Beltane Is The New Samhain (Or How Walpurgisnacht Became Halloween)
I wanted to write a Halloween themed Madoka Magica fic and this is what I came up with. This is definitely not a serious story.
I do not own Puella Magi Madoka Magica or its characters. This is a nonprofit fan creation.
Chapter 1 It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
The nightmare replayed itself again almost exactly as it had more than a dozen times before, with the same outcome as a hundred times before. Homura was trapped under debris and looking across the battlefield at the broken body of Madoka Kaname as Kyubey approached the dying girl and Walpurgisnacht raged ever closer to the shelters that housed Madoka's family and the families of everyone she had ever known. Homura knew already that Madoka would contract to get rid of the monster and in so doing would become an even more terrible monster. This was one of the rare times when Madoka had learned of Homura's time leaps, had still accepted her, and had not contracted yet.
This was one of the many times when Madoka left the shelter and was struck by debris, and one of the times she was not immediately killed by her injuries.
Homura could not hear what words passed between the two.
O . O . O . O . O
"Kyubey, I wish…" Madoka coughed up blood, she was starting to get really woozy and thinking was getting really difficult, "I wish that Homura's next time…" she coughed again. Why was the world spinning so much?
"That the powers of uh… hell and uh…" she tried to think of another thing like hell, but like the opposite of hell, "hell" did she already say that? "...will uh aid her." Madoka's breathing was quickening. She figured she would probably die of her injuries even after becoming a magical girl, but at least her Homura would have a chance. "Grant… my… wish!"
"Your karmic potential is more than sufficient. Let the powers of the hells tear some other universe apart. I grant your wish." said Kyubey as his ears elongated. "This universe ought to thank you for your sacrifice."
O . O . O . O . O
Homura heard none of this. She saw Madoka transform, turn towards her and smile a dopey smile, and then breath her last breath.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night. Through a break in the cloud cover, a brief respite from the storm, the full moon shone down on two girls who held each other on a blood soaked street. The corpse of a naked redheaded woman was impaled on a long stake in the ground not ten meters away. The older of the two girls was bleeding from a wound on her shoulder while the younger girl held her hand over the place where inhuman teeth had torn into flesh as if she expected the wound to close. Close it did, but far slower than either seemed to expect and no matter what either did, the bite mark refused to fade away.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night in a well appointed manor house. The lord and lady of the manor held their daughter between them looking down upon the body of a would-be assassin. The man had posed as a member of the serving staff, stealing a uniform and keycard in an effort to poison the whole family. The intruder's throat had been torn out as if by some animal. On the floor beside the assassin lay a silver tipped wooden stake engraved with latin writing and a small puddle of water that seemed to hiss and steam unnaturally where it mingled with the blood of the couple's daughter that now stained the custom order handcrafted 100% organic tatami mat.
The couple's daughter clutched a cut on her arm looking on in terror and hunger as blood that was not her own dripped from her lips. Her horror was at herself as much as at the thought that someone would not only believe the spurious slander about her family enough to try to kill them, but also that such slanderous rumors would somehow actually be true. The poor not so poor girl wondered what her friends would think and in an act of impropriety that she hoped could be forgiven given the circumstances, bit her lip in nervousness. She let out a small yelp as her newly enlarged canines pierced flesh. Hopefully the marks would be gone by tomorrow.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night and a girl cradled her wrist and panted for breath where she leaned against her apartment door. She hoped that the crazed druggy she met earlier that night was having as bad of a night as her. The high woman had been wearing, of all things, a lab coat with the logo for a local recreational pharmaceutical company, New Age Solutions. The woman had probably been trying out NAS's latest product. The girl hoped she had not hit the woman too hard with that fire extinguisher, because the lab coat wearing woman had gone disturbingly still. The girl really really hoped she had not just killed a woman. How could she live with herself if she had? How could she ever face her friends tomorrow?
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night and a glimpse of light from a break in the clouds let the full moon pierce into the darkness of a hospital room. A boy sat on the floor in a circle of his own blood, his phone out beside him, connected to the hospital wifi and with a tor browser displaying the symbols that now coated the floor. He was grateful that his education into classical music had also included a section on the correct latin pronunciations as the circle lit with crimson light and then erupted into smokeless fire. From the fires an immodestly dressed woman arose and asked a question.
The boy gave an answer.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night, but inside an old antique store open unusually late at night, the world was lit with bright lights and very dry if a little dusty. The creepy old store owner moved in and out of the long shadows cast by the lights watching from a distance as a young girl looked through the weird store of old boring adult things for something to get for her mean boring mother who was in the nearby hospital. Maybe if she got something for her mom then her mom would be less angry and would let her eat more cheese.
As she moved through the aisles a doll caught her eye. The doll was made of cloth, had a pale face, large black eyes, pink hair a red dress, and a red and black polka dot bonnet. She eyed the doll tilting her head to get a better look at it. The doll eyed her tilting its head to get a better look at her. The old man running the store smiled.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a lonely and rain swept night as if the sky itself was crying. In a lonely bar a woman sat all alone also crying. Her friend and drinking buddy had already headed home to her loving husband and to look after her daughter who was also one of the woman's students. The woman had saved her tears for after her friend had left.
It would be unfair to break down in front of her friend, especially since her pain was made worse by her oldest friend's success. The woman was happy with her job, but just once she would like to have some success in romance, just a little. Was that too much to ask?
Maybe it was not too much to ask.
The woman had brought her backpack with her to the bar. Inside along with ungraded english essays, the copies of tomorrow's quiz, and the dossier for a transfer student who would be joining her homeroom class in about a week, was an old possession of her late uncles, who had died after a bad encounter with a sailor some years ago. Something about strange sightings in the pacific and weird dreams. The possession, a mysterious book that her uncle had been in the middle of translating, appeared to contain ancient rites and spells.
She was nearing forty, single, and a dangerous mixture of drunk, jealous, and desperate. If more mundane methods would not get her a decent boyfriend, maybe she could summon one!
She swore that by tomorrow she would have a boyfriend!
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark night, just past eleven o'clock, and it was raining hard when a successful young business woman and mother of two was on her way home from a late night of drinking with an old friend.
She was about to hail a cab when she saw a streak of light cut through the sky towards a nearby park, but looking at the trail of fire and smoke she knew it was not lightning and the boom she heard did not quite sound like thunder. The park was not far and she could see a small fire burning. She had a matching fire in her belly, an umbrella in her hand, and just the right amount of inebriation to decide a piece of space rock would make an excellent souvenir to give her children. Her daughter had always had some interest in space and would just love a piece of meteorite.
As she approached the impact site she could see that the meteor was about the size of her head. She thought it might be a little too big for her to carry, but maybe a piece broke off.
Steam rose from the rapidly cooling space rock. She could see a large crack in the stone. Nudging it with her now muddy heels she saw that it broke apart showing a strange multihued shine inside. The colors of the rock seemed nameless, like something out of this world. The colors coating the inside of the rock were almost like a strange oil like substance. She reached down for one of the smaller fragments of the rock when the strange oily substance moved. She fell back in shock as it looked and felt like something long and strange slithered from the rock up and into her hand, but looking down there was nothing strange about her hand or the now dull gray rock.
She blinked and felt the beer and sake she had been downing coming back up.
After several minutes of puking her guts out she stood.
For some reason, in the light of the fires and a lightning strike, the surprisingly large mess she made looked a little more red than was probably healthy and had several large squishy solid fleshy things that probably were also not healthy either, but the woman who was stashing a small meteorite chunk in her purse had never felt healthier in her life.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy night and a flash of lightning illuminated the work of three small girls in a hospital room. On the bed of the room the three had broken into was a girl who should have been dead, a girl who was like a big sister to all three of them, a girl who was now only 17% original parts. The girls were all covered in grave dirt, human viscera, and machine oil. Gas masks hung from their necks from when they had to use a chemical agent to knock out some of the hospital staff so that they could disable the security cameras and borrow a room.
One of the girls dressed in a t-shirt for her college that she did not mind getting ruined, giggled to herself, "What hath the night to do with sleep? What hath the night to do with sleep, indeed!"
The lightning struck again, impacting the lightning rod on the roof and traveling down a wire prepared by the girls. One of the overachieving girls was something of an expert in energy conversion and distribution. The electrical current caused the heart rate monitor nearby to spike as the inhumanly beautiful, nay disturbingly inhuman form on the bed twitched. After a moment the thing's chest began to rise and fall.
With a cry of madness two of the girls finally getting to live out their darkest dreams exclaimed, "It's alive!"
The third girl put her finger to her lips, "Shhhhhhhh!"
O . O . O . O . O
It was a brief pause in a storm choked night and a rain and blood drenched young woman sat before her mirror in an old villa. She looked into the mirror at the face so much like her own, but not her own that stared back. She kept muttering "What have you done? What have you done?"
The mirror face smiled, laughed, and said in a haughty tone, "You mean, what have I done? You are me!" Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as if to punctuate the mirror woman's words. "I am you!"
"NO NEVER!"
"YES FOREVER!"
O . O . O . O . O
It was a mighty stormy night and a mighty woman finished eating a particularly mighty midnight snack. She looked back over the three stacks of papers in front of her. One was a pile of ancient family recipes passed down for four thousand years though the restaurant she ran with her father did not have a key ingredient in stock and for good reason.
The recipes were for food that every time when served was praised as being far far above average. The family had usually made the moral choice of serving mediocre food instead. Such was their curse. Such was their moral imperative. They had always chosen the right thing to do. Any food anyone with their blood made would always only ever be average unless they followed the old ways. Any other business venture unrelated to food would always end in heartache and tragedy unless they kept the restaurant running. Such was their burden. Such was their curse.
The girl had had a chance to cure her family of the curse, but she got greedy with her wish and her mother's greed did the rest. Greed was an affront in her eyes, but the world ran on money.
Beside the first stack was a second slightly smaller stack, the record of the family finances. The restaurant was dying, even with her trying to promote her business to her fellows in her side job, really more combination of volunteer work and effort to reclaim her and her family's dignity.
The last and by far smallest stack, provided to her by her new gang contacts who had joined her in this new profit sharing venture, was a most ironic solution. She hoped it would make a good enough substitute for human flesh.
O . O . O . O . O
It was in the early predawn hours under heavy rain, and hoping that nobody would see them, that the robotics team for a University Affiliated High School each dressed in a long robelike black raincoat rolled the covered table holding their creation underneath an old and supposedly haunted radio tower. Programming your own ai was so much effort and all of the team members wanted to see if the creepy pastas about this tower were true.
They had a robotics competition to win against the other high schools in the prefecture and while their nightmarish creation would certainly win points for its in their words totally metal aesthetics, it needed a spirit to animate it.
In a ritual that was more magic ritual than applied science, two bright pale green lights pierced the pre-dawn twilight set within a metal skull. Two spirits joined together in the circuits set within a metallic skeleton. A bone-like metal arm lifted into the air and a distorted artificial voice screamed.
O . O . O . O . O
It was in a torrential downfall in what should have been pre dawn twilight that a lone mercenary stood panting and bloody over the corpse of her victim. The creature had been some kind of winged minotaur centaur thing with a few extra horns, eyes, fingers, and tails and with cloven hooves on its feet. Most of the parts were like those of a cow and the mercenary really appreciated the creature's cow parts. It had good taste, looking like that.
The mercenary had at first thought it was one of her usual prey, but now that it was dead she could safely say it was not like her usual enemies. It did not hide in another dimension but instead attacked in the open. Unlike her usual enemies it did not disappear the way it should have and nor did its weapon, a great big beautiful cow themed hammer covered in spikes meant to resemble the horns of a cow and with a bright red ruby on either side carved to resemble a big intelligent cow eye. Each was set into an upside down pentagram.
The mercenary shrugged, to the victor go the spoils, and she needed something to eat after the last group she was with kicked her out. She had a sleeping bag and a burning trash can to herself in a back alley not far from where she fought the creature. Dragging the creature there should be doable if only barely. She took the beautiful and tasteful hammer for herself feeling new strength and power like another contract running through her veins.
With glowing eyes and red lightning running down her arm from the hand that held the hammer, she figured that dragging the body away would be more than doable.
Unbeknownst to the mercenary, two little cow horns were poking out from under her cow themed hat.
O . O . O . O . O
It was a dark and stormy morning in Mitakihara city. A break in the clouds revealed that the moon was full and visible even in the daytime. In a lonely sterile white hospital room, an avatar of death awoke from a life saving heart surgery that was both hours earlier and countless years ago.
She looked out the window and groaned upon seeing that this was one of the timelines where she woke up and it was raining.
The last cycle was only further proof that nothing significant ever changed.
The time traveler prepared herself for the latest repeat of the same predictable cycle… again.
More chapters to come soon. Let me know your thoughts and suggestions!