty kilometers an hour. It was a decent boost, given that Emma was improvising with a technique designed to kill things more than propel them.

Unfortunately, the suddenly accelerating IFV was rather obvious.

"The squid are picking up the pace!" O'Malley sent over the battlenet. "Lieutenant, we're not going to make it!"

Emma grimaced. "Fatima," she called telepathically. "I'm going to be cut off."

"Can you punch through the enemy line?" asked Fatima.

"I'm not sure," said Emma. "My gem's not exactly in the best of places right now."

"…Do your best then," said Fatima. "I've put in a teleporter request. Hold out long enough for them to get to you. The rest of the company is tied up with providing cover to the rest of the line."

"How are they doing?" asked Emma.

"Ask them yourself when you get back to base," said Fatima. "Don't die, I still plan on court-martialing the shit out of you, Emma."

"Right," said Emma. "See you soon."

"Stay safe."

Emma looked over the map again. One and a bit minutes, and yes, the squid had already encircled them. It was a tenuous thing though, if Emma was going fast enough...

"Sergeant, I'm going to try and blast through," said Emma. "Hold on tight, we're going to see some fire."

"Understood," said O'Malley, relaying the command to his troops. "All units standing by."

"Sasha, I still think this is a bad idea," said Emma. "But you're right, I don't have authority over you. You'd beat me in a fight if it came down to it."

"…Thank you," said Sasha. "I'll... see ya' when I see ya'."

Emma grimaced and pushed more magic into her technique, tilting the jet slightly upwards to force the tires of the IFV onto the ground. They would need the steering.

"Five hundred meters to impact," noted Emma's TacComp.

Emma gulped.

"…Four hundred meters."

This was probably going to be painful.

"…Three hundred meters."

Emma could literally feel the lasers zeroing on her back. She hunkered down to minimize her profile.

"…Two hundred meters."

Lasers began impacting. Emma tucked her head in to avoid losing her body and grit her teeth as she felt her armor begin burning her skin from the impact.

"…One hundred meters."

Emma stifled a shout of pain as a laser made it through her back armor and burnt away part of her kidney. Magic quickly numbed it.

"…Impact in 3, 2—."

Emma finally leaped into the hatch and out of the line of fire. Moments later, Sasha had leaped out, magic flashing left and right as she tore into the wobbly squid lines. The IFV shuddered as it bounced over bodies and the abandoned trenches, still running on the momentum Emma had given it and slewing wildly back and forth as it caught air off of the random obstacles. It was all the occupants could do to keep from getting rattled to death.

"I should have grabbed a few cubes from you," said Sasha as she sprinted along side. Emma glanced at the girl's gem read out. It was dangerously low.

"Get inside!" Emma called out in alarm. "Come on, we're nearly through!"

"You'll never make it without me keeping them off your ass," said Sasha. The map readout was filling with a distressing number of red dots, it was true, but—

"There's a teleporter on its way, Sasha," said Emma. "Please, look, you can avenge Hisako later—!"

"Let me have this, Emma," said Sasha calmly. Emma could feel her magic from inside the vehicle. "It'll be alright. This'll slow the squid down enough that you can get away."

"No, Sasha, stop!" Emma shouted, jumping out of her seat in distress. Sasha's gem was getting close to the critical cutoff. Any more and she was going to burn out! "Please, this isn't going to—!"

A huge surge. Emma punched the wall of the IFV as a huge swathe of the red dots was instantly wiped out. There was a cascading effect that creeped out from Sasha's last known location, snuffing out the dots with terrifying ease.

Sasha's status indicator stopped transmitting.

"…Damn it," swore Emma. "Damn it!"

"We're nearly to the edge of the squid's advance column," said O'Malley. "Just a few hundred meters—."

There was a huge bang. Emma grabbed a handhold as the IFV swerved to the left.

"Dammit, sniper!" said a corporal. "We've lost the engine!"

"Get ready to run for it!" ordered O'Malley. "As soon as the vehicle slows down enough—!"

Then the world flipped with a tremendous roar. Emma caught a glimpse of bulkhead racing towards her before everything went black.

Emma was not sure if she was blind or if there was just no power.

It was just as well, her head hurt like it had been split in two.

…Actually, what was probably her brain she was feeling.

Going back to sleep was a good idea….

There was a spinning column of light in front of her.

Above it was a burning city, its buildings hanging off of a great domed roof as bodies fell upwards and were consumed by the column.

Slowly, Emma began walking forward, feeling herself get torn apart by the spinning column and become meshed into its whole. Somehow, this did not frighten her.

What frightened her was the sound of screaming as she spun round and round and round, the world whipping by.

Stop it. Stop the screaming. Stop, please!

Nothing happened. Emma felt herself being pulled at, stretched thin, then eaten away until nothing remained but her eyes, staring out at the burning city and the dying and the dead and the never to be.

Then her eyes were taken too, and everything went black. Nothing was everywhere, and everything was nothingness, except for the feeling of a hand running gently up her belly, towards her chest. Somebody whispered in her ear: "I love you."

Emma's eyes snapped shut as blinding white light filled her vision, the ground rough and gritty under her knees as she struggled to stay upright. The roar of wind filled her ears and then she felt something stab its way into her chest.

With a gasp, Emma woke up to excruciating pain. Everything was still dark, but Emma's soul gem decoys lent just enough light to see.

Emma felt around her chest. There was a large sliver of alloy wedged through her left breast, slicing apart her lung and part of the veins there. Apparently, fugue was an excellent thing. Using magic, she numbed the region, then pulled the sliver out. It still managed to hurt like a bitch.

Still, at least her body was repairing itself. Emma pulled a few more pieces of metal from her body before she took a moment to figure out where she was.

…It seemed that the IFV had flipped at some very high speed. There was a shattered mess where the front suspension had been, along with part of the main hatch, then a great hole near the top of the bulkhead.

Emma would have laughed if she didn't feel like she was about to throw up her other lung. Apparently they'd been hit with three AT Missiles. She was lucky to be alive.

Then again, as she felt her head, there was rather a lot of blood. Her TacComp wasn't working properly either. It was entirely possible that she'd actually died.

…Now that was a trip. Emma really did laugh this time, before coughing and hacking up bloody chunks of flesh. Ugh. From the heaviness of her limbs, it did feel like things weren't working very well. She wasn't sure if this meant that she'd actually died and the limbs had started to go necrotic, or if she'd just hit her head really, really hard.

With a groan, Emma managed to lever herself upright. Her backpack was still on, shockingly. She was lying on top of one of the members of the fireteam that had picked her up. She glanced down, and found that he was missing half his head. A groggy look around confirmed that everyone else was, indeed, dead.

"Great," Emma said to herself, getting to her feet. Blood was splashed all over the interior of the IFV. There were no dents the size of her head, but then again she rather expected her skull to cave if she wasn't intentionally reinforcing herself with magic.

Emma made her way to the hole in the top of the bulkhead. Since the IFV was now upside down, and slightly tilted, it was near her feet. Carefully, Emma lowered herself out, and crawled until she was clear of the hull, then flopped to the ground for a breather.

It was still raining, but now it was night time. That explained the lack of light. Emma could also smell the acrid stench of battle. Looking to her left and right, Emma saw several bodies up against the side of the IFV she'd been in, both human and squid.

Levering herself upwards again, Emma looked across the field. It looked like she'd been the first IFV to get hit. Moments later, the encircled remnants of the 24th must have hit the squid line.

...Somehow, the squid must have forgotten about her in the ensuing chaos.

Stunned, Emma lay back down. That was… the odds… there was no way….

Emma laughed again, this time in pure joy. That was it, she was seeing the Chaplain when she got back. She was alive. She was alive after getting shot by three AT missiles and a huge ass battle. The squid should have checked the bodies, should have found her gem and burned it with a plasma torch. The IFV could have been shot again, or had an artillery round dropped on it, or a Reaper blast, but none of that had happened.

If this wasn't evidence of a Goddess, then Emma didn't know what was.

Still, that brought up a slightly more important question. How was Emma going to get back?

Emma marshalled herself and thought this over as she carefully cleaned her soul gem. Her supply of grief cubes was not insubstantial, but it was now extremely limited. She would have to take care of herself and make sure she didn't use her magic to much.

That aside, there was little chance that Emma would have a patrol running by to maintain security. Judging by everything the squid had done so far, the Cephalopods weren't interested in properly conquering land. Instead, they burned major population centers to the ground, then deployed more troops to smaller areas accordingly. As they went, they destroyed the ability for guerrilla fighters to supply themselves. It turned into a siege of sorts, and nobody really survived it after the military pulled out of a hopeless system.

But the problem was the Line. The Line would be reinforced to hell and back, and there was no way Emma was sneaking through that. Sure, there might be a few random drones to dodge in the back, but at the line, it would be like going into a swimming pool full of sharks while you had a papercut. They wouldn't find you. No, they'd notice you instantly, circle you, and then rip you to pieces.

…Well, that would be something to worry about when she got closer to the Line. Her telepathy range was one hundred meters, but being near other girls let her use them as relays. That was obviously no longer applicable.

Emma summoned a halberd and used it to push herself up. Her gem, while rather dim, seemed to be holding steady, but her limbs were still wobbly. She'd need the support while she walked.

From where she stood, Emma could see Cluster 14. It was a bit of a hike, but there might be supplies the squid had overlooked there. Furthermore, Cluster 14 was the nearest high point from which Emma could make plans about what to do next. She would get to Cluster 14, climb the hill, and then figure out where to go from there.

Emma grinned. It was good to be alive.

The ground was torn up and slushy with water, blood, and ichor. Emma found it difficult to keep her balance in her damaged state. She'd found a piece of shattered axle to substitute for her halberd. It provided a certain degree of balance, but it kept slipping or squishing far too deeply into the mud ground. Rain water and her hair kept getting into her eyes. Explosions rumbling in from the distance promised great trials to come.

Emma found it both very difficult to care. It was similarly difficult to get the silly grin off her face. Who wouldn't be grinning stupidly in her situation? She was alive!

Of course, she would never discount the death of the soldiers around her, and at some level she was extremely distressed about this. Letting others handle her messes never sat well with her, and this was people getting killed to solve her problems. On top of that, Emma had no real plan, her grief cubes were low, and there were probably a myriad of things that could kill her. Technically speaking, she should really sit down and think this through, instead of letting her happiness run away from her. It was stupid and illogical and would probably get her killed.

But for now, Emma didn't care. She wiped water off her face again and hummed quietly to herself as she walked, following a rut made by one of, presumably Third Platoon's, IFVs. It did lead straight towards Cluster 14, after all, and the slightly compressed earth underneath it made things a little easier.

Emma thought about the Goddess too. It still seemed kind of silly to her, to be honest. Effervescent sentient aspects? Bleh. But…

Well the point of the Goddess was that She was looking out for magical girls, right? Emma wasn't entirely sure what that meant, of course, but there had to be some influence on sheer bullshit luck. "Luck" was what people called things turning out okay, even when it didn't look like it would. Sure, sometimes that happened as a regular human being, but luck couldn't really exist. That was like saying that some quality of a person was capable of shaping the universe in their favor in small, subtle ways.

That was kind of dumb.

But if you said that a DEITY was doing it, that made some more sense. There was absolutely positive evidence that the Goddess existed, Abigail had made that clear back before the drop. Emma had always depended on herself to get through her trials, and she would continue to do so. She couldn't control everything though, even if she was awake and not technically dead. On the football pitch, not knowing all the pieces to the puzzle could cost you the game. Here, Emma hadn't even been able to play.

And yet she'd come out ahead anyway.

This was… this should have been impossible. The odds should have been so stacked against her that nothing would have saved her. And Emma would have been okay with that. Not happy, obviously. She didn't want to die. But as far as deaths went, being blown up and not feeling any real pain before you passed wasn't terrible. In the line of duty, too, which was nice. Dying in a medical center was comparatively lame.

Instead, Emma was here, walking along towards Cluster 14. It was absurd. It shouldn't happen, but there she was.

Emma could dismiss it. It wouldn't be difficult. Sometimes, things worked out, and that was that. You didn't even need to believe in luck. But Emma couldn't do that. Just dismissing this out of hand was too outrageous for her. It would be somewhat like watching a football go arcing into the goal based on her plan, then dismiss it as all her team's work and she really wasn't that good. There were some people who did that, but Emma took credit when it was her due.

Similarly, Emma GAVE credit when it was due. She made sure her teammates knew what they had done well when they'd done it. It was why she'd been made team captain, not just because she could make a decent plan. And Emma wasn't going to stop that now, just like she wasn't going to stop relying on her own skills and planning to win.

No, credit was due where and when it was due, and this was obviously credit due to the Goddess. When she got back, and Emma was certain she was going to make it, especially with some help, she was going to thank the Goddess properly. She'd have to ask Abigail about what the procedure for—

Emma yelped as she slipped and crashed into the mud. She giggled to herself as she picked herself up. Best to keep her mind on the task at hand though.

"I'll build a stairway to paradise, with a new step every day…" Emma sang quietly. It was a heinously old song, from the 20th Century. Goddess, she didn't even remember when she'd heard it, only that it was part of her very embarrassing playlist of stupidly-old music.

Still, now that no one was around…

"I'm going to get there at any price," she continued. "Stand aside I'm on my way…

I've got the blues, and up above it's so fair…

Shoes, go on and carry me there…

I'll build a stairway to paradise,

With a new step every day…!"