And so Kujo Jotaro, age probably seventeen, found himself standing in a music store with Madoka and her blue-haired friend, listening to what Madoka assured him were the "latest hits" (even though they didn't sound anything like any of the music he had heard of). The blue girl had scoffed at that – "Real music has violins in it, baka!" – but Madoka seemed not to mind. It would have been a friendly type of scene, if he wasn't three years older and about thirty centimetres taller than either of them (well, probably. He still wasn't sure of his own age, never mind these girls).
He began to fiddle with the chain on his collar, longing for a chance to smoke a cigarette, and for the first time noticed an odd ring on the middle finger of his right hand. It was silver, with a purplish gem set in the middle. Star shapes and odd-looking runic symbols decorated the band surrounding the jewel. It was beautiful, in a way. Had he ever worn a ring like this? He tried to remember.
"Madoka." She looked up. "Do you know if someone put this –"
Madoka! Jotaro! Sayaka! Help me! The voice echoed in his head, and he almost jumped. "What the –"
But Madoka and the blue girl looked at each other and nodded.
"Come on, Jotaro-kun," said Blue (Sayaka?), "We need to help him!"
Him? "Madoka-chan, what's going on?"
"He's calling for us! He's in danger! Come on!"
They ran out of the store one after the other, the other customers staring after them in confusion and shock. Had they not heard the voice? Well, whatever. It was none of their goddamn business what went on in his head.
They found their way to an abandoned corridor. Something was coming… Gunshots, or something similar, sounded from within the building. A scamper of tiny feet seemed to be coming towards them, closer, nearer…
A ceiling tile dropped down and a mysterious-looking thing, some sort of animal like a white cat with a second pair of long ears, tumbled down, covered in bruises and cuts. Madoka dashed forward.
"Kyubey!" (What kind of a name was that?) The pink-haired girl took the thing in her arms. "Who did this to you?"
Before the thing could answer – if it even could answer – a third girl ran in, dressed in the same school uniform that the others wore. She had long black hair and large, purple eyes, and seemed… oddly familiar to Jotaro, who knew he'd never seen the girl in his life. She stopped and stared at Kyubey.
"Stay away from that creature." A flat, toneless voice, devoid of passion or hope.
Madoka looked up. "Homura-chan? You're a –"
"Yes, of course I am." The purple-eyed girl raised a fist, and Jotaro caught sight of an achingly familiar silver-and-purple ring. (Were they married? No, that was stupid…) "And I tell you again, stay away from that creature. It has displeased me."
"That's no excuse for you to try to kill him! Leave him alone!"
The girl glared at the cat and shook her head. "And you, Jotaro."
"What about me?"
"Stay out of my way." With that, she turned away and walked out of sight.
"Too much of a coward to stand and fight, huh?" Sayaka shook her fist at the retreating figure. "Hah! I'm too much for ya!"
"Tch." Jotaro adjusted his hat. "I don't even know her."
Madoka sighed. "That's Akemi Homura. She transferred to our class this morning, before you… you know. She was out of the classroom when it happened, so you didn't see her, but…"
Everyone would have been talking about the two-meter tall guy who'd fallen into their classroom. Of course.
She seems to have it out for you both, Madoka, Jotaro. The cat-thing – Kyubey? – looked up at them from Madoka's arms. She is very dangerous, and her power… It's unlike anything I've ever seen.
"Well, don't worry, you two!" Sayaka grinned at them and bunched her hand into fists. "I'll protect you from the bad guys!" She laughed. "Though I don't suppose Jotaro-kun needs much protecting…"
They walked on, through the darkened labyrinth that was the back areas of the store. There was an odd feeling in the air…
"Something isn't right here."
Sayaka nodded. "Yeah, I feel it. Look out for anything suspicious."
They kept walking. The world… changed.
Butterflies – or something similar – fluttered around the trio. White blobs of cotton stared at them from the bushes that weren't supposed to be there. He blinked and waved a hand in front of his face. "What's going on?"
"Shh." Suddenly Sayaka was the one in control, looking around her with the air of someone who knew what she was doing. "It's the enemy." Enemy?
The cotton buds came closer to them, chanting in some unknown language and wielding strange scissors between them.
"Sayaka-chan! You need to transform!" whispered Madoka. "We need to defend ourselves!"
"Wait for it…"
A gunshot fired, then several more. A few of the closest cotton balls screamed and burst into clouds of butterflies.
"Are you all right there?" A girl appeared over the horizon, golden tendrils wrapping around her body but leaving an opening for her head. She had yellow-gold curly hair, done into a pair of springy twin-tails. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this!"
With that, she disappeared again. Gunshots sounded, a steady volley of them until –
The world shifted and wobbled around them. The four of them – Jotaro, Madoka, Sayaka, and the cat-thing – were standing in the empty corridor again.
Golden tendrils began to snake up from the ground and coalesced into a head. The face, with it green eyes and grey mask, seemed… familiar somehow.
"Hierophant… Green?"
The thing seemed to smile slightly and spoke with the same feminine voice as the yellow girl from before. "Actually, in this form my name is Hierophant Gold." The golden head split open to reveal the spring-tailed girl. "But you can call me Mami if you want."
With that, the golden ribbons began to peel away from her, unwrapping slowly to reveal the girl underneath. She was wearing the same uniform as the other three, and smiled at them carefully. "Thank you for saving Kyubey. He's quite dear to me."
"What's going on?" Jotaro stared from Madoka to Sayaka to Mami and back again, completely confused. "What are – who?"
"Ah." Mami's smile became more radiant. "I'm on your side, fear not. Your blue-haired friend there can transform, it seems; so, we're fighting the same enemy."
"Transform?" He stared at Sayaka, who shrugged. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you saw what I did just then, right?" Mami indicated to herself, where the golden tentacles had so recently been spiralling. "You even called me Hierophant, although you got the colour wrong."
"What are you, an evil spirit?"
"On the contrary, Mister Black Hat." She curtseyed. "I am a magical girl."
