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takerfoxx · 5 years

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RD Walpurgis Nights 8, Part 8

Then…

Leaping from the top of the clock tower toward the nearest rooftop was not the scariest thing Kriemhild had to do in her short existence. Compared to freeing both her and Homulilly from strands of barbed wire while clinging to the front of a massive clock hundreds of meters in the air, nothing could ever be.

But it was a close second.

She sailed through the air, Homulilly clinging tightly to her back. They were both screaming. Might as well. It wasn’t as if they had any concentration that could be thrown off. They were totally at the mercy of momentum and gravity.

Far beneath them the abyss passed by. Kriemhild tried not to look down, so she kept her focus on the incoming rooftop. If only the closest building wasn’t so much shorter than the clock tower, or so far away. She prayed that she hadn’t misjudged the distance.

The roof was coming up fast. “Hold on!” she called to Homulilly. Homulilly didn’t respond, but she did tighten her grip.

Almost there. Kriemhild readied her legs. She would have to hit it at an angle and hope that she didn’t skid too much. The rain was still coming down, so it was going to be slick.

Almost there, almost there. Kriemhild tensed up. No matter what she did, the landing was going to be rough.

And then, just before they hit, the gong went off. The rain suddenly shot up from the root, pelting Kriemhild and Homulilly from below.

And the roof shifted.

The surprise made Kriemhild’s legs jerk. Too late she tried to stick them back down again, but she ended up hitting the roof hard.

The wind was driven from her lungs as hot pain blossomed all over her thigh, side, and shoulder. She was sent bouncing across the roof in a tangle of her own legs until her back slammed into the small wall that surrounded the rooftop.

The impact nearly knocked Kriemhild right out. She lay in a heap, barely able to move, her whole body wracked with pain.

She might have just kept lying there in misery, but not even that was allowed her. “Kriemhild!” she heard Homulilly cry out. “Help!”

Though every breath burned, Kriemhild eased herself up to look.

What she saw made her forget her pain.

Homulilly had not been stopped by the wall. Rather, she had gone right over it, with only the tips of her bony fingers clinging onto its edge.

“Homulilly!” Gretchen cried. Okay, her legs didn’t hurt at least, so she let them do all the moving. She pushed herself out of her own tangle toward her friend. “Hold on! I’m-”

Homulilly’s fingers slipped, and with a scream she fell.

…

Now…

Homulilly stood with her mouth agape, staring at where Hitomi had just been. She had done it. The crazed idiot had actually done it.

“Hitomi!” Gretchen screamed as she rushed forward. “No!” Homulilly blinked and rushed after her.

The two reached the edge of the cliff and looked down just in time to see the wind sweep Hitomi’s body up and smack her against the side of the cliff.

“Oof,” Homulilly winced.

Hitomi limply fell and bounced off a jutting stone slab.

“Ouch.”

A moment later she hit the water.

“Ooh.” Homulilly shook her head. That had been a nasty way to fall.

“No,” Gretchen whispered.

Homulilly grimaced. If hitting the cliff wall hadn’t knocked Hitomi senseless, then the impact with the water most certainly had. Not that she was in real danger, despite what her intentions might be. Hypothetically, they could just leave her down there and fish her out once the weather had cleared.

But of all the fates available to those in the afterlife, perpetual drowning had to be one of the worst. Based upon what Ophelia had told her, the body didn’t simply enter stasis; rather, it kept trying to resurrect over and over, bringing the victim out just far enough to become aware that they were still drowning only to let them die again. She remembered Ophelia’s tale of brushing up against that same experience and how traumatizing it had been.

Homulilly didn’t like Hitomi in the slightest, and what sympathy she had for her was really wearing thin, but there were limits.

“Maybe…we can call the coast guard!” she suggested, shouting to be heard. “There has to be someone out there…wait.”

Gretchen had gotten back up and was backing away from the cliff. However, she had not turned away from it.

What was more, there was a look of resolution on her face that Homulilly frankly found terrifying.

“Gretchen?”

Gretchen took a deep breath. Her right hand, still wrapped around the core of her bow, tightened.

“Gretchen, don’t!”

Gretchen bolted forward, springing out with her legs to hurl herself over the cliff and down to the water below. Homulilly tried to grab her, but all she managed to do was brush her hand against Gretchen’s wire-legs, which slipped right away.

“No!”

Homulilly watched helplessly as Gretchen plummeted down. She had leapt considerably further out than Hitomi had, so even though the wind blew her back she was in no danger of hitting the wall.

But that didn’t mean that hitting the raging water wasn’t insanely dangerous, what the hell was she thinking?!

Gretchen hit the water and vanished.

Homulilly grabbed two handfuls of her own hair and shrieked, “SHIT!” This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening! What was she going to do?

Suddenly lightning stuck a lonesome tree not four meters away. It exploded into a hail of singed wood chips.

Homulilly ducked and covered herself. This was insane! There was no reason for the storm to be this bad!

Homulilly stared down at the very long drop and the crashing waves below. It was a certifiable death trap, one that could and probably would beat her immortal body to pieces if she leapt. Ophelia’s little brush with drowning would be a cakewalk compared to what that would do to her.

And Gretchen was already in it with no one to save her.

Homulilly took a deep breath and then shouted out, “IF THIS KILLS ME I WON’T SPEAK TO YOU FOR A WEEK!”

Then she backed up to get a running start of her own.

…

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, NO!” Charlotte shouted as she burst out of the forest into the small clearing by the cliffside.

Homulilly didn’t listen. Hell, Homulilly probably couldn’t even hear her over the din. She just charged forward and dove of the side of the cliff.

“Homulilly, you stupid asshole! What are you doing?” Charlotte rushed over to the cliff just in time to see the tiny splash far, far down below.

Oh, no, no, no. This was all kinds of bad.

Then she heard something…incomprehensible. Turning, she saw Ophelia rushing after her, shouting something that was difficult to make out.

Ophelia reached her. “What happened!” she shouted.

Holding onto the branch of a cliffside tree for support, Charlotte bleakly pointed downward.

Ophelia gawked. “WHAT?! Why? Did they fall?”

“No! They jumped!”

“WHAT?! Why did they jump?!”

“Because their stupid perfect storm of chaos and insanity that is Hitomi probably jumped too!”

“Why would she jump? She can’t die! I mean, not for good!”

“Yeah, but does she know that? She seems really uninformed!”

Ophelia grabbed her own face with both hands. “Then why did they jump?! They’ll just get crushed too!”

“Because this week is stupid and terrible!”

Lightning split the sky right over them.

“What are we going to do?” Ophelia demanded once the thunder had passed.

“Uh…uh…”

Ophelia swallowed. “Are we…going to have to…”

“No!” Charlotte said hastily. “Are you insane? You can barely swim, and I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing! Hell, not even Oktavia could do much good down there!”

Ophelia glanced down at the waves. Despite her obvious fear, it was clear that she was considering it.

Charlotte smacked her upside her hairless head. “Don’t even think about it! You won’t do them any good!”

Shaking, Ophelia nodded. “Right, right. Um…okay, you call Candeloro, I’ll call the coast guard.”

“The coast guard’s docked! They’re not going out in this, remember?”

“They will for this! It’s their job!”

Charlotte numbly nodded. It was as good a plan as any. “Okay. Okay, let’s try-”

Then lightning struck again, but not at the ocean, nor at a nearby target.

Rather, it struck the tree that Charlotte had been holding onto.

The tree exploded, and Charlotte and Ophelia were sent sprawling…or they would have been, had there been ground beneath them to sprawl upon.

Screaming, Charlotte pitched over the edge. She flailed with her limbs, trying to grab onto anything to arrest her fall.

Her fingers managed to close around a loose root protruding from the topsoil, a root belonging to the same tree that had just exploded no less.

She came to a jerking stop, but her grip was not good, there wasn’t much root to hold onto, and both it and her hand was already slick with rain. Plus, there seemed to be some kind of new weight added to her legs.

She looked down to see Ophelia holding onto her ankles for dear life. Her friend looked absolutely terrified, and Charlotte no doubt looked the same.

Then her hand started to slip.

Maybe…maybe she could push off with her free foot and flip them back up! She had superhuman strength and dexterity. Maybe she could pull them both up through sheer willpower! Maybe-

She slipped a little more.

-no, that wasn’t happening.

Swallowing, she looked back down at Ophelia. “Do me a favor!” she called. “Wh-When we get out of this, and I go to court for beating the shit out of Hitomi, testify on my behalf, okay?”

Ophelia slowly nodded.

Then Charlotte’s fingers gave way.

…

Candeloro had the kitchen phone to one ear and her cell to the other. On one line were the marshals, on the other was supposed to be Ophelia, but for whatever reason, despite Candeloro telling her to keep in touch with updates not five minutes ago, she was not answering.

“…we’re sending someone out right now. In the meantime, we need your friends to not engage with the runaway. Any interaction between a witch and someone from that witch’s past-”

“I know, I know!” Candeloro anxiously peered through the window into the backyard. God, the storm was really tearing things up. “They’re not chasing after her, they’re chasing after our other friends who are chasing after her!”

“Regardless, they all need to evacuate the area as soon as possible! This storm-”

“I know that! You think I don’t see what’s going on? But they’re not answering me!”

“Okay ma’am, I need you to please calm down.”

“How do you expect me to calm down when everyone I care about is now in mortal danger? And when has telling someone who’s on the verge of losing her mind to calm down ever worked?!” Ophelia’s voicemail started playing. “Shit!” She hung up and tried Charlotte’s number again. Come on, where were they?

“Ma’am, the marshals will be there shortly. But in the meantime-”

Candeloro glanced up just in time to see a large branch swept up by the wind flying through the air directly at the window.

…

In hindsight, throwing herself into the raging sea to save Hitomi was perhaps not the best way to go about things. Noble and well-intentioned, certainly. But in situations in which results were what mattered, all of Gretchen’s good intentions weren’t going to matter much when her broken and bloated body washed up ashore alongside Hitomi’s.

Unfortunately, hindsight didn’t really do her much good when she was already sinking to the depths.

She didn’t really remember the actual impact against the water’s surface. She remembered leaping, but the fall itself was gone from her memory, so she supposed that she must have been knocked out. All Gretchen knew was that she suddenly found herself surrounded by something that was cold, dark, and wet.

She panicked and started flailing all of her limbs, which did absolutely nothing. She didn’t even know which was up, it was so dark.

I’m going to drown, I’m going to drown, I’m going to drown-

Suddenly lightning crashed overhead, briefly lighting up the water around her. It didn’t do much other than change the water from black to murky green, but it did at least give her some idea of which way to go for air.

Gretchen desperately swam in the direction of the light, or at least tried to. Unfortunately, in that moment she had completely forgotten how to swim. The knowledge had simply left her mind, and she was still floundering about uselessly.

Then, despite the din of the raging waves over her, she heard something hit the water not far away. A moment later something seized her by the waist.

Terrified, Gretchen tried to shove it away, but it only hung on more tightly. She grabbed at the thing holding her waist, but then she realized that it wasn’t a slimy tentacle or a chitinous claw. Rather, it was made of thin human bones.

Homulilly!

Gretchen stopped struggling and let Homulilly carry her to the surface.

A moment later they broke into the air. Gretchen gasped, filling her body with sweet, sweet air. Sure, the surface was violently rising up and down while rain hammered them from above, but she had air!

What was more, she also had her bow! It was somehow still in her hands, and hadn’t been lost in the sea. She wasn’t sure what good it would do her, but hey, it was something!

She also had Homulilly, who was looking…mightily pissed.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!” Homulilly shrieked at her. “HOW IS THIS GOING TO HELP ANYONE?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Gretchen wailed. “I just wanted to-”

“WAVE!”

“Huh?”

Homulilly seized Gretchen by the head and yanked her back down underwater. As she did, Gretchen felt the force of a massive wave pass right over their heads.

This time, instead of going straight up, Homulilly grabbed back onto Gretchen and started pulling her further away from shore. Understanding what she was trying to do, Gretchen helped the best she could. Finally remembering how swimming worked, Gretchen started curling up and undulating her legs while swishing them back and forth, propelling herself forward like a combination of a squid and a jellyfish.

When they surfaced again, the waves were still rising high with each passing, but at least they weren’t in as much danger of being smashed against the cliff.

Coughing, Homulilly sputtered out, “We…We gotta get out of here!”

“N-No!” Gretchen wheezed. “I can’t!”

“What?!

“I gotta find…” Gretchen was seized up by a coughing fit. “Gotta find…”

“HOW?!” Homulilly demanded. “How are you going to find her in this?!”

That was a good point. In addition to swimming out away from the cliffside, the current had also carried them further along the coast. Hitomi had been battered senseless and was probably sinking deeper and deeper into the depths. Finding her even in calm weather would have been a challenge. In this it was all but impossible.

Then Gretchen got an idea.

“Hold onto me!” she shouted.

“I already am!”

“I mean keep holding onto me!” Gretchen turned toward the cliffs.

Homulilly shot her an incredulous look, but she didn’t release her grip. Doing what she could to stay afloat, Gretchen lifted up her hips.

Then she started to extend all twelve of her legs.

It wasn’t easy. With the constant rising and falling of the surface and the strong current beneath, keeping her wire-thin legs going in a specific direction took every ounce of willpower. However, she persisted, pushing them out further and further in every direction she could, creating a sort of web.

It was also incredibly scary. Every now and then one of her legs would brush up against something that she would rather not touch: a wandering fish, a ray, something gooey, and so on. It was really gross, and she really hoped that she wouldn’t end up disturbing something that would be annoyed and try to take a bite out of her. Everything immediately swam off after making contact, but it only took one to be a problem.

“Gretchen, this isn’t going to work!” Homulilly said.

“I have to find her!”

“WHY?! She did this to herself!”

“She doesn’t know how horrible drowning is here!”

“That’s her own fault!”

Lightning cracked. Thunder boomed.

Gretchen was openly crying now. “N-No! I’m not leaving her!”

Though Gretchen could not see Homulilly’s face, she had a very good idea of the expression it was now wearing. And even if she didn’t, the loud torrent of profanities that would even make Cheese blush told her everything she needed to know.

Still, Homulilly held on.

The longer Gretchen’s legs got, the harder it was to switch position to help her search, but she pushed and strained with all of her might.

Come on, Hitomi. Where are you?

…

The second that her head smacked against the cliff wall, Hitomi’s had world exploded. She barely even noticed the second collision with a rock, or the actual impact with the sea.

Her world had spun around and around, though whether that was due to the waves tossing her around or the concussion really wasn’t possible to tell. She had to have been smashed against the cliff wall by the waves, but at that point she was so groggy that all she managed to register a vague feeling of weightlessness. She didn’t even feel any pain.

Well, that was fine. Hitomi just kept her eyes closed and let her mind sink into the dark as her body sank into the depths.

…

With a desperate gasp, Charlotte’s head broke the surface. She was pressed up against the cliffside, which would have been a good thing if it weren’t for the waves showing up at regular intervals to try to smash her to pieces and flatten those like roadkill!

Making matters worse was the fact that she had to hold on with just one hand, as the other was wrapped around Ophelia’s waist. And Ophelia wasn’t doing so hot.

Her friend was screaming her head off. She swiped out with all of her limbs: kicking, clawing, and writhing in a blind panic.

“Ophelia!” Charlotte screamed. “Stop it! Stop it right-”

A wave surged up and barreled right for them. Seeing no other alternative, Charlotte grabbed Ophelia and yanked her back under. Even so, there was enough force to flatten them against the stones.

The water receded, and Ophelia immediately started thrashing again. “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” she screamed.

“I CAN’T IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT!” Charlotte screamed back. “STOP HITTING ME!”

Ophelia frantically clawed at the cliffside, trying to scramble up the sheer wall and slick stone. “FUCK THIS! I HAVE SUPERPOWERS! I’LL CLIMB BACK ON MY-”

Then she jerked back. For a second Charlotte thought that she had slipped, but she then she jerked again.

“Something’s got my leg!” Ophelia cried as she grasped at Charlotte for support.

“What?”

“Get it off me! It’s pulling me-”

Then Ophelia was yanked fully into the water. And as she was still holding onto her with a panicked grip, poor Charlotte was dragged along for the ride.

…

“I got her!” Gretchen cheered in excitement.

Homulilly’s teeth were chattering. “Th-That’s great! Now r-r-reel her in so we can g-get out of here!”

Their situation had not appreciably improved. They were still stranded at sea, struggling to stay afloat as the roiling waters brought them up and down while the rainstorm hammered at them from above. What was more, Homulilly was starting to go numb. She was doing her best to maintain her grip on Gretchen’s waist while keeping her legs kicking, but she was feeling herself grow increasingly sluggish.

Maybe…maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe I’ll simply slip into a deep coma and wake up in a few days after they’ve pulled me out and wrung me out.

Homulilly cast a glance at the dark depths below. Wincing, she redoubled her kicking. No, it didn’t work that way! She already knew what drowning was like, and she refused to let that happen to her and Gretchen!

“Almost there,” Gretchen said. “And she’s not unconscious! She’s kicking pretty hard!”

“Great!” Homulilly snapped. “That way, she’ll feel it when I break her nose!”

Gretchen didn’t respond. She just concentrated on bringing Hitomi safely toward them. “Stop fighting!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I do not remember her being this heavy!”

“You weren’t dragging her through water then!”

“Right! Okay, I almost got her…here she is!”

Sure enough, Gretchen’s legs curled up out of the water like a surfacing octopus. And one of them was indeed wrapped around an ankle attached to a human leg.

A bare human leg.

“I thought she was wearing jeans!” Homulilly shouted.

“She was!” Gretchen said, tilting her head in confusion. “Maybe she kicked out of them for some reason, or…”

Her leg lifted up higher, bringing up the other leg.

“…huh?”

Both of the legs were attached to a pair of loose black workout shorts. What was more, something else was coming up, a body that didn’t seem to be properly attached to the legs or the shorts.

The legs started kicking, and the body immediately breached the water with a desperate gasp.

“CHARLOTTE?!”

The legs managed to squirm free of Gretchen’s grasp, and the next thing she and Homulilly knew, a fourth person was frantically grabbing onto them.

“O-Ophelia?” Gretchen sputtered. “What are you doing here?”

Ophelia didn’t seem to have heard her. She looked half-crazed by fear. “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” she screeched as she practically clawed her way up Gretchen’s front.

“Okay, okay! Just stop beating me up!”

Charlotte shook the water from her face. Then she focused on the other three and her eyes narrowed.

“Ophelia, STOP!” she roared. She yanked the panicking witch off of Gretchen and Homulilly and pulled her back in a headlock.

“I promise, we will get you out of the water!” she said. “But for now, I need you to stop thrashing before you drown us all! Okay, deep breaths, remember your therapy sessions, okay?”

Ophelia at least stopped hitting everything nearby, but she seemed no less frantic. “Those were in pools!” she wailed.

“Just do it!”

“Um…um…” Ophelia closed her eyes and started trying to slow her breathing. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…”

As she tried to calm herself down, Homulilly called out, “What are you two doing here?”

The look Charlotte shot her could have melted steel. “Well, gee, it seemed like such a beautiful summer night that we decided to go for a swim! What do you think, genius? We got blasted off the cliff by a lightning strike!”

“Really?” Gretchen gawked.

Charlotte opened her mouth to respond, but right then lightning split the sky overhead, and thunder boomed less than a second later, making them all wince.

“Really,” Charlotte said flatly once it had quieted. “So, you two wanna explain why you dove in on purpose?”

“Hitomi tried to commit suicide,” Homulilly said before Gretchen could attempt to explain. “Gretchen dove in to save her, and I went after her.”

“Sui…WHAT?! She is literally already dead! You can’t do it twice!”

“Yeah, well, apparently she doesn’t know that!”

“Then why not fish her out later?!” Ophelia wailed. She still seemed to be freaking out on some level, but had calmed enough to actually interact with the others instead of blindly walloping anything in arms’ distance.

“Because you told us that drowning was a really, really horrible experience, and I didn’t want it to happen to her!” Gretchen wailed in reply.”

“What? NO! Mine was the way it was because I have a hole in my head and the water got in, choked out my fire, and flooded all my vapors! If you drown the old-fashioned way, then sure, maybe your mind tries to resurrect once or twice, but then it gives up and you just go into a coma until someone finds you and revives you!”

Both Homulilly and Gretchen were struck dumb by that. “Really?” Gretchen said in a chagrined tone.

“Yes, really!”

Homulilly groaned loudly.

“And if that wasn’t the case, your legs can reach for literal kilometers!” Charlotte added. “Why didn’t you just anchor yourself to the top of the cliff and fish her out that way?”

“I…I didn’t think of that,” Gretchen sniffed.

Ophelia slapped a hand across her own face in exasperation. As for Charlotte, she was openly seething.

“Okay, here is what we are going to do!” she said. “We’re going to get as close to the cliffs as we can, and then you are going to reach out of the water, find something to hold onto, and lift us the hell out of here!”

Gretchen’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “Okay, just give me a minute here.”

“A minute? What for?”

“For me to grab onto Hitomi! She can’t be far!”

“Do that after!” Charlotte snapped.

“I just need to…she has to be around here somewhere!”

“Gretchen,” Homulilly hissed through clenched teeth. “Please!”

Suddenly Gretchen’s face lit up. “I found her!”

…

It wasn’t so bad, going out like this. Just a gentle drift into oblivion. If anything, the storm had made things easier. Getting knocked silly on the way down meant that Hitomi barely even noticed her body shutting down from a lack of oxygen.

It was almost like falling asleep, and the deeper she got, the warmer and more comfortable she felt. Yes, this was nice.

Then something tugged at her foot. The peaceful expression on her face twitched ever so slightly. Did this need to happen? Couldn’t people just let her rest.

Then she was yanked off the sea bed that she had come to rest upon. She felt the vague feeling of floating along through the sea.

Oh. Oh well, this was probably it. Her soul had left her body, and she was drifting off to her final reward. Well, that was nice. Hopefully it would make more sense this time around.

…

“Gretchen…” Charlotte growled in warning.

Gretchen shot her a pleading look. “I really have her this time! I just need to bring her in closer. Then I’ll get us all out of here, I promise!”

Her face still covered by her hand, Ophelia muttered to Charlotte, “Do you still have your phone? I was carrying mine in my hand when the cliff exploded, so it’s gone.”

Charlotte’s face went blank. She seemed to be feeling around herself underwater. “C’mon, where are you, where are you…” she mumbled. Then her face lit up. “Got it!” she cheered, lifting up a dripping phone.

“Well, hurry up and call Candeloro!” Homulilly said. “Get us out of-”

Suddenly both she and Gretchen jerked down. Hard.

The two of them looked at one another. “What was that?” Homulilly said.

“Something’s got one of my legs!” Gretchen said.

Then the two of them were pulled back into the water. This time neither one of them came back up.

…

Charlotte and Ophelia both screamed as their friends disappeared. What was happening now?

“What was that?” Ophelia shouted. “What got them?”

“How should I know?”

“Well, we have to do something!”

Charlotte knew that Ophelia was right, but what that something happened to be she didn’t know. Not knowing what else to do, Charlotte dove down after them.

Almost immediately she realized how hopeless the situation was. There was barely any light above water to see, and the beneath was practically pitch black. There was no way she was going to be able to find them like this!

Lightning struck overhead, and for the briefest of moments the black world lit up just long enough for Charlotte to see Gretchen still being towed deeper underwater. One of her legs seemed to be caught on…something, something that she couldn’t see but was struggling frantically against. Homulilly was holding onto her arm with both hands and was trying to pull her away, but her efforts were futile. Whatever it was that had Gretchen was far stronger than either one of them and just kept dragging them deeper.

But there was nothing there! Gretchen seemed to be fighting the water itself.

Then the light faded, leaving Charlotte in the dark.

Charlotte was struck dumb. What in the hell was that? And what was she supposed to do about it?

If only she had a light, then she could at least see what was going on! But she didn’t! It was just her and her…

Oh.

Feeling a mixture of chagrin and relief, Charlotte brought up her phone and woke it up. Even beneath the sea, it still responded to her touch. A few frantic commands later, and the flashlight turned on. Another quick selection, and it switched from beam to universal light source.

The phone lit up strongly enough to banish the dark completely for a considerable distance, more than enough to give Charlotte a good view of the bizarre battle taking place beneath her.

Gretchen was still trapped, but she had wrapped all of her extended legs around her attacker like a giant squid. Homulilly was still holding onto her arm, but she had stopped pulling, and was staring at the shape Gretchen’s legs had curled around in stunned stupefaction.

Charlotte still couldn’t see their attacker. Her eyes continued to insist that there was nothing there. But the tale Gretchen’s legs told said differently. They were definitely wrapped around something, something…big, twice the size of a killer whale at least. It seemed to have a flat, blunt head; a humped back; and four dangling limbs near the head.

Charlotte’s mind flew back to a conversation she had had in happier times, one that happened a few days before the graduation, in which Oktavia had excitedly told them all about the fantastic new job she had been contracted for, a job in which she was going to help with the hunting and capture of a rare creature. She had shown them all pictures of the thing she was going to hunt down, a creature that was nearly impossible to see but was shaped like…

No.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no!

The karnuk seemed annoyed by how much its prey was fighting back. It jerked its head from side to side, tossing Gretchen around like a ragdoll. Homulilly’s grip was torn loose and she was sent tumbling.

Seeing that jolted Charlotte out of her stupor. She hastily swam over to Homulilly and seized her by her upper arm. Homulilly immediately started resisting, trying desperately to swim back to her girlfriend’s aid.

Charlotte sympathized. However, her chest was starting to burn from the lack of oxygen, and she didn’t have time to silently plea her case. So she smacked Homulilly upside her head, hoping the shock would stop her long enough to stop fighting her.

It worked. Homulilly stopped fighting her and just stared. Charlotte immediately started kicking for the surface.

She got about halfway before Homulilly started trying to get away from her again.

Charlotte’s chest was really hurting now, and she didn’t have it in her to be diplomatic. She seized onto Homulilly with both arms and just kicked harder. She was stronger than Homulilly and buoyancy was on her side. Still, it wasn’t exactly fun.

Finally both of their heads broke the surface, and they took simultaneous gasps of air.

“You’re alive!” she heard Ophelia shout. Blinking the spots away from her eyes, Charlotte looked to see Ophelia struggling to tread water several meters away.

Coughing, Charlotte had to fight to get the words out. “Th-The karnuk! It’s the karnuk!” she shouted back.

“WHAT?!”

Charlotte couldn’t tell if Ophelia was merely reacting in shock or had genuinely not heard her. Regardless, she tried again. “I said it’s the karnuk! Oktavia’s sea monster is here!”

There was a pause, and then Ophelia screamed, “FUCK!”

Charlotte wholly agreed with that assessment. However, she was unable to voice her agreement, because Homulilly chose that moment to elbow her in the throat.

It wasn’t a direct hit. Homulilly didn’t have the strength or the coordination to accomplish anything other than a glancing blow. However, much as the underwater smack Charlotte had given her had stunned her long enough for Charlotte to haul her upward, this stunned Charlotte just enough for Homulilly to squirm out of her grasp and dive back down.

Ophelia floundered her way over to where Charlotte was treading and coughing. “Why did she do that?”

“Why d-do you th-think?” Charlotte sputtered. “That th-thing’s got G-Gretchen!”

Ophelia stared bug-eyed at her. “It’s going to eat them both!”

“I know that! Why do think I dragged her-”

“Turn on your distress beacon!”

“My what?”

“Your distress beacon! You know, on your phone?”

Charlotte stared at her blankly for several seconds before the wheels in her finally turned enough to recall what Ophelia was talking about. Afterlife phones were, of course, considerably more advanced than anything someone might have in life. In addition to being completely waterproof and possessing the ability to light up like the sun, each also came equipped with a signal that could be activated in case someone was lost, under attack, or any other situation in which someone might need to call for help. It had come in rather handy during a camping trip a few years prior.

Charlotte pulled out her glowing phone and quickly brought up the appropriate app. She pressed it, and the edges of her phone started flashing red.

“It’s activated,” she said.

“Groovy. Now, let’s go!”

“Go? Go where-”

Ophelia sucked in a deep breath and dove underwater.

Charlotte gaped. Ophelia might have made considerable progress getting over her phobia of water, but she still obviously disliked it, and she was still a terrible swimmer. And yet there she was, diving into the depths in the middle of a storm to do battle with a sea monster. Would miracles never cease?

Charlotte almost dove after her, but she brought herself to a stop. What the hell was she going to do? She wasn’t going to be able to stop either Ophelia or Homulilly, and she sure as hell couldn’t do anything for Gretchen. She didn’t even have any powers!

No. As much as her instincts rebelled at the idea, this was the time for doing the smart thing, not the heroic thing. She still had her phone, which to be quite frank was their only hope of getting through this in one piece.

Using every ounce of willpower, Charlotte forced her shaking fingers to hunt down her contacts. The distress beacon would help, but they needed someone to actually be looking for them first!

…

Wake up. Your friends are in danger.

Wake up, Candeloro.

Wake up.

“Wake up! Ma’am? Ma’am, wake up!”

Candeloro winced. Waking up really was the last thing she felt like doing. Her head felt like it had been used to bang a gong, and the world refused to stop spinning around her. She cracked her eyes open just a crack.

Then someone shined a light directly into her eyes, which didn’t improve matters. “Shtoppit,” she muttered, giving a weak wave with her ribbon. The light disappeared.

Someone pressed what felt like a soother against her head. She sighed as the warm pad did its job and cleared away the deep ache.

“Ma’am? Are you all right?”

Candeloro blinked again. There were several people gathered around her, people that she didn’t recognize. Also, for some reason the wind was really loud and Cheese was losing his mind somewhere in the background, if the incessant squawking was any indication.

She struggled to sit up. The strangers helped her do so. She grabbed the soother away from whoever was holding it and pressed it to her own head. “What’s going on?” she said. “Who are you?”

“The marshals, Ma’am. You called us.”

Candeloro rubbed the fuzziness out of her eyes. Sure enough, the strangers were all wearing the brown uniforms of the Freehaven Militia. Okay, that explained that, but it still didn’t tell her what exactly had happened to her.

“What’s going on?” she said. “What hit me?”

One of the marshals pointed to the kitchen window. It had been smashed in from the outside, covering the counter and the floor with glass shards. Also, there was a pretty big severed branch on the ground for some reason.

��The best we can figure, the storm tore that off a tree or something and sent it right through your window,” said one of the marshals. “Right at your head.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Candeloro groused. Her head was clearing, so she stood up. The room tilted a bit and her legs still felt wobbly. The marshals helped her keep her balance.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“You called us, Ma’am. Something about your friends?”

Candeloro choked. That was right! “Right! They’re at the cliffs, chasing a runaway from the FIB! We think she’s going to do something drastic!”

“We already have people at the cliffs, Ma’am. But there’s no one there.”

Candeloro stared at the marshal in dismay. “No one? Are you sure?”

“Afraid not. But we are searching.”

“Hey, lady!” one of the other marshal called. “You’re getting a call!”

The marshal was holding up her phone. Sure enough, her phone was blinking with an incoming call. Apparently she had forgotten to turn it off from silent. Oops.

Candeloro snatched the phone away and checked. It was Charlotte. She answered it.

“Yes! Charlotte, hello?”

“Fucking finally!” Charlotte shrieked. “Where have you been?”

Candeloro swallowed. It was very uncharacteristic of Charlotte to just blow up at her like that. And to top it off, there seemed to be a lot of noise pollution in the background. She could barely hear Charlotte over the din.

“I’m sorry, I got knocked out by a branch! Where are you? What’s going on?”

“You got knocked out by a what?!” Then, before Candeloro could respond, Charlotte said, “No, never mind, forget it. Look, we’re all stuck in the water, and the karnuk is attacking us!”

“Wait, what?!”

“Exactly what I said! There was…a series of very unfortunate events that dumped us all over the cliff, and now we’re in the water, and Oktavia’s karnuk is here and trying to eat us!”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m fucking serious! Look, I got my phone’s distress signal on, so please send help!”

“On it! Just hang on!”

Candeloro whirled toward the marshals. “How quickly can you get a hovership out?”

The marshal that had been helping her gawked. “In this?”

“Yes, in this! Look, my friends somehow ended up going over the cliff, and there in the water right now. Apparently the karnuk’s attacking them, so they need help right now!”

“What the hell’s a karnuk?”

The question actually stunned Candeloro for a moment. How could she not know? “The…alien sea monster? The one that the coast guard’s been trying to track down all week?”

“A sea monster? There’s a sea monster?”

Though Candeloro was not in the slightest a violent person, it was taking a considerable amount of willpower to not just wrapped both ribbons around the woman’s neck and start squeezing. “Yes! Yes, there is!”

The marshal frowned. “Are you sure you that blow to your head didn’t knock something loose?”

Candeloro almost started screaming, but then one of the other marshals said, “Sarge, she’s telling the truth. Some vekoo nasty wandered into Freehaven water not too long ago, and they’ve had to shut down most of the coast until they find it.”

“Really?”

“Yes!” Candeloro snapped. “Really! And now it’s trying to eat my friends!”

The marshal still looked dubious. “What are they doing in the water in the first place?”

Candeloro shoved her face into the other woman’s. “Just call the fucking hovership!”

The marshal stumbled back. “Uh, yeah. Okay.”

“Good! Now get out of my way!”

“Wait, where are you-”

Candeloro tore past them and out the back door. She didn’t know what she was going to do once she reached the cliffs, she just knew that she was needed.

Hurry, whispered a strange voice in the back of her head. Your friends need you.

Candeloro didn’t question the voice. She merely obeyed.

…

Homulilly was beyond fear at that point. She was beyond reason, beyond caution, beyond anything other than the relentless determination to save Gretchen. If she somehow managed to reach the karnuk in that moment she was going to rip it apart with her bare hands if it meant pulling Gretchen from its belly. She just had to find them first.

And there they were.

Gretchen was still feebly fighting back against the karnuk, but her movements were growing sluggish. The legs that had wrapped around its body were loosening, and a few were now floating limp. Soon all it would need to do would be to lunge forward and it would be able to slurp her up like spaghetti.

Homulilly swam faster. As she did so, she noticed something else. One of Gretchen’s legs wasn’t bound to the karnuk at all, despite being extended as far out as the others. Rather, it was floating free a fair distance behind her.

And its end was loosely wrapped around the leg of Hitomi Shizuki.

The girl looked kind of dead. She was floating limply, eyes closed and body unmoving, completely oblivious to the peril Gretchen had put herself in for her sake. And to be quite frank, Homulilly was tempted to just leave her there.

Later. She had to worry about that later. For now, she had a Gretchen to rescue.

Homulilly threw every ounce of strength into her limbs, but it wasn’t enough. Gretchen was weakening too quickly. Another couple of moments and the karnuk would be able to gobble her up.

No. No, Homulilly was not going to let that happen. She had to go faster, had to close the distance before it was too late. She couldn’t let anything happen to Gretchen, she just couldn’t!

But what was she going to do? She was already swimming down as fast as she could. And once she got there, what was she even going to do? She had no significant powers to speak of. The karnuk would probably just gulp her down as well!

To top things off, there was something really weird about how she was swimming. Her right arm wasn’t cutting through the water correctly, and it was slowing her down. What was going on?

Homulilly glanced to her right and realized what the problem was. Oh right, she still had her old shield strapped to her arm!

Well, she didn’t really want to let it go, but Gretchen was in danger, so it wasn’t really a contest. Besides, the ghost of Homura Akemi had been bothering her enough as it was. She tried to unbuckle it, but the straps seemed to be stuck.

Her frustration turning to anger, Homulilly tore at it, trying desperately to get it off her arm. She shook it hard, and then grabbed at the plate itself and tried to twist it off.

The plate turned on its swivel like it was supposed to and stopped. She jerked it again.

Then, as if there was a gear that had been stuck but now was loosened, it turned a bit more.

…

Though the rage of the storm couldn’t do much more than disturb the surface of the water, it was still making Oktavia’s job difficult. All natural light was blocked off, leaving them having to rely on the lights they had brought to do their job.

And that was kind of a problem. The karnuk was invisible enough as it was. With thing the way that they were, it wouldn’t have any difficulty sneaking up on them.

Oktavia growled and kept looking, swimming from one spot to the next, searching for any sign of its passing. All of that would be bad enough as it was, but her weird little encounter with Hitomi Shizuki had really shaken her up. She was finding it hard to concentrate, and her mood was rapidly devolving.

She had tried switching up her music, but heavy metal just made her angrier, pop was giving her a headache, and ai’jurrik’kai jazz felt like someone was taking hacksaw to her eyes, and that one often helped her sleep! This was bad. Dealing with something like this would be tough enough under normal circumstances, but having to deal with it while searching the ocean depths for a carnivorous sea monster while a record-breaking storm was raging overhead was unbearable.

She just hoped that they managed to catch Hitomi before Oktavia got back. She had of course given her friends a head’s up that Hitomi was still popping in and out of places before shipping out, but she wouldn’t be able to get any updates until this outing had wrapped up. For all she knew, Hitomi could be safe and sound back at the FIB right now. Or maybe she had transformed into a fifty-meter robot and was stomping all over their house at that very minute. Either way, she had no way of knowing.

“Oktavia? Come in, Oktavia. Over.”

Oktavia jolted out of her thoughts. To her shock, she was wandering over a flat expanse of sand, far from the trench she had been supposed to be searching. Oh, this was bad.

Shaking her head, Oktavia said, “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. What’s up? Over.”

“Get back to the sub, ASAP. We just picked up someone’s distress signal. Apparently someone’s stuck out in the storm, so we’re going to go pick them up, over.”

Oktavia sighed. Well, it was just as well. She wasn’t doing much good as it was. “All right. Hold, on, I’m on my way, out.”

“Acknowledged. Out.”

Oktavia flipped around and headed back to where the sub was waiting. Well, she probably wouldn’t have to contribute much to this detour, so hopefully she could use the break to get her head on straight. Because quite frankly, she was no good to anyone like this. If she kept swimming around in this state, then Ophelia’s fear of her ending up as the karnuk’s sushi order would probably be realized.

…

The world just…stopped.

Homulilly almost didn’t notice it. She was still trying to get the shield off her arm, but it remained stuck. However, in the process, she happened to glance down, and in doing so she noticed something very interesting.

The karnuk was no longer shaking Gretchen around, and Gretchen was no longer struggling. But they hadn’t gone limp either. Gretchen was still beating the karnuk in the head with her bow, but had somehow frozen in the process, her arm raised, her back bent toward the monster, her hair no longer flowing freely. And her legs, which had been writhing all over the karnuk’s body, had simply stopped moving at all.

It was enough of a shock to make Homulilly forget the burning in her chest. She stopped trying to dislodge the shield and looked up. Ophelia was there, clawing at the water in her own attempts to save Gretchen. However, she wasn’t making any progress. In fact she wasn’t descending at all. Her legs and arms were stuck in mid-pump, her face frozen. Even the bubbles around her had simply stopped in place.

Ophelia was a lousy swimmer, but she wasn’t that lousy.

Time had stopped. Homulilly wasn’t sure how or why it had happened, but time was now frozen in place.

Wait. Wait, it couldn’t be…

Homulilly turned the front plate of her shield toward her. The circular designs were now lit up and glowing brightly.

A burst of relief and shock sung through Homulilly’s body. She could stop time! That had been her Puella Magi power, and her shield had been her means of controlling it! She had no idea why it was working now, but she wasn’t going to question it.

And that meant that she no longer had to worry about reaching Gretchen in time. Time was no longer any concern of hers. Time now bent to her will.

Which meant she now had space to think and plan.

Okay, time might have stopped, but her need for oxygen was still a thing. Homulilly turned around and swam back up to the surface. The pain was getting to be quite the problem when she broke the surface.

Outside, it was much the same. The storm was taking a break. Oh, dark clouds still blotted out the sky, but they had stopped rolling. Rain was still coming down from the sky, but drops hung frozen in the air, only actually splashing when her head hit them. Waves were rising up but not crashing down. Even the wind had stopped.

She saw Charlotte still treading water nearby, her phone to her ear, her mouth open in mid-shout. Wow.

Homulilly would have liked to have stuck around to gawk at her mastery over time and space a little longer, and hypothetically she probably could have, but she wasn’t about to risk her good fortune. So she took several deep breaths to replenish her sluggish soul vapors, inhaled as deep as she could and dove back down again.

This time she took the distance in long, deliberate jackknife movements. With her girlfriend no longer in immediate danger of being swallowed whole, she was actually able to go faster, as panic wasn’t eating up her oxygen and making her flail ineffectively.

The karnuk was down pretty deep, but Homulilly managed to reach it before the burning really began. Now that she was up close she found that she could actually see it, a vague outline in the water, all smooth, rubbery skin that looked like it had sculpted from mucus.

She could see the thing’s eyes. They were tiny, angry looking dark blue orbs slit with black sunk deep into its blunt head, but she could see them.

Homulilly laid a hand against the karnuk’s side. Suddenly it woke up, bucking and thrashing like an enraged bull.

Jerking back in shock, Homulilly snapped her hand back. The trashing stopped.

So, coming in contact with something unfroze it. Now, that was going to be useful.

She swam over to where Gretchen, who still had one of her legs stuck in the karnuk’s mouth. Homulilly put her arm around Gretchen’s middle.

Much like the karnuk had, Gretchen started fighting again, although her movements were much more lethargic. She was running out of strength and oxygen.

Homulilly shook her to get her attention. Gretchen looked at her with dropping eyes. Then she frowned in confusion.

Not having the time or ability to explain, Homulilly reached down to tug on Gretchen’s leg, the one that was stuck in the karnuk’s mouth. Gretchen didn’t react; she just stared stupidly at the frozen karnuk.

Gritting her teeth, Homulilly gave the leg another hard tug, more emphatically this time. This time Gretchen’s sleep, oxygen-deprived mind seemed to catch onto what she was doing, and she bent around to grab onto the leg as well.

By themselves, neither one of them was strong enough to pull it free. But working together, and with Gretchen actively retracting it at the same time, they managed to slide it through the thing’s clenched teeth. It obviously was a painful experience, given the way Gretchen was wincing, but she kept at it.

And then she was free! All of her legs now back to their normal length, Gretchen slumped in Homulilly’s arms. That was fine. The hard part was over, and she just needed to get them both back to the surface before her own mind shut down.

Which…given how dark spots were blossoming around her vision, probably wasn’t far off.

Holding onto Gretchen with one arm, Homulilly kicked toward the surface with all of her might. It was slow going. Sure, she was supernaturally strong, but most of her strength had been exhausted just getting down there and freeing Gretchen. Plus, Gretchen’s weight was making things difficult.

Just a little further…the dark spots were growing…just a little further…it was getting hard to think…just a little further…her chest felt like it was going to implode…just a little further…

Then tragedy struck.

Maybe her shield had some sort of time limit. Maybe the gear she had managed to knock loose was still a little gummy. Maybe trying to swim with it still on her arm had caused enough friction to move it.

But whatever the reason, the shield suddenly clicked out of position and slipped back to its default state.

And deep below, the karnuk woke up.

…

The storm buffeted Candeloro’s body with every step. And not just the wind and rain, but also loose debris picked up from the forest. She was pelted with sticks and leaves and stones, and every step came with the threat of encountering something like that branch from earlier. Still, she pressed on. Everyone she loved and cared about was in danger.

Of course, even without that thought motivating her forward, there was another voice inside her head pressing her on.

Hurry. Your friends are in danger. Your wife is in danger. You don’t have much time. Hurry.

Candeloro didn’t question the voice, nor did she try to argue back. She just did as she was told.

Fortunately nothing large enough to be a problem hit her in the head this time around, and she emerged from the forest out into the open space around the cliffs.

There were already a couple marshals in the area looking around, and they seemed very surprised to see her. One of them called something to her, but Candeloro couldn’t hear what she said, and nor did she care.

Fighting the wind with every step, she ran toward the cliff. That old tree that had been growing there was gone, though whether it had been uprooted by the wind or something else, she really couldn’t tell. Coming as close to the edge as she could, she peered out as far as she could.

She couldn’t see much other than rolling black clouds above and a raging sea beneath. Damn it, where were they?

“Charlotte, can you still hear me?” she called into the phone.

“Barely! Where are you?”

“On the cliffs! Where are you?”

“Look for the light!”

Candeloro’s eyes desperately searched all over. Where was it, where was it…

There! Far to the right of her, and just past the surf was a pool of white light! That had to be where Charlotte was.

But it was too far! Candeloro could stretch her ribbons out, sure, but not that far! She wasn’t Gretchen! And even if she could, how would she be able to get them all out before they got gobbled up?

Would you like help?

It was that weird voice again. Of course I would! she thought back.

Are you sure? There is a price.

Candeloro paused. Okay, this voice definitely was not just in her head. What price?

Your other half has power, but is asleep. She is struggling to awake though.

My…what?

She surrendered her agency in return for her life and for power. Her life was lost regardless, but she still has her power. You remain her soul, but you cannot use what she was given. You only have what she was cursed with.

Then Candeloro understood. Are you serious?

She is the closest to awakening. The bond you share with your soul sisters has stirred her the most of all.

But I was never told her name!

Your lover was. Your two souls are deeply connected. Her name passed from her mind to yours, as did the others. And your other half is stirring. I can wake her, but only if you wish me to.

Candeloro swallowed. What will happen to me?

You are the same person. You share the same soul. You will be her, and she will be you. Two minds, two sets of memories, both remade into one. But it will cost you who you are now. You will be Candeloro the witch no longer. Are you willing to let that go?

Candeloro stood silently, looking out at the sea. Everyone she loved was out there. They were in danger.

Tears streamed down her face, indistinguishable from the rain pelting her face. She looked down at her two ribbons, ribbons that she had not been born with but were as much a part of her as anything else. She curled their ends for what felt like the last time.

Will I really be able to help them?

You will. The power will be your again.

You know, I’m sure that’s what the Incubator sounded like too.

I am no Incubator.

Candeloro took a deep breath. No, you’re not, are you.

I am not. So, what is your answer?

Candeloro closed her eyes. For a brief moment, time itself seemed to stand still. It was just her, the voice, and the sleeping one.

Do it.

There was a pause, and then the voice said, Awaken, sleeping spirit of the dead warrior. Awaken, Puella Magi Mami Tomoe.

…

It was like Ophelia’s mind had simply skipped a beat.

One moment she was diving down to try to save Gretchen and Homulilly from the karnuk, the next…well, she was still diving, but Gretchen was no longer in the karnuk’s grip, nor was Homulilly swimming down ahead of her. Rather, Homulilly was now in a different place and swimming up instead of down. What was more, Gretchen was no longer tangled up around the karnuk. Instead, she was being supported by Homulilly as they headed for the surface.

The transition happened in a second. They were one place, and then they were in another.

Had Ophelia blacked out or something? Given how her day was going she wasn’t about to rule it out.

Regardless, whatever it was that had rearranged reality itself, apparently Homulilly wasn’t too pleased with it. She looked like she was panicking. She brought that shield she had strapped to her arm around to her other hand, which was being used to support Gretchen, and started yanking at the shield’s plate for some reason, like she was trying to twist it off.

Ophelia changed course to swim toward the two. She might not have had much of a chance against the karnuk, but she could at least get them to the surface.

Homulilly saw her coming. She beckoned frantically toward her, indicating the lifeless Gretchen in her arm. Understanding what she meant, Ophelia reached out to help her.

And then her eye caught sight of movement.

She didn’t see anything, but there was something there, a vague outline that swirled the murky water. It came up fast, and before Ophelia could do anything, half of Homulilly’s leg disappeared.

Homulilly’s eyes bulged in pain and shock. She looked down to see absolutely nothing, and she kicked at that nothing. But the nothing had her good. It started to descend, dragging her down with it.

Ophelia grabbed onto her to try to help pull her away, but instead Homulilly shoved her back. She then threw Gretchen’s limp body into Ophelia’s arms.

Ophelia knew what she wanted, but her heart rebelled against it. That was one of her best friends down there, about to be torn apart by an invisible monster! And as someone who had once fallen to pieces in the ocean, Ophelia had very strong opinions about letting that happen to anyone she cared about.

However, Homulilly must have known what she was thinking, because despite the pain in her eyes, she still managed to shoot Ophelia a warning glare. She jabbed emphatically upward with her bony finger. The meaning was clear. Get my girlfriend out of here already!

In that moment, Ophelia hated herself more than she had ever had. Still, she grabbed tightly to Gretchen and kicked upward. The whole while, she started to form a plan.

…

“Hello? Hello?”

Candeloro wasn’t talking anymore. Charlotte was already losing her mind, but if this kept up, she would end up conjuring up an entirely new mind just so she could lose that as well.

“Candeloro, where are you? Please, talk to me!”

Suddenly Ophelia popped up out of nowhere with a loud gasp. Charlotte jolted in shock. Then she swam toward her.

Ophelia was coughing badly, but she was managing to support Gretchen’s limp form. “What happened?” Charlotte said. “What’s going on?”

“D-Don’t know,” Ophelia wheezed. “Just…just hold onto her.”

Charlotte accepted the barely conscious girl. “Can you tell me anything?”

Ophelia shook her head. “N-No time. Gretchen’s…cough…Gretchen’s here, but now the karnuk’s…cough…got Homulilly!”

And the day just kept getting better and better. “Well, I got in contact with Candeloro,” Charlotte said. “Help…might be on the way, but-”

“No time!” Ophelia rolled her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Fuck this day!”

Then she dived down again.

“Where are you-” Then Charlotte cut herself off. What was the point anymore?

Meanwhile, she at least had something she could help with. “Hey, wake up!” she said, giving Gretchen a hard shake. “Come on, breathe!” She turned the girl around and put their mouths together. She exhaled as hard as she could.

Fortunately, Gretchen wasn’t completely out, and this did the trick of waking her up. Her eyes bulged open, and she vomited seawater.

Right into Charlotte’s open mouth.

The two of them fell back from each other, each coughing and sputtering. “What’s going on?” Gretchen managed to get out between hacking fits. “What h-h-happened?”

Charlotte spat out the rest of the seawater. “You got free somehow, but now the karnuk’s got Homulilly, Ophelia dove after her, and I-”

“What?” Gretchen squeaked.

“Yes! And please don’t dive down too! You’ll just drown again or get eaten! Or both!”

Gretchen stared at her like she was crazy. Her gaze then slipped down toward the water.

Then she raised her arm up. Somehow, her bow was still in her grasp. How, Charlotte didn’t know, but judging by the look on Gretchen’s face, she really wished that the kid didn’t have it right now.

Sure enough, she dove right back down again.

Charlotte screamed. There were no words to her scream, she just felt the need to vent her anger, terror, and frustration to the world. Damn her stupid, noble, and stupid friends and their heroic impulses! No wonder they had dealt with alien powers so they could protect their city from monsters! It had to have been in their blood!

And hers as well, because to be quite frank, if it weren’t for the fact that Charlotte had to keep the distress signal steady, she would be down there with them. In fact, it was taking everything she had to keep from diving down to save Homulilly as well.

She turned her attention back to her phone. “Come on!” she screamed. “Candeloro, where the hell are you?”

Suddenly the top of the cliffs, barely visible in the dark, lit up with bright, golden light. Charlotte almost dropped her phone in surprise. What the hell was that?

…

Gretchen really was in no condition to go chasing after sea monsters. She had pretty much just drowned, and her whole body still felt weak, groggy, and pained from the ordeal. More than likely she would just end up drowning herself again.

She was doing it anyway. Because the person she loved more than anything was in danger. Gretchen was fully prepared to walk through Hell and back to save her.

Which…was getting just a little too close to being literal for her taste.

Though her sight was still a little blurry, Gretchen could see Ophelia below her. And below Ophelia, Homulilly was being dragged down by the karnuk. She was disturbingly easy to spot, as there was a cloud of dark violet billowing around her.

Her leg. The karnuk’s teeth were sunk in. It was going to rip her apart.

Gretchen suddenly found a burst of energy that she hadn’t known she still had. No. Not today.

But how was she going to catch up to them? The karnuk was by far the stronger and faster swimmer. Gretchen was still weak, and Ophelia was completely out of her element. The karnuk was almost to the darkness that ringed the light from Charlotte’s phone. If it managed to vanish, Homulilly would be gone.

No, it had to be stopped now, before it descended any further.

Fortunately, Ophelia had that covered.

Though her friend’s attempts at swimming were quite pitiful, what she did next most certainly was not. Ophelia stopped swimming and swiped at the karnuk with a forceful gesture, like she was throwing a hand grenade.

Well, she didn’t have a hand grenade handy, a moment later she had plenty of help.

And entire squad of Ophelias suddenly filled the water. There had to be at least twenty of them, if not more. And unlike their progenitor, they had no problem zipping through the water.

The Ophelia squad zoomed down like a eagles swooping on unsuspecting prey. They reached the karnuk and immediately began swarming around it, forming a sphere of bodies that continued swirling around and around and around.

The karnuk stopped immediately, no doubt bewildered by this strange new means of attack. Of course it was perfectly safe. Ophelia’s duplicates were simple illusions, with no real substance to them at all. But it didn’t know that.

However, it wouldn’t be long before it figured out that they had no scent or anything else. Ophelia had done her part. Now it was time for Gretchen to do hers.

It wasn’t a conscious decision that she made. It wasn’t as if she had thought to try her next move to see if it worked. She just found herself taking her bow up, aiming it at the karnuk, and pulling back on the string.

Of course, she had no ammo. A bow without arrows was completely useless, except maybe to strangle someone like it had her when she had first woken up five years ago. Besides, shooting an arrow underwater? Completely preposterous.

And yet when she released the string, a shining pink lance shot out straight and true. It pierced through the sphere of Ophelias and scattered them to splash against the karnuk’s side.

It didn’t kill it. Heck, it didn’t even hurt it that badly, though there was suddenly a patch of burnt flesh just hovering in the water. But it did hurt it, and it startled it enough to release its hold on Homulilly’s leg.

That had been what Gretchen was waiting for. She spun her body around and shot her legs out. The water offered minimal resistance and they soon wrapped around Homulilly’s body. Gretchen retracted them as quickly as she could, dragging Homulilly along with them.

They had done it! Gretchen looked to Ophelia to share in their victory, but to her dismay the older girl was floating limply in the water, her upper body slumped over. Apparently making all those illusions underwater had taken everything she had left.

And quite frankly, Gretchen was close to blacking out herself. She almost had Homulilly brought up to herself, but her retracting legs were starting to slow.

Come on, she told herself. Stay awake. Just…gotta get to the surface, then you can…you can…

Far beneath her, the misty violet cloud dispersed. And something big started to rise up, visible only through a single patch of burnt skin.

And it was angry.

…

The light on the cliff had faded. Charlotte shook her head and blinked her eyes. What the hell had that been?

Maybe it was some kind of rescue vehicle. Maybe help was almost there! Maybe the nightmare was close to being done!

Sure enough, even with the storm still raging and the surf still crashing, she could just make out a sound coming from above, a weird fluttering, like dozens of paper propellers cutting the air.

Suddenly something popped up nearby. It was Ophelia! Her friend looked unconscious, but hey, that was a step above being eaten!

Moments later Gretchen also surfaced. She also looked like she was out.

But what about Homulilly? Charlotte couldn’t see her. Had the karnuk gotten her?

Worry about that later. Charlotte swam first over to Ophelia and hoisted her up with one arm. Yeah, she was totally out. Grimacing, Charlotte hauled her over to where Gretchen was bobbing up and down and grabbed onto her too.

Okay, two out of three. She was guessing that their rescue attempt hadn’t gone well. Trying very hard not to think of the ramifications of that, Charlotte’s mind was racing. Apparently help was on the way. The coast guard was already coming the area, looking for the karnuk, right? And they were doing it submarines, right? Maybe they could catch up to it before it dismembered and devoured her friend!

Maybe.

The chopping sound was growing louder. Holding onto Ophelia and Gretchen the best she could, Charlotte squinted up at the sky to try to see the source.

A second later she was screaming as something literally came up beneath them to shove them right up out of the water. Dropping everything she had been holding onto, Charlotte found herself tumbling across something slick and smooth to tumble back into the water.

Her phone sank down, taking its light with it.

Charlotte clawed her way above the surface and looked around wildly, trying to catch a glimpse of the thing that had ran into her.

What she saw defied all sense.

There was a massive hump of, well, water rising up out of the sea. It wasn’t a wave. It wasn’t a bubble. It was remaining stationary despite the waves moving past it in their relentless march toward the cliffs.

What was more, it looked like part of it had been burned.

Charlotte gawked. Oh no. No, no, no, no…

Then the hump started to move, moving toward her with all the surety of a missile.

Charlotte tried to swim away, though she already knew that it was useless. No, no, no, no!

“Help!” she screamed at the heavens. “Help us!”

And the heavens replied.

A voice rang out, a voice that she knew better than any other. And yet she had never heard it speak like that before, full of power, authority, and majesty, shouting out what could only be described as a battle cry.

And what it called out was, “Tiro Finale!”

…

“Distress signal descending,” Ashely noted.

Oktavia barely heard her. They were all about the sub, cutting through the water toward whatever unlucky dumbfuck had been stupid enough to go boating out in the worst storm the territory had seen in years. And she was…getting kind of preoccupied.

Everything had her on edge. The storm, the still-as-of-yet unfound and uncaught karnuk, Hitomi, her friends, her weird reactions to her own music, everything. As excited as she had been to be out scouring the seas, she now wanted nothing more to be back home, in her own bed, her girlfriend in her arms, content in the knowledge that everyone was safe and sound.

“Looks like its sinking,” Ashley continued. “Uh, I guess they dropped it or something.”

“That, or they capsized,” Nina noted.

“Maybe. We’re close enough that I can get an ID at least. Hang on. Looks like it’s from a phone…belonging to…a Charlotte, and…”

Oktavia jerked up. “Wait, what?!”

Ashley turned toward her, her face pensive. “Hey, isn’t that the name of one of your soul sisters?”

Oktavia’s illusionary heartbeat pounded away like a drum. “My Charlotte? Is it my Charlotte?”

Ashely moved aside to let Oktavia see the screen she had been reading. Sure enough, there were Charlotte’s credentials.

But why would Charlotte of all people be lost at sea? She didn’t even have a boat!

Something had happened, something bad. Oktavia just knew.

“Hey, I’m getting a message from…the marshals?” Nina said. “They’re on the nearby cliffs. Apparently some shit had gone down, and…several people got stranded. Hang on.”

“Where are we?” Oktavia said hoarsely. “What’s our exact location?”

Ashely showed her. Sure enough, they were near the cliffs of Oktavia’s home.

Oktavia unbuckled herself. She rolled out of her seat to flop on the floor. “Ready the hatch!” she said as she power-crawled on her elbows toward the back of the sub.

“What? What are you-”

“Just do it! My friends are out there, and I’m going to go get them!”

…

With a low, rumbling groan, the hump descended back into the sea, weird bluish blood seeping from its back to mix with the seawater.

Charlotte just floated in place, her jaw hanging open.

Then several graceful golden lines descended from above. One wrapped around Ophelia’s still form and plucked her up out of the water. Another lifted Gretchen up as well, her bow now somehow tangled up around her wrist. Her legs had been extended, and were trailing down into the water even after being lifted up. Fortunately, they ended up being wrapped around Homulilly, who came up soon after.

Well, that was all well and good, but Charlotte still had no idea what was going on.

Then one of the golden lines came down to gently wrap around her middle and pulled her up out of the water as well. She stared down at it.

She knew what it was. It wasn’t a line, it was a yellow ribbon, a ribbon that she knew extremely well. She often held it in her own hand, or had it wrapped around her waist, or had it draped across her shoulders, or grabbing at her butt, or tying around her wrists during moments of intimacy. She knew that ribbon better than most of the things in her life.

Then, though she feared to do so, she slowly looked up.

The scene above Charlotte’s head was simply beyond belief. There seemed to be a flying machine of some kind, one made of several levels of hundreds of yellow and red ribbons that all swirled around and around, forming something that was part propellers, part hang-glider.

And at its center, with one hand raised to cling onto the end of the ribbons and the other holding onto what could only be described as a silver cannon, was a woman, a woman with golden hair tied in spiral tails to either side of her head, a woman who was wearing a strange uniform in white, brown, black, and gold.

Charlotte knew that woman of course, but she had never seen her like this, had never seen her demonstrating abilities like that before, had never seen her wear anything close to that outfit, and most of all, had never seen her with fucking arms and hands before!

“No,” Charlotte whispered.

Candeloro let her cannon simply vanish. Then she looked down at Charlotte with the saddest smile she had ever worn.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” she mouthed. “I’m so sorry.”

…

Someone had been forgotten, someone left deep beneath the waves.

Hitomi floated lower and lower. She had drowned a long time ago, and was comfortably oblivious to everything that had occurred above her.

Or at least, that was how it should have been. But despite her willingness to accept her own (re)death, something within her wasn’t ready to just slip away into that good night just yet.

Her mind jerked back away from the black. The vapors that made up her soul suddenly started kicking. They were starved for oxygen, but they had some reserve power left, just enough to jolt Hitomi back away from the void.

She didn’t want to wake up. Waking up was hard, painful, and would just lead to drowning again.

Still, whether it be some magical sense of the danger she was now in or sheer human stubbornness and insistence to keep on existing, she slowly found herself creeping back to wakefulness.

The first thing she noticed was that she was floating. The second was that she was very cold. The third was that she couldn’t breathe. The first she was perfectly fine with, the second she could tolerate, the third was kind of a problem.

Her chest suddenly contracted, and her eyes popped open.

What she saw was…pretty weird. She was deep underwater. But for some reason there was light. A glowing white triangle was floating nearby, illuminating the whole area. That was weird enough.

But what Hitomi saw above her was even weirder. It was some kind of blur, with one black spot and something trailing out of it. She couldn’t make out what it actually was, as her eyes seemed to be refusing to actually see most of it. But it was big, and it was coming right toward her.

Huh. Maybe she ought to do something about it.

A small, almost casual thought, and her umbrella was back in her hand. She didn’t give it a verbal command, she didn’t even make a solid decision. She just let her intentions seep across her body into the umbrella. And then she let it go.

As the…thing barreled toward her, the umbrella floated between it and Hitomi.

And then its canopy popped open.

…

“What have you done?” Charlotte cried. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she stared in despair at the most wonderful and most terrible thing she had ever seen. “What have you done?”

Candeloro (no, not Candeloro! That was fucking Mami Tomoe she was looking at) just sadly shook her head. “I had to, Charlotte.”

“But…but…”

Right about then a bright green flash appeared in the sky, not far from where they were hovering.

Charlotte and Mami both forgot their confrontation and turned to see the damnedest thing. There seemed to be a partially transparent aquatic monstrosity suddenly pop into the sky.

Charlotte’s jaw dropped again. The karnuk?! Here?! It had followed them into the sky?! But how? Forget everything else that had happened, this was just plain impossible.

And apparently the karnuk agreed.

It suddenly fell, all the way back toward the ocean, where it disappeared with a monstrous splash.

Words had completely and utterly failed Charlotte. She just stared.

Fortunately, Mami had the perfect thing to say. “What the fuck was that?”

…

The karnuk was done!

Everything was just a terrible mess. First it had zeroed on what had looked to be easy prey, some kind of tentacled thing, only for it to suddenly start fighting back, tying up the karnuk’s whole body before disappearing completely!

Then it had gone for another small creature and had almost gotten away with it, only for it to suddenly be swarmed by an entire school of bizarre things that had swarmed around it and confused it, just before something hot and burning slammed into its side, causing it to lose its new prey.

Then it had gotten mad and tried to just end the whole stupid ordeal once and for all, only for it to be attacked by something that had hurt even more, forcing a retreat!

And finally, when it looked like it had come across some easy prey on its way down, it had suddenly found itself far, far above the water’s surface, only to plummet back down again.

Well, no more! Clearly there were things in these waters far deadlier than it had ever anticipated! It was going to find a place to lay low and heal up, and then it was out of there! It would find some other territory to hunt in, preferably one that wasn’t filled with freaks!

But as it readied itself to dive again, something struck its side. The karnuk recoiled. Oh, what was it now?

Then all of a sudden it blacked out.

…

There. The thing was gone.

Satisfied, Hitomi relaxed. Okay, now she could sleep peacefully, just let herself drift away into the dark.

Her eyes closed, but then they opened again. And she was glad of it.

An angel was coming to take her away. It was Sayaka, her dear friend, coming to escort her to the hereafter. Hitomi smiled. She knew she would find her again. And she only had to die twice in order to do so.

But that reunion would have to wait, as she just felt so, so sleepy.

The darkness finally claimed her just as a strong pair of hands grabbed onto her wrist.

…

Okay. Time for a small confession.

See, I was kind of mentally beat this week, and slacked off a lot. So when Sunday popped up and my deadline was looming, this installment wasn’t even halfway done.

So to get it finished, I called upon the dark powers that had fueled much of my early writing, the powers that had churned out many a chapter in rapid succession but completely destroyed my health to the extent that I needed to eventually go to the doctor and completely change my lifestyle to fix.

Basically, I drank an energy drink for the first time in years, and wrote nearly twenty pages in a single, caffeine-hazed day.

So I don’t know if that explains anything about how this chapter came out, just know if something needs explaining, there’s your explanation.

I’m not apologizing though.

And yes, this is pretty much as Resonance Daysish that this story is going to get, but it’s been so long since I had a big, dramatic climax that it felt good to cut loose again. Also, any explanations about why certain decisions were made will come at a later date.

Until next time, everyone.

#walpurgis nights

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phantom-meteorite · 5 years

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Rules: List 10 songs you’ve been listening to and tag 10 people

I was tagged by @lokiandbuckyaremine thanks so much for the tag :D

1. Hello, Again (Cover) by Jubyphonic

2. Alien Alien by Rachie

3. Rollin by Danny Gonzalez

4. The Top by Tsuko G.

5. G. R. N. D. by GARNiDELiA

6. Resonance by AmaLee

7. Sail (Cover) by Jonathan Young

8. Virus by Martin Garrix and MOTi

9. Turn It Up by Armin van Buuren

10. Chururia Chururia Daddadda! (Cover) by Oktavia

I’ll tag: @cest-la-vie-ma-copine @epahetero @pinkrosesandblackthorns @your-local-hot-alien-princess @undead-opossum @celfi @queenofghost @spoiledspine @artemis311 @unicornglitternutellacookie

(Not required to do and if not tagged feel free to do this :D)

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the-storyteller-and-her-soldiers · 6 years

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Angel AU

(Well this was inevitable! But real quick I gotta thank @lonelyselfship for helping me flesh this out as well as @deliciousgrass for listening to it and putting up with my music and off rail gushing! This is a universe all thought up in my head and no real hate for Kyrie, she's just perfect conflict so do forgive me there! Also, do forgive me if anyone is OOC I'm really sleepy **SCOLD ME LATER***

The initial AU was inspired by Oktavia's cover of "A Mistaken Belief of Love" please check it out!)

I am a guardian angel who has this unrequited love for who I look over, Nero who still has his heart on Kyrie. So as long as he's happy I should be as well yet he's still so kind to me and we keep having these moments where it seems that he loves me too.

Lingering touches, tight embraces where I'm always the first to let go since he doesn't want to, him nearly kissing me but only stopping when Kyrie comes in.

The utter heartbreak of wanting to be with him and the feeling of loathing for Kyrie is actually destroying me because angels are meant to be these beings of unconditional love.

I try to tell Nero goodbye since I can't continue to slowly kill myself over them but since Nero doesn't understand just what he's doing to me, and since he DOES have feelings for me, when I give him a hug of goodbye he holds me and convinces me to stay because I really could never say no to him and I melt as he kisses my forehead.

So I continue to work through this love sickness of mine and just try to enjoy my time with Nero, thinking one day he could be mine.

Yet just as that hope builds up it all crashes down as I see them together, kissing. While she tells me when they approach, that she's finally allowing herself to be with him. I give them my hasty blessings before running off since it's like I've been shot and I'm actually coughing up blood and what not.

Seeing that something's immensely wrong with me, Nero runs after me.

He finds me really worse for wear wandering around one of the abandoned places we liked to visit together (something he could never do with Kyrie but he and I love doing) I'm barely able to stay standing since my body's shaking so much, there's still a steady stream of blood running down my chin and now down my neck since I'm coughing up so much and my cheeks are red and stained with hot tears.

Nero frantically asks me what the hell is going on as he reaches out and grabs me. And this time I can finally explain that I knew he never loved me and I killed myself by mistakenly believing that he would

When everything sinks in Nero freaking loses it as tears begin forming in his own eyes while he holds my fading life in his arms, pressing me against him to hide me away from the world as if that would stop me from leaving him.

(Here's my angelic S/I before the damage is done!)

As Nero kisses me desperate to feel my warm lips on his just once so I know that he does love me, my angelic features fall and as a transition begins. My light wings fall away into ash and horns sprout upon my head yet Nero still looks at me like I'm the most beautiful person in the world.

It's a kinda painful transformation but if Nero doesn't help me through the transformation it'll be so much worse. Afterward, Nero is such a sweetheart and just happy that I'm safe and well

(Also here's my demon s/i ref!! I felt that I'd have a green tint to my brown eyes since I was lovelorn and jealous **sadly the maker didn't have that so I went with one green and the closed eye is brown** and the fluffy white wings I had burnt away to the charred bone. Although I usually keep them hidden along with my horns!)

(Now here's where an ot3 sub-AU begins!)

Other angels would look down on me because not only did I do this to myself and then not accept the consequences (even though it was Nero who wouldn't accept them) but Nero and I rewrote "the plan" while with demons they will take any chance at more power and since I'm not only extremely weak from being newly turned I used to be an angel of all things! So I'd be one hell of a target for them

So at this point, we've fled far away to where the only reason why Nero is known is that he's an excellent demon hunter. I'm just his cute girlfriend

It would totally include that moment where he introduces me as such and I'm like "I am?!?"

People are wary of his demonic side but he's been nothing but helpful so they don't pay too much mind!

Hearing about this part demon, demon hunter, Gladio comes in clearly skeptical as a hunter himself. The two are called into a mission together and the tension between them is noticeable but they're efficient.

When Gladio comes to get Nero for a debriefing he meets me. I'm so sweet and genuine towards him, Gladio wonders how Nero managed to sweep me off my feet.

Yet as an expert hunter he does catch things about me that aren't noticed in normal humans and decides to keep an eye on me for that reason alone, he tells himself

Now remember when I said that other demons will do anything for power?? Well, Nero is usually protecting me from them. But the one time he's away on a mission I'm sought out and in way over my head for any type of fight.

That's when Gladio gets in between the demon and me, keeping it away from me.

But in an attempt to bargain with Gladio, the demon confesses that they're only here for the "young one" and would leave Gladdy and the other humans alone if he just gave me over.

Luckily for me, Gladio would much rather kill the demon right then. Though once it lay (basically slaughtered) before him, Gladdy has blade pointed at me demanding answers.

Also, remember that "plan" that the angels had and Nero and I shattered when we fell for each other?? In that plan, I was meant to be with Gladio

Nero would come back home to find Gladdy still interrogating me about being a demon and what I think I'm doing here.

Nero would be understandably pissed when he sees how distraught I am but when I explain what happened to lead Gladio here and Nero just sits beside me, glaring down Gladio while comforting me and answering any questions that I couldn't.

Nero bitterly informs Gladio on what I used to be and what happened to lead us to where we are now.

When Gladio's satisfied with our answers, Nero basically throws him out and threatens that if Gladdy comes near me to harm me then there will be hell to pay.

Yet Gladdy is still drawn to me (due to the angels' plan) yet he can't understand why since it's not out of any disdain but near infatuation.

That is until Kyrie, who now is a priestess, comes into town as a messenger of the angels

So she finds Gladio and is the one to inform him that he was supposed to be my partner.

Suddenly all his uncertain feelings are laid to rest as he realizes that he couldn't kill me because he was in love with me. So that dawning happiness swiftly storms into a rage when Kyrie tells him that it was Nero who ripped that away from him. Even though the only other option was to let me die...

That's all I have right now but I'm really enjoying how it's coming, even if it is a bit self-indulgent! But there’s nothing wrong with that every now and again!!

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archive-creamycomet · 7 years

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Hey Comet! You've probably answered this before, but are there any Yashiro/Satoru songs you have as favorites for them? Recently I've been listening to A Love Like War by All Time Low, and it kind of gives me a Yashisato vibe because it feels like it can be seen in different perspectives throughout the song. Especially the lyrics, "No escape from the truth and the weight of it all, I am caught in the web of a lie." gives me a major Satoru vibe

Oh my goodness, All Time Low! That brings me back! I might be dating myself a little, but as a young teen I would listen to “Dear Maria, Count Me In” and belt it in my bedroom all the time. Hearing a song by them I haven’t heard before is low… wow. Bizarro dimension. I can definitely see the Yashisato potential though!!

Also – I have so many! I cycle out of Bokumachi songs depending on what fic I’m writing haha, but they tend to be not-English, since hearing words when I’m writing words usually throws me off. When I find a song that fits the mood I want I tend to just play it on repeat as white noise that keeps me on the right track, tonally. That said, I’ll try to keep it general!

“Delusion Girl” by Touyu (English Ver) – TW: depression, suicide. A really good original timeline!Satoru song, especially Oktavia’s English version which is my personal fave. It’s one of those songs where I wouldn’t really change a single line, it’s so perfect for that sad, future version of Satoru. Someone bogged down by regret, hoping to save even one person. I would recommend throwing on Closed Captioning to see the lyrics, since the (beautiful) PV can get a bit busy!

“Dark History Maker” by 5key-z – Also a sad original timeline Satoru song, but this one is less visceral about it than Delusion Girl. Focuses more on how there’s memories that hurt, how you’ve stopped dreaming and – how do you fight for something when there’s nothing left, really? It even brings up how badly they want to go back and erase the past.

“Last Continue” by PinocchioP – Another Satoru song where I could basically pluck any single line and tell you why it’s perfect for Satoru. The idea of being a hero on their “last continue,” whose shredded heart wants to heal, who was manipulated by someone and wants to go back, if only because they felt they should do something. Between the beeps (like a heart monitor) and the references to being stuck between this life and the next, I always imagined it as a song from the perspective of Satoru in his coma.

“Idola no Circus” by Neru – Probably my ultimate Yashiro song right now? I linked the Himeringo cover because I dig how she really belts this song out. But this is another song where I feel like I can pull out any line and it would still be perfect. You can argue about whether or not this is from the perspective of young or older Yashiro, but the references to wearing a mask and all the Buddha/thread references tied into it… aaaah, perfect! One thing I like about it: do you think the “you” in the song is Satoru, or Yashiro talking back to himself? (There’s also an awesome animated PV, though I can’t find a version with English subs.)

“GIRL” by DAOKO – Probably a seemingly weird pick, but I think it words really well for Yashiro, especially after the 3:00 mark. This is basically a song about someone who has always lived alone and has finally encountered someone they want to love. Now they want to have everything from that person, even though everyone else glows with something they lack. But nothing will suffice but them. The PV even has the visual of someone searching in their chest for their heart, but only finding a hole.

“MKDR” by DECO*27 – Hit Closed Captioning for English subs! A kind of resigned song about being stuck in a love that you know isn’t good or healthy. But neither party wants to leave, either. I really like how it brings up the concepts of returning/reincarnation, having a future, even throwing in some spider/butterfly visuals in the PV. I think it makes for a really Yashisato song!

“Ru-Rararu-Ra-Rurararu-Ra-” by Sayuri – Again, hit Closed Captioning for English lyrics. This is just, 110% my “Origin Story” song. Just. Every line. It’s perfect. I can listen to it forever and see the whole story in front of me. It obviously works really well as a Satoru and Kayo song as well, but it’s too embedded in my mind to be anything but “Origin Story” now. (Bonus points: if Sayuri sounds familiar, it’s because she also sang the Bokumachi ED!)

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enchanted-flowers · 7 years

Note

(Housewife Radio Anon Again) You should listen to Oktavia's cover of it, that's what got me hooked.

This is some good shit 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌

#Anonymous

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takerfoxx · 5 years

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RD Walpurgis Nights 8: Part 3

Then…

The last stringy leg came loose from the strand of barbed wire it had been twisted around, and the horrible thing fell loose. Gasping, Kriemhild Gretchen curled it up close to the rest of her body as the throbbing pain finally started to recede.

Kriemhild still had no answers. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know why she was tied naked in such a torturous position and exposed to the elements. Heck, she didn’t even know her own name. And above all, she didn’t know what she even was, why her legs were such a bizarre nest of wiry…things. Was she even human?

Still, as she clung to the hour hand of the massive clock face with all her legs wrapped around its base, she was grateful that she had been mutated in such a way. At least it meant that she had a way to keep herself from falling. She tried to look out at whatever it was that lay below her, but it was weird, twisted, made no sense at all, and seemed to be moving, so she stopped.

Kriemhild couldn’t decide if she was more terrified or confused. Nothing about any of this made any sense. It had to be some kind of demented nightmare. If she tried hard enough, she could almost make herself believe that, believe that she was safe in her own bed somewhere, and in a few moments she would wake with a start, wondering what she had ate to give her such a vivid dream.

Except that the bitter cold was too real to be a dream. As had been the pain.

“Help!” she screamed out as loud as she could. “Please, help me!” Her words were swallowed up by the wind.

The height was starting to make her nauseous, so she turned away and closed her eyes. Tears were prickling at her eyes. Why was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve something like this?

Then she so happened to blink her eyes and look up. She gasped.

There was someone else there, someone tied to the top of the same clock hand she was clinging to. Kriemhild gaped, then her face hardened with resolution.

Fully maneuvering herself around so that she was fully facing the clock hand was a terrifying experience, and she had to talk herself through switching the position of each individual leg. But she got it. Then she began to climb.

She was already far, far too high up, and making herself go even higher took every ounce of willpower. Every centimeter of height gained felt like a battle, and there was precious little for her legs to hold onto. The cold metal of the hour hand was agony against her bare skin, and its length seemed impossibly long.

Don’t look down, she told herself. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down…

The higher she got, the clearer the other person became. It seemed to be another naked girl, also strapped in place by barbed wire. Well, that was enough reason to try to free her. Kriemhild gritted her teeth and pressed onward and upward.

The climb seemed to take forever, though in truth it was less than a minute, but finally she was passing over the girl’s body. The girl was pale of skin and completely unconscious, just as Kriemhild had been. Her long raven hair blew freely in the wind. On top of her head was a scarlet flower bud. Some kind of weird metal disc covered where her wrists were bound to the clock hand over her head, like some sort of lock.

Also, her arms and shoulders were nothing more than bare bones, completely free of flesh.

For a moment Kriemhild thought that she had come so far just to reach a corpse, but then the other girl moved. It was a slight reflex, just a simple shifting of her weight, but her eyelids fluttered and she let out a small moan.

Kriemhild blinked. Wait, what?

She lifted a finger, hesitated, and then reached up and poked the bones of the other girl’s upper arm. It reflexively moved away from her touch, just like a living arm.

Another monster then, like her. For some reason she was almost cheered by the thought.

She then studied the other girl’s face. There was something achingly familiar about her, something important. A name was clawing its way up through her swirling memory, something so close and dear, and yet she couldn’t seem to grasp it.

“Hom…” she whispered, and then it was gone, dissipating like a dream.

Then the other girl stirred again. She groaned, louder this time.

Encouraged by this, Kriemhild gently shook her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “Wake up.”

“Uh…”

“Wake up!” Kriemhild’s shaking grow more urgent. “Please, you have to wake up!”

The other girl blinked her eyes. Kriemhild breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re awake!” Then she glanced up to where the other girl’s arms were still bound. “Just…Just hang on! I’ll get you off!”

The other girl blinked in confusion. She looked down, and her eyes widened.

“What?” she said with a small gasp. “Where?”

But before Kriemhild could answer, the other girl then looked up.

And she screamed.

Kriemhild winced at the shrill sound. “Calm down, calm down!” she said, though she herself felt anything but calm. “I know it’s scary, but I need you to hold still while I get you loose!”

The other girl gaped at her. “What…who…what am…where are…who are you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Kriemhild. Kriemhild Gretchen. Do you have a name?”

The other girl stared at her. “A name? A name? I don’t…I don’t remember anything! How can I-”

Then she blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I think I do. My name is…”

…

Now…

Homulilly opened her eyes.

With the fogginess of sleep still upon her, the mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity around her completely bewildered her for a moment. Like always, she was lying with her face toward the wall, Gretchen spooning up against her, their heavy blanket cocooning them both.

But the wall was papered with a floral pattern instead of being painted pale blue. Also, their mattress was all…swimmy.

Frowning, Homulilly turned her head. The ceiling was all different too. What in the world…

Then enough of her mind emerged from the haze to remind her of her current circumstances. The pleasant surprise was enough to wake her up fully.

“Oh,” she said out loud.

Then she heard a soft giggle. She turned all the way around to find Gretchen already awake and smiling at her.

“Surprised you too?” Gretchen said.

“A little. But I’ll get used to it. I mean, all the important stuff is still around.”

The two softly kissed. Then they kicked their bedcovers away and started getting ready for the day.

Their pajamas were stripped off and clothes were put on in short order. Then they left their room. It was a little strange going down the hall for the bathroom instead of having it connect directly, but oh well. They relieved themselves, washed up, helped each other with their hair, and then headed downstairs.

They smelled breakfast before they saw it, and it smelled wonderful. It wasn’t as if the meals at the FIB were bad by any stretch of the imagination, but even masterful cooks like Candeloro and Charlotte would have their skills diluted if they had to cook for as many people as the FIB housed. But since they didn’t, it meant that Homulilly and Gretchen were probably going to have to start watching their weight.

Homemade blueberry waffles, sausage, toast with butter and jam, and fresh fruit were waiting for them. The others were already there around the table, with Charlotte serving out the portions.

“And here they are,” Ophelia said as the two came down the stairs. “Good morning, you two. Sleep well?”

“Very!” Gretchen said as she literally bounded across the kitchen. “Good morning, everyone!”

She and Homulilly took their seats, said grace, and dug in.

“So, any big plans for today?” Charlotte asked while they ate.

“Nope!” Gretchen said cheerfully. “Just unpacking.”

“We’ve been really stressed out all week,” Homulilly admitted. “So today we’re just going to, you know, decompress.”

“Goof ideash,” Oktavia said through a mouthful of toast.

“Later on I do kind of want to get the hang of that bow though,” Gretchen said.

“For real?” Ophelia said.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve always felt like I needed some kind of real hobby. And archery sounds fun.”

“Jeez, you’re gonna make me feel bad for giving up on the spear,” Ophelia sighed.

Oktavia swallowed. “Do you have to take everything as a challenge?”

“Says the girl whose first impulse, upon hearing that there was an honest-to-God sea monster swimming around, was to go out and fight it!”

“I’m not going to fight it!” Oktavia complained. “I’m going to catch it!”

“When is that going to happen, by the way?” Homulilly said.

“It’s already started,” Oktavia said. “For most of the week, actually. I just took some time off to help you guys settle in.” She frowned. “They better not find it while I’m home.”

“Hmmm,” Ophelia said in a tone that implied that she would be perfectly happy with them finding the karnuk without Oktavia’s help.

And then the phone in the kitchen rang.

Candeloro sighed. “I’ll get it,” she said as she rose. “It had better not be my work calling me in. I asked for today off for a reason!”

She went into the kitchen and answered the phone. “Hello?”

Homulilly went back to eating. She picked up a piece of buttered toast smothered with raspberry jam and took a bite.

“Oh, hello,” she heard Candeloro say. “Yes, they’re here. Why, did they forget something?”

Homulilly froze with the toast still in her mouth.

“Oh,” Candeloro said. “Oh. Yes, we did hear something about that.”

Homulilly opened her mouth and slowly placed the piece of toast back down onto her plate. She glanced over to Gretchen, who glanced back. Ophelia, Oktavia, and Charlotte had also stopped eating. They all turned their attention to the kitchen and listened intently.

“I see,” Candeloro said with a sigh. “Well, that is…Wait, she wants to do what? Um, are you sure that’s…a good idea? I mean…Yes. Yes, I understand. All right, I’ll let them know, but I make no promises. Of course. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Candeloro hung up the phone and rejoined the rest of the group in the dining room. She was clearly troubled.

“Well,” she said as she sat back down again. “I suppose you all know what that was about.”

“Hitomi,” Gretchen said. Both of Homulilly’s hands curled into fists, and she hastily stuck them onto her lap, out of sight.

“So that’s her name,” Charlotte muttered. Oktavia blinked, and then frowned.

“Yes, that’s right,” Candeloro said. “Apparently seeing you two badly upset her.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Homulilly said in a bitter tone.

“Anyway, that was the FIB. Obviously. And they said that she was pretty hysterical for most of the night and only calmed down early this morning.”

Oktavia breathed out. “Wow. Poor kid.”

Poor kid. Sure. That was one way of putting it.

“So, what do they want them to do about it?” Charlotte asked, motioning toward Homulilly and Gretchen with her fork.

Candeloro shook her head. “Well, nothing, actually. I mean, it’s obvious that this isn’t their responsibility. But apparently she’s been asking to talk to them.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go with ‘Hell no’,” Ophelia said as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That’s all kinds of a bad idea.”

“Is it?” Gretchen said.

“It is,” Homulilly said flatly. Gretchen shot her a bewildered look.

“It is,” Charlotte confirmed. “Look guys, I don’t know how much about this you know, but it’s super dangerous for a witch to talk to a Puella Magi that she knew in her past life. Just hearing your old name can mess you up.” She raised an eyebrow. “In fact, seeing how shaken you two were, I’m willing to bet that it did.”

Homulilly sighed. “It did, a little,” she admitted.

“So it’s settled. You’re not talking to her.”

Gretchen still looked unconvinced. “But there has to be something we can do for her,” she said. “I mean, it’s kind of cruel to just leave her like that.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Okay, look: you remember what it was like during your first few days, when you were still trying to wrap your heads around being dead, and aliens existing, and that you’re a weird, supernatural creature and stuff?”

“Yes,” Homulilly said. “I do.”

“So do I. And going through that is bad enough for a witch. But for a Puella Magi? Oh, it is so much worse. At least we don’t remember our old lives, so we can just jump in and start getting used to things. But Puella Magi still remember. They remember everything: their families, their friends, their dreams, their everything. So, that just makes it all the harder for them to accept the idea that they really are dead, that they left a corpse somewhere in another universe, and they’re never, ever going home again.”

The ends of Candeloro’s ribbons twisted together on the table in front of her, her way of clasping her hands. “Puella Magi tend to be…highly emotional during those first few days,” she added. “Irrational. Prone to outbursts.”

“I remember,” Gretchen said softly. “They were…very upset.”

“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “So even if they explain everything to this…what was her name again?”

“Hitomi.”

“Right. If they explain everything to Hitomi and get her to promise to behave herself, there’s no guarantee that she won’t have another fit and start trying to make you two remember. She might start screaming your old names over and over. She might even attack you. There’s no way to tell.”

“Attack us?” Gretchen swallowed noisily. “Um, th-that might actually happen?”

Homulilly nudged her pieces of waffle around her plate with her fork.

“It might,” Charlotte said. “Like I said, there’s no way to tell. But I for one don’t want you two taking the risk.”

“Agreed,” Homulilly said in a low voice.

Oktavia cleared her throat. “Um, I don’t suppose there’s a chance that she’s…mistaken? Like, maybe Gretchen and Homulilly just look kinda like her friends and she got them confused.”

“No,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes off her plate. “Those names she called us…I felt them. They’re ours.”

“Same here,” said Gretchen. “I’m very sure that she’s right. We did know her.”

Ophelia groaned. “Fuck me, what a mess.” Then, when Candeloro shot her a disapproving look, she just glared back. “Oh, what? They’re not kids anymore, they can handle a few dirty words. Besides, this is way more important.”

“I suppose,” Candeloro allowed. “Still, this does raise the question: what do we do about this?”

“Nothing,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, let’s face it: what happened to Hitomi sucked, but it’s not our problem.”

Gretchen immediately looked distraught. Even Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s kinda cold.”

“But it’s the truth. We can’t trust this Hitomi not to do something that’ll be damaging, and I’m sorry, but I’m more concerned with their wellbeing than I am with hers.”

“Huh,” Oktavia said, her forehead furrowing. “Okay, so hear me out. What about a compromise? Like, one of us goes to talk to her in their place.”

Candeloro shook her head. “It’s still the same problem. If we knew them in the past life, then there’s every chance that she knew all of us as well.”

A heavy silence fell, filled with uncomfortable glances and the pushing around of forks against plates. Ophelia noisily refilled her cup of orange juice. Oktavia’s chair hissed as she moved the seat back so she could stare up at the ceiling.

Then Charlotte groaned out loud. “Oh, damn it. It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Gretchen said, looking up abruptly.

“Well, it only makes sense,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, I’m the only that she probably never met. You know, considering.”

When everyone shot her several different kinds of looks, Charlotte rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, what? What? C’mon, we’ve already established that I probably wasn’t part of whatever superhero team you guys had. Maybe I got brought on at the last second as a plus one for some big fight, or hell, maybe I was the witch you all were fighting when things went sideways. It’s not like I’m sensitive about it. Hell, if you want to get technical about it, I’ve been part of this group longer than they have!” She motioned over to Homulilly and Gretchen. “My point is, if anyone is going to go talk to her, I’m our best bet.”

“Are you sure about this, babe?” Candeloro said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder. “I mean, you were pretty adamant that we have nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I don’t want this girl to hurt the people I care about,” Charlotte said. “I’m pretty much guaranteed to not get affected by the same stuff you guys are.”

“And if she tries to jank you?” Ophelia said, picking up a butter knife and making a stabbing motion.

“Then I knock her back on her ass. Come on, I know enough about taking care of myself to handle her at least.”

“Are you sure?” Gretchen said. “I mean, she’s a Puella Magi.”

“Apparently not a very good one, if she’s here already.”

Gretchen sighed. “I mean she still has her weapon.”

“Yeah, she sort of summoned up a…an umbrella thing?” Homulilly said with a frown.

“An umbrella? An umbrella?”

“You know, one of those fancy ones with the curved handle.”

Charlotte stared. “What’s she going to do, thwack me to death?”

Candeloro let out a very unladylike snort.

“You do know that this umbrella thing is probably magical,” Oktavia pointed out. “Who knows what it can do?”

“Who cares?” Charlotte said. “I’m going to be at the FIB anyway. Something goes screwy, they’ll shut it down immediately. Besides, even if she does somehow manage to blow my head off, it’ll grow back in like thirty minutes.”

“Well, there’s a cheery thought,” Ophelia said wryly. “And a really gross mental image. Thanks for that.”

Candeloro made a face. “Well, I don’t like it, but you’re probably right.”

“Thank you,” Gretchen said softly.

Ophelia cleared her throat. “Just, uh, you know, don’t go out of your way to antagonize the kid, okay?”

“Why would I?” Charlotte said in bewilderment.

“Because you got all the gentle tact of a steel mallet, and you’re already annoyed that she’s bothering us with this and might just take it out on her.”

Charlotte made a face, but nodded. “Fine. Okay, point. I’ll do my best to be nice.”

Nice. Right. Homulilly thought back to their brief encounter with Hitomi and how quickly she had lost her mind. She felt that it didn’t matter how gentle and polite Charlotte was going to be, it would still end in tears, if not outright violence.

…

“So, would that be all right?” Dr. Jazmine asked.

Hitomi stared back at her. She was sitting on the side of her bed, nervously chewing on her finger. Dr. Jazmine was kneeling in front of her, obviously trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

Were they afraid of her? Why? She was no one! She couldn’t even kill one witch! And the place was full of witches!

“Hitomi?”

Hitomi blinked. “Um, er, right. You want me to…talk. To a friend of Madoka and Homura.”

“Yes. They’re living with some friends, and one of them wants to talk to you on their behalf.””

“Right. Right. Um…why though? Why can’t I just talk to Madoka directly? Doesn’t she want to see me?”

“She does, but this is just a precaution. To be safe.”

Hitomi’s hands started shaking harder. “You think I would hurt her?”

“Of course not! At least, not on purpose. But like we said-”

“I know, I know!” Hitomi sighed. She fell silent, thinking. Dr. Jazmine let her, patiently waiting.

Finally Hitomi sighed. “Okay.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Y-Yeah,” Hitomi said, giving the barest of nods. She might as well. It was just another step, after all. Another step to being reunited with her friends.

Besides, if Madoka had new friends in this world, than she wanted to see what they were like. She wanted to see what she was up against.

…

The next day…

The walk from the shaded outskirt suburb that Charlotte lived with her friends to the narrow streets and tall buildings of Freehaven proper was not long. If they had ran, they could have cleared the distance in less than a minute, and from there it was a straight shot across the rooftops to the FIB. And running was such a common way of getting around that no one would have given her a second look.

Charlotte did not feel like running. She was not looking forward to this at all. So she walked.

Candeloro and Ophelia walked with her. They were definitely not going anywhere near Hitomi, but they were going along for moral support. Charlotte appreciated the gesture, even if it did mean that she felt all the more that she was heading into actual danger.

C’mon, get it together, she told herself. The kid’s probably more afraid of you than you are of her. You’re the one with all the power here. Just get in, play it safe, get the info, and get out.

“So, hey, hypothetical question,” Ophelia said. “Let’s say everything goes swimmingly, no one gets hurt, and it turns out that Hitomi did used to be our nearest, dearest friend. Do we adopt her too after she’s been…rehabilitated?”

Charlotte scowled.

“Where would we even put her?” Candeloro said. “We’ve used up all the rooms.”

“There’s Oktavia’ old trophy room, I guess,” Ophelia said. “Though it’s kind of small. But if it’s just her then I guess it could work.” She frowned. “Though if she gets a girlfriend before then, then that could, uh, complicate things.”

Charlotte sighed. She did kind of hope that it didn’t come to that. Meeting Homulilly and Gretchen had been a happy accident. With this Hitomi, she had known about her for less than a day before she started causing them tons of problems.

“Speaking of which, did anyone have any flashes of recognition to her name?” Candeloro continued.

“Nope. Nothing,” Ophelia said.

Charlotte shook her head. “Me neither.”

“Same,” Candeloro sighed.

“But Gretchen did say that she did,” Ophelia mused, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “Tavi did too, last night. She said she had some kind of weird bell go off in her head.”

“Yup,” Charlotte said. “We’re really learning a lot about how things used to be between us, ain’t we?”

Candeloro tilted her head toward her. “Char, are you okay?”

“Nope! I’m scared and upset and I really don’t want to do this.”

“You know, you don’t have to do this,” her wife said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.

“You’re sweet,” Charlotte said, giving the ribbon’s end a light squeeze. “But please don’t try to talk me out of this. I already agreed to it, and someone has to.”

“Okay, but just remember to bail if things get…dangerous,” Ophelia said. “She’s not going anywhere, and we don’t want you putting yourself in harm’s way if you don’t need to. Okay?”

“Kind of late for that,” Charlotte said as she came to a stop and looked up.

They had made it, with the Freehaven Integration Bureau towering over them. Most of the time the place seemed friendly and nostalgic. After all, they used to live there, and they had visited it often to see Gretchen and Homulilly.

But now it just felt bit and imposing. The sun was still rising over its other side, causing its shadow fall over the trio. Charlotte looked up into its windows and found herself remembering that it was as much an asylum as it was a school and place of rehabilitation. Not all the girls who passed through its halls got better. Maybe Hitomi would turn out to be one of them.

“Come on, Charly,” Ophelia said, lightly punching Charlotte in the arm. “You got this.”

“Sure,” Charlotte said, still staring up at the windows. “Yeah. I sure do.”

In the front lobby, one of the caretakers was waiting for her. Charlotte didn’t really know her, but she had often seen her around.

“Charlotte, right?” the caretaker said, walking over greet her. “Thank you so much for coming. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Dr. Jazmine Smith.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Charlotte said, shaking her hand. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is she?”

Dr. Jazmine winced. “She is…upset, and emotionally on edge. To tell the truth, this whole thing is kind of a risk. She was insistent on it though, refused to cooperate with us unless we let her talk to Kriemhild Gretchen. This was the one compromise we could get her to agree to.”

“I figured,” Charlotte sighed. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

Dr. Jazmine led her through the halls and talked as they went. “I was the first caretaker to welcome her, and she seems to respond best to me, so I’ll be in there with you to help calm her down if necessary. The whole exchange will be monitored by security, and should she do anything drastic like try to attack you, the failsafes will engage to neutralize her.”

“Failsafes?”

“A simple knockout field. She’ll just go to sleep. In the meantime, should she say anything that triggers anything in you, let us know immediately.”

“Like, that weird déjà vu feeling?”

“Exactly. If you two did not know each other as you suspect, then you ought to be all right. But why take chances?”

“Got it.”

They reached the staff elevator. Dr. Jazmine pressed a hand against a green pad, and it slid open. Despite herself, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel a little curious. This elevator had always been off-limits to her and the other residents during their own stay, and more than once someone tried to find their way in. Supposedly it was the only way to access the area where the…tougher cases were kept, which was underground.

They went inside and the door closed. As they headed downward, Dr. Jazmine hesitated, and then said, “Also, I do need you to watch what you say. As you probably know, newly arrived Puella Magi often come in emotionally traumatized and need special care to help them heal. And from what we’ve been told, Hitomi’s death was especially brutal. Please try to avoid bringing that up, and also watch what you say about witches in general. She didn’t find out about their true nature before she died, and is having trouble adjusting.”

Charlotte’s lips thinned out. “Even though…I’m a witch.”

“Yes,” Dr. Jazmine said with a sigh. “So please don’t take anything she says personally.”

“You know, this is starting to strike me as a really bad idea.”

“If you want to cancel-”

“No,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could finish. “I’m kind of committed at this point. But hey, out of curiosity, how often does something like this happen?”

“Not all that often,” Dr. Jazmine said. “But it does happen every now and then.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Charlotte found herself in a part of the FIB she had never been in before.

She had been expecting something cold and sterile, with raving girls restrained by straitjackets and tied to gurneys. To her surprise, it was very pleasant, with soft woods and carpeted floors. Even the lighting looked like natural sunlight.

Noticing Charlotte’s reaction, Dr. Jazmine allowed herself a small smile. “The girls down here aren’t prisoners, and they’re more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. It helps to have a comfortable place for them to stay while we treat them.”

That made sense, though Charlotte had to disagree on one point. Sure, maybe they had a good reason to keep them down here, and maybe it was a nice place, but any place that you weren’t allowed to leave was technically still a prison.

She thought back to her own stay in the FIB. She hadn’t had much interaction with those girls. Occasionally one would get better and be allowed to join her class, though they were under strict orders not to pelt anyone like that with intrusive questions, so she had just minded her own business. Occasionally she would see the others brought out into the playground for exercise, but they were always kept away from the rest of the students and kept under heavy supervision, so she never got a good look at them. They had seemed normal enough from what she remembered though.

As they passed through the halls, she couldn’t help but glance through the glass windows set in the doors. Most of the rooms were empty, though she did see the occasional caretaker working with some of the girls, usually one-on-one or in very small groups. Things seemed pretty normal from what she could tell, with nobody acting particularly abnormal.

Dr. Jazmine apparently noticed Charlotte’s confusion, as she smiled grimly and said, “The especially difficult cases are in a different section.”

“Oh. And, ah, are we going into a different section?”

“Yes.”

Charlotte stopped looking into the windows.

Sure enough, soon they were in another part of the facility, and she heard someone screaming.

Charlotte stopped. The screams were coming from far the down the hall. A moment later a door opened and two caretakers rushed out. They ran over to the room where the screaming was coming from and quickly went inside.

“Another newcomer,” Dr. Jazmine said sadly. “She’s only eight years old. And, well, she misses her family. Badly.”

“I bet,” Charlotte said. “Do you, ah, deal with this sort of thing a lot?”

“All the time.”

Charlotte shook her head. The fine ladies of the Freehaven Integration Bureau just went up a few ranks in her head.

Fortunately, the room they were headed toward was not near the one with the screaming girl. Still, Dr. Jazmine paused before opening the door.

“Remember,” she said. “Do what you can to avoid upsetting her. Don’t force information on her. Don’t put the blame on her for anything. Let me know if she stumbles across some problematic information. Be as gentle as you can. Understand?”

“Got it,” Charlotte said, though she was wondering if she really did. She had never done something like this before.

Dr. Jazmine slowly opened the door.

Charlotte craned her neck to see. Beyond was a what looked like a rest lounge, with the same soft colors as the outside. There were potted plants and a softly babbling fountain in the corner. Two comfortable-looking chairs sat across from one another, with a low table in between them, on which sat a box of tissues, a plastic cup of water, and a water pitcher next to it.

And seated in one of the chairs was Hitomi Shizuki.

To be honest, Charlotte hadn’t really known what to expect from Hitomi, as no one had even so much as described her appearance. What she saw was a slender Japanese girl in her early teens, with long, pale green hair and eyes of the same color. She seemed to be of average height, comparable to Ophelia and Homulilly, and something about her struck Charlotte as being someone who never really had to worry where her next meal was coming from.

However, Charlotte did expect someone on edge, terrified, disheveled, and ragged looking, and that’s exactly what she got. Hitomi didn’t look like she had slept well in days. Her eyes were wide and sunken, her skin was flushed and glistening with sweat, her hair a mess, and she was trembling from head to toe.

Charlotte didn’t know what she had been doing before Dr. Jazmine opened the door, but she was now sitting upright and rigid, with the only movement being the shaking. In her hands was the umbrella, fortunately folded up. She was holding it by the canopy, handle-up, and was gnawing on the end of the handle.

As soon as Dr. Jazmine saw the umbrella, she held a hand in front of Charlotte, keeping her from entering the room. Taking a cautious step forward, she cleared her throat and said, “Ah, Hitomi?”

Hitomi blinked owlishly at her. “Y-Yes?”

“Your umbrella, dear. Could you please put it away?”

Hitomi looked down at the object sitting in her lap. She actually seemed surprised, as if she hadn’t known that it was there in the first place. “Oh. Oh! I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t…Um, okay.”

There was a small flash of green light, and the umbrella vanished. Hitomi clasped her hands in her lap and swallowed noisily.

Dr. Jazmine glanced at Charlotte and shrugged. The two of them entered the room, and Dr. Jasmine let the door swing shut behind her.

“Hitomi, this is Charlotte,” Dr. Jazmine introduced. “You remember, the one we discussed?”

“Hi,” Charlotte said with a wave.

Hitomi stared at her. “You’re a witch,” she said.

Charlotte paused for a moment, and then nodded. “I am.” Another pause. “Is that…okay?”

There was something downright unnerving about the way Hitomi’s eyes bored into her. Charlotte couldn’t really fathom what she was thinking, but she was willing to bet that it wasn’t good. At any rate, it was several seconds before Hitomi finally blinked. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

Charlotte noticed Hitomi’s nails. They were practically gone, all of them chewed away.

“Anyway, she’s a friend of Madoka and Homura,” Dr. Jazmine told her.

“That’s right,” Charlotte said. “I’m just here to-”

“What was it like?” Hitomi said.

Charlotte hesitated for a moment before saying, “What was what like?”

“Changing into a witch. Being a witch. Living in your labyrinth. Luring people in. What was it like?”

Well, this conversation was certainly going to be all kinds of unpredictable. “I don’t remember,” Charlotte said. “All my memories from that time are gone.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it shows up in dreams.”

“Maybe,” Charlotte allowed. “But if it does, those dreams are gone too.”

“Do you think you ever killed anyone?”

Unpredictable and dangerous. Wow, this was already shaping up to be a bad idea. “Might have,” Charlotte said. “But like I said, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember,” Hitomi repeated. “You might’ve killed people, and you don’t remember.”

“Hitomi, we’re not here to talk about that,” Dr. Jazmine cut in. “We’re here to talk about Madoka and Homura, right? So let’s do that.”

Hitomi blinked. Then she nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

Sighing, Charlotte sat down in the chair across from Hitomi, careful to do so slowly and cautiously, keeping her tail out of sight. The last thing she needed was to spook her. “Right,” she said. “So, like you were told, I am a friend of Madoka and Homura. And I’m here to-”

“What do you call them?” Hitomi interrupted.

“Pardon?”

“They have different names now, right? That’s what they said.” Hitomi pointed to Dr. Jazmine. “So do you call them by their new names or their real names?”

Charlotte really didn’t know the best way to answer that question, so she went with honest. “Their new names,” she said. “We didn’t even know their…real names until you, uh, told us.”

Hitomi’s mouth set in a straight line, but she nodded. “Okay.”

“Anyway,” Charlotte said. “I would like to talk about your friendship with them, maybe learn more about their past. Is that okay?”

“Fine. That’s fine.”

Was it? “All right. So, you were close friends with Madoka and Homura, right?”

“Yes,” Hitomi said. Then she frowned. “I mean, no. I mean…with Madoka, yes. We’ve been friends for years. But I didn’t know Homura all that well. I mean, she only transferred to our class a couple months ago.”

A couple months. Wow, Charlotte’s entire life in her world had only taken up less than a couple months in the other. “I see. So, was Madoka friends with Homura then?”

“Yes,” Hitomi said. Now that they were talking about things she was familiar with, she seemed like she was starting to relax a little. Good. “They, uh, bonded pretty quickly. I didn’t know why then, but, uh, I guess I know why now.”

“I guess so. Maybe we’d better start at the beginning then.”

Hitomi closed her eyes for several seconds. Her mouth was closed, but it kept making odd movements, like she muttering silently to herself. Then she opened her eyes again. “Okay. Let’s do that.”

Charlotte motioned for her to begin.

Taking a deep breath, Hitomi said, “Well, I’m from Mitakihara City. Do you know where that it?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Oh. Um, anyway, that’s where I’m from, and Madoka Kaname is one of my best friends.”

Charlotte’s ears perked up. “One of?”

“Right,” Hitomi nodded. “The other is Sayaka Miki.” She paused, and then asked, “Have you met her?”

“No, I haven’t,” Charlotte said as she mentally filed that name away for later. She wondered if she should point out that maybe this ‘Sayaka’ was going by a different name now, but decided against it. “Anyway, go on.”

“Oh. Um, like I was saying, we’ve been close friends since elementary school, but Madoka and Sayaka have been best friends even longer. But we always hang out together at school and on the weekends and…” Hitomi seemed to lose her train of thought. She blinked, shook her head, and said, “But anyway, a few months ago, they suddenly got…strange.”

“Strange?” Charlotte leaned forward. “Strange how?”

“W-Well, they stopped…spending time with me. I mean, it wasn’t like they had cut me out or didn’t like me anymore, but they just got real secretive. They were always around each other, but rarely talking. It was like they knew what each other was thinking. And at first they actually seemed…” Hitomi frowned. “I don’t know, happier I guess? And…well, this might seem a little silly, but at first I thought that they might have, you know, gotten…together, if you know what I mean.”

Charlotte had a feeling that Hitomi hadn’t exactly been clued in on how relationship demographics worked now. “I do,” she said in a neutral tone. “But that wasn’t it, was it?”

“No,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I understand now what happened. They had made a contract with Kyubey. They became magical girls, Pueh…Pooey…”

“Puella Magi,” Charlotte said.

“Right. That.” Hitomi sighed. “They weren’t secretly in love. They were secretly fighting monsters every day. Keeping us safe. That sort of thing.”

“Probably, yeah.”

Hitomi closed her eyes for a bit. Then she continued. “Um, anyway, right about then they started to make a lot of new friends. It was like, one day it was the three of us like normal, then it was them and…other people. They started following this one upperclassman everywhere, having lunch with her and even going to her place right after school every day.”

Okay, here it came. “What was her name?”

Hitomi’s brow furrowed. “Um, let me see. They introduced me to her a couple times, and Kyubey said…” She scratched her head. “Toe…mo…ay. Tomoe. Mami Tomoe. She seemed nice enough, but it struck me as a little strange that she didn’t seem to be very interested in spending time with people in her grade. Then Homura transferred in, and…I don’t know, she seemed like she actually knew Madoka. I asked Madoka if they had met before and she said that they hadn’t, but before I knew it Homura was a part of their group. They were always walking to and from school together, having lunch on the roof by themselves, going right to Mami Tomoe’s place as soon as school got out, and whenever I’d run into any of them on the weekends, the others were there.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. Mami Tomoe, huh? That name meant absolutely nothing to her. There was no flash of recognition, no déjà vu. Still, she had a pretty good idea of who it originally had belonged to. “Okay. Anyone else?”

“Just one,” Hitomi said. “She didn’t go to our school, actually, but she’d be with them when I’d see them outside of school, and I’m pretty sure she was sneaking into the school to have lunch with them. She seemed very out of place, very ragged and kind of dirty, like…like some kind of delinquent. I couldn’t understand why they let her be a part of whatever it was that they were doing.”

“It’s because she was probably a Puella Magi too.”

Hitomi sighed. “Right. That makes sense.”

“Did you ever learn her name?” Charlotte pressed.

“Yes,” Hitomi said with a nod. “Once when I ran into all of them one Sunday, and again after I, um, met Kyubey, he told me her name. Let’s see, her family name was Sakura I think. And her first name…Kee…Kee…” She snapped her fingers. “Kyoko! That’s it!”

A delinquent troublemaker? Well, there were two possible candidates for that. Well, three she supposed. It was entirely possible that Charlotte herself was this mysterious other girl, though given her lack of recognition of those other names it wasn’t too likely. “And anyone else?”

Hitomi shook her head. “Not that I saw, no.”

“All right,” Charlotte said as she started to tic points off on her fingers. “So, you were friends with Madoka and Sayaka, and everything seems normal, and then out of nowhere all these other people just seem to show up, and right away your friends seem more interested in them than they are in you.”

Hitomi nodded. “I mean, they didn’t shut me out or be mean or something like that, but that’s what it felt like. I get it now, but at the time…”

“Got it. So, what happened next?”

Hitomi looked down at her feet. “Well, that was…that was kind of my fault.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Hitomi nodded again. “See, it has to do with my…” A flash of pain passed over her features. She swallowed noisily, and when she spoke again her voice was much thicker than before. “My boyfriend. Kyousuke Kamijo.” Just saying that name seemed to hurt her. “Well, actually, we’d only been dating for a little bit, but we’ve been friends for years! He’s wonderful, kind of brilliant actually! As if in, he’s an actual prodigy with the violin and already so many prestigious universities have been offering scholarships. Every time I hear him play I…”

Her voice trailed off. Charlotte waited for her to continue, but Hitomi was just staring off into space, lost in her own little world.

Charlotte glanced over to Dr. Jazmine, who motioned for her to wait. Right then. Let the kid work her way through this at her own speed.

Nearly a full minute passed, and then Hitomi seemed to jerk back to awareness. She blinked, shook her head, and cleared her throat.

“Anyway,” she said. “Um, the reason this is important is because of Sayaka Miki.”

“Madoka’s friend,” Charlotte said.

“And mine! But she’s been friends with Kyousuke longer than I have. I mean, she’s known him longer than I’ve known him, and she’s known him longer than she’s known me, and…” Hitomi winced.

Charlotte could see exactly where this was going. “She liked him too.”

Hitomi seemed unable to meet Charlotte’s eyes. “Very much so. You s-see, a while back Kyousuke was in a terrible car accident. The other driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a red light and…” She shuddered. “Anyway, Kyousuke was hurt very, very badly. Something to do with his spine, I think. He couldn’t walk, he could barely move his hands, his nervous system was completely messed up. And so, you know, he couldn’t play music anymore. It was the most important thing in the world to him, he loved it so much, and it was just taken from him. It was so cruel, for someone with that kind of gift to have it stolen away like that.”

She paused again, only this time it was from emotion rather than just losing her train of thought. Tears were starting to form in her eyes, and she had to turn away.

Dr. Jazmine was at her side in a moment, holding her and murmuring small words of comfort. As for Charlotte, she couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding just by being there, so she sat in place and tried to be as unnoticeable as she could.

“Sayaka was…really broken up,” Hitomi said when she had composed herself enough to continue. “She would visit him nearly every day at the hospital, bring him albums to try to cheer him up, and stuff like that. It was really sweet of her, but I don’t think Kyousuke ever really understood how much he meant to her.” She cleared her throat. “So anyway, one day, I got a call and…he was better! The doctors said it was a miracle, that all the nerve damage was just…gone! He got full use of his hands back almost immediately, his legs were healing up just fine, and no one could understand why. But he could play again! He got his life back, it was amazing!”

As she spoke about the seeming miracle, a small smile had started to form, brought forth by the happy memory. It didn’t last long though. She glanced back at Charlotte and her face fell. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Kyousuke started coming back to school soon after. I thought for certain that was when Sayaka would make her move, but instead she started avoiding him for some reason. I couldn’t understand it, but she seemed so hesitant to talk to him.”

“So you took advantage,” Charlotte guessed, then she winced. Damn it, that had not been the best choice of words.

Hitomi immediately looked stricken. “Not like that! I mean, she had known him longer, had…had loved him longer, had been by his side the whole time he had been hurt, so it was only fair that…that it would be her. But she wasn’t going to do anything! She just kept hiding from her feelings and wouldn’t take the chance and…” She sighed. “I met with her after school. I told her how I felt about Kyousuke. I told her that I knew how she felt about Kyousuke. I told her that it was only right that she try to confess to him first. I gave her twenty-four hours, and if she didn’t, then I would…you know…”

“Oh boy,” Charlotte breathed out.

“I just wanted to give her a push! I wanted them to be happy, and didn’t want to seem like I was stealing him from her!”

Charlotte hesitated, and then said as gently as she could, “You…do realize that the reason he healed up like he did was-”

“It was her wish,” Hitomi said in a flat tone. “Yes, I figured that out later. She wished for him to be healed. And she avoided him because, well, she had new responsibilities and probably didn’t want to put him in danger and…” She bent over, grabbing her head in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know! I didn’t know!”

Jazmine laid a hand on her shoulder. “There was no way you could have known.”

Perhaps, but that didn’t change what had happened. Charlotte waited until Hitomi stopped crying before prompting, “So, she didn’t take her shot, and you did?”

“I did.” Hitomi sniffed, blew her nose, and straightened up. “I walked home with him, and…I told him. Told him how I felt, that I wanted to be his girlfriend and…he said yes! He liked me too, so I thought things were going to be great! Sayaka would, um, she would get over it, and…and…”

“She…didn’t?”

This time the pause lasted nearly a whole minute. Charlotte was starting to wonder if she ought to prod her again when Hitomi said in a very small voice, “I never saw her again. She disappeared soon after that.”

“Oh.”

“Most of them did. Mami Tomoe stopped coming to school too, and they didn’t go to her place after school anymore. And I never saw Kyoko Sakura again either. She didn’t sneak into the school at lunchtime anymore, she wasn’t hanging out with them on the weekends anymore. They were just…gone.”

“But Madoka and Homura weren’t.”

Hitomi shook her head. “No. They were still around. They said that they didn’t know what happened to them all, but…” She frowned. “They were sad, yes! Madoka seemed so depressed, and I saw her crying by herself a few times between classes. But they weren’t worried! I mean, it was like they knew that Sayaka and the others were dead instead of missing!” She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “They knew something. They knew what had happened to them.”

Yeah. Yeah, they sure did. “So, what did you do?”

Hitomi rubbed her calves together in agitation. “I…I waited until a moment when Madoka was alone, when Homura wasn’t with her. It wasn’t easy, they seemed like they were joined at the hip. But one day, right between classes, I caught her, I pulled her aside, and…and I told her that I knew she was hiding something. I told her that I knew that she knew what had happened to Sayaka, and I begged her to tell me.” A small sob escaped. “You see, I thought that maybe, th-that Sayaka might have-”

“Killed herself because you stole Kyousuke.”

Hitomi nodded. “Yes. Or ran away.”

Charlotte crossed her arms. “Which wouldn’t explain the other two disappearing.”

“I don’t know,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I thought maybe she did something drastic. To them, and…herself.”

Even though she knew it was a terrible thing to feel, Charlotte was starting to become a little relieved that she probably hadn’t been part of that group at all. “Yeah, that would be pretty drastic.”

Hitomi swallowed the rest of the water. Dr. Jazmine refilled her cup. “Anyway, Madoka still refused to tell me. She just started crying again and said that she was sorry over and over and ran away.” She paused, and then said, “Homura Akemi showed up in my room that night.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I had no idea how she got in. I was just sitting on my bed, trying to figure things out, and then she was just…there. She was wearing a weird outfit and had a shield, but the look in her eyes! She was always so meek and shy, but right then she scared me more than anything else ever had.”

Charlotte tried to imagine Homulilly actually successfully intimidating someone. She had to admit, it was a hard image to conjure. “What did she say?”

“She told me to leave Madoka alone,” Hitomi said with a shiver. “She told me to mind my own business. She told me that if I ever upset Madoka again, then I would not like the consequences. She didn’t say what they would be, but…”

“She didn’t need to.”

“No. No, she didn’t.” Hitomi frowned. “And then she was gone! I was looking right at her, and she just vanished! And again, I know now how she did it, but then?” She shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all that night.”

“I bet,” Charlotte said. She crossed her legs and joined her fingers over her knee. “So what happened next?”

Hitomi slowly breathed in and exhaled through her nose. “There was a storm, a big one. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, there was nothing about it in the weather reports or anything, but before I knew it, the city needed to be evacuated.”

“A storm?”

“Yeah. At least, that’s what we thought. I f-found out later that it was a huge…” Hitomi’s voice trailed off. “…uh…”

“A witch,” Charlotte said.

Hitomi winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. None of us had any control over that.” Then Charlotte frowned. “Wait, a huge witch causing a storm…do you mean a Walpurgisnacht?”

Hitomi stared blankly at her. “A what?”

Oh, wow, she was really uniformed. “It’s…uh…” Charlotte shot a glance over to Dr. Jazmine.

“A Walpurgisnacht is the name for an amalgamation of witches,” Dr. Jazmine explained. “When one witch accidentally collides with another, they usually fuse into a single entity.”

Hitomi’s face paled. “That can happen?” she whispered.

“Yes. It’s rare, but it does happen. The stronger ones can even leave their labyrinths and float around freely.”

“That’s terrible! How has nobody ever noticed?”

“It’s extremely rare that they become that strong, and the witches themselves are invisible to normal human eyes. Typically, when one arises, any nearby magical girls will join forces to take it down.”

Hitomi slowly breathed out. “All this time,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. She placed her face in her hands. “All this time this was happening, and nobody knew.”

For her part, Charlotte was dealing with a bit of a revelation of her own. “Wait, how long after everyone vanished did this happen?”

Hitomi shrugged. “I don’t know. About a month, I guess?”

A month. Charlotte frowned. Okay, so maybe she and her friends wasn’t this massive Walpurgisnacht that causes a city-wide evacuation. She didn’t know how many witches had to go into a Walpurgisnacht’s creation to cause it to break free from its labyrinth, but it probably was more than four. “Okay, so this storm was coming, and everyone had to flee their homes. What happened then?”

“W-Well, the storm just…stopped. It showed up and pretty much smashed a big portion of the city. Like, most of downtown was just in ruins. The news said that entire skyscrapers were ripped up and thrown around!” Hitomi grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “But then it was over! The storm stopped, and it was over!”

Oh boy. “And…Madoka and Homura?”

Hitomi’s eyes unfocused. “Madoka and Homura went missing,” she said, staring off into space. “They never even made it to the shelter. That was that. I never saw either of them again.”

Charlotte did some mental math in her head. Okay, so supposedly they had vanished to fight this Walpurgisnacht, so it made sense that that was when they turned into witches themselves. Did they fight alone, or were there others on hand to help? She tried to imagine Gretchen and Homulilly fighting off a massive Walpurgisnacht on their own and got the shivers, especially since they apparently had to deal with one another. All things considered, maybe it was for the best that they had become witches themselves. That wasn’t something that anyone would be better off remembering.

Hitomi went on. “Madoka’s parents drove themselves crazy looking for her. Her mom was always a little…uptight. But this just drove her over the edge. She did everything she could to find her. Like, hiring private detectives, demanding security footage, anything. She even got arrested once for harassing the police! And since, you know, Sayaka and the others had already disappeared, people started to think that maybe it wasn’t the storm that had gotten them, that maybe something was going around, taking girls or something like that.”

Charlotte winced. Yikes, that was rough. “What about Homul…er, what about Homura though? Did anyone try to look for her?”

“Not really,” Hitomi admitted. “I mean, yes, there was a missing person’s report, and the posters went up with both their faces. But she didn’t really have anyone other than Madoka. And when Madoka was gone…”

“I see.”

“It was the same when Sayaka disappeared,” Hitomi went on. “Her parents weren’t as, uh, determined as Mrs. Kaname, but they still tried really, really hard to find her. But no one really did much for Mami Tomoe. She just, you know, stopped showing up.”

Charlotte was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with what Hitomi was hinting at. It did seem kind of messed up that the worth of someone’s life seem predicated on how many people they had in their life. “And what did you think?”

“Me?” Hitomi made a face. “I…Okay, you know at first I said that I thought that Sayaka might’ve done something…bad? Like, everyone thought that she might’ve ran away, but I started to think that she went crazy and, uh…”

“Did…something to herself, and the other two?”

Hitomi swallowed. “Yeah. That. And I was so sure that Madoka knew, but after she and Homura disappeared, I started thinking that, I don’t know, that maybe she didn’t know after all, and she and Homura went to go look for her and the other two when the storm hit, and they were caught in it, and-Oh, I don’t know, nothing made any sense!” Then she blinked, and her brow furrowed. “Except, until it did.”

Charlotte crossed her legs. “This is when the Incubator showed up, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. “I…I didn’t…it was so strange, but we had just returned home, and I had spent most of the day talking to the police about, well, about Madoka, and if I knew anything about where she might have gone.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But anyway, that was over, I was in my room crying, and then…and then…”

“Then you heard a voice,” Dr. Jazmine prompted. “A voice inside your head.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was so weird! At first I thought that I must be hearing things, but it just kept talking, saying that it could, you know, help me! And then…then I saw it.”

Despite having come as a questioner, Charlotte found herself kind of wrapped up in the story. She had heard a few firsthand accounts of first meetings with Incubators before, but none had this few levels of separation before.

“It looked…it looked kind of like a cat. Or a rabbit. It was small and white, with these big ears and bushy tail.” Hitomi shivered. “Its eyes though…they were small and red and beady and barely ever blinked. And it had this smile that never, ever changed, or even moved!”

“An Incubator,” Charlotte said, in part to herself. She had seen pictures of the things, and of course everyone knew what Reibey looked like.

“Yes. Is…are they really aliens? Like, from another planet?”

“They are,” Dr. Jazmine told her.

Hitomi slowly shook her head. “Aliens. Magic. Afterlives. It’s just…a week ago I didn’t know any of this existed! And now I’m…” She looked down at her hand. “I’m…I’m dead, apparently. I was beaten to death by a monster, except apparently it wasn’t really a monster and-”

Before she could drift off too far, Dr. Jazmine swooped in. “You know, Incubators aren’t the only aliens out there. There’s plenty that they’ve made contracts with and ended up here too.”

Hitomi’s head snapped up. “Wait. You mean, like they showed us in the orientation video?”

“Exactly. We’re actually friends with several. In fact, there are a few living here in Freehaven.”

“Oh,” Hitomi said. She seemed unsure of how to react to this piece of information. “I, uh, what…kind of aliens?”

“The cool kind,” Charlotte said. “Don’t worry, they’re our friends.”

“I…see.” Hitomi blinked. “Aliens. Huh.”

Well, at least they got her out of her funk. Time to get back on track. “Anyway, let’s get back to the first alien you met,” Charlotte said. “You said his name was…Cutie?”

That actually got a small laugh out of Hitomi. “N-No. Kyubey. With a ‘b.’ Anyway, he told me that the reason everyone disappeared wasn’t because they ran anyway or got killed by the storm or were kidnapped or anything like that. He said it was because they were actually magical girls who protected the city from evil witches! And that they had disappeared fighting these witches, and he was worried about them!”

Oh, that lying motherfucker. Charlotte wondered if it had been this ‘Kyubey’ that had been responsible for her own contract, and if he had used a similar half-truth to get what he wanted. “That must’ve been crazy to hear.”

“Yes. Yes, it was!” Hitomi sighed. “But then, it was an alien bunny-cat that talked directly into my head, so what did I know?”

“What else did he say?”

Hitomi shook her head. “That the storm was no storm. That it was a super-witch that Madoka and Homura had gone off to fight, and though they won he hadn’t heard from them since. And with no other magical girls around, the city was defenseless.”

Now Charlotte was getting an even clearer picture. Jesus, it really had just been business as usual for the little rat bastard, hadn’t it? He had gotten through his old batch of magical girls, so he went to work getting news ones, probably just to fill some kind of quota. And what better way to go about it than find someone emotionally vulnerable? Like, say, a personal friend of his last set of marks, one that didn’t know what had happened to them and was probably worried sick about them? It was as smart as it was despicable.

“So that’s when you took his contract?”

“Not at first,” Hitomi said. “I…I didn’t really know what to think of it, or if I even believed him. But over the next couple of days I just keep thinking and thinking and thinking and…” She bowed her head. “I had no idea where anyone was or what had happened to them. And I started to figure, if it wasn’t a trick, and I had a chance to find them, then how could I not take it? Th-Then they’d be back and I’d be one of them, and maybe then we’d be…” She swallowed. “We’d be friend again. Like we used to be.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “But he knew, didn’t he? Kyubey knew what had happened to everyone.”

“Almost definitely,” Dr. Jazmine said. “That’s how they operate. Tell you enough of the truth to get your attention, and then throw in one small but significant lie to give you just enough of a push.”

“That’s…That’s just…”

“Sick,” Charlotte said flatly. “Exploitive. Whatever you want to call it.”

Hitomi swallowed. “I was duped.”

“We all were.”

“I was an idiot.” Hitomi closed her eyes. The slight tremble started to grow worse. “I was such an idiot.”

“No, you weren’t. He was the one in the wrong. He and the rest of his kind have been doing this for literal centuries. They are very good at manipulating people. It’s not your fault that he decided to target you.”

“But…if I had…”

“There are no ‘ifs,’ Hitomi. There is only what is. And you are in no way to blame for what happened, okay? It’s not your fault.” Hitomi turned her head, unable to meet Dr. Jazmine’s eyes. Dr. Jazmine gently but firmly turned Hitomi’s gaze back toward her. “Look at me. It’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” Hitomi said after a few seconds. “Okay. Thank you.” She looked back up at Charlotte. “Um, I’m sorry. Where were we?

Charlotte blinked. “Er, you just met Kyubey. And you made your wish?”

“Right,” Hitomi sighed. “That.”

“So, you wished to find your friends?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. Then she frowned. “Er, well, sort of. Kyubey s-said that they were probably somewhere d-d-dangerous, and just being sent there would be a bad idea. So I should wish for the power to find them instead.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “Another trick?”

“Probably,” Dr. Jazmine said. “Sending you straight to them would just kill you. He would want you around for a bit to hunt witches.”

“Why? Why does he want us to hunt witches? Why does he want us to become witches? Why do any of this?”

“It’s…a little hard to explain. But the gist of it is that we release a sort of energy that Incubators can harvest: first when we make a contract, then when we become a witch, and again when that witch is killed. It’s a system that they keep going to feed upon.”

“That…disgusting!”

“No arguments here,” Charlotte remarked. “But okay. You made a contract, got your powers, and set off to find your friends. What happened then?”

“Then?” Hitomi let out a derisive snort. “What do you think? There was no ‘then,’ there was no setting off. A witch showed up almost immediately, so I went to try to fight it.” Then she started to drift again. Her eyes started to lose focus and the shaking increased. She stuck the middle knuckles of her right index finger into her mouth and started gnawing on it as she talked faster and faster. “It was…it was horrible! I was in a world that made no sense, a forest made of roads where up was down and down was sideways, and there was this…this tree with all these stop signs and crossing signs, and…and I transformed! I just felt this rush of power, and suddenly I was faster, I was stronger, I-I guess my clothes were different, but I didn’t even get the chance to use that power! I jumped up, but it just swatted me out of the air! I hit my head on something and-”

“Hitomi!” Dr. Jazmine pulled Hitomi’s hand away from her mouth as clasped her own hands over it. “Hitomi. Look at me. Look at me.”

Hitomi did, but the shaking didn’t stop.

“You don’t have to go there, okay? We don’t need to hear about that. And it’s over, okay? It’s over. It can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I…but…it used to be a girl like me, right? Who hurt her? What could possibly be so bad to make her like that?”

“Kyubey did. She’s a victim. You’re a victim. We all are. That’s what our whole community is about. Being there for each other. Taking care of each other. We’re all in this together, okay? And we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Hitomi slowly nodded. She reached for her cup of water, but her hands were shaking too badly, so Dr. Jazmine quickly retrieved it for her and helped her hold it steady as she drained it.

As for Charlotte, she was starting to gain a whole new level of appreciation for Dr. Jazmine and others like her. Also, she was coming to really regret some of the shenanigans she had gotten into when she was younger. Given what the caretakers had been dealing with, they probably hadn’t needed the additional headache.

At any rate, when Hitomi handed back the empty glass she seemed to have calmed a bit. “Anyway, that was, um, that, and…I don’t need to talk about th-that room, do I? Or that city?”

“No, dear,” Dr. Jazmine said.

“Oh. Well, then I was brought here, and that’s wh-when I saw Madoka.” She sighed. “And…I guess you know the rest of that.”

Charlotte slowly breathed out. Wow, that really did answer quite a few questions, though not really in as satisfactory way as she had been hoping. “That’s…quite the story.”

Hitomi actually looked hurt. “It’s the truth, I swear!”

“No, I believe you,” Charlotte said hastily, before the emotionally troubled girl could freak out on her. “I definitely believe you. A lot of stuff makes a lot more sense now.”

“Oh,” Hitomi said, calming down a bit. “Okay. So…” She glanced from Charlotte to Dr. Jazmine. “Can I see Madoka now? Please?”

“We’ll talk about that in a moment,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could answer. She grabbed a small table and pulled it between them. “Now, I brought along a few photographs. And I would like you to see if you recognize any of them.”

“Oh.” Hitomi gave a small nod. “Okay.”

Starting things off with something they already knew, Charlotte pulled out a picture of Kriemhild Gretchen, which they had taken during a hiking trip about a year prior. It was from the waist up, and she was holding up a baby squirrel that had taken a liking to her.

“Madoka,” Hitomi said without hesitation. “That’s Madoka. Except…her hair is…darker? So’s her skin. And eyes. It’s kind of creepy.” Her brow furrowed. “Her legs. When I saw her, her legs were tentacles.”

“Wires, actually,” Charlotte said. Maybe if she treated witch remnants as normal and mundane Hitomi would be less disturbed by them. “Or something like them.”

Hitomi silently stared down at Gretchen’s grinning face. “So she did turn into a witch,” she said at last.

Charlotte winced. “I’m afraid so. Um, could you please tell me her parents’ names?”

“Why?”

“Like we said, she’s lost her memories. So this is just in case she wants to know.”

“But I can tell her that in person!”

“In time. For now, this is just to fill in the holes, so to speak.”

The look Hitomi gave her wasn’t exactly friendly, but finally she sighed and said, “Fine. Her mother’s name is Junko Kaname, her father is Tomohisa Kaname, and she has a baby brother named Tatsuya.”

Charlotte, who had been writing all this down, paused for a moment at that last part. Baby brother? Oh, that was going to complicate things.

She finished her notes and took the picture of Gretchen away. Then she brought out a picture of Homulilly, taken from the same trip. She was standing with her cheeks full of trail mix, looking at the camera in surprise as Ophelia had snapped the candid photo. She was wearing a jacket, so it wasn’t immediately apparent that her arms and hands were bones unless you were looking right at her hands. “Now, how about this one?”

“That’s Homura,” Hitomi confirmed. “Except she didn’t have a flower on her head. And she used to have glasses, and her hair was different. And her arms…when I saw her here, they were dead. Just bones.”

“She’s a little sensitive about it,” Charlotte told her. “So if you do see her again, it would be best not to mention them.”

Hitomi stared at her in bewilderment. “How do they move? There’s nothing holding them together!”

“Magic,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “That’s all there really is to it.”

“Oh.”

“And you said she doesn’t have any family, right?”

“That’s right,” Hitomi said. “I, uh, did some digging after I met Kyubey but before I made my contract. She pretty much grew up in this Catholic school in America and only got sent back to Japan a little while back.”

“America?”

“Er, yes. You…know what that is, right?”

“I do, I was just wondering why she was there to begin with.”

“That…I couldn’t find out,” Hitomi sighed. “Something to do with her health, I think. She had something wrong with her heart, and had been in a lot of hospitals.”

Damn. Well, that wasn’t a lot to go on, but Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if her heart issues and her lack of a family was somehow related. Some kind of accident, maybe? Anyway, It was time to start bringing out the big guns. “Okay, how about her?” Charlotte said, presenting the next photo.

This time Hitomi stared at the picture for several seconds before her eyes widened with recognition. “Yes! Yes, I do know her! That’s Mami Tomoe, the upperclassman they were hanging out with! Is she a witch too?”

The picture was one Charlotte had taken herself, of Candeloro relaxing in the back yard. It had been in the autumn, so her sweater hid her ribbon arms. “Yes. She goes by Candeloro now.”

“Candy-what?”

“Candeloro.” Charlotte tapped the photograph. “Now, is there anything else you know about her? Her family, maybe what kind of wish she originally made?”

Hitomi shook her head. “Not really. No family though. They died. In a car accident, a few years ago.”

Charlotte winced. Well, at least she hadn’t left family behind, but even so, that was rough. “Makes sense.” She pulled out a marker. “Mami Tomoe. How do you spell that?” Hitomi told her, and Charlotte wrote it on the back of the photo before putting it away.

Once that was done, Charlotte presented the next picture. “Okay. Now, how about this one?”

The picture was of Ophelia, in her usual eccentric get-up. Sure enough, Hitomi seemed outright confused by her look.

“No. No, I’ve never seen her before.”

That wasn’t a surprise. “Try this one.” She took out another picture, which was actually one of Ophelia’s old class photos back during their own FIB days, before she had adopted her signature style of dress and was just wearing a black tank top and a pair of jeans.

Hitomi shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember a bald girl.”

“She might have had hair originally,” Dr. Jazmine suggested.

Hitomi frowned down at the picture. “Um…wait! Those eyes.” She nodded. “Okay, I think that might actually be Kyoko Sakura. But she had long red hair. Like, very long, tied into a ponytail.” She glanced up at Charlotte. “Witch?”

“Yup. Her name is Ophelia.”

Hitomi didn’t seem like she knew what to make of that. “Ophelia. Really?”

“Witch names are weird. Do you know anything about her? Any family or anything?”

Hitomi shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I never found out much about her.”

Well, that was a shame, but maybe it was for the best. Charlotte wrote down Ophelia’s old name and put the picture away. She hesitated, and then brought out the last photo. “Okay. Now, how about her?”

Sure enough, Charlotte had barely set the photo down before Hitomi practically leapt out of her seat. “Sayaka! That’s Sayaka Miki! She’s here? She’s really here?”

Even though she had been expecting some kind of strong reaction, Charlotte was still a little startled. “Y-Yes,” she stammered, her head jerking back. “She is.”

All of the confusion, grief, and fear simply vanished from Hitomi’s face, to be replaced with pure joy and jubilation. “I knew it!” she cheered, practically leaping out of her chair. “Please, I need to talk to her. I need to tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t know what she was going through, and…” Then realization hit. She frozen in place, blinked, and whispered, “She’s a witch too, isn’t it?”

Charlotte winced. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

Hitomi sat down very suddenly. “Oh no.”

Charlotte breathed out. “The best we can figure, Sayaka, Kyoko, and Mami all turned into witches at the same time and…sort of merged.”

Hitomi choked. “They were the Walpurgisnacht? The one that attacked the city?”

“We don’t know,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “It could be, but I don’t think so. The timeline doesn’t match up. But we…” Oops. Charlotte quickly corrected her slip. “They were a Walpurgisnacht, yes. Well, are.”

Unfortunately, Hitomi caught it. “You said we. Why did you say we?”

Charlotte sighed. “Well, I was sort of part of that whole business too.”

Hitomi frowned in suspicion. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before!”

“I figured,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “Best we can tell, I was probably added to the group at the last minute. Probably a new magical girl that was brought in at the last minute before a really hard fight, one that didn’t end well.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, it’s just a guess. That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, to try to figure some things out.”

Hitomi looked down at her knees. “None of them remember anything, do they?”

“No. That’s how the witch thing works.” Dr. Jazmine immediately shot Charlotte a warning look. Whoops. That much blunt force was probably not a great idea, so she quickly added, “But they are very happy. They have a great life here, and-”

“How could they though?” Hitomi hissed. “With everything just gone, how can you be happy?”

A few seconds passed, and then Charlotte said, “Sometimes you just make the best of what you have.”

“And Madoka?” Hitomi demanded. “And Homura? How do they figure into all this?”

Charlotte sighed. “We met them later and became friends. See, we don’t have our memories, but there is a sort of déjà vu thing that happens when we meet someone we used to know. But they apparently became their own Walpurgisnacht later on.”

“They were the Walpurgisnacht?” Hitomi gaped. “The one that made the storm?”

“Probably not. It’s just the two of them. I’m thinking that they fought the big Walpurgisnacht and won, but it took everything they had, and then, well, you…can probably guess.”

Hitomi’s hands gripped the armrests of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her entire body had started shaking. “This is so wrong. This is so very wrong. I wanted to find them so badly. I had so many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to apologize for, but now I can’t! They don’t even know me!”

Oh boy. Charlotte had expected things to break down in some way, but now that it was actually happening, she was realizing just how ill-equipped she was to deal with it.

Fortunately, Dr. Jazmine was on hand to pick up that slack. “Hitomi, it’s okay,” she said as she knelt down in front of the trembling girl. She took Hitomi’s hand in her own. “It’s not your fault. There was no way you could’ve known.”

“But…But I…”

“It’s not your fault,” Dr. Jazmine repeated. “If you must blame someone, blame Kyubey. Blame the rest of the Incubators. We are all their victims.”

“I…” Hitomi’s voice was swallowed up by a sob, and she practically fell out of her chair into Dr. Jazmine’s arms.

As for Charlotte, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself. Just like it hadn’t been Hitomi’s fault that her friends had disappeared, it wasn’t really her fault that Hitomi was breaking down. But even so, she did feel like she ought to say something.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But they are happy, I promise! Gretchen and Homulilly are one of the happiest couples I know, and-”

And yet again, she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut. “Couples?” Hitomi exclaimed, practically leaping out of Dr. Jazmine’s arms to stare at Charlotte. “Excuse me? Madoka and Homura? They’re dating? Each other?”

Charlotte stared right back. “…yes?”

“But…” Hitomi shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around this new piece of information. “They’re both girls!”

It was then that Charlotte came to realize just how far removed they were from the world of the living. Forget the magic, forget the aliens, forget the immortality, just this little bit of difference really made the divide clear. She had heard that prejudice against same-sex relationships existed over there, but since they were the norm where she lived she had never really been able to understand it. “So’s everyone else,” she said. “We don’t exactly have a whole of options, you know?”

Hitomi’s eyes practically bugged out of her face. “So do all the girls get with other girls here?”

“Not all,” Charlotte said. “But most.”

“Are you with a girl?”

Charlotte knew that she ought not be defensive, that Hitomi was brand new and had yet to get used to things, but she still felt a little insulted. “Well, as a matter of fact, I am. Candeloro, to be specific.”

“And Sayaka. Is she with a girl?”

Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn’t answer that question?”

“It’s the one with the red hair, isn’t it?” Hitomi said. “I mean, who had red hair. Kyoko Sakura, the delinquent.”

“I’m not liking where this is-”

Hitomi had started to shake again, and this time it had nothing to do with grief or guilt. “She was…so absolutely smitten with Kyousuke. She stood by his side all the time he was injured, she traded away her soul for him! And when I got in the way, it killed her! But as soon as he’s out of the picture she just decides to go hook up with that…that…”

“Okay, stop,” Charlotte said, holding up a palm. “A few things. First? We’re talking about Oktavia here, not Sayaka. And Oktavia doesn’t even remember Kyousuke. Second, don’t call my friend a delinquent. She’s actually a hardworking engineer and an accomplished dancer. Third, we have no idea what caused Oktavia to become a witch. Fourth-”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Hitomi emphatically shook her head. “No! Not ‘Oktavia.’ Sayaka!”

Charlotte gritted her teeth. “Not anymore.”

“All right,” Dr. Jazmine said, hastily putting herself between them. “I think we’re done here.”

Charlotte honestly would have preferred to stay and debate the matter, but then her common sense got the better of her, so she just sighed and moved toward the exit. Hitomi, however, felt no such restrictions.

“Her name is Sayaka!” she shouted after Charlotte. “Sayaka Miki! And Sayaka is in love with Kyousuke! She sold her soul for him, it belongs to him, not anyone else!”

…

Homulilly lay stretched out in Ophelia’s recliner, the chair reclined out to its full length, with Cheese wandering up and down her torso. She stared up at the ceiling, unconsciously steering Cheese this way and that with pokes of her fingers.

Oktavia lay nearby across the couch and was reading a magazine while Gretchen paced back-and-forth in the kitchen, the patter of her legs sounding not unlike a gentle rain.

They had all been like that since the others had left to go talk to Hitomi. Since then, they had all tried to keep themselves busy so as not to obsess over what was going on at that exact moment and what might be being revealed. In this, they had all failed miserably.

Gretchen walked back into the living room, her hands wringing. “What do you think is going on now?”

Oktavia sighed and looked up. “Oh, who knows? It depends on how much she has to say.”

Homulilly gave them the briefest of glances before returning her attention to the ceiling. She started moving her hips, making the chair lightly bounce back and forth.

“Do you think it’s going to work? What if Hitomi doesn’t want to talk to Charlotte?” Gretchen said.

“She will,” Oktavia reassured her. “If anyone can get to the heart of things, it’s Charlotte.”

“Unless she says the wrong thing at the wrong time and Hitomi attacks her,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes away from where they were fixed.

“She won’t! Stop being so pessimistic! Um, at least I don’t think she will. Charlotte’s pretty smart and…” Oktavia’s voice trailed off.

A moment later there was the crinkle of paper as Oktavia tried to go back to her magazine. Gretchen sighed and returned to the kitchen to resume pacing.

…

Charlotte had expected to leave the FIB immediately after finishing up her talk with Hitomi, but given how it had ended they had insisted on giving her a full psychological inspection before they had let her go, just to make sure that Hitomi hadn’t accidentally knocked something loose. That had been annoying. Charlotte had come to do the analyzing, not be the nalyze.

Regardless, she was still a little shaken when she finally left the building. Candeloro and Ophelia were still waiting for her outside. When they saw her coming out, they rose and Candeloro immediately rushed over.

“Are you all right?” she said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.

Charlotte breathed in. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“They said that things kind of broke down,” Ophelia said as she walked up to the pair.

“They did a little,” Charlotte admitted. “But it’s not my fault!”

“Sure it isn’t.”

“It’s not!”

“She didn’t attack you, did she?” Candeloro said, looking Charlotte from top to bottom.

“No, she just got upset and started yelling,” Charlotte said. “Turns out she’s not exactly super-comfortable with the whole girls loving girls thing.”

Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Apparently it’s still a…controversial subject back in the world of the living.”

“Weird,” Ophelia shook her head. “That’s just weird.”

“Tell me about it.” Then Charlotte brightened. “But hey, it wasn’t a wash, as I learned tons more!”

“Well, there’s that,” Ophelia said. “Though, just to be safe, you’d better save it until we get everyone together. I have a feeling that we’re going to need all the group support we can get.”

…

“So, it looks like we were right.”

Everyone was gathered at the dinner table. Homulilly and Gretchen were sitting next to each other, hands grasped tightly under the table. Ophelia was on her feet and pacing back and forth, Cheese along for the ride on her shoulder. Oktavia was leaning forward, one elbow on the tabletop with that arm’s fingers drumming against her temple with opposite forearm laid across the table. And Candeloro stood behind Charlotte, with a supportive ribbon laid over her wife’s shoulder.

As for Charlotte herself, she seemed…grim. Homulilly still hadn’t heard any details about her meeting with Hitomi, but by the look of things it had gone badly. That, or she had learned something very disturbing. And the funny thing was Homulilly couldn’t decide if she wanted to hear everything Charlotte had to say or none of it.

“You all were some kind of magical girl super-team,” Charlotte continued. “Either I was a really late addition or, as is probably the case, the actual witch you all were fighting when everything went to hell. I’m still not sure what knocked over that domino line, but something probably caused a mass witching-out while you were in my labyrinth, and then badda-bing, badda-boom, Walpurgisnacht.”

Nobody said anything to that, though Ophelia did pause her pacing and quirked an eyebrow in Charlotte’s direction.

For her part, Charlotte took a deep breath and said, “Hitomi wasn’t though. She only made a contract after our deaths, specifically to look for some missing friends of hers.”

“Us, right?” Gretchen asked.

“Exactly. According to Hitomi, she was close friends with you,” she pointed first to Gretchen, “and you,” her finger moved over to Oktavia. “And apparently you two had been BFF’s since you were little.”

Oktavia blinked. “Wait, me? Really?”

“Well, it does make sense,” Gretchen said in a low voice. “I mean, we did figure that we were probably, um, closer than the others.”

Homulilly’s lips thinned out.

“Huh,” Oktavia said with a frown. “Well, okay…” She looked over to Gretchen and managed a crooked smile. “So, together forever after all, huh?”

Gretchen smiled in return, but it didn’t last long, though probably more due to the heaviness of the situation than any opinion about remaining close with the easygoing mermaid for the rest of eternity.

“Yeah, anyway,” Charlotte said. She looked up to Candeloro. “It seems you were team leader or something, no surprises there. Hitomi said that you were an upperclassman that everyone else just started following around one day.”

There was a pause, and then Candeloro gave a slight nod.

“You were a transfer student,” Charlotte said, motioning over to Homulilly.

“A t-transfer student?” Homulilly stammered.

“Yeah. Apparently you were already a magical girl or whatever when you showed up, and sort of, uh, made friends with Gretchen pretty quickly. Anyway, one day you weren’t there, the next you were, and were part of that group ever since.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense, I guess.”

“Dare I ask what my deal was?” Ophelia said.

“Sure. Apparently you were a stray delinquent that they just picked up from God knows where.”

Ophelia let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yup. Hitomi says that you didn’t even go to their school, but you’d sneak in to have lunch with the others and was always with them when she’d see all of you after school and on the weekends. And you seemed, and I quote, ragged and kind of dirty.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” For some reason this news seemed to cheer Ophelia to no end. “True rebel from day one!”

“So what happened to us all?” Oktavia said. “Did Ophelia, Candeloro, and I just up and vanish one day?”

“Apparently,” Charlotte said. “And this actually has the most to do with you.”

“What? Me? Really?”

“Oh, damn it, Tavi,” Ophelia sighed. “What’d you do this time?”

“Yeah, and brace yourself,” Charlotte said. “This one’s…kind of…” She frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s something though.”

She explained to the group all about a boy named Kyousuke and his unfortunate accident. This was followed by his sudden miracle healing and the clash between Hitomi and Oktavia’s past self for his affections, and how that all went.

“Seriously?” Oktavia said, her eyes practically bugging right out of her face. “I gave up my soul for some dumb boy?”

“Well, that is a very kind thing to do,” Candeloro said. “Very selfless.”

“Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes you a hero if you think about it,” Gretchen added.

“And it does explain why you’re so good with music,” Candeloro added. “We always figured that it must have something to do with your wish.”

“Screw that! That’s got to be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard! All that, and I didn’t even have the spine to make a move!” Oktavia threw up her hands in exasperation and slumped back into her seat.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, it all worked out in the end,” Ophelia said as she reached over to tousle Oktavia’s hair. “And you definitely traded up.”

“Yeah,” Oktavia sighed. “Yeah, I did. I just wish the journey wasn’t so…dumb.” She tilted her head to one side. “So, is that what set me off?”

“Um, maybe?” Charlotte shrugged. “Hitomi wasn’t there, so there’s no way to know for certain. She just said that one day, everyone but Gretchen and Homulilly up and disappeared, and that you two seemed to know why but refused to say.”

“That’s awful,” Gretchen said in a small voice.

“These stories very often are,” Charlotte muttered. “Anyway, not much to tell after that. Apparently a huge storm hit out of nowhere and everyone in the city needed to be evacuated, but your, uh, past selves never showed up to the shelter and were never heard from again.”

“A storm?” Candeloro rubbed her chin. “Why do I get the feeling that that storm was no storm at all?”

“Because it wasn’t,” Charlotte said. “Apparently Hitomi was contacted by an Incubator not long after who told her that it was some kind of giant Walpurgisnacht and that you all were Puella Magi, all the while conveniently leaving out the part about you turning into witches yourselves. She said that he gave her the impression that you were all still alive somewhere, so she wished to be able to find you guys. Er, Gretchen and Oktavia specifically.” She shrugged. “And she got knocked off in her first fight with a witch, so I guess it came true. From a demented point of view.”

“Wow,” Gretchen said.

“Wow’s right,” said Ophelia, finally pulling out a chair to sit down as well. “That kid’s had it rough.”

“So, wait,” Oktavia said. “A big Walpurgisnacht was threatening the city? You guys don’t think that it might have been, um, us?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Charlotte said. “I thought about it on the way home, and the timelines just don’t make sense if it was. Homulilly and Gretchen disappeared right after the storm cleared up, so they must have turned into witches right after. And we had already been here for years when they showed up.”

“That just means that they got taken down at least a few weeks after,” Ophelia pointed out. “If they were the last Puella Magi in town when it happened, then they could have been wandering around as witches for a while until new ones showed up.”

“Huh.” Charlotte blinked. “That’s, uh, that’s a good point. And…a very disturbing one.”

Homulilly breathed out. That was a possibility that she really rather not think about. And judging by the nauseated looked on Gretchen’s face, she felt much the same way.

“Okay, but wait,” Oktavia said. “What happened to the boyfriend?”

“Why, you hoping he’ll turn up as well?” said Ophelia. Oktavia crumpled up a napkin and threw it at her.

“No clue,” admitted Charlotte. “He kind of dropped out of the story around the storm, so I guess things got weird between them. And now their relationship is definitely not going anywhere.”

“I can’t help but feel for him as well,” Candeloro said. “I mean, to lose both his close friend and his girlfriend in such a short period of time without ever knowing why. That can’t be easy.”

“Well, sure,” said Ophelia. “Until you remember that he’s still supposedly a musical prodigy who got his goods back and will probably end up rich and famous.”

“That doesn’t change anything. If anything, it almost makes it worse. Survivor’s guilt and all that. I mean, can you imagine, just when it looks like the universe has aligned to give you everything you ever wanted, everyone around you is just…gone? And you’re stuck alone, wondering why you deserved to have your wish granted and no one else did?”

Oktavia slowly exhaled.

After a long enough silence had passed, Homulilly said, “Did you learn anything else?”

Charlotte cleared her throat. “I did, actually. To be specific, I learned names.”

“Like, our names?” Ophelia said. “I mean, I figure that you got Tavi’s old name, but the rest of us?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Apparently Hitomi was introduced to you all at one point. Anyway, I showed her your pictures, and she was able to identify them.”

“Oh.”

Oktavia squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “So, should we hear them? I mean, I know it’s not good for us, but I can’t help but be a little curious…”

“Same. Only problem is we have no way of knowing how it’ll affect us.” Ophelia turned to Homulilly and Gretchen. “I mean, you two only heard them like once or twice, but you said it’s got your heads tied up in knots, right?”

Homulilly sighed. “Yes. It’s…not been fun.”

“What’s the rule on that anyway?” Oktavia asked. “I mean, I’ve heard of witches showing up with people that they knew and hearing their old names like a couple dozen times before someone put a stop to it, and nothing bad really happened.”

“There’s no hard and fast rule on it,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “But apparently, the longer it’s been since your death, the harder it is. I guess if your new identity has had time to settle, then it’s more likely that your old one can really screw you up.”

“Oh,” Ophelia said. “Then yeah, better keep that to yourself.”

“At least for now,” Candeloro added.

“Cool. All right, I guess I’m the secret keeper now,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “Possessor of forbidden knowledge.”

She probably meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed. In fact, nobody really had anything to say at all. They all fell silent, each either looking downward or staring off into the distance.

But despite the melancholy mood, Homulilly had to admit that she did feel a little better than she had earlier. True, Hitomi’s supposed past friendship with Gretchen…complicated things, but at least she now had confirmation that it wasn’t romantic in any way. Heck, if anything, she and Gretchen had been something, given that they had been the only two left for some time. True, it had probably been a very depressing time, but still.

Then Ophelia broke the silence with another question. “So…” she said, drawling out the vowel. “What about our families? Did you learn anything about them?”

Charlotte blinked. “Oh yeah. Kind of. So apparently, Gretchen and Oktavia both had families. Er, I mean, you probably still have, to be honest.”

“Really?” Gretchen said, perking up.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you both were friends with our new weirdo, so it makes that she would know them.” Charlotte pulled out some notes. “Okay, you want to hear this?”

Gretchen stared at her. Then she gave the briefest of nods.

Charlotte opened her mouth, but then Gretchen quickly said, “But no names. I…think it’s probably safer that way.”

“Fair enough. Okay, you have a mom and a dad and…” Charlotte breathed out. “Brace yourself, Gretchen. You’ve got a baby brother.”

Gretchen breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I just knew it.”

Homulilly squeezed her hand.

Oktavia shot Gretchen a worried look. She cleared her throat and said, “Er, what about me?”

Charlotte winced. “Sorry Oktavia, but she had her fit right after I found out your name and that your family is still around, but before she could actually tell me their names, so I couldn’t find out anything about them.”

“Oh.”

The mermaid’s expression was…odd. She didn’t look sad, or angry, or shocked, or even unhappy. She just sat back and stared.

Ophelia laid a hand on her shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” Oktavia said. “Just…I always figured that they were out there somewhere, but to actually learn that they exist…” She sighed. “It’s a bit to process.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gretchen.

“I just wish…um, that…”

“That I had gotten their names?” Charlotte said.

Oktavia winced. “Sorry, Char. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not your fault.”

“Well, it’s not like Hitomi’s going anywhere,” Ophelia said. “Maybe you can find out about them sometime later.”

“Sure. And maybe risk going nuts as a result.” Oktavia sighed. “Jesus, what a mess.”

No one disagreed with her on that. Ophelia looked up at Charlotte. “What about the rest of us?” she pressed.

Charlotte grimaced. “Well, that’s not so pleasant. Apparently you three were all orphans, at least as far as she could tell.”

“Oh. Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah, um.” Charlotte consulted her notes. “Okay. Candy, your parents apparently died in a car crash.”

Candeloro took a deep breath. “I see,” she said. “I guess that explains my…situation. You know, when I first woke up here.”

“Oh shit,” Charlotte said, her eyes widening. “I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, I guess it does.” She shook her head. “Anyway, um, Ophelia, I didn’t get much about you, I’m afraid, but-”

“Suicide,” Ophelia said flatly.

“Huh? You sure?”

“Yeah, you remember all those nooses from my little nightmare cathedral and that stained glass window?”

Charlotte was silent for a time. Then she said, “Right. Yeah, that, uh, makes sense.”

“But why everyone but her?” Oktavia said. “I mean, that window showed her mom, dad, and I guess her little sister? What happened?”

“Who the hell knows?” Ophelia said, all good humor gone from her voice. “Maybe I did, and that was when I learned that you gotta smash the soul gem to kill a Puella Magi.”

Just the thought of that made Homulilly wince. The more she learned about their past lives, the more she was glad she didn’t have to actually remember any of it.

Then, as if just having the thought subconsciously directed the conversation to her, Charlotte said, “Okay, Homulilly. Hitomi didn’t have much about you, except that your parents had been gone since you were little, and you had already been alone for quite a bit before you transferred to their school. She said you had been in and out of hospitals due to heart problems, and had gone to some kind of Catholic school in America before that.”

“What’s America?” Homulilly asked.

“What’s Catholic?” Gretchen added.

Charlotte’s brow went up and down. “Uh, America’s a country, Catholic’s a religion, and that really wasn’t what I was expecting your reaction to be.”

“Sorry,” Homulilly said. “It’s just…what am I supposed to say? A few years ago I said goodbye to my past self. I didn’t know her name or what she was like or anything about her, so I figured that was it. Now I know her name and what kind of school she went to. I know her medical history. She was an orphan, or maybe abandoned, or something like that. It’s like she died three times: when she became a witch, when that witch got killed, and when I let her go. Now she’s back, and I don’t know what to think.”

Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, maybe this whole fact-finding thing was a bad idea.”

Sighing, Candeloro pulled a free chair out from the table and sat down. “Guys, look. I know all of this is really scary, but understand that no matter what we might learn about our past lives, we shouldn’t let that change anything about who we are now. We know a few new details now, but none of them really changes anything. We already knew we were friends before, and the sequence of events more-or-less matches what we already had figured out. This just fills in some of the gaps, that’s it.”

“Is it?” Gretchen said hollowly.

Candeloro tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

Gretchen shook her head. “I mean, I already guessed that I had a Mama and Papa, but now I know for sure! And if I ever want to know their names, I just have to ask Charlotte. Except that’s dangerous, so I probably shouldn’t! And…I have a baby brother! I don’t know him, but I know about him now. He’s going to grow up knowing about me, but never knowing what happened to me. What am I supposed to do with that?”

That last sentence ended in a small sob. She covered her face and started crying softly. Swallowing back a lump of her own, Homulilly turned her chair toward her and drew her in, letting Gretchen bury her face in her shoulder and holding her as she cried.

After a while Oktavia shook her head and said. “Y’know, I’m starting to agree with Fee-Fee. This was probably a bad idea.”

Charlotte shrugged. “Well, what’s done is done. Now we just need to figure out what to do going forward.”

Gretchen drew back from Homulilly. She picked up a napkin to dab at her eyes and blow her nose. “What about Hitomi?” she said. “What are we going to do for her?”

“For her?”

“Well, we have to do something! You said she was all screwed up. I mean, if just this little bit upsets us this much, imagine what she’s going through knowing everything!”

“Nothing,” Ophelia said. “We’re doing nothing.”

Gretchen shot her a pained look. “How can you say that? Don’t you understand how upset she is? How scared?”

“I do,” Ophelia said. “And that’s why we’re doing nothing. Look, she remembers you, and she remembers Tavi. You guys were her best friends, and then she lost you and didn’t know why. Then she learned about something she should have never known about, and it destroyed her. Now she’s here, having to come to terms with being dead, with never seeing her family and friends again, with knowing that aliens and magic are a thing, and everything. That’s gonna really fuck someone up. Now suddenly you two are back in her life, except you’re not you. You look like you, you sound like you, but you’re both half monster and don’t remember her at all. Hell, she can’t even call you by the names she knows you by. Nothing good can come from trying to reinsert yourselves into her life. The best thing to do now would be to stay as far away from her as you can and let the FIB do their thing. And then…” She shrugged. “Maybe in a few years, after she’s been all therapied and more stable, then maybe you can work something out. But not now. That’s not going to help anyone.”

“That’s kind of awful,” Oktavia said.

“What is? What I just said or that you all know I’m right?”

“Both.”

Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, well, can’t disagree there.” Then she frowned. “Though hey, something just kind of occurred to me. Hey, Charlotte?”

Charlotte blinked. “Huh?”

“Look, I kinda just realized that we’re all here going on and on about our past lives and shit when you still don’t know anything about yours. I know you said that you don’t care, but I know you better than that. So let me just say this: I don’t care either. I don’t care if you weren’t part of the original group, I don’t care if you weren’t our friend back then, and hell, I don’t care if you were already a witch and we all were trying to kill you when everything went down. None of that matters. You’re just as much a part of this family as any one of us.”

“Definitely,” Candeloro said.

“Yeah. Super agreed,” Oktavia added.

“Same for me,” Gretchen said. Homulilly nodded slowly in agreement.

Charlotte went pink in the face. Her mouth opened, and then closed. She seemed completely taken by surprise.

“Wow,” she said at last. “Er, I…Huh. Th-That actually means a lot more to me than I thought it would. Thank you.”

“Well, okay,” Oktavia said after a bit. “Even if we don’t put ourselves back into Hitomi’s life, we still should at least keep tabs on her. See how she’s doing and all that.”

“That’s fair,” Candeloro said. “I’ll call the FIB and see what I can get arranged.” Then she looked around and addressed everyone. “In the meantime though, we do have a lot to think about and digest. And remember that we all took the classes and know how…dangerous this sort of thing is. So can we make an effort to keep in communication with one another through this? We’re all in this together after all.”

“Sounds good,” Ophelia said.

“Yes. Definitely yes,” said Gretchen.

“Good. All right, we do this together.” Candeloro bunched up the end of her right ribbon in a close approximation of a fist. “Stay strong, guys. We can work through this.”

…

So editing this one was kinda haphazard due to its length, amount of information being discussed, and me being brain fried, so if I missed anything, give me a head’s up.

Until next time, everyone.

#Walpurgis Nights

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takerfoxx · 6 years

Text

RD Walpurgis Nights 7: Part 4

Ophelia sucked in sharply through her teeth. “Okay, um. Well, that’s really good advice and all, but I’m guessing things didn’t turn out well.”

“No,” Homulilly said, shaking her head. “It was a disaster.”

…

Three days ago…

“I’m so glad you decided to come,” Gretchen said happily as she and Homulilly walked hand-in-hand through the FIB’s schoolhouse. “You’ll love it, I promise!”

Homulilly smiled reassuringly, but she was gnawing the insides of her cheeks.

It was early evening, and they had just gotten out from dinner. Normally this would be when the two of them would return to their dorm to work on homework, relax, read, watch holovids, or just goof off, but Gretchen still had a few more meetings to attend with the planning committee for the festival, and Homulilly would be damned if she spent another night alone, much less leave Gretchen alone around Mitty without supervision.

Surprisingly, the committee had no issue with letting Homulilly tag along. She had expected Mitty at least to raise some kind of protest, but she apparently had been fine with it.

Maybe she had other things to worry about. Maybe she liked the competition. Or maybe…

Homulilly’s smile began to get a little strained.

…maybe she didn’t see Homulilly as competition at all. And why would she? She was gorgeous, while all Homulilly could manage was…cute. Maybe this was intentional. Maybe she wanted to steal Homulilly’s girl right in front of her.

Well, Homulilly for one was not going to taking that lying down. She was wearing a silky black dress that came down to just before her knees, and black stockings that extended just above them, leaving a few centimeters of skin in between. Every knot and tangle had been combed out of her hair and it now practically shined, every petal on her spider-lily was perfectly curled, and she had had one of the caretakers help her a few touches of makeup.

Gretchen, it should be noted, had just been confused when she saw how much Homulilly had made herself up, and was just wearing a frilly pink blouse, a white hooded jacket, and shorts. Still, she had been very complimentary regardless.

The planning committee had their meetings in the big auditorium where the FIB put on plays, rallies, and other school events. Homulilly imagined several professional looking people sitting politely in the first few rows, facing the stage, where the president was standing at the podium giving a presentation, probably one with holographic flowcharts or something.

As they neared the auditorium, Homulilly reflexively headed for the big double-door, but Gretchen passed right past them to head for the smaller side-door instead, the one near the stage that let staff get in and out without disrupting whatever was going on.

Homulilly got another surprise when they entered the room. Given that class sizes depended on girls dying and randomly ending up in Freehaven, it was only about twice the size of one of the classrooms. Still, it was one of the larger rooms in the FIB, and Homulilly had expected to see the members of the planning committee filling the seats, dutifully listening as the president addressed them from the stage.

Instead, the stage was empty, almost all the chairs were folded up and stacked along the walls, and only four girls were hanging out near the back. There was a plastic table set up with a variety of snacks and a keg of punch set up, and a few chairs were set up in a disorganized ring. Only one of the girls was actually sitting normally, while another had her chair backwards and was leaning over its back while the third was lounging her legs across three chairs while the fourth was at the table helping herself to the snacks.

Mitty was nowhere to be seen.

Homulilly hesitated. Her earlier conviction that she was headed to war and confidence to win suddenly started to dry up, and she felt very overdressed. The committee was a third of the size she was expecting, and like Gretchen, everyone else wore comfortable clothes and was chatting casually.

As Homulilly hung back, Gretchen bolted ahead toward the group. “Hey, guys!” she said cheerfully. “This is my girlfriend, Homulilly. She was getting bored without me and wanted to tag along!” She pointed to the girl sitting normally, who was Middle-Eastern, short of stature, and had her long, bright yellow hair tied back. “This is Yasmin Asfour, our president.”

“Hi,” Yasmin said with a shy wave.

Gretchen then turned to the girl reclining across three chairs, who was Caucasian, slightly overweight, and had short blue hair that looked like it curled naturally.

“That’s Patricia Sanders, the vice-president!”

“Hi,” said Patricia said.

“That’s Jada Avidan, the secretary,” Gretchen said, indicating the girl helping herself to snacks. An olive-skinned Jewish girl with wavy pink hair, Jada merely gave a quick half-salute over her shoulder and went back to what she was doing.

“And that’s Madeline, the treasurer,” Gretchen said as she pointed out the girl with the backwards chair. A black girl with bright red hair, she was a witch with arms and legs shaped like Corinthian columns. At her introduction, she just nodded and went back to talking to Vivian.

“Um, hello,” Homulilly said. “I, uh, hope I’m not intruding.” Then she remembered that she was supposed to look cool and confident and gave herself a mental kick.

“Where’s Mitty?” Gretchen asked as she grabbed a pair of chairs for her and Homulilly and sat down, her legs spreading in all directions.

Hopefully sick, Homulilly thought as she took her seat next to Gretchen. Or in jail. Or expelled. Or-

“Here,” said the familiar voice, dashing Homulilly’s hopes. It came from the far end of the room. There, a brown couch was facing the wall, with Mitty’s bright orange hair hanging out over one armrest and her bare feet dangling over the other. “Howdy.”

Then her feet disappeared, her knees appeared over the top of the cushions, and she kipped up, leaping fully off the couch to land on her feet on the floor. She was just wearing a pair of sweatpants and midriff exposing tee-shirt that bore the logo of some band that Homulilly had never heard of. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail and she wore no makeup.

“Okey-doke,” Mitty said as she picked up a folded chair and approached the small group. “Jalaga should be back in a bit, and we can get started. Hey, Homulilly. Glad you could make it.” Then she saw what Homulilly was wearing and her eyes went wide.

“Damn,” she said. She tossed the chair at the chair, giving it a weird twist of her wrist as she did. It somehow unfolded as it spun through the air and landed perfectly on all four legs, facing the rest of the group, letting her sit down. “Where’s the party? Can I come?”

Homulilly had no idea how to respond to that.

Right about then she heard the big double-doors opening behind them, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. “Hey, Jalaga!” Jada called. “Right on time!”

That was when Madeline suddenly looked worried. She leaned over and said to Gretchen in a low voice, “Uh-oh. Hey, Gretchen? You warned your girlfriend about Jalaga, right?”

Gretchen’s eyes went wide.

Warn? Warn her about what? Homulilly instinctively turned in her chair to see what the problem was.

“Lilly-chan, wait,” Gretchen said grabbing her by the arm. “Maybe you shouldn’t-”

“Hey, everyone!” said a deep, booming voice, one that was definitely not human. “I got the rest of the flags, so we should be ready to-”

Homulilly finished turning fully in her seat. Then her face lost what little color it had and with a loud shriek she fell backward to the floor, nearly taking Gretchen with her.

Jalaga was a vaskergoros, all fur-covered muscle, sharp tusks, and four massive arms. Not a tall one, as such things were judged, but even at her three-and-a-half meters, she had to stoop to keep her head from scraping the ceiling.

That in itself would have been a surprise, but not a shock. Vaskergoros were not common in Freehaven, but Homulilly had seen enough of them to at least get sort of used to their size and fearsome appearances. However, this particular vaskergoros differed greatly from the ones she had seen in one significant regard: namely, she was a witch. A witch whose entire chest, shoulders, arms, and head were completely skeletal, and her living skull of a head levitated over the thick bones of her shoulders in a ball of green flame.

At Homulilly’s reaction, Jalaga froze in place and stared down at her. “Oh,” she said, her voice emanating as much from her fleshless chest as it did her mouth. “I…didn’t know we had someone new. Sorry for scaring you.”

Trembling like hairless rat freezing to death, Homulilly could do nothing but remain right where she was and gape up at the demonic visage staring down at her.

A very long silence passed, and then Jalaga said, “Oh. Hey! You got the same kind of arms I do! Neat.”

More silence. Someone coughed.

Jalaga glanced around and tried again. “So…do your elbow joints grind together whenever you try to reach around and scratch your back? Because mine do, and it is just the worst.”

Still no answer.

Jalaga slowly breathed out, no mean feat for someone who should not even be capable of the act. “So, is she going to be okay?” she asked the others as she pointed down at the cowering Homulilly. “Because this is getting really uncomfortable.”

…

Now…

“Ouch,” Ophelia said with a wince. “Ouch.

“Yeah,” Homulilly said with a sniff. Just reliving the memory was making her turn pink. “It was Dr. Antercateract all over again.”

“Dr…Oh, right. Oktavia’s tentacled friend. Um, would I be correct in assuming that this was one of those nights where literally everything that could go wrong did go wrong?”

Homulilly sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “Absolutely.”

…

Then…

Once everyone was finally all circled up, Yasmin cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “All right, all right, meet and greet’s over. Now, we need to-”

Homulilly, who had been itching for this moment, abruptly raised her hand.

“-and, ah, yes?”

Almost immediately Homulilly felt the urge to apologize for the interruption and say it was nothing, anything to get all the eyes now focused on her to turn anywhere else. Even the look that Gretchen was shooting her was more confused than supportive.

However, it was too late to back down now. “Hi. Um, sorry, I know I’m not really part of the committee, but…I did have some ideas I wanted to, you know, throw out there.”

Homulilly knew that the others probably wouldn’t be expecting her to contribute, but she wanted to at least justify her being there. Plus, given her recent gaff, she hoped that by offering up something they would be more quick to accept her.

However, it wasn’t interest in what she had to say that they were displaying, nor was it hostility for daring to speak up. Rather, they all just looked completely bewildered. Even Jalaga managed to convey an expression of total bemusement on her fleshless features.

Well, she had gone this far, and it was too late to pull out. Clearing her throat and hoping that her nervousness wasn’t showing in her voice, Homulilly pressed on. “I, uh, looked up the stuff you guys did the last few years, and noticed that there was, like, a dance theme going on, and, and how you’d do a dance from a different part of…” For a brief moment, Homulilly completely forgot the name of the planet they had lived on when they had all been alive, and nearly blanked out. “Er, th-the world of the living. So…I was thinking that you could…continue that, and this year you could…”

Madeline then cleared her throat, bringing Homulilly to a sudden stop. “Um, Homulilly? The festival is right around the corner. We’re pretty far past the brainstorming stage. In fact, most of our part’s already set up. We were just going to finish what we’ve got left and make sure everyone’s ready.” There was a pause, and then she added, “And this year’s theme is the Samba.”

“Oh,” Homulilly said as she slowly sank back into her chair. “Sorry.”

Gretchen gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

Yet another beat passed, and then Mitty said, “Still…it’s good that you wanted to help out. So…maybe you could join the committee next year, yeah?”

Homulilly didn’t trust herself to respond. Mitty…was trying to comfort her, to make her feel better. Mitty felt sorry for her! Gretchen felt sorry for her! They all felt sorry for her, at least the ones that weren’t annoyed by the interruption! Homulilly had shown up hoping to impress and show Mitty up, but instead she had embarrassed herself so badly that Mitty was taking pity on her!

And the worst of it is that it was all Homulilly’s fault. Of course they wouldn’t need any more ideas; of course they would be almost done! Why hadn’t she known that? It was obvious! But she had been so caught up in the idea of going to war with Mitty that she had completely failed to think logically and instead had jumped at every dumb idea that had crossed her mind.

Yasmin had started talking again, picking up where she had left off, no doubt in part to steer attention away from Homulilly’s latest screw-up. Homulilly planted her hands on her knees in hopes that it would keep them from shaking, but she couldn’t stop her fingers from curling, crinkling the fabric of her skirt. She had started the evening primed and ready to go to war, but now it was herself that she wanted to smack.

…

Now…

“Wow,” Ophelia said. “Okay then.”

Homulilly was already red in the face due to what had recently gone down, but reliving the previous night’s humiliations darkening the color into purple. “I was an idiot,” she mumbled. “I was such an idiot.”

Ophelia pulled out another candy bar (how many of those did she keep on her?), slowly unwrapped it, took a contemplative bite, chewed for a bit, swallowed, and said, “If I tried to make you feel better, would it make it worse?”

“Yes.”

“Duly noted. So…what happened next?”

…

Then…

The actual meeting part had been mercifully brief, and within minutes everyone headed outside to get to work. Homulilly sulkily followed, mentally kicking herself every step of the way for every single decision she had made in the last twenty-four hours.

Sure enough, everything was practically done. The dance circle was an octagonal wooden stage surrounded by a white lattice wall, with a big opening on one side. All that was really left was to put up the last few decorations.

Once outside, everyone quickly dispersed to their tasks. Nobody said anything to Homulilly, so she sat down on a bench to watch as the last bits of light-hanging and sign-painting was taken care of.

The first thing she noticed was that Mitty and Gretchen weren’t working anywhere near each other, which was a relief. Or maybe it wasn’t. Homulilly had half-expected for Mitty to take advantage of Homulilly’s public humiliation to swoop in for the kill, but instead the two were barely interacting. Maybe she felt so sorry for her rival that she had decided to back off for the time being, out of pity.

Or, as Homulilly bitterly reflected was most likely the case, she didn’t consider Homulilly to be any kind of rival and saw no need to capitalize.

At the moment, Mitty was hanging out near the FIB’s wall, talking to Madeline. Homulilly watched as the two chatted and laughed, playfully exchanging barbs. Homulilly frowned. Come to think of it, Mitty was acting much the same around Madeline as she had with Gretchen. What was going on? Was she trying to seduce everyone on the planning committee?

Then, right there in front of everyone, Mitty reached down and grabbed a big handful of Madeline’s butt.

Homulilly’s jaw dropped at the boldness. Well, sure, she was used to Ophelia and Oktavia’s open appreciation of any cute girl that walked by, but they at least kept their hands and comments between the two of them. This was a whole new level of brazen!

“Sexual harassment!” Madeline called out, laughing. “Sexual harassment!”

“Hey, Mitty!” Patricia called over from where she was working. “Wait until after we’re done before you start molesting people!”

Confused, Homulilly just shook her head. Okay, maybe she was worried over nothing. Maybe that was just how Mitty was with everyone.

Still laughing, Mitty grabbed up the banner she was to put up and a bucket of tools and turned toward the wall. Homulilly expected her to leap or run her way to the top like everyone else, but instead she lifted her right leg, planted her foot against the side of the wall, lifted her left leg, and then proceeded to casually walk all the way to the top, her body perpendicular to the ground.

Despite the dark cloud that was hanging over her, Homulilly couldn’t help but leap to her feet and blurt out, “She can walk on walls?”

Though there was a fair distance between her and the apparent human spider, it was close enough for Mitty to hear, and she turned her head to smirk down at the stunned girl. “Hell yeah, I can walk on walls! Used to need to summon up my uniform boots to do it, but since that ain’t happening anymore, now I can do it whenever!”

“You know, I never got that,” Jada remarked from where she was working over at the stage itself. “We can still summon up our old weapons, right? So how come we can’t get our uniforms back?”

“Who the hell knows?” Mitty said with a shrug. “But hey, given the choice, I’d go with ol’ Sexy here.” She shifted the banner under her armpit, moved the bucket over to her left hand, and held out her right. There was a flash, and then a long green staff with a triangular yellow crystal at both ends was in her hand. She spun it around one-handed like a baton and then jammed it against the side of the building. The crystal seemed to melt and mold itself against the wall and the whole pole stuck.

Hanging the bucket on the pole, Mitty knelt down on the wall to get to work.

Homulilly thought back to her visits to the Ladoga house, where Ophelia, Charlotte, Oktavia, and Candeloro had their old weapons hanging over the fireplace, as they had managed to hold onto them when making their escape from Dead Drop City. She wished that she and Gretchen had had the presence of mind to do the same, but they hadn’t even seen theirs. Presumably they were still there, within that terrible clock tower. Just another thing Puella Magi had over witches.

“Lilly-chan!”

Homulilly turned to see Gretchen waving over to her. The pink-haired witch was hanging flags on the wooden latticework wall that surrounded the courtyard. She was making good time too, as she had her nest of wire-legs stretched all the way across the wall, each one plucking up flags to tie them into place in an impressive display of multitasking. It made her look like an incredibly cute pagan god of legend.

“Come on! You can work with me!”

Normally Homulilly would have jumped at the chance, but now all she could do was wonder why Gretchen even needed the help, as she was handily doing the work of at least six people with little effort.

It’s because she feels sorry for me. I mean, look at me, sitting by myself and looking pathetic.

Still, at least it was something to do, and maybe by being helpful Homulilly could make up for her earlier slipups. Sighing, she got up and walked over to where Gretchen was working.

Gretchen reached down with several of her legs and twisted them around to form a pair of step-ups. “C’mon,” she said. “I’ll give you a boost!”

Homulilly glanced over to where Mitty was still crouched on the side of the building, half-singing and half-humming a pretty raunchy hip-hop song. “No, it’s okay. I got it,” she said.

Gretchen blinked. “Are you sure? Because I-”

Homulilly took a few steps back, calculated her path, and bolted toward one of the columns. Then, just like she had done a hundred times to reach the rooftop pathways of Freehaven, she leapt up.

At first everything went as planned, and Homulilly was able clear most of the column’s length with a single bound. However, as she did so, she realized her mistake: sure, the walls she was used to scaling were far higher, but they also included a series of handholds and footholds, whereas the column had nothing for her to hold onto.

As Homulilly felt her ascent start to slow and her descent starting to take hold, she desperately braced her feet against the side of the column and pushed up. It wasn’t much, but it gave her enough momentum to seize onto the top of the beam with both hands. Then, before anyone could notice her near-mishap, she hauled herself up.

Straddling the beam with her legs, she shot Gretchen what she hoped was a confident smile. “See?” she said. “Nothing to it.”

Then she saw that Gretchen had several of her legs reared up around her like a startled octopus, no doubt at the ready to catch Homulilly if she fell. “Oh,” she said, looking genuinely surprised. Then she grinned and lowered her legs. “Cool! All right, let me show you what we need to do.”

Homulilly’s smile faltered. Wait, did she really think that Homulilly wasn’t going to make it?

Then she heard a small chuckle. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Mitty was shaking her head as she snickered. There was no doubt about it; she had seen how close Homulilly had come to falling.

Wincing, Homulilly turned away and instead focused on helping Gretchen with the flags.

The two worked in silence for a bit, which for them was unusual. Homulilly honestly found it hard to concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing, as her mind kept racing to come up with something to break the silence, anything they could talk about that wouldn’t betray the nerves she was feeling.

Then Gretchen said, “Um, Lilly-chan? Can I ask you something?”

The last time Gretchen had ventured that kind of question in that tone, it had led to their first kiss. But given recent events, Homulilly wasn’t exactly optimistic that the subject matter was going to be anything nearly as positive. Forcing what she hoped was a warm smile, Homulilly said, “Sure!”

True enough, Gretchen’s question was not one that Homulilly really wanted to answer. “Um, are you…okay? Because you’ve been acting very weird lately.”

Though she wasn’t much for swearing, all the time spent with Cheese the parrot had given Homulilly a large and filthy vocabulary to work with should ever the need arise. And though she said none of the words out loud, mentally she ran through most of them in seconds.

Fighting to keep her panic from her face but knowing that she was failing miserably, Homulilly stammered out, “Uh…wh-what do you mean?”

Gretchen was many things, but an idiot was not one of them. She just gave Homulilly the look, obviously not fooled in the slightest.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. What was Homulilly supposed to do? She couldn’t come out with the truth, which in itself just felt so completely wrong, as Gretchen was the one person she could always be honest with. But she couldn’t just tell the truth and say that she was worried that Gretchen might leave her one day.

Think, Homulilly. Think! There had to be something she could say, had to be something she could say to allay Gretchen’s concerns.

And then, in a flash of inspiration, she had it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and fortunately did not have to fake it. “I know, it’s just…you know, after the museum trip, everything’s just been feeling like it’s upside-down, and…” She sighed, and said again, “I’m sorry.”

The annoyance in Gretchen’s eyes softened, to be replaced with sympathy. “Oh, Lilly-chan.” Then she suddenly lunged forward to seize Homulilly in a tight embrace.

Homulilly, who had not been expecting that reaction, almost went stiff with surprise, but thankfully her reflexes took over and she immediately returned the gesture, wrapping her arms around Gretchen in return.

Her face close to Homulilly’s ear, Gretchen whispered, “Lilly-chan, I know things are scary right now, but you don’t have to worry! You heard what they said: so long as we stick together, we’ll be all right.”

That was just what Homulilly needed to hear. She sighed, letting the tension in her shoulders recede a little. Maybe she had been a little silly. Maybe she had let Annabelle Lee’s words get to her. But everything was going to be fine, right?

Then Gretchen said, “That’s why you don’t need to act cool for me, okay? Just be yourself. That’s all I want.”

Normally Homulilly would have been just fine with that, but something about the way Gretchen said that sounded sour to her ears. “Don’t need to act cool”? So…Gretchen didn’t think she was cool?

Well, granted, Homulilly herself didn’t think that she was cool, but now she was starting to realize just how cool everyone in her life was. Ophelia was really cool, Oktavia was also really cool, and Charlotte was pretty cool herself, with their brash personalities, funny quirks, and the confidence with which they did everything. Even Candeloro, who was the least aggressive and most feminine of the group, was also cool in her own way. And Gretchen, who was small, cute, and really pink, seemed to have no difficulty endearing herself to the cool people and making friends with them.

In fact, now that Homulilly thought about it, back when they had first met all of their friends, Ophelia had first approached her because Cheese had scared her and Ophelia had wanted to cheer her up, and it had taken a lot of coaxing to just get Homulilly to talk to her. Whereas Gretchen had been the one to approach Oktavia and strike up a conversation.

And then there was Mitty.

Everywhere she went, Gretchen just kept fitting in with cool people, while Homulilly just seemed to be tagging along for the ride. It had even been Gretchen that had rescued herself from the torturous situation she had found herself in and saved Homulilly from the clock tower.

Gretchen said that she loved her with all of her heart, and Homulilly believed her. But with all the talk she had been hearing lately about soul resonance, how much of that was because they had joined together as a Walpurgisnacht, and how much would have happened anyway? Did they even like each other in the old life? Were they even friends?

Homulilly had an image flash through her head, that of what their old Puella Magi team might have been like, where the past-selves of Gretchen, Ophelia, Oktavia, Candeloro, and…maybe Charlotte (they had never really worked out why she didn’t share the same reflexive recognition as the others) risked their lives to protect the city and looked really cool doing it. And in the back was Homulilly, always holding the others back, always coming up short, always screwing up and making things worse.

Always letting everyone down.

And that was her now. The others kept her around, sure. And she had no doubt that they liked her. But how much of that was out of pity? For all she knew, in their former life she had been the black sheep of the group, the one that the rest just kept around for the sake of having as much firepower as possible.

All of this passed through Homulilly’s mind in just a few seconds, but she couldn’t let Gretchen know. So she just forced everything she was feeling and thinking from her face and voice and said, “Okay. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

They parted then, though Gretchen kept her hand on Homulilly’s shoulder.

“Just hold on,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”

Homulilly nodded and turned in her seat…

…only to just then remember that she was seating on a wooden beam fifteen feet in the air.

She felt her balance leave almost immediately. She tried to correct herself, but somehow her stupid skirt had gotten twisted under her and that just threw her off all the more. She then tried to grab onto the beam for support, but somehow her hand fell onto the bucket of flags that was sitting right behind her.

The bucket fell, and Homulilly slipped right along with it.

She let out a loud yelp as she went horizontal, headed for what promised to be a very painful impact on the wooden stage below.

And then she stopped.

A moment later she heard the bucket clatter against the ground.

Blinking in surprise, Homulilly looked around to try to get some sense of what had happened. She was still horizontal, hanging perpendicular to the wooden beam, one leg still thrown across it. But in defiance of gravity itself, she was floating in midair.

Then she felt the wire-thin bindings around her waist and arms.

Gretchen had lashed out with four of her legs, snatching her before she could fall and keeping her in place. Looking concerned, she slowly maneuvered Homulilly back into place. “All you all right?” she said.

Though her illusionary heartbeat was still pounding in her ears, Homulilly managed a nod. Whew, that had been a close one.

And then she heard Yasmin say from down below, “Um, you guys okay up there?”

Homulilly turned, slowly and carefully, to look. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and were all staring at the pair.

Gretchen waved to them. “We’re fine!” she said. “Just a little slip. Don’t worry!”

Homulilly’s eyes swept over the group, seeing the looks of pity and disappointment.

Then she looked up. Mitty was now standing on the roof of the FIB building, far above them, her head bowed with one hand pressing against her forehead. She slowly shook her head, in clear disbelief that the klutz had done it again.

…

Now…

“Well?” Homulilly said.

“Well what?” said Ophelia.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Ophelia leaned back to recline across the wall on her elbows. She pushed her hat back and said, “Got plenty to say, but I think I’m gonna wait until you’re done before I say it.”

Homulilly sighed.

“Well?” Ophelia said, rolling her wrist to urge her on. “Keep it going.”

…

Then…

At the start of the night, Homulilly had been confidently striding forward with her shoulders straight, her head held high, and ready to prove herself to be just as cool as Mitty.

Now she no longer cared about any of that. She slumped into her seat next to Gretchen, head down, eyes moodily studying how the tiny marshmallows bobbed around in the steamy brown swamp of her hot chocolate.

At long last the night had come to an end, and everyone had decided to go hang out at the FIB’s all-hours coffee shop. Homulilly had frankly would have preferred to not to, but she was in such a bad mood by then that she couldn’t even muster up enough energy to say otherwise, so she had just said nothing and slouched after everyone.

Since Jalaga was still with them and couldn’t exactly come inside, they were all sitting in the outside area in a circle around a firepit, nursing their drinks and pastries and chatting away. It seemed that the others had decided to just ignore Gretchen’s moody and kind of embarrassing girlfriend and just act like she wasn’t there.

Some things never changed.

Though she wasn’t participating in the slightest with the conversation, bits were drifting past her consciousness. Apparently they were talking the museum trip.

“It was just such a trip, you know?” Mitty was saying, referring to their excursion to the museum the day before. Unlike Homulilly, she was wholly at ease, relaxing with one leg up over the armrest and the other stretched out onto the edge of the firepit. And why wouldn’t she be? She wasn’t the one that had made a fool of herself in front of everyone. “I mean, it’s one thing to read about all that stuff, see the pictures, watch the videos…er, holos, but it’s another to like jump into someone’s freaking memories.”

“Yeah, I remember going through the same thing last year,” Jada said as she shook her head. “Only worse. I hadn’t even heard of the Void Walkers before then.”

“Seems kind of scummy, if you ask me,” said Madeline. “I mean, to drop that on us right before the festival. Kinda kills the mood, right?”

“Maybe they’re hoping it’ll cheer us up,” Jada said.

“It didn’t for me.”

“Okay, but you know what I don’t get?” Mitty said. “See, the part I was really looking forward was meeting Astrid. Because she’s supposed to be one of the only witches to turn back into, uh, into a Puella Magi, right? And if we were going to see her memories…”

“You thought you would get to see how it happened,” Patricia said.

“Yeah, pretty much. Except no, that’s when they decided to show us her girlfriend’s memories of that moment. And when I looked it up to find out why, it turns out that it’s because there wasn’t any memories to show. Like, they actually scanned her brain and found this great big blank spot.” Mitty shrugged. “So…who the hell knows what happened?”

“We don’t have brains anymore, dumbass,” Jada said.

Mitty flicked a straw at her. “Well, maybe you don’t. ‘Sides, you know what I meant.”

“It was the Ideal Witches,” Jalaga said in a low voice. The flaming vaskergoros witch was sitting on the ground with her legs crossed and her arms folded in her lap. She was already kind of eye-catching like that, but that pronouncement brought all attention to her.

A strange change had suddenly come over the group. Despite the warmness of the night, Homulilly felt a strange shiver run down her back. Something about the way Jalaga drew her full attention. “I’m sorry, the what now?” she said.

Mitty shot her a look. “Seriously, you’ve never heard of the Ideal Witches?”

“Um, I haven’t either,” Gretchen said as she hesitantly raised her hand. “What are they?”

“Not everyone reads as much as you, Mitty,” Yasmin said.

Jalaga shrugged. “Still. Given that you’re all on the planning committee for the Cultural Exchange Festival, I’d expect you all to know a little more about cultures outside of Freehaven.”

“Earth cultures, and other species’ cultures, not afterlife cultures,” Yasmin retorted.

“Even so.”

A silence fell over the group. Though they were sitting in a well-like plaza in a thriving metropolis, Homulilly suddenly felt like they were really out by themselves in the wilderness, gathered together around a crackling fire, the only thing holding the darkness at bay. Certainly Jalaga’s demonic visage added to the effect.

Then Gretchen tried again. “So…what are they?”

Jalaga didn’t answer right away. She just stared into the firepit, seemingly lost in thought. and when she did speak, she didn’t even seem to be speaking to them at all. “The Ideal Witches. Seven beings of unfathomable power. Some say that they were once a Walpurgisnacht made up of thousands of souls, but somehow only split into seven pieces. Others say that they each were a Walpurgisnacht that somehow remained whole upon death, keeping all the souls that they had absorbed. But they’re out there, out in the wild, untamed territories, luring the lost and unwary into their realms, entrapping them and feeding off their souls forever.

“It is said that each one presides over a separate aspect of our lives here, and our fates are steered by their wills. There is Mephisto, the human witch of Dreams. Nefflin, the andalite witch of Love. Zuffren, the vekoo witch of Desires. Kuh’sur’ri, the ai’jurrik’kai witch of Hate. Vendrel, the Nesk witch of Despair. Folc, the vaskergoros witch of Deception. And Irn, the kotoss interdrent witch of Determination. They are said to test those that they find interesting, to see if they’re worthy of receiving their blessing. And those who pass are granted their heart’s desire, while those who fail are added to their collection of souls.”

“So…like a reverse Incubator then?” Madeline said.

“Not a bad way of looking at it. Though with Incubators you got your wish and lost your soul. With the Ideal Witches it’s either/or.”

Patricia’s face screwed up in confusion. “And people believe in all this?”

“We go to school with a girl who can take her head off and dunk it like a basketball,” Mitty retorted. “Also, we’re dead and still sipping hot chocolate with a flaming alien. And I can walk on walls. How is any of that less weird?”

“Technically from my viewpoint, you all are the aliens,” Jalaga said good-naturedly.

“Yeah, I guess you have a point,” Patricia sighed. “Hell, if they are real, I kinda hope they’d visit me and give me some idea of what to do after graduating.”

“That brings up a good point,” Madeline said. “What do you guys want to do? Because I keep changing my mind.”

“…I’m honestly not sure anymore,” Mitty said. “I mean, I was going to go into professional dancing, but apparently you got to be something spectacular to compete out there, given what everyone can do, and I guess it doesn’t have the same mileage that it used to. So maybe I’ll just keep doing it as a hobby.”

“I know what you mean,” Gretchen said. “Our friend Ophelia-chan is an amazing dancer, but she still works at the power plant.”

Mitty stiffened. “Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Ophelia? Like, the bald girl who always wears red? That Ophelia?”

“You know her?”

“Know her? Of course I know her, every dancer in the city knows her! She’s great! She trains at the studio where my dance class is, and even subbed in on a couple classes!” Mitty shook her head. “And you’re friends with her?”

Now Homulilly interest was piqued enough to look up. After all, she had suddenly found something that she had that Mitty could be envious of. “Um, yeah. We go hang out at her place all the time.”

Sure enough, Mitty looked downright stunned. “Wow. Wow. So you get to go behind the scenes and everything. Hey, is it true that she has a private studio in her basement, just for her?”

“Er, no?” Gretchen shrugged. “Not that we’ve seen.”

“If she did, why would she be training at your studio?” Homulilly added.

Mitty pursed her lips, and Homulilly realized that she had sounded a little flippant.

However, Mitty didn’t press the issue. “I guess you have a point,” she said with a shrug. “But you have seen her dance battle?”

Gretchen nodded. “A couple times. That one time they took us to Sardi’s Land of Miracles-”

Mitty’s jaw dropped. “Ophelia was the one to take you to Sardi’s?”

“Well, her and the rest of our friends, anyway,” Gretchen said with a shrug. “Anyway, they had this big tent with a…a dance battle thing going on, and Ophelia took on this vaskergoros called, uh…”

“Busker?!” Now Mitty’s eyes were practically popping from their sockets. You saw an Ophelia vs. Busker dance-off at Sardi’s Land of Miracles?! Why the hell didn’t you ever tell me?!”

“…you, uh, never asked.”

“But you know Busker, right?” Mitty said, turning to Jalaga. “She’s like this famous top-boxer, does a lot of crazy stuff with water magic?”

Jalaga somehow managed to convey a look of befuddlement despite not even having much in the way of a face. “Er, no?”

“Seriously? How could you not have heard of Busker?!”

Two flaming, skeletal shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Not every vaskergoros knows each other. Besides, I don’t follow top-boxing.”

Mitty sighed in disappointment. “Aw, Jesus Christ. Okay, who won?”

“Busker, I think,” Gretchen said. “They were tied up until then.”

“So it was the third one.”

Jada stared at her blankly. “How many of these things were there?”

“Five so far. Ophelia’s in the lead, so there’s probably going to be another before too long.” Mitty sighed. “I hope I can find out where the next one’s happening in time to clear my schedule. I have to see one before they call it quits.”

“You think you’ll be up to challenging them one day?” Madeline asked.

Mitty snorted. “I wish. I mean, I’m good, but I’m not that good. Well, yet.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not like you have to rush,” Vivian said. “You have pretty much forever to practice.”

Gretchen made a face. “I guess…”

“And there’s no lack of choices,” Mitty added. “I mean, you don’t have to stay in Freehaven. You could go to Cloudbreak, or Marsters, or Steel City, or the Music Box, or like a gazillion other places.”

“How is it that you already know so much about…everything?” Yasmin asked.

Mitty stared at her in bewilderment. “Everything?”

Yasmin shrugged. “You already knew everything about Reibey and Oblivion, you know all about these Ideal Witches. I’m starting to think we don’t even need to study, we just need to get you talking to find out everything we need to know.”

“How can I not?” Mitty said. “Seriously, we live in a magical afterlife with a bunch of cool aliens! How can you not want to find out everything about it?”

“She’s got a point,” Madeline said between sips of hot chocolate.

“I understand,” Gretchen said. “Our friend Charlotte’s the same way. I think she knows more than the teachers.”

“See?” Mitty said, gesturing toward Gretchen. “There you go. Seriously, it’s kinda weird that you don’t…” Then she cut herself off. “Hold up. Charlotte? The librarian with the pink hair and the tail?”

Homulilly sighed and slumped down deeper.

“You know her too?” Gretchen asked.

Mitty nodded. “I was going to say the same thing! I mean, the library’s the best place to find out anything, and she’s the one that’s been helping me! But I’ve never seen you guys there. How do you know her?”

“Oh!” Gretchen beamed. “Well, she and Ophelia live together, so…”

“Uh…what?” Mitty’s jaw dropped open. “I thought Ophelia was dating that mermaid with the blue hair.”

Patricia perked up. “We have a mermaid?”

“Uh, yeah, haven’t you ever been to the Magi’s Gifts Emporium?” Jada told her. “She teaches music there.”

“You know her too?”

“I’m actually kind of surprised that you don’t! But yeah, my roommate gets guitar lessons from her.”

“She is!” Gretchen said. “Dating Ophelia, I mean. But Charlotte lives with them too!”

Mitty’s brow raised in appreciation. “Really? Huh. Wow, I know Ophelia had game, but…”

“Not like that!” Gretchen said with a slight blush. “There’s four of them: Ophelia, Charlotte, Oktavia, and Candeloro. They’re a Walpurgisnacht, so they stuck together. Ophelia is with Oktavia, and Charlotte is with Candeloro.”

“Ophelia’s part of a Walpurgisnacht?” Mitty said as she rubbed her chin. “Huh, I had no idea.” Then she frowned. “Wait, who’s Candeloro?”

“Uh…you ever been to the Honey Hive?” Gretchen asked.

“The coffee shop? Over on Avenida Sevilla?”

Gretchen nodded. “Yes. She’s one of the managers there. Um, the one with golden hair and ribbons for arms?”

“Oh.” The side of Mitty’s mouth lifted in a sly grin. “Oooooh, her. Yeah, I know her.”

Homulilly sighed. Of their little group, Candeloro undeniably was blessed with the most impressive figure, so it wasn’t uncommon for her to get quite a bit of attention from passersby.

But did they all have to be so overt about it?

Gretchen nodded. “Well, that’s her. She actually does most of their baking. Her strawberry honeycakes won prizes and everything! She’s actually taking a trip to Orya’s Furnace right now for the Sweet Tooth Symp…sympuh…symphony…”

“Symposium,” Homulilly said.

“Right! That word!”

“What’s that?” Jada asked.

Mitty stared at her. “Uh…seriously? It’s a jott city that’s-”

“Not that!” Jada said with a roll of her eyes. “Of course I know about that! What’s the Sweet Tooth Symposium?”

Homulilly cut in before anyone else could. This, at least, she knew more about than everyone else. “It’s a convention. For people who make sweet stuff, like cakes, candy, chocolates, that sort of thing.”

“Gotcha,” Mitty said with a thoughtful look. “And you said she does the baking for the Honey Hive. Y’know, I’ve been over there once or twice. The cupcakes are to die for.” Which is kind of funny, seeing how I did!” She grinned, as if expecting laughter, but the others just stared at her in an uncomfortable manner. Yasmin especially looked a little annoyed. Sensing that her morbid joke hadn’t gone over well, Mitty cleared her throat and hastily moved on. “Anyway, you’re telling me that there’s this house where Freehaven’s best dancer, musician, researcher, and baker live together, and you two just…hang out with them whenever?”

There was a pause, and then Gretchen said, “Well, I never really thought about it like that.”

“We’re actually pretty sure that we all knew each other before,” Homulilly chimed in. Finally, there was something impressive that she had that Mitty didn’t! “Um, you know, when we were…alive.”

“Huh?” Mitty said, tilting her head. “I thought you were both separate Walpurgies.”

“Oh, we are!” Gretchen said. “They’re all one, and we’re another. But when we met…you know how you said that your girlfriend felt like she recognized you, even if she didn’t really know who you were?”

Mitty arched an eyebrow. “Yeah…?”

“It was the same.” She clasped her hands over her heart and smiled at the memory. “We both felt like we knew them, and they felt like they knew us. So…we figure that we were all friends, but they turned into witches together, and we turned into witches later.”

Mitty shook her head. “Wow. Two Walpurgies showing up in the same town, only a…little time apart. Your town must be a crater by now.”

Gretchen’s smile withered. “I…never really thought of it like that.”

“But if that’s true, then you two must’ve been the ones to bring them down,” Mitty pointed out. “Like I did with Bobby…er, Alyssa!”

“Um…okay!” Patricia said quickly before Homulilly’s glare could get any more fierce. “So, what you two want to be after we graduate?”

“What?” Gretchen scratched her head. “Oh, um, actually…we’re not sure yet.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Jalaga said. She reached over and stirred the embers of the firepit with one finger. “You have plenty of time.”

“That’s for goddamned sure,” Patricia said darkly. Homulilly pursed her lips but said nothing.

“Well, what do you two like to do then?” Mitty said.

“Huh?” Gretchen said.

Mitty shrugged and gestured with one hand. “You guys gotta have hobbies, right? Stuff you do in your free time. So what do you like to do?”

“Oh!” She and Homulilly exchanged a glance. “Um, well, when we’re not studying or whatever, we like talking, visiting our friends, going for walks, watching holos…”

“Yeah, but anything artsy?” Mitty pressed. “Do you paint, write, draw, garden, do pottery, weave baskets, anything like that?”

“Not everyone has go into the liberal arts, Mitty,” Jada said with a disapproving look.

“Well, yeah, but there has to be something! Come on, don’t you ever get the urge to just go out and create something?”

“I guess we’re not really the artsy types,” Gretchen said in a small voice.

“Huh,” Mitty said. “That’s weird.” She shook her head, and then smiled. “Well, that just means we gotta change that! It’s not right for you guys to be hanging out with all those geniuses and not have something to-”

“No,” Homulilly said in a soft but commanding tone.

“Huh? Why not?”

“No,” Homulilly said again. “Leave us alone.”

While all this had been going on, the others had been having small whispered conversations of their own. All of those stopped in a second, and everyone looked up to stare at Homulilly and Mitty. For her part, Mitty’s eyes had narrowed to slits.

“Hey,” she said. “Do we have a problem? Because I’m starting to feel like we have a problem.”

“Okay, no!” Jada cut in before Homulilly could respond. “Look, whatever problem you guys have, deal with it on your own time, okay?”

“I don’t have a problem,” Mitty said. “She’s the one who-”

“I said, deal with it later, okay? Because I am way too tired and stressed out to put up with this now. Got it?”

A moment passed, and then Mitty said, “Yeah, okay. Sure. Fine with me.”

“Good.” Then Jada turned to Homulilly and Gretchen. “And you? Are we all cool here?”

“Sure,” Homulilly said in a neutral tone. “We’re…cool.”

“Great. Now, chill out, already.”

Mitty slouched back and folded her arms. Homulilly did the same. The two glared at one another.

Then Gretchen abruptly stood up. “I think we’d better go home,” she said to the group. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mitty said as she stood up as well. “Mood’s killed dead. So…bye.”

There was a small chorus of awkward murmured goodbyes from the others. Mitty went off in one direction, Gretchen and Homulilly in the other. For their part, Gretchen was completely silent the whole walk, while Homulilly just slouched with her head bowed and mouth set in a straight line.

When they reached their dorm Gretchen waited until they were both inside and the door was firmly shut before addressing the problem. “Homulilly,” she said. “What was that all about?”

Homulilly turned away.

“What’s wrong? Why did you snap at her like that?”

Homulilly slowly took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered.

“But-”

“Drop it,” she said, and then stomped into the bathroom.

She locked the door and looked at the mirror. Oh God, her face was a mess. Her blush was all smudged, her mascara was starting to run, and her eyes were all watery. She had been so proud of how she had looked at the start of the night, but now it was horrid.

Which was just the perfect metaphor for everything about her, Homulilly bitterly reflected. She could do everything she could to make her look pretty, cool, and confident like just about everyone else, but as soon as something went wrong it all collapsed. It was just a frail façade, a fake mask.

Meanwhile, Mitty could show up with no makeup, baggy clothes, and her hair undone, and still come off as way better than she ever could! Same with the rest of them! Ophelia was practically a celebrity, Oktavia had actual albums and everyone knew who she was, Charlotte was about to become a published author, and Candeloro was off winning awards and getting invited to big events in other cities! Even Gretchen was out there joining committees and making friends. And Homulilly?

Well, she was ruining things for everyone just by being there.

Homulilly wet a washcloth and furiously wiped away the mess on her face. When she was done, she looked again at her reflection.

She didn’t know why she did. It wasn’t like there was anyone special looking back.

Homulilly threw the washcloth at the mirror. It hit and slipped down to the sink with a wet splat, leaving a bit blotch over her face’s image.

Then she slowly sat down onto the toilet and turned the shower on full blast so Gretchen wouldn’t hear her crying.

#Walpurgis Nights

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