Mahou Shoujo Troper Magica - Yamanaka City -

Aoi was chatting up a storm with some of her classmates when she spotted a girl reading at another table, which was filled with books. Aoi turned to face her classmates. "Who's the girl with the pile of books on her table?" She asked. One of the girls looked over. "Oh, HER? That's Mizuki-Sempai. She's supposed to be this really smart girl, or something. She doesn't talk much." "Oh." Aoi said. Seeing the girl with the pile of books kind of reminded her of Miki, Who, as she thought of it, was probably sitting by herself right now,too. Maybe this older girl wouldn't mind meeting someone like her. Aoi got up and put her tray to wash, then walked over to Michi's table.

"Um...Hi?"

For Akane the rest of the school day passed just as quickly as the morning. Passing the whole time dreaming about magic and wishes do that to you. And so she was extremely surprised when the last bell of the day rang and the rest of her classmates started to stand up, to head either to club activities or back home.

Akane for her part would be skipping club activities, but not precisely to head home. She had to go with the Ysanne-senpai and Rei to find out more about the Magical Girl business... but before that she had a promise to keep.

And so she ran towards the nearby Middle School to pick her sister up. She had a couple of crepes to buy after all.

I'll just assume that Akane told Rei and Ysanne where she was going

As far as Rei was concerned, the rest of the school day passed uneventfully; teacher after teacher came and went, a few more notes were taken, and her daydreaming resumed as normal. All was well with the world.

Well, until the end-of-school bell rang, at least.

Akane had helpfully informed the other two girls where she was going to before dashing off; waiting next to the main gate, Rei sent Ysanne a mental message:

"... Taihou-senpai, shall we head over to the park as planned, or should we keep an eye on Hanami-san just in case anything happens? I doubt a Witch would spontaneously appear to waylay her since the middle school's not very far away, but accidents do happen sometimes. It should be little trouble for us, in any case."

EDIT because I don't want to take up the space of a new post: oh you D: maybe i shouldn't have said that... but on the plus side, then Akane can finally see what a Witch is like! <_<

edited 5th Apr '11 10:33:02 PM by Midreus

Y'all are lucky I'm so tired, otherwise I would drop a Witch on Akane just for the hell of it.

Akane found her sister sitting on the sidewalk outside the middle school, uncharacteristically motionless. She was staring at a weed growing up through a crack in the sidewalk, entranced, and clutching a silver pen in her hand. Totally absorbed in whatever it was she was doing, she didn't notice Akane at all.

Statistically, there is a sixty percent chance you are speaking to me for the extraction of some manner of favor. Thirty two percent chance that this is an approach born of simple curiosity. Eight percent chance you have some malicious intent. Now, which would it be? Michi alternated effortlessly between her native Japanese and English as she spoke, managing to both make sense and not sound like an idiot in the process. Although it made her look quite conceited, which she supposed was true of her.

"Huh, Kiku?"

Akane's little sister had many qualities and quirks... none of which included staring off at a random piece of weed on the street. The older sister walked behind Kiku and crouched at her side to see if she could find the plant's mysterious charm... and failed horribly at that.

"The hell are you doing, Kiku?"

"YAAAAH!" Kiku leaped up in surprise. "D-d-don't scare me like that, sis! Jeez!" She quickly slipped the pen back into her pocket and turned to face her sister. Her eyes were unfocused, darting back and forth, jittering around in their sockets like the air was full of something only she could see. "I've got a headache, sis..."

"Uh..."Aoi said, listening to the giirl make her statement in Japanese, then in perfect english."um, yeah, I came to ask you a question, actually. " Aoi said, looking at the girl as she read. "I have a sister who is, kinda quiet and does stuff alone a lot, and some of the other students say you do stuff alone a lot, so maybe you guys could...I don't know, do things alone together?"

Ysanne thought for a second,

“Let’s look after the new girl. I’d hate for her to be ambushed if we could have helped her.”

The day passed quickly for Ysanne as well. Boring…Boring…Done! Ysanne, in her normal relaxed fashion, was downstairs in about three heartbeats and moving fast. She out the side entrance, on her bike, and pedaling hard. She hit the ramp she had concealed and was airborne…airborne…

REI!

Ysanne sailed over Rei’s head, her back tire just a few inches from the shorter girl’s hair and Ysanne landed, pulling a perfect stop atop her bike.

“Uh…oops…”

"Well, I suppose a year's worth of combat experience and reflexes built from fighting extradimensional nasties wasn't useless after all," said shorter girl replied nonchalantly. The 'few inches from the shorter girl's hair' came pretty much entirely from Rei's knees, currently slightly bent forward to evade Ysanne's spinning back tire; standing back up as if nothing had happened, she began leisurely strolling along the path to the middle school, adding an offhand remark on the way: "Taihou is a fitting name for you indeed, senpai: direct and forceful. Let's go."

edited 6th Apr '11 5:15:32 PM by Midreus

"Why do you ask?" Michi set her book down. "I am curious."

"A headache? And looking at weed grow is a cause of effect of that?" Akane asked as she stepped a little closer to her little sister. She then put her hands on Kiku's cheeks and gently pulled her eyelids back with her thumbs to take a better closer look at her eyes

"Certainly you're not looking well... Do you have a fever?" Akane asked as she put her forehead against hers to check her temperature.

edited 6th Apr '11 7:17:47 PM by daltar

"Huh? Why are you being all fussy like that? Jeez, maybe I should be the one asking you if you're okay! I'm fine, sis, it's just a little headache! In fact... I had a really amazing day today. Something completely fantastic happened! Buuuut, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Nothing really seemed to be greatly wrong with Kiku. But there was an odd, knowing look in her eyes that made her look strangely old.

edited 6th Apr '11 7:30:30 PM by Zudak

"Hmm?"

Akane stepped back from her sister, crossing her arms as she looked at the strange new look Kiku had "Alright, I'm curious, what won't I believe?"

"Heh. Get a load of this."

Kiku pulled out her Soul Gem, still in its pen form, and twirled it around. She tossed it up into the air as it changed shape, landing in its true egglike form on her palm.

"Huh? Kiku... what's that? And where did you get it from?" Akane asked, filled with curiosity... and, for reasons she couldn't understand, worry.

"It's called a Soul Gem. I'm... not sure exactly how it works yet." A frown crosses Kiku's face for a moment. "But the things I can do with this... man. He wasn't lying when he said anything. Maybe he'd give you one, too. One wish. Anything you want. Absolutely anything. And that's only the start of it." Joy blazed from Kiku's eyes. "I haven't even tested its full power yet. Those witches, or whatever Kyubey called them, they shouldn't be any problem. And once they're all gone, I can just... learn."

As Kiku finished her sentence, the Soul Gem suddenly burst into blazing radiance, far brighter than it had been just seconds before. Akane had time to open her mouth before the tiny, malignant black seed that had just sprouted in the bushes nearby pulsed, sending a massive blast of wind at the two girls and kicking dust into their faces. As they blinked, teary-eyed, the scenery around them began to darken. First the mountains in the distance were no longer visible; then the skyscrapers to the south; then the high school...

The darkness encroached, and tiny lights began to appear in the blackness. Soon, stars twinkled at Akane from all directions, including, as she immediately regretted finding out, from below her. As the darkness reached her feet, she felt the ground below her give way - but she fell just long enough to stumble as her shoes hit rough, unfamiliar rock. As her hands slammed into the ground, the sound of a light switch, multiplied thousands of times, thundered through the air; at the same time, a dull background chant of gearwork started up. Akane stood and looked around, not believing her eyes.

The sisters stood on a small red rock, about the size of a minivan, that was connected to a huge brass latticework that that delineated a massive dome of at least a mile's diameter. This was the source of the clockwork sounds; ancient and deep machinery moved below the surface of the dome, moving brass straits that were connected to similar rocks - no, some of them definitely counted as boulders - and whisked them around in seemingly random patterns. A sudden noise caught Akane's attention, and she looked up to the top of the dome, to the starry blackness beyond.

There was something moving in the dark.

edited 6th Apr '11 11:09:13 PM by RedSavant

Kiku looked around, wide-eyed, at the scene that surrounded her.

"I... This isn't me doing this, I swear! I... where are we?"

edited 6th Apr '11 8:56:03 PM by Zudak

W-What is this...?

As the darkness surrounded her and her sibling Akane had been paralyzed by the dreamlike situation that followed. She could only look around in confusion as her known, solid, real world dissolved around them to bring forth a land unseen to her even in fantasy.

However the moment something moved in the darkness, Akane snapped out of trance, fully aware, and this awareness told her that this was no dream.

The elder sister quickly stood up and stepped in front of her sister, her eyes scanning the darkness for further movement "Kiku, stay behind me!"

"You are in a Witch's Labyrinth, younger Hanami-san," answered a voice from above Kiku.

Rei landed beside the dazed Hanami sisters, still clad in her school uniform and clutching the sling bag she used to carry her books; having crouched to absorb the impact of her landing, the blue-eyed girl immediately straightened herself out and turned to face Kiku. Rei's usual bored expression had completely vanished off her face, having been replaced with a sharp, piercing stare targeted at the younger Hanami; but the stare was not one born from any sort of negative emotion. It was a look of absolute focus.

"This will be your new battlefield."

Upon seeing the Hanami sisters on the sidewalk, Rei had dragged Ysanne - bike and all - into a nearby hiding spot (although in retrospect such an action was probably unnecessary, since both sisters had been rather distracted). Sticking a hand out to stifle the elder girl's inevitable complaint, Rei began eavesdropping on the two siblings' conversation. She heard and saw everything: Kiku's surprise at her sister's presence, Akane's worrying over Kiku's condition, Kiku whipping out her Soul Gem and her casual mention of Kyubey... and, last of all, the malignant pulse from the bushes.

Shit.

Rei had barely lifted her hand off of Ysanne's mouth and cover her eyes with her arm before the gust of dusty wind engulfed her hiding place; by the time she allowed her arm to fall back to her side, the eavesdropping pair were in a different world. The barrier between Rei and the Hanami sisters were gone, and instead of soft earth Rei was now kneeling on solid brass some distance away. Ysanne could take care of herself; without a moment of hesitation (or even looking back), the black-haired girl left Ysanne behind, entering a short sprint before taking a great leap towards the sisters.

"The huge black object in the skies is one of the Witches we Magical Girls are tasked to kill," continued Rei in a rather matter-of-factly tone. "Don't underestimate them next time. As for now..." Rei turned to Akane, placing her sling bag at the other girl's feet as she spoke: "Watch over this for me, if you don't mind, Hana- uh, Akane-san?"

In the same motion, Rei twirled away from the sisters and spread her arms out, palms facing upward, in the shape of a cross. In her left hand, which was previously empty, there now lay a glowing, sky-blue jewel: Rei's own Soul Gem. Closing her eyelids, the black-haired girl muttered to herself:

"Let's go."

In that instant, the soft glow of her Gem flared up, and from it a sky-blue flame engulfed her body, obscuring it from view.

I guess I'l have to decide on her costume now. be right back~

edited 6th Apr '11 10:24:53 PM by Midreus

High in the sky above the Ossery, Caroline retracted her eye and, for the first time in at least minutes, blinked. Though she lacked much sense of what could be called the passage of time, the Witch of Stars was acutely familiar with the concepts of newness and boredom, and as she hadn't been down this causeway in at least minutes, there had been almost ten new planets to discover and chart. There was almost certainly a new planetoid circling the sun, but this wasn't a good angle for it; she would have to move to get a better sense of its size shape color proportions orbit albedo topography orbit composition. And then the natives... The massive telescope shuddered with delight. With so much to discover here, who needed the distant points of light outside the Ossery? What mattered it that, fixed to tracks on the outside of the Ossery as she was, she couldn't properly focus on them and finally see what they were? What mattered - oh, the planetoid was back on this side of the sun.

Caroline engaged the gear mechanisms underneath her body, giant bronze teeth interfacing with the tracks built into and around the complex machinery of the Ossery to drag her massive body to a new position and observe it. She locked herself in to an observing node on the western side, spikes sliding through worn holes in her gears to keep them from turning; she opened her eye and cast around for the mystery planetoid. Surely it would be better seen from this side... without the massive sun backlighting it, the little rock would be much easier to see. Aaaand... yes!

Caroline's eye irised in and out, focusing on the planetoid and tracking it effortlessly. Data was already pouring in! Grey rock, slightly pockmarked, with a charming half-canter spin to it that she hadn't seen a planetoid do for at least minutes. She blinked and pulled back, slightly annoyed, as the planetoid's orbit was crossed over by another body - a small redrock that was already in her logs. She had catalogued it at least minutes ago, so why was it - wait. Pulling her locks out and shifting her gears, Caroline effortlessly followed the new old rock as it orbited. There was something off to it... she stared as two - three! - figures moved atop it. Her pens moved excitedly, adding the new information onto pages already jet-black and soaked with the ink of many new discoveries. This was big. New races almost never appeared on catalogued planets! She watched carefully as the newcomer spun around; maybe this was some kind of-

Light
Light burning in her eye, stabbing and burning and pain and and and

Hatred.

edited 6th Apr '11 10:56:09 PM by RedSavant

"Ah, I think I've found it!" The girl peered into her Soul Gem, as if her silver eyes could puncture it. She lifted her hands above her head and arched her back, letting the blood flow, then quickly ran towards the sick, pulsating feeling that marked the cursed being that was likely threatening innocent people. Minori hoped that she would not be too late.

"Gah!" Kiku was startled by the other magical girl's appearance and transformation. "Hey, I saw this one first! I don't need your help! ...whatever. Just don't get in my way, okay? Now... how does this work..."

Kiku held out her Soul Gem. Silvery light washed out of it, engulfing her.

The magical girl that stepped out of the light wore a baggy bodysuit, a floppy cloth hat with three points, a bell jingling at the end of each, and shoes with curly toes. The entire outfit was colored with an irregular black-and-white checkered pattern that seemed to shift around like some kind of optical illusion. The ensemble also came with facepaint — a cheerful grin was on the right side of her face, a sad expression, complete with a little tear painted under her eye, on the left. It made it hard to read her facial expression. Finally, her Soul Gem transformed — into a pen, but not a plain silver ballpoint this time, but a fancy fountain pen, elaborate designs etched on its fluted silver tip and down the length of the barrel.

"How do I look, sis?" Kiku asked, giving her sister an insouciant grin.