In an impossible pristine and cold hallway that twist and turn like a labyrinth of some ancient burrowing monster the halls in site [Data expunged] are deafeningly silent. The reason for this worrying still ness was due to the sounds of MTF Officer Thomas boots thudding against the ground.
Even the juniors researches of the site knew what that meant. So upon hearing him coming their conversation became hushed as they slowly moved towards the nearest room with a locking door and taking a mental calculations to the nearest safe room.
Thomas was dressed in his full black combat rig. His chest expanded by the layer of amour plating and assortment of lethal and non lethal throwable that hang around his chest and waist along with spare magazines. His service pistol hung on his right hip secured firmly, and his service rifle that shined from a fresh clean was slung over his shoulder. A patch of his brown hair stuck out from under his helmet, and his green eyes were focused on a small vanilla folder he held in his hands.
While his breathing was steady, his tense shoulders give away whatever was in the folder worried him to some extent.
He looks at his left wrist, and checks the machine that loops around his forearm, he rereads the instructions he was told, wondering if maybe he miss read them. But this final check confirmed it, he moved forward, arriving and standing just outside a room that many in the site feared, and he knocked.
"Come innn~" A voice spook in a forced and fained feminine tone as the door slide open.
Unlike the almost uncanny and sterile halls of the site, inside this room were mountains of papers, disagreed fast food bags, and a few abandoned pieces of tuber ware that would soon start to grow their own ecosystems. A man with a short blond hair and gray eyes sits behind a desk and while looking at Officer Thomas with a smile like seeing an old friend.
"Dr. Shaw." Officer Thomas spoke, "That information you asked for just came in."
"HELL YES, GIMME!" Dr. Shaw yelled and repeatedly holding his hand and waving at Officer Thoma to hand it over.
Dr. Shaw signs, he has a feeling that this was gonna end up being like his standard vist to Dr. Shaws office.
He handed over the file, and Dr. Shaw also game him something back, he already had an idea what it was when it felt it was rectangular.
And indeed once he looked down at it, Dr. Shaws DS'Lite was in his gloved palm. "Don't let the green little shit break my streak while I read this, okay honey buns?"
Officer Thomas signs, cleaning off a seat by dusting some fast food wrappers onto the floor. "Dr. Shaw just because I'm your personal bodyguard doesn't mean you should be calling unapproved nicknames." Before opening the DS, and seeing as he was delt a pair of and some other random junk cards.
"Oh my bad, is hot cakes still on the list of approved nicknames? What about Dumbass?"
Officer Thomas let out a small chuckle as he traded his hand for a two pair, "I told you as long as I get you call you Jackass, Dumbass and other -ass suffix are fine."
"Oh Thomas my boy!" Dr. Shaw chuckled as he spread the file out over his desk and pulled up a relevant file on his desktop. "You know how long we been looking into this personal project?"
"About two, three years now, about same time I got stuck with you last I remember."
"Ah I miss Timmy."
"Didn't he shoot you like, 27 times in the back after that prank you pulled on him at your last site?"
"Yea, but it was so funny."
"Didn't he have to go to therapy after what you did?"
"Oh yea, 3 weeks of paid leave too."
Thomas signed, "Anyways, you have me curious, what does this file have to do with your whole, investigation?" Thomas couldn't help but let a small smile creep over his face as he was delt five of a kind.
"Well you know my investigation began after noticing that oddity in our case files." Dr. Shaw said as he opened his file and dug in his desk for something.
Dr. Shaw produced a small wooden box, inside was. Inside was a small egg shaped sliver pieces of, what he assumed to be jewelry, with the small engraving of the night sky and a telescope at the pointed tip, but what stuck out to him was how it seemed to hallow on the inside. It felt like it was missing, something.
"Found this thing in anomalous storage, but the attached file was gone."
"Could it be a due to a restructuring event?" Thomas shoot back as he played his next hand on the small screen.
"What I thought. So I crossed reference a 100 different files and I was able to get a few guess on what this thing was. This final documents should be the last ones that even mentioned it in passing, with this I should finally…." Dr. Shaw eyes went narrow, and on a rare occasion, he was speechless as he read over the documents that lay before him.
Thomas froze, he put Shaw's game aside. "Shaw?" He said looked at the doctor, with an inquisitive tone.
Shaw has gone still, "Thomas, I thought I was crazy at first. This thing, if I put all the pieces together right, this thing had the power to, lack of a better word contained souls."
"So?" Thomas spoke puzzled, "I can think of a 20 different anomalies that can do the same thing. Hell it's not even unique for it being a pieces of jewelry, your amulet…." Thomas stops as the words leave his mouth.
"Yea, just like my amulet, intricate and unique design, the ability to hold a soul. The only difference is that this is missing the gem stone, while mine, isn't."
"Shaw," Thomas spook slowly, softly, "You think, they're connected?"
"Yes, so, we are gonna go and investigating something. Me and you, and only us." Dr. Shaw stresses that. "Are gonna look into this, now, I'm trying to solve a puzzle with only the edges. You ever heard of a Mitakihara? Use to be a city in Japan, apparently a few similar objects were discovered there."
"Yea, didn't it get flattened during a storm a couple years back?"
"Correct, but theirs more. Use your good old toodles on your wrist." Dr.Shaw laughs.
Thomas rolls his eyes as he typed the name into the device on his wrist, a wrist mounted multi-tool, "You know didn't you get yours taken away because you tired downloading anomalies malware?"
"Yea, yea, you guys were the one who put me in the body of a fucker that had mommy issues. Anyways, article on Mitakihara if you please."
"The city was destroyed in a freak category five hurricane that appeared out of nowhere. It's currently under foundation watch as the city seems to be infested with minor anomalies, particularly of the temporal kind. Time will apparently stop and start in certain places seemingly at random as well as a few other particular locations have auditor hallucination but nothing been clear enough to document in clear details yet. The anomalies gets worse on a set schedule, about every one and a half months a it reaches a capstone event before it settle down. Apparently the use of scranton reality anchor are prohibited from the city as the last time one was used it and a researcher disappeared. After the next capstone event he returned along with the anchor. Apparently he was transported back in time to before the storm hit the city. However testing on this had been postponed after the last few researches didn't come back."
"How long till the next capstone?"
"Less than a three days? Shaw, you can't be."
With a loud thud, Dr. Shaw pulls out and slams a slim case on his desk, the standard case reality anchors came in, "Come on bodyguard, let's get going. I already booked a private flight out for tomorrow night."
Thomas rolled his eyes, arguing with Shaw was useless once he set his mind too it, "I'll prepare a set of basic supplies, and I'm setting an automatic email if we aren't back in time to Dr. Clef. Anything in particular you want?"
"Beretta 9mm, a stun baton, and a bag of fritos." Shaw said with a wide grin, "I'm sending you the address and take off time, I got to go back my bags."
Thomas cracks his neck as he makes his way up and out the door to Shaw's office and towards the on site armory.
As Thomas left, Dr. Shaw took the small sliver piece of jewelry and began running it between his fingers.
His face faded from the smile of a child who just talked his way into eating dessert before dinner, now replaced by a man seeing the gallows, but surprisingly, to Dr. Shaw the latter thought was more enjoying then the former.
A dark, and deep laughter echoed throughout Mitakihara, or what was left of it. To call it a city now was wrong, it was a city, once.
But now the building either flickering with dancing flames shooting soot into the air, or linger in the air suspended by that Witch.
That witches painted on glossy smile and monotone laughter normally mocked Houmra's as she raised hell against the beast, scorching the sky in a blaze with every weapon she could find or make.
But, it was already pointless.
Mami's life was already cut short weeks ago, her head cleanly separated from her neck and devoured when she let the first moment of joy she had felt in months lead to her lowering her guard for a single moment.
Sayaka's husk lay somewhere deep inside Oktavia's labyrinth, covered in blood that's not her own. Her song of sorrow, lost, anger, and hate playing on loop for the audiences of her failures and mistakes.
Kyoko body lay somewhere in the remains of the city, legs and arms broken, a head twisted to far back to see the destruction above, only the pool of her own blood that collects under her remains as Walpurgisnacht familiars stab her corpse over and over, laughing as they dance around the girl like children gather to rip the remains out of a piñata.
Madoka, stood in front of Houmra.
But her eyes were, those eyes Houmra knew so well that were full of wonder, full of love, of kindness. We're full of fog and haze as Madoka lets out a final death rattle.
A simple stray piece of rebar dislodged by the battle skewered her, entering from her right shoulder and exiting her lower abdomen piecing her spinal cord and many other vitals organs.
"H, Houmra" her arms were outstretched towards her, Houmra dropped the rifle she was holding and hurled herself toward her pink haired friend.
But they were inches apart from touching finger tips, but Madoka's body goes limp.
Houmra now collapsed infront of Madoka's body. As if reflexively she lowers her eyes to the ground to avoid the sight, but that didn't help, now she just see Madoka's shoes, with lines of blood racing towards the ground.
There was so many things going through her head.
So many curse she wanted to shout into the void.
So many tears she wanted to shed.
So many things she could have done, should have said.
But, she clutches her first. This timeline is no longer viable. She thinks, her voice would tremble if she said it out loud.
With shaking hands she reaches for her shield, and with one deep inhale, she turned her shield.
She felt as time became nonexistent, a blinding white of nothingness, but such a site was at the moment preferable to the image that lingers in her vision right now.
Dr. Shaw and Thomas stand in the ruins of the Mitakihara's hospital. However both are dressed in more casual wares, jeans and a hoodie covering plain t-shirts.
A dark black duffel bag slug over Thomas shoulder. As Dr. Shaw place the reality anchor under them.
"When's the next cap stone event?" Dr. Shaw ask tinkering with the device.
"Any second now. Hey any idea why this might actually work and take us back in time and, not kill us?" Thomas asked out of curiosity, "Aren't reality anchors meant to stabilize the local reality?"
"You assuming that we are traveling no, buddy we are hitchhiking."
Thomas looks at the doctor and cocks his head looking at him.
"My running theory is this. Something is traveling in time. Something strong enough to rewrite the rules of reality to allow time travel. What we see here are the ripples of that thing warping time. This reailty anchor will latch on to that something as it's likely creating a stronger baseline reality then the one we are currently in, it will drag the anchor and us, with it."
"So, we are piggy back off a time traveler rewinding time in order to jump into their reality?"
Dr. Shaw gasped, "You actually HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO SEMINARS. Good to see your getting a few folds up their in that skull of yo-"
And suddenly Dr. Shaw and Thomas let out a grunt of pain as the experience a white void as the events of time undo themselves.
Houmra felt something was off as she moved through that gap of time. The best feeling she come to describe it was she felt heavier. It happened a few times randomly for the last, 20, 40, 60 loops? She wasn't sure what made it happen, but after no major timeline deviation occurred as a result of it the last several times she gave up looking for an answer. She only had so much time to prepare.
A small part of her deep down had its own idea what it was. But it had a few different names, shame, guilt, or some other thing that weighs down her heart.
Put she pushed down the thought, the feelings as she pulls her hand to her face, in a flash she heal her eye sight and her other ailments.
It was a new fresh timeline, this time she will save her. *I will save you this time, Madoka.*
She throws her feet off her bed and transforms into her magical girl attire.
At her command time freezes once more as she begins the same pattern and procedures she did at the start of every timeline.
Somewhere in the city, a fluffy white creature stalks its pray.
A desperate girl beaten and bruised struggles to hold the door close tears streaming down her face as a drunken monster bashes the door with their fist shouting commands and threats of all kinds.
The creature quickly takes its seat just out of sight, wanting for the moment its pray would be the most desperate and defenseless.
This one had some potential, but as the door swung open and the drunken creature grabs the girl and slams her on the bed. The creature had a thoughts come to mind.
Somewhere else out in the city it sensed something odd, two magical girls had just appeared in the city from thin air.
What was stranger was it sense one and could pin point it's exact location, but the other girl, seemed to be obscured. It couldn't find her location, her soul gem seemed, malfunctioning.
The creature seat and ponder the thoughts as its red unblinking eyes look down upon its prey's suffering. Hearing the girl beg for help scream and yell and thrash.
After sometime the drunken beast was finished and stampeded off.
The girl was curled into the fetal position rocking back and forth, her face soaked with dried tears, sniffling and shivering.
And so it pushed the thought into the back of its mind, and like a pack of vultures the creature descended upon its vulnerable pray as it's red unblinking eyes slowly emerging from the shadows and it jumps nuzzling into the girls tear covered check.
The girl embraces the fluffy soft creature pulling it close to her chest, gaining a feeling of comfort from the soft and kind looking creature. The creature plays a cat like purr and soon it can see the predictable face of easily wom trust. Humans are so predictable.
In its monotone voice, it begins the same offer it's given 100,000 times over, *Hello my name is Kyubey!*
Author's note.
6-7 years ago I wrote my first fanfic in highschool, and man I loved it. But teenager me felt so awkward and weird so I ended deleting and never finishing it.
So this is effectively me rewriting that story from all those years ago. So I apologize if the angst gets to bad this is a teenage angst thats been left and to ferment for years.
No beta readers because I really just wanted to write and post a chapter after reading Persephone's Waltz and having my brain finally let me enjoy reading and writing fanfiction again.
Feedback is appreciated especially as my creative writing skill have been unsused for several years not to get my bachelors degree, so rust is to honestly be expected but, the only way to fix it now will be to write and write and write and write more. So maybe expect slow improvement and high potential of rewriting things once I get better.
Thank you for reading my stupid story my teenage self would never let me forget. I hope it will be worth your time.