If you've got lots of questions, don't hold your breath. It gets worse.
Chapter 2: Terror Campaign
Mami wasn't in a particularly good mood.
She stared stubbornly out the plexiglass of the chute, defying the morning sun again as the lift continued its swift descent from the top floor's multipurpose store. Instead of dwindling below her feet like they had before, the skyscrapers were slowly reaching towards her, like a hand with endless fingers, lunging in slow motion. That vertigo sick feeling was in her gut again. She made a mental note never to revisit the Sky Engines.
She wasn't going to deny that she was bothered by the conversation she had cut off prematurely with Homura. In fact, she was very bothered; the idea that the dark haired girl might want to completely leave the city one day had never occurred to her, and when she thought back to try and remember if the girl had ever dropped any clues, she recalled nothing. Homura had hidden her intentions perfectly, as she always did.
Sometimes Mami loved that about her, but today she hated it.
Pursing her lips, the blonde tried to imagine life in Mitakihara without Homura, and instantly found it distasteful. It might have seemed odd to some. While she cared for the girl dearly, Kyouko would certainly care more, and it wasn't as if the city couldn't survive with one less magical girl. Functionally and logically speaking, it was perfectly reasonable for Homura to leave.
But Mami had never considered herself to be terribly concerned with functionality or logic, at least when her emotions were stronger. She had been completely and utterly alone before meeting Kyouko, and adding Homura to the mix had helped to cleanse the despair that had threatened to overtake her soul. She tried her best to put up a strong front around people, even her close friends, but the truth was that Mami depended entirely too much on others for her happiness. It was something the blonde had learned about herself long ago, and spend the subsequent time hating about herself.
Damn it. She clenched her fist. It hurt her that she could formulate no concrete reason for Homura to give up on her dream. She just didn't want to feel alone again. Kyouko would still be there with her, but she had a feeling the redhead would be like a lost sheep without Homura around, at least initially. The girl might recover and move on, like she always did. In fact, Mami was sure of it. But that didn't mean it had to happen.
There was a sudden jolt around her, and a darkness engulfed the transparent chamber. Blinking and looking around, she realized that the lift's descent was ending, and that she had fallen below the roof of the ground level building. Reaching up and clutching the strap of her bag, she waited until the lift hissed to a smooth stop at the bottom of the chute before its steam powered doors slid open. Then she stepped out, beyond the crowds of people waiting in line and back into the hubbub of the Market District.
The sun had climbed higher in the sky by now, burning away the premature city mist like a waking hand brushing aside a bad dream. The streets around her were more crowded than ever, the throngs so thick that Mami had to experience the displeasure of shuffling along with the bottleneck of people, having difficulty seeing over everyone's heads despite her tall height. Something itched at the back of her head, but she dismissed it as an errant fly. The area she was in wasn't exactly hygienic. Joining silently in the war of shoving elbows and bumping shoulders, she started walking in the direction of the Gathering, trusting her sense of direction to guide her.
Looking up for a moment, Mami saw the Sky Engine soaring high above her, chrome-plated armor sparkling in the intensifying sunlight. A few dashes of early morning dew were still clinging to the rotors, making them gleam like angelic wings as they spun perpetually through the atmosphere. She knew Homura was up there somewhere, looking for a gift. She wondered if it would be more of a farewell present than a birthday present.
Vaguely, she then wondered if Homura was afraid of heights.
She had just looked down again in order to focus on forging ahead through the crowds when the itching on the head suddenly tripled in severity, making the blonde growl in frustration and arch her neck back again to find its source.
That was when she saw the three magical missiles streaming towards the base of the turbine, unnoticed by the rest of the populace.
Something clicked in Mami's mind, and she was moving before she could make the decision to. She would later attribute her extreme reaction time to the years of experience she had with responding to dire circumstances. What happened next, though, was something she would regret forever.
Bringing her hands together and touching a finger to her ring, she transformed in the middle of the crowd, flexing her powerful legs and launching herself into the air before the transition was even complete. She heard some of the people below her crying out in shock and confusion as she soared over them, landing on top of a nearby building before dashing forward, summoning a cloud of ribbons and using them to sling herself towards the turbine at an unbelievable clip. She didn't understand what the missiles would do, or where they had come from.
But she did know that she had to stop them.
The air whistled around her and her ringlets flapped in the wind as she arched downwards from a high jump and landed heavily on the roof closest to the Sky Engine, though she was still level with the ground level building. Closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath, she summoned her energy and blasted off the surface below her, the world tilting and spinning as she shot herself hundreds of feet into the air within the span of a second. Righting herself in the air, Mami found herself sailing past the side of the turbine, directly in the path of the incoming missiles.
Sucking in a deep breath, she summoned the thickest ribbon she could muster and launched it at the leading projectile, intending to entangle it and send it off course.
She was surprised, then, when the missile flashed brighter for a moment before tearing straight through the ribbon, roaring towards the turbine at an even fast pace.
The impact sent what was left of the ribbon sizzling and whipping in the opposite direction, the kinetic energy transferring itself to Mami's body and yanking her viciously sideways in the air. Her cry turned into a choke when her body was thrown horizontally and she fell out of the sky like a burning star, arching down under the relentless force of gravity as she tumbled, struggling to regain control of her movements.
"Ahh!" Mami screamed to herself as she overexerted and finally managed to get her feet beneath her, a literal nanosecond before she impacted with the earth.
She felt the ground scraping under her shoes and tried to stay upright, but her momentum was so great that she hit the floor and spun in the air almost immediately, crashing back down on her back this time as she skidded a hundred yards down the street, the sharp teeth of the asphalt tearing into the flesh through her armor. Cars and trucks blared past her head as buildings swept past her vision, the world pinwheeling around her as she slid down the length of the street.
The blonde finally slid to a stop at the center of an intersection, hundreds of yards from the Sky Engine. Opening her eyes, her golden irises took in the bleak black of a car tire that was not an inch from her nose. The cab driver who had just barely stopped in time to avoid running her over was yelling something out the window in a language she didn't recognize. Feeling a vague urge to apologize through her reeling head, Mami dragged herself upright by pulling on the car's hood and was about to respond when there was a dull roar from behind her.
What she saw she turned around forced her into resharpening her focus.
The missiles had struck the side of the turbine, and fiery red smoke was billowing out of a gaping hole in the middle of the structure. As she watched, something within the internal superstructure imploded from the fire damage, the blast dealing far more havoc than the initial projectiles. She heard people all around her beginning to scream as the upper half of the Sky Engine literally tilted, looking for all the world like a half broken toothpick towering above them. Her magically enhanced vision focused on the windows ringing the top floor, and saw several people falling and crashing into the transparent walls.
Among them, a glaring purple light.
"Homura!" Mami yelled as she charged forward, leaping over the rooftops again in a desperate attempt to reach her friend, one she already knew would be fruitless. She had not planned accordingly, hadn't had the time, and now she was much too far from the turbine to reach her in time. Forget moving, forget leaving, forget abandonment; if Homura died here today, she would gone in the most utter way possible.
She hadn't even covered half the necessary distance when there was a deep snapping sound from in front of her, and the last of the emergency supports broke under the tremendous pressure. Mami's pupils dilated as she took in the Sky Engine a second before it fell out of the clouds, literally detached from the base of the turbine, as if God himself had reached down and plucked the top off like a flower.
"No!" Mami screamed when a moment later the rotor plummeted downwards, with what was left of the building attached. She forced herself to run faster, leap further, even as hordes of civilians fled in the opposite direction, knowing there was nothing she could do but simply needing to get there, if only she could reach her and then she could try, try something. But what was she going to do? It was a god damn turbine, and it was plummeting from the sky like a flaming angel gone mad, showers of torched shrapnel spraying behind it like the tail of a comet. Even as Mami tried to push away the fear that was telling her to turn around and run, she knew that she was effectively leaping towards an asteroid, streaking towards the impact zone with very passing nanosecond.
Regardless, Mami knew it was too late for her to intervene. The rotor, engulfed in flames, smashed into the center of a crossroads a second before Mami landed in a street leading straight into the intersection. There was a deep, shuddering roar, and she was thrown off her feet as the earth itself trembled.
She wanted to say that the impact played itself out in slow motion, that the dust flung itself up in a way that let her discern each piece. Yet the tragedy was that this was merely the stuff of fantasy. A massive shockwave of rubble swept out from the crash site in a second, making Mami's molten irises go wide when she saw the wall of concrete and fire rushing towards her, toppling buildings with its momentum alone.
Gasping, she threw herself to the asphalt and wound a tight sphere of ribbons around her person, closing her eyes and bracing for the worst.
She felt something slam against the outside of her barrier, and heard chunks of rubble crashing against the hardened fibers before shattering. The heat level inside the dome skyrocketed as fire raged against the blonde's defenses. A roar filled her chest as the world moaned around her, the muted screams of civilians mixing with the sound of reinforced concrete raining down upon the metropolis outside. Instinctively, she began to pray, clenching her teeth as she desperately hoped for the end to come.
Then silence.
Opening her eyes, Mami decided to trust the lack of sound outside and relaxed, allowing the sphere of ribbons to uncoil and slither back up her sleeves.
The landscape they revealed looked entirely alien to her.
She was sitting in a perfect, unbroken black circle in the center of the street, the only part of the asphalt that hadn't been affected by the shockwave. The rest was covered in a fine layer of thick brown dust, caking the sidewalks and the now crumbling walls of the stores around her. What hadn't been caked to a flat surface was whirling in the wind around her, suffocating everything, even the weak light of the sun filtering down from above. Small fires were burning everywhere, adding to the thick smog. The sky itself was stained a deep gray. Everything was gray, gray, gray. And brown. It was hard to tell the difference. The entire scene was something out of a post-apacolyptic movie, totally removed from the bustling cityscape that had been present only moments ago.
Deciding it wasn't best to allow herself to gawk at the absolute devastation around her, Mami first focused on getting to her feet. Standing, she coughed on the floating debris, covering her mouth and squinting through the veil. Something was burning to the right. Turning, she saw a chunk of one of the rotor spokes impaled into the side of a building, slowly decaying into ashes. She tried not to look at the bodies decaying with it.
Besides the sirens wailing in the distance and the panicked screams behind them, it was eerily quiet, a world of silent chaos.
Biting her lip, Mami forced herself to look down the length of the street.
A thick plume of smoke was rising steadily from the wreckage, blotting out half the sky from view. She could see the outer ring of a crater at ground level, but everything else was hidden by the fires. It suddenly occurred to her that most of the top floor shop wasn't even there, the structure having broken apart before landing everywhere across the district. There was no way anyone could survive that, not even a magical girl.
No. I can't think that. It's not too late yet.
She began walking down the street, numb by now to the devastation around her, tuning her magical senses to home in on Homura's signature. That was the biggest reason she hadn't give up hope just yet; the girl's magical fingerprint was still pulsing out there somewhere, albeit very faintly. She had to find her quickly. She didn't let herself think about the dead, or the smell of smoldering chrome, or the buildings crumbling to dust around her. None of it.
Pushing everything else out of her mind, Mami began picking her way through the buildings, tracking the magic back to its source. She didn't let herself look at the slumped bodies lining the streets. The sirens were getting closer, and she had little time. There would be time for thinking later. Time to wonder why all of this had happened, and who was responsible.
The blonde followed her instincts in a diagonal direction, running parallel to the wreckage still burning to her left. She paused for a moment and heaved a clogged breath, hacking out the intrusive ashes. The dust was getting thicker as the fires continued to burn. Pulling out a ribbon and creating a vortex with it, she tried to clear a path for her lungs as she forged on.
Another turn at the next corner, and she saw her.
Homura's frail, broken figure was slumped against the collapsed remains of a restaurant a block away from her, the road ending in a cul-de-sac. Mami couldn't make out enough details even with her enhanced vision, but she saw enough blood from this distance to make her heart clench horribly in her chest. The girl looked almost as if she were being cradled, except the cradle was a mess of jagged glass and splintered wood.
Biting back the urge to shout the girl's name, Mami leapt silently, covering the distance in one jump. She landed softly in front of the shattered front window of the restaurant. Homura was slumped against a pile of splintered tables and chairs, a sea of broken glass surrounding her. A single wooden plank was laid out across the injured girl's chest, effectively trapping her under its weight.
"Homura..." Mami whispered, unable to keep back the despairing tears she had been holding until now. The time traveler was bleeding profusely from somewhere under her tattered hair, and from under the table the girl's leg was sticking out, twisted at an impossible angle. A deep gash ran along the length of her left arm, and the floor under her hands was drenched with blood.
She couldn't even see what the rest of her looked like.
Hiccuping, Mami wiped at her face angrily and got to work. She couldn't idle now, not when Homura was bleeding out right in front of her. The sirens were too close now, she could hear them. Soon the guns would be here. She needed to be fast.
Reaching under the wooden plank, she grunted and pulled the object off of her friend's body, cringing at the wet squelch she heard when the wood detached itself from Homura's abdominal wounds. She turned away to discard the plank beside her, before forcing herself to look down at the unconscious girl's fully exposed body.
What she saw made her stumble backwards onto the dust covered pavement. A hand flew to her mouth as instinctive disgust rose to her throat, and Mami turned her head before retching onto the sidewalk.
Then, at the worst of times, Kyouko woke up.
[Ma-...-mi!] The first shouted words came, flickering as the transmission struggled to secure a connection to the blonde's scrambled consciousness. [Mami! Mami, god damn it, are you there?!]
"I..." She choked out, throat still stinging from the bile. This...this was too much. She couldn't fix this! There was no way she could ever fix this! Magical girls were renowned for their superhuman healing abilities, but this...this was impossible. For Christ's sake, she could see the girl's ribs-
[MAMI!] Kyouko screamed into her mind. [I know you can hear me. What the hell is going on over there? Mami!]
[I...] She said again, managing telepathy this time. She turned away from the gruesome sight that was Homura's mauled body and stared hard at the ground, trying to get herself together.
[I can't reach Homura through telepathy,] Kyouko continued, panic settling into her voice. [She's not responding. Oh, God, I can see the smoke from here. Mami, what is going on?]
Before Mami could even think of responding, a third mental presence tore its way into the blonde's brain, high strung and terrified.
[Mami!] The voice cried. [The Gathering's under attack, we don't know why. I don't know what to do! They came out of nowhere, and I can't find Shiro, but no one else knows the contingency plan-]
Eru, Mami thought. Something clicked inside of her, and she felt somewhat in control again. Whatever had just happened here was most likely happening to the Gathering at this very moment.
[Kyouko,] Mami intoned as she finally rose to her feet again.
[Finally! Mami, what-]
[Listen to me,] The blonde interrupted, the steel in her voice quieting the fiery redhead. [I can't explain anything right now. I don't know anything. But something just attacked Homura, and the Gathering has come under fire too. I need you to go to the stadium and help them.]
[Homura?] Kyouko thought, sounding aghast. [Is that why I can't reach her? Don't tell me she's-]
[She's perfectly fine,] Mami insisted, lying straight through her teeth. The redhead was going to kill her later, but someone had to help the girls at the stadium. [Injured, but stable. She'll be alright. Now go! Get there are fast as you can. The Law knows what's going on over there.]
There was a brief silence as Kyouko struggled with what Mami had just told her. The blonde bit her lip, praying that the girl wouldn't insist on coming to see Homura.
[Fine,] She muttered, severing the connection.
Mami sighed in relief. The first part of her plan had gone smoothly enough. Now it was time for the hard part.
Baring her teeth, she turned around and approached Homura's body again.
Mami felt the nausea rising in her gut a second time but forced it down this time, instead kneeling and inspecting the damage. She gulped. Her initial plan had been to hoist the shorter girl over her shoulder and get the hell out of here, but she feared that Homura's body would literally fall apart in its current state if she dragged it around like that. No one was aware of the true limits of a magical girl's regenerative abilities, but she had no intention of finding out, at least not today.
Placing her hands against what was left of Homura's blood soaked parka, Mami began the process, drawing on what little healing magic she had.
Behind her, inside the smoke, she heard another part of the fallen rotor crumble. She shut her eyes.
Why is this happening?
22 hours earlier
"Do you think we have enough tables?" Mami inquired worriedly.
Kyouko rolled her eyes in exasperation. "We have too many tables if you ask me," She quipped, crossing her arms and frowning at the fretting blonde.
"We should have more than enough already," Homura assured her.
"I could fit enough food on the extra tables we're going to have to make myself full," Kyouko pointed out.
"That's a lot of food," Homura noted.
Mami sighed. "Isn't gluttony a sin, or something?"
"Only if I'm already full," The redhead shrugged. She paused for emphasis. "And I'm never full."
"Duly noted."
Which was to say, not at all.
The three of them were currently standing inside of Mitakihara's local baseball stadium, seated in a row at the highest ring of seats the space had to offer, with Homura seated between the other two magical girls. It wasn't terribly early anymore, but it was still well before noon, the morning sun a cold circle in the still gray sky. It was a cold day, and a thin layer of mist had drifted in to settle down at the center of the stadium. They could see little figures moving around on the outfield grass down there, setting up more tables and otherwise double checking everything per Mami's paranoid request.
"Tell me why we're in a god damn baseball stadium again?" Kyouko asked with minimal interest, popping open a box of Pocky.
Mami eyed the rather unhealthy breakfast choice but said nothing, far too used to the girl's irregular eating habits to bother trying to change them. "I'm surprised myself. I thought we might have to limit the number of girls we could accept this year, but Eru pooled her resources and managed to yank a couple of strings here and there. She's connected, that one."
The blonde shivered when she finished her sentence; the morning air was crisp and her clothes were thin. While Homura's clothes were no thicker, Kyouko was snuggled generously into her right shoulder, and the redhead's heat warded off the early cold. She briefly hoped Mami wouldn't notice.
"She's always been a bit of a mystery to me," Kyouko admitted. "Well, not that I've talked to her that often."
Mami pouted. "You should make a bigger effort to socialize, Kyouko. That's the whole point of this Gathering, isn't it?"
The redhead just scoffed. "It's a great idea, but I'm good. I've got Homura, after all," She grinned, reaching over and pulling the girl in question into a one armed embrace.
Homura rolled her eyes even as her heart exploded messily inside her chest. "You don't know anyone here by name beyond Eru and Shiro, do you?" Goddess, she smells great.
"Well, neither do you."
Homura smirked. "I guess you're right about that."
Mami could only sigh in exasperation as the other two girls snickered to themselves. She was about to lecture them further when someone emerged from the shadows behind them, treading tentatively in way that suggested she was afraid of interrupting them.
"It's okay, Eru," The blonde called out. "What is it?"
The shadows shifted, and a girl with stark white hair emerged from hiding. She was short, even more diminutive than Homura, and the thick hoodie she had enveloping her otherwise petite figure only served to further this effect. The girl's ivory locks were pulled back into a tight ponytail for practical reasons, but a line of bangs still swept over her pale blue eyes. They were uncomfortable for Homura to look directly into sometimes, but at least they weren't cobalt blue.
"The teams are almost done setting up the tables," Eru responded in a soft, sweet sounding voice. "They wanted to know if there was anything else left to do before the ceremonies start."
"Hmm..." Mami mused, turning to look back down at the grass of the baseball field. Tables were dotting the outfield grass, and everything else seemed to be in order. Organization had gone much smoother this year, a process mostly facilitated by the roughly one hundred girls who had volunteered to help set up the event. It appeared that people were becoming more enthusiastic about being part of the federation as time wore on, something that pleased the blonde to no end.
"Everything seems to be finished for now," She finally said, smiling up at the white haired girl hovering beside her. "Tell the rest of the girls to go join the early arrivals. I'm sure they're hungry."
Of the twenty thousand who had confirmed their attendance already, there were bound to be early birds. Some three thousand girls were already within the stadium, though they kept to the shadows or stayed under roofs and in buildings if they weren't signed up to help out. They wouldn't filter out onto the field until the Gathering began in earnest.
Eru nodded, pausing and losing focus for a moment as she relayed the instructions to the team below them telepathically.
Mami stared up at the shorter girl with a bemused smile on her face. Eru caught the look and tilted her head in inquiry.
"By the way," The blonde said, "Why did you walk all the way up here when you could have just consulted me mentally?"
The girl blushed to the roots of her colorless hair almost immediately, and Kyouko started laughing harshly around her food until Homura elbowed her in the gut, making the redhead choke on a Pocky stick.
"W-Well, I..." Eru began, flailing about for words. "It didn't occur to me at the moment, I suppose, and personal interaction is always preferable when possible, of course, and I haven't seen you in months, so-"
Mami just laughed, reaching out and grabbing the girl's arm to tug her closer. "Okay, okay, nevermind. Here, have a seat. You must be tired too."
The partial albino blushed further but accepted, falling into a chair beside the blonde. Homura rolled her eyes again. Eru's attraction to Mami was painfully obvious, but she didn't know if the girl's feelings crossed the borders of simple respect or not. Briefly, she reviewed what she knew about the diminutive girl, just in case she needed it in the conversation that was sure to ensue.
Eru's specialty was a bit of a rarity, if she remembered correctly. The white haired girl was adept at manipulating electrical currents, particularly those within her own body which were produced by her brain, though her abilities extended to most machines and appliances as well. Homura didn't know the true extent of her combat capacity, as the girls of the federation didn't tend to do much fighting when they came together. She had noticed that Eru always carried a pouch full of charged batteries around with her, though.
"Thanks for helping out so much with setting up," Mami began. "I really appreciate it. You've got a talent for organizing people."
The white haired girl flushed again at the compliment. "Thanks. I, uh, took a look at the set up process from last year and tried to improve on it. Things went a lot faster than I expected them to."
Mami crossed her legs before she replied, and Homura thought she saw Eru's pale blue eyes flick downwards to observe the movement. "Things were definitely smoother this year. You wouldn't believe how many little skirmishes and fights we had the second year we held this Gathering. I think we accidentally burned down more tables than we set up."
"I tried to look up records of the first year a while ago," Eru said back, settling into the flow of the conversation. "But there wasn't much information to look at. Just a damage report that was exorbitantly high, which is strange in itself. No one seemed to know when I asked around either. What happened that year?"
She turned her inquiring eyes to her magical seniors, and was immediately discomforted to find that all three of them had stiffened suddenly, as if something particularly bad tasting had entered their mouths. Homura, especially, looked like someone had snuck up on her and punched her in the gut. Realizing her apparent mistake, she threw up her hands and spluttered, "Um, if it's something secret, I won't-"
"It's okay," Homura interrupted her, and Eru noticed that both Mami and Kyouko had been staring at the black haired girl, as if waiting for her verdict on the matter. "Some bad things just happened that year, is all. Things didn't go the way we planned them to. There were...complications."
"...Oh," Eru responded meekly, feeling as if she had treaded on ground she was never meant to discover.
"Anyways," Mami voiced suddenly, "I think we should go check on Shiro and tell her how the work is coming along. Come on, let's go, Eru."
Not being the most tactful person in the world, Eru simply blinked in confusion. "But I just told her through telepathy-"
"You prefer personal interaction though, right?" The blonde cut her off brightly, a wide smile on her face. "Let's go, now."
As Mami dragged away a flailing and still oblivious Eru, Kyouko shifted nervously in her seat, eyeing the girl next to her. Homura's expression had returned to its naturally impassive state, and she had to admire the girl's capacity for self control. Kyouko knew all too well how much the events that had transpired two years ago bothered her friend.
"She seems nice enough, I guess," Kyouko grunted in referral to Eru. "If not thick headed."
Homura just sighed. "Let's not."
So they didn't.
Sitting in silence with the other girl, Kyouko found herself instinctively staring at Homura's face out of the corner of her eye, doing her best not to be too obvious, though she'd be lying if she claimed that she didn't want to get caught. Just a little bit. Okay, a lot. She could use all the words in her vocabulary if she wanted, but the basic truth was that she was checking Homura out, and enjoying it. The thought both thrilled and terrified her at once.
She didn't know where her attraction for the time traveler had come from. Like a line in a cheesy romance movie, she simply couldn't explain it. Kyouko had found Homura to be dependable enough at first, if not a bit eccentric and overly detail oriented. However, circumstances had allowed for them to get to know each other much better, and somehow after two years they were spending almost all their time together. She had tried to rationalize it somehow, tried to tone down the facts; it wasn't like Homura had many other friends in school, and she herself had none beyond her circle of magical girls. Their friendship had only grown thanks to a sort of convenience, nothing more. Or at least, she had tried to tell herself that.
Admittedly, it took a long time to get under the black haired girl's thick skin. She still didn't know why, but Homura had always been guarded at first. Hesitant. Like the girl was afraid of associating with her or Mami, not out of any aversion to them but some sort of internal fear, something holding her back. The stoic girl had declined several of Kyouko's initial attempts to invite her to places so that they could socialize more easily, and Mami was especially put off by Homura's standoffish attitude.
Something had kept her trying, though. Something about the enigma named Homura Akemi had sparked a light in the redhead's mind. She knew it wasn't like her to pursue seemingly worthless endeavors; in fact, she had a bad habit of giving up at the first sign of possible failure. It had taken her a long time to figure out what had fueled that motivation.
Homura Akemi was interesting. A deep, complex, and layered person. And she, who considered herself to lead such a simple and uncomplicated existence, felt strangely drawn to that. Another anomaly, she had found. Kyouko was never one to enjoy tackling problems that felt too intricate for her, but she kept working at unlocking the person behind that passive exterior. Finally, after months of tentative friendship, the girl had opened up.
Kyouko had been more than happy to leave it at that. A year later and they were practically the best of friends, and they talked all the time. Sometimes, Homura even confided in her things that no one else was supposed to know. A successful friendship accomplished, all in all. That should have been enough for her, and she was sure it would be.
So it was understandable, of course, that Kyouko was very confused when the time traveler started wandering through her mind whenever she had idle time. It had started slowly, subtly. Slowly enough for her not to be able to do anything about it. When their eyes met, one of theirs would linger until the other frowned and looked away. When they brushed together incidentally, she craved more. The exasperated sighs, the annoyed insults, and the bossy attitude that had once antagonized her were now endearing. It had almost scared Kyouko to realize it, but during all the effort she had put into getting under Homura's skin, she had somehow let the girl slide under hers.
Jesus, even her body was starting to make itself stand out to her. Were Homura's legs always that long?
Before Kyouko's train of thought could tread into more perverse territory, Homura shifted beside her, making her change her direction of focus.
"Do you believe in destiny, Kyouko?" The time traveler suddenly asked, posing the question as casually as possible, but failing to make it feel colloquial.
"...What?"
"You heard me."
"Yeah, I did. What?"
Homura sighed in thinly veiled frustration, the sound tugging at Kyouko's heartstrings. Even her sighs were cute now. She was going insane.
"Okay, I kind of do," The redhead caved in at last. "I mean, alot of the things that happen to us magical girl's can't be explained by anything other than providence. Or insanely bad luck. Whatever best applies, I guess."
"I see," Was all the dark haired girl had to say. She was staring at something in the tumultuous gray sky, but when Kyouko looked there was nothing.
"Why do you ask?"
"I..." Homura paused, exhaling heavily. A gentle wind blew through the stadium, caressing her long midnight locks. The girls on the field had all emptied out, and for all intents and purposes they were alone out here, among the sea of seats. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I get like this every year, I know. I can see it on your face. It's just...do I have to accept whatever destiny the world decides to give me? If something goes to hell, am I just supposed to try and work around it? I...yeah, you have no idea what I'm saying. I can tell. Sorry."
"It's alright," Kyouko replied neutrally, shuffling a little closer to the girl to express her support. "Most of the shit I say doesn't make sense, either."
"But people don't expect anything else out of you. It's weird. When I don't know what to say, people panic. As if I'm supposed to have all the answers."
"Maybe if you weren't such a smart ass all the time, people wouldn't expect you to know everything," Kyouko suggested. She wasn't trying to be mean. It was her own way of giving advice. Homura understood that.
The time traveler laughed softly at the jab. She usually didn't do that around other people. "Perhaps. I don't know. I think there are some things you can't control, even if you want to." She paused. "Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth trying. Trying to change things, I mean. What's the point if nothing can be done?"
Kyouko blinked and stared down at the other girl. Was it just her, or did Homura sound strangely...vulnerable? Like she was unsure about something. She could see it in the way the girl bit her lip in uncertainty, or how she had her knees drawn up to her chest so that she could hug her legs, like she was trying to hide from the world. It bothered the redhead to see her like this.
"I think it's a trial and error kind of thing," Kyouko said aloud, not sure what she was trying to say but feeling to need to say something. "We aren't gods or anything. We can't change whatever we want about ourselves. But some things...some things are in your control. Always. Your own happiness, for one thing. Happiness is something you pursue or lose on your own. Things like that. The personal things. The important things. I think as long as you're in control of that, you'll be okay."
There was a perpetual silence from beside her.
"Well, that's just my opinion, anyway," Kyouko amended hastily, feeling strangely embarrassed, like she had just opened up a part of herself for the world to see.
Another sigh from the girl next to her, but this time it was affectionate. "I didn't know you thought so deeply, Kyouko."
"You underestimate me, as usual," The redhead smirked, looking down at her friend.
Her smile fell off her face a moment later, though.
Homura had been staring up at her this whole time, it seemed. Kyouko, unaware, had looked down and unintentionally brought their faces terribly close together. The black haired girl was seemingly frozen in place beside her, staring back at her with those gorgeous violet irises of hers, breathing in quick, soft breaths that sounded entirely too loud to both of them. God, the seats were so small, and she was so close, that Kyouko was having serious difficulties thinking straight. She knew her eyes were glued to Homura's quivering lips and could only pray fervently that the girl hadn't noticed yet.
"K-Kyouko..." Homura finally breathed out, her cheeks painted a bright red. Kyouko couldn't tell if it was from the cold or actual embarrassment. She preferred the latter.
Come on, you big coward, fucking do it, She found herself thinking. You're alone, she's right there, all you have to do is lean forward and-
"Homura," She finally implored, reaching down and twining their fingers together against the plastic surface of the seat.
The time traveler sucked in a deep breath when their noses brushed together, and something shifted in the air around them. Blinking, Kyouko's vision cleared to find the air next to her empty. Sniffing, she smelled the traces of time manipulation magic lacing the air.
[S-Sorry,] Homura's voice murmured into her consciousness. [I have to pick up some things. I'll see you tomorrow.]
And then she was gone, magical presence fading along with Kyouko's resolve.
Exhaling loudly, the redhead slid deeper into her seat, tilting her head back to stare at the sky about her. She wanted to go every detail of what had just transpired, but didn't. It would just frustrate her more. Clenching her fist, she realized she hadn't finished her box of Pocky yet. Glancing down at the half opened cardboard, she pursed her lips and tossed the remains in the trash, shoving her hands into her pockets and stalking away from the seats.
"God damn it."
Meanwhile, somewhere within the recesses of the stadium, Mami was still trying to explain the reason for their sudden departure when she spotted Kyubey trotting across the concrete floor beside the highest row of seats.
"Oh, Kyubey," The blonde called out in greeting. "Going somewhere?"
The white alien, who did seem to be in somewhat of a hurry, paused and swung its head around to observe the senior magical girl. [Ah, Tomoe-san. Yes, I am actually due for an appointment at the moment. Urgent business, if you don't mind.]
She frowned, her firm hold on Eru relaxing for a moment. The white haired girl also stared at the Incubator. "Business? Is it related to the federation?"
[I haven't been told.]
"Told..." Mami echoed, rolling this around in her head. "Wait, that means this is coming for your superiors, doesn't it?"
A swish of the tail. [That information hasn't been classified yet, so yes, I may admit that. I have not been notified what the purpose of this calling is. However...] Kyubey paused to blink at the legions of girls milling about in the distance. [I do believe you humans might call this situation something with 'bad vibes.']
"Where will you be going?"
[That, unfortunately, is classified.]
Mami simply sighed at the mystery of it all and nodded her consent. It wasn't as if she could force the information out of the alien, and trying to detain him would be pointless. "Alright. Good luck."
[Thank you,] The Incubator murmured before slipping away into the dark.
"What was that about?" Eru asked when Mami resumed her walking.
"I don't know," The blonde answered truthfully. "Hopefully it isn't something serious." She spotted the other girl's worried look and smiled softly. "Don't worry about it. Come on, let's go check out the stands that are set up so far," She suggested, reaching over and grabbing onto the partial albino's hand. Eru blushed to the roots of her hair, effectively quieted. Mami proceeded to pull her through the thickening crowds of girls, trying to keep the reassuring smile on her face.
She couldn't shake the sense of foreboding in her chest, though.
Kyubey had never sounded so nervous before.
"Eru, are you listening to me?"
Blinking, the diminutive girl jerked her head to the right and found Shiro frowning disapprovingly at her. The taller mahou shoujo was standing with a hand to one hip, the other flexing impatiently within a pair of thick carbon fiber gloves.
"I..." Eru flailed about in her mind for a moment, trying to remember what they had been talking about. "I'm sorry. What were you saying, again?"
Shiro groaned and crossed her arms over her chest. "Daydreaming about going all the way with Mami, I'm assuming?"
Eru didn't have to feel her face to know she was flushing. "I'd do no such thing!"
"Bullshit."
"She's just a senpai I respect."
"Sure," The taller girl breezed, suddenly letting the topic drop. "Anyways, I asked you if the lights are ready and everything. You were just standing there and staring at the controls."
The two of them were standing in the control booth of the baseball stadium, a small glass building situated at the structure's center and at its highest point. They could overlook the entire field and the seats from here, as well as remotely adjust most of the mechanical installments scattered throughout the space. Things like floodlights, opening and closing the overhead dome, and playing music through the speakers. She and Shiro had taken it upon themselves to double check the settings on Mami's behalf, if only to give the blonde some peace of mind.
"Oh. Uh, sure," Eru answered quickly this time, for fear of being rebuked by her longtime friend again. She loved Shiro and trusted her, but sometimes the naturally abrasive girl was too harsh with the people around her. She reminded the white haired girl of Kyouko, just a little bit. Except Kyouko seemed to have something a bit more refined about her. Romantic, perhaps? Shiro was more...rough.
"You're having rude thoughts about me, aren't you?" The girl in question suddenly sighed, making Eru squeak and slip her fingers on the buttons. Below them, an entire row of stadium lights black out, and confused telepathic messages began flooding into the albino's mind.
[Sorry, sorry,] She responded to the mental cues quickly, flipping some switches and restoring the light. "Why did you have to startle me like that?" She then complained.
Shiro just scoffed. "Maybe you should control your brainwaves a little better, instead."
Sometimes Eru truly hated the taller girl's powers. Shiro's gift was, essentially, enhanced senses; the raven haired girl's perception of everything was far beyond the boundaries of even most magical girls, to the point that it seemed almost superhuman at times. Her abilities included some of the more obvious things: she could see farther than a hawk, could smell something another town away, and tell you an earthquake was coming an hour in advance. To many, Shiro's gift was something to envy; who didn't want to know what people were doing behind their backs, or be able to hear a conversation through a solid lead door?
But to someone who had known Shiro for a long time, such as Eru, the penalties of such a gift were quite evident. One only needed to look at the girl's thick plated gloves, a countermeasure against feeling too much when she didn't necessarily need to. Eru knew that Shiro was quite capable of suppressing her powers outside of combat, but apparently tactile senses were still difficult to mute. Thus, the gloves. She wore them all the time, and in four years she had hardly taken them off. Eru hadn't understood the necessity of this herself until Shiro described touching someone's skin and being able to feel some of the bacteria on the surface. There was apparently a joke running around the federation that Shiro's hands must be considerably paler than the rest of her lightly tanned body, a jibe Eru did her best to make sure her friend didn't hear. Shiro had enough problems of her own already.
"And now you're resenting me for being able to tell your thoughts," She continued, smirking knowingly to herself.
Eru pursed her lips and wordlessly returned to checking the settings. Due to the nature of her own powers, her brainwaves were often exceptionally strong, bolstered by the magical electricity running through her veins. Most people would never notice, but Shiro obviously could. And Shiro always made sure to tell Eru that her thoughts were obvious.
"Shush, Shiro-chan. We aren't alone in here. You could be a little more considerate, you know," Eru quipped, though she was feeling guilty already.
After all there was a reason why everyone called her Shiro, even when her hair and eyes were black.
Well, one of them anyways.
Shiro's right eye was a cloudy, deep white, startling no matter how many times one met her. It had been an accident born out of a fight that she hadn't meant to get tangled up in. Regardless of her intentions, however, the skirmish left her half blind. Most people didn't have to ask to accurately guess what the black haired girl's wish had been.
The tragedy was, the contract had never fixed her eye. It just gave her more of everything else, although Shiro assured her the enhanced senses more than made up for having split vision. Eru had never believed her, of course, though she never said it out loud.
The girl blinked at Eru's words and turned to look at the two other magical girls in the room with them, as if she hadn't noticed them beforehand. Neither of them knew the other two girls personally or by name, but they were part of the federation. Not it was overly difficult to join. The strangers were standing at the other side of the room together, fiddling with their own set of controls and murmuring amongst themselves. One of them sent them an off putting glance occasionally, but beyond that they caused no trouble.
Something in Eru's mind shifted, and Mami's warm, silky voice thrummed through the girl's consciousness.
[I've finished my shopping,] She said softly. [I'm in the Market District right now, but I'll be over there soon. Tell everyone to gather together and to be ready. We'll be starting soon.]
[Sure thing,] The partial albino murmured back. Before she could consider saying something a little more personal to the blonde, her presence receded, as quickly as it had come. She wondered if the blonde was upset about something.
"What are you doing?" Shiro inquired when Eru leaned forward and began pushing more buttons.
"Mami told me to get everyone together," She explained. "We'll be starting soon, after all. Might as well group the early arrivals together." She stood on her tiptoes and peeked over the edge of the control panel, staring down at the crowd covering the outfield grass, far below. Roughly six thousand girls had ended up coming early, and most of them were already down there. A significant portion was missing, however.
Closing her eyes, Eru reached out with her consciousness. Luckily for her, her boosted brain activity made telepathy fairly easy. She expanded her mind, ignoring the girls on the field and searching further, trying to find the ones still in the recesses of the stadium, standing behind the highest row of seats.
She found them, but couldn't speak to them.
Frowning, Eru opened her eyes and tried to make contact a second time. All she got was a flat refusal; with a start, she realized she was being purposefully blocked out. She was perfectly aware of the girls' presence; she could feel them, lined up in an effective ring around the outer perimeter of the stadium. But they wouldn't let her speak to them.
"What's wrong?" Shiro asked, staring at her face and discerning that something was amiss.
Eru reached up and rubbed her temples. "I don't know. Something's keeping me from-"
The rest of her words ended up in a shocked gasp when something seized her from behind and yanked her downwards to the floor.
The next thing she felt was stars, crossing her blackening field of vision. Looking up with flickering eyes, Eru saw one of the other two girls hovering over her, pinning her down with her full weight. She saw the stranger moving somewhere down below, and when she looked down a dagger had been pulled out of the attacker's sleeve and was spearing down, straight for Eru's Soul Gem.
Her hands flew up and grabbed onto the girl's wrists instinctively, momentarily stopping the dagger's descent. Her attacker snarled and pressed down harder, and for a moment their eyes met. Eru was struck deeply by the murderous look she found there. This girl was hell bent on killing her. The dagger's point was pulsating with poisonous magic, and getting closer to her skin by the second. She shut her eyes, mental faculties fleeing in panic.
Then she heard a strangled yell and then a flurry of punches, before Shiro broke free from a struggle with the second girl long enough to scream, "Eru!" right before she was struck by a punch and sent sliding across the floor.
"Shiro!" Eru gasped, her powers finally awakening. A jittering wave of electricity emerged from her pores and swept across her entire person at lightning speed, sparking violently when it made contact with a foreign magical source. Her attacker was hit by the self defense mechanism and blasted back, slamming into the wall before collapsing into a smoking heap on the floor. Unconscious, not dead.
"Fucking bastard!" Shiro swore from the other side of the room, grabbing her opponent and flinging her away just in time to dodge another blow. The second attacker was attempting to strike her down with a magical hammer, swinging the weapon with terrifying speed despite her lack of musculature. Only Shiro's ability to feel the shifts in the air when the attacker moved was keeping her alive.
"Eru, help me, god damn it!"
Panicking, her fingers still sparking with uncontrolled energy, Eru tore open her pack and yanked out a handful of charged batteries.
"Shiro, get down!"
The other girl understood what was about to happen just in time. With a final grunt, she knocked her attacker away before throwing herself to the floor beside her friend's feet a second before Eru hurled the batteries at the hammer wielding girl.
There was a terrific flash, and the familiar sound of crackling electricity as the lithium cores of the batteries exploded in shockwaves of energy, unable to contain the currents they had been charged with. Shiro clamped her hands over her sensitive ears and hunkered down as the control panels around them crackled and sprayed showers of sparks everywhere, setting off the fire alarm system in the process.
It was over a moment later. Shiro looked up to see that Eru had protected them both with a shield she was powering with her own brainwaves, before the diminutive girl ran out of spiritual energy and collapsed to the floor in exhaustion. Their two would-be assassins lay in smoking heaps at the other side of the room, effectively stunned out of commission. Eru hadn't had the resolve to end their lives.
"What the hell is going on here?" Shiro finally demanded of no one in particular, glaring up at Eru, who had stood back up and was staring out the windows. The walls were still spraying sparks onto the floor around them, and the fire alarm was still blaring. "Hey, do you hear me?"
But Eru wasn't paying attention, instead absorbed by what was going on below them.
Shiro pulled herself up and looked down at the field.
Her blind eye twitched, like it always did when she was utterly taken aback.
The stadium below them was utter chaos. The five thousand magical girls who had been sitting around quietly on the outfield grass were now swarming in complete panic. Hastily made shields flickered to life before being obliterated by the incoming fire raining down from above.
From above...?
Tearing her eyes away and look to the side, Shiro's heart clenched when she saw the thick ring of girls that had emerged to completely surround the stadium, almost a thousand of them, all of them in their combat uniforms. Every single one of them was firing anything that could deal damage down at the seething mess of girls far below, sending a cloud of arrows, fire-bolts, bullets and energy beams hailing downwards to bombard their targets relentlessly. The screams of the girls taking the attacks filled the building, their voices crashing against the closed dome of the stadium and echoing everywhere, a terrible symphony of fear that was all too human, despite the magical nature of those who sang it.
"What are they doing?" Shiro finally shouted, running to the far side of the room and smashing her fists against the glass. "Oh my god, they're firing on the girls in the federation! Do they have any idea what it is they're doing? Eru, tell them to stop!"
"I tried. I can't," The other girl responded in a stuttering voice broken by nervous sobs. "They're blocking me off. I can't reach them! Oh my god, Shiro, they're killing them!"
As Eru cried, Shiro looked down again and had to pause for a moment to digest the chaos she was presented with. The girls were now in total disarray, scattering every which way with the sole desire to escape, but there was nowhere to go, not when death was raining down from above. She saw one girl sobbing as she tried to drag her friend to safety, but they were struck by an incoming fireball before Shiro couldn't even try and recognize their faces.
Little vortexes of fire, ice, and antimatter were appearing all over the grass, the grave markings of magical girls.
Shiro was about to smash through the windows and join the fray when a new voice yelled into their heads.
[Open the fucking dome!]
[K-Kyouko?] Shiro asked, startled.
[Yes, it's me! Mami sent me. Now hurry up and let me in! You guys are getting slaughtered in there!]
"Eru, open the roof!" She shouted, and the girl leapt up and scrambled with the controls. A moment later, the hole at the peak of the stadium began to open, and Shiro's enhanced eyes allowed her to see the crimson red figure dropping into the air. She was about to ask the redhead what the plan was when something tingled at the edge of her mind.
"Eru," She said suddenly, stiffening. "Break the windows."
The partial albino had fallen to her knees and was shaking pitifully there, but looked up and stuttered, "But-"
"Just do it!" Shiro snarled, and the shorter girl scrambled to her feet and shattered the reinforced plexiglass with a single concentrated bolt of lightning. Not even watching the glass fall away, Shiro grabbed the shorter girl and dove out into the open air, ignoring her terrified screams as they began to fall. A second later, she felt several bolts of energy sear over their heads, as the group of girls who had come to finish them off just barely missed their targets.
Unfortunately, her plan didn't extend beyond this point, and the two of them could only flail in the air as they plummeted downwards. Shiro barely managed to get her feet under her before they crashed into one of the lower rows of seats, their impact crushing the plastic installments. She swore when pain assaulted her legs and her chest where Eru had landed on top of her. Had they been regular humans, the fall would have certainly killed them.
[Everybody gather around me!] Kyouko's voice screamed into their heads. In the midst of the terror, even the girls on the field looked up to see the infamous redhead rocketing down from the sky, spear raised as if she were leading a charge into battle. Somehow, through the fear thickening the air, the girls managed to follow orders, collectively scrambling to converge at the center of the stadium.
Kyouko roared loud enough to be heard across the field a second before she struck the ground, a red aura surrounding her person. A flood of crimson chain-links poured forth from her body, expanding far enough to cover the entire outfield in the blink of an eye. The black lattices snaked outward and meshed together again and again and again, and Kyouko never stopped screaming as she pushed her magic to the absolute limit when the collective force of a thousand magical girls crashed against her barrier.
[You two...get...quickly,] The redhead transmitted to them, thoughts choppy with the sheer amount of energy she was expending.
Shiro was in awe. She had heard the legends of the Mitakihara Three, of course, but this...this was beyond legendary. This was impossible. She could only imagine the power needed to fuel a shield that absolute.
Then a particularly large missile smashed into the crimson bubble, making it actually flicker. Snapping out of her stupor, Shiro yanked up a dazed Eru and leapt from the demolished seats and over the dividing wall, landing behind first base before breaking into an all out sprint, literally dragging the other girl with her.
[Hurry!] Someone from within the barrier urged them. [They will notice that you are not protected! You must be quick before-]
Her words were preceded when a magical shell struck the dirt thirty yards to their left. Even at this distance, the blast was strong enough to lift them both off their feet and send them crashing back down onto the grass, the world spinning like a kaleidoscope in their eyes.
Shiro's ears almost bled at the intensity of the explosion as she lay, dazed, staring at a slowly burning blade of grass an inch from her nose. She could feel her heartbeat thundering in her chest, but the screams of the girls behind the barrier seemed distant, like echoes in the night. The sky was the only thing that stayed still when she looked at it, the cold sun fully visible to her now that the dome had fully opened. She found herself reaching up to try and touch it, wondering if she would ever be able to reach that high.
Then reality was flowing back, and her hearing snapped into place with a rushing white noise. Blinking and coughing out the dirt in her mouth, Shiro dragged herself up and hoisted Eru forward again, gritting her teeth and shouting as she dug her heels into the earth and began to run again. She had come too far in life to be finished by a stupid fucking mortar shell. If she was going to die today, it would have to be at the hands of something far more spectacular than that.
A strange aura suddenly enveloped them, and Shiro vaguely realized that they had made it past the barrier. A group of girls immediately rushed forward and pulled them further in, taking Eru off her shoulders. Looking up from her knees, Shiro saw Kyouko on one knee with her eyes closed, hands raised above her. Another girl was standing nervously beside her, gathering her energy.
[I'm ready!] The girl beside Kyouko suddenly cried out to all of them, and all five thousand reacted with a roar.
[Okay, great,] Kyouko responded weakly, amazingly still able to talk. [I'm going to put an image in your head now, okay? You take us there. You take us there and this will all be over.]
The girl's nodded as she received the mental image. Then she took a deep breath and brought her hands together, a harsh black light emerging from between her palms.
Oh, a teleporter, Shiro thought blandly, too tired for emotion as she collapsed to the grass and watched. Those are rare.
[You almost there?] Kyouko asked urgently, as another barrage of missiles crashed into the barrier and the stadium actually shook, the foundations groaning under the continued bombardment.
[Just a moment,] The teleporter replied, biting her lip in concentration.
[We don't have a moment!]
"Kyouko!" Someone yelled pointing at the highest levels of the stadium.
Looking up, Shiro paled when she saw a massive sphere of energy hurtling down towards them, completely dwarfing the ones beside it in terms of size. Looking beyond the incoming projectile, she saw the group of roughly thirty girls who had mustered together in order to prepare the attack, obviously intent on breaking through the stubborn barrier.
[I can't stop that,] Kyouko thought meekly, not even bothering to filter her words. [Do you hear me? I can't stop that. You need to hurry!]
[I am!] The teleporter screamed back, screwing her eyes shut.
[Shit!]
The curse was uttered a moment before the uber-missile blasted straight through Kyouko's already weakened defenses and bore down on them, searing away oxygen as it burned a path through the air on its path to destroy them.
[Get us out of here!]
With a final, heart piercing scream, the teleporter release her power.
A black light engulfed them all in a nanosecond, and Shiro felt herself being pulled away from the present reality, warped and twisted to be introduced to a new one.
In the blink of an eye, five thousand magical girls vanished into the dead of the night.
Um, yeah. If you have no idea what's going on, the only advice I can give is for you to read on.
Which I guess is pretty bad advice if you're reading this when there are no future chapters.
I hope you'll like the OC's I've introduced. Give me your thoughts on them.
Please leave any other thoughts in the reviews!
~Banshee