“Human Resources” Shouldn’t Be This Literal: A PMMM/ProjectMoon Quest

Apocryphal Chapter - Bad End 1.3: The More Things Change

Homura coughed and choked as the wound in her chest closed. The world melted away around her as her will clashed against that of the Abnormality now looming over her. Streamers of color pierced the murky dark behind her, twirling and fraying in patternless paths. Darkness swimming with rich, heavy color bubbled against the edges of the encroaching light, trying to push it back. For a moment, Homura wondered why her love looked so much like grief.

The Abnormality that had once been somebody who cared for Homura stood opposite her, its face a featureless white mask marred only by two feathered antenna emerging from where a person's eyes should be and curving back to where horns like branches sprouted in the place of its hair. Strands of glowing stardust tangled within the metal boughs and then spread out in a great billowing cloud behind the Abnormality. Its skin was something between bark and chitin and armor, glistening silver while thick black bile leaked from the cracks in between. Layers of furred, moth-like wings fell over its shoulders like a heavy coat. Below the waist, any semblance of humanity was abandoned. Six thick insectoid legs ending in digitigrade hooves extended from a matching lower body, ending in five whiplike tails each formed of coiling, curled steel and tipped with a needle-like point. No understanding shone through its eyeless stare. There was no comfort in its towering silhouette. Only an overwhelming force that burned like the wound in Homura's chest.

"Just stop this, Homura." X said."I'm more experienced in fighting on even footing like this, and I've had time to prepare countermeasures specific to you. You can't beat me." Even as its voice echoed through the hollow space, demanding that all of creation heed her, X's words were so plain. So casual, as though she were only stating facts as plainly known to Homura as the color of the sky.

And Homura did know. Not about the Abnormality, the Daughter of the Sun and Moon that she glimpsed when X let her control slip. But she knew X was afraid of it. Not fear in a human sense, a careful avoidance where she took whatever options she could to keep it away. Afraid to let her children so much as see the creature even as the lines between it and her blurred, if those lines had ever existed at all. Blurred and changed until X left with a reassuring word and a promise to return some day when it was safe. What kind of creature could it have been, that their mother would have left her for fear of it?

Homura knew the answer now. But she couldn't surrender. Not when that meant letting Madoka be taken back to the Law of Cycles, to that horrible fate that she didn't truly wish for. Homura would do anything for her sake. She had already done the impossible once. For Madoka's happiness, she'd do it again. Again and again and again, as many times as she had to.

So long as Madoka would be able to live happily.

With that resolution, the former Magical Girl pushed herself to her feet and spread her wings. She wasn't just a child stumbling through the same days over and over again any more. So what if she was alone again if she finally had the only thing that really mattered? If she were to be called evil for her actions, then she would embrace that role proudly if it only would give her the strength to do what she needed to.

A flick of her wrist conjured a sphere of large, pointed needles around the Abnormality and flung them inward. The last glimmers of humanity are cast away with a sigh, and it flexes its wings. The needles crash against a thin black field that appears just above the Abnormality's skin, falling away ineffectively. But in that time, Homura had already taken flight. If the Abnormality fought at all like X did, it would be more dangerous to engage up close. She would need to stay composed and keep her distance to succeed.

She plucked another needle from nowhere and pressed it forward. The nothingness mimicked her motion, thrusting a massive replica of the same needle towards the Abnormality. Light coalesced in its hand into a massive, chitinous sword dotted with thick orange pustules, with which it pushed the needle aside. Meanwhile, Homura took a second needle with her free hand and slipped it into the void behind her.

"Do you even understand what you've done? Or are you grasping blindly as you once did?" the Abnormality bellowed as the sword in its hand became a spear. It hurled the massive weapon forward with impossible force, scattering the feathers Homura left in her wake as she dodged to the side.

"I've created a world where none of the people I care for have to suffer." Homura answered. A flap of her wings released another cloud of feathers which drifted down to where the Abnormality's creations were beginning to form. In the kaleidoscopic vistas and half-remembered rooms that filled her domain, creatures that were never human crawled out of the cracks. She didn't recognize the glowing violet slug-like things, all but immobile and encrusted with deep black stone, but she could feel their influence. Eroding the supports of the world she'd worked so hard to build, readying it to be overtaken. Her feathers fell upon them in a shower before erupting with amethyst light. Many were removed, but more were shielded by the amber-shelled worms that burst forth from the ground around their counterparts. They died, but the creatures sheltered under their bodies lived.

Homura frowned down at the creatures and prepared another round of attacks, but was interrupted by a ray of green lightning grazing her shoulder. The Abnormality held a strange mechanical rifle on its hands now, the barrel glowing a sickly emerald hue.

"You have created a world that is stagnant, where they are lesser along with it. In erasing conflict, you stifle any chance at growth." The Abnormality's voice became a metallic grown, and for a moment Homura was taken aback. But she couldn't afford distraction right now.

A wave of her hand called a curtain from nowhere to hide Homura from the next round of gunfire. When the curtain fell she was elsewhere, accompanied by a cohort of spindly dolls. They danced through the void towards the Abnormality, harrying it for moments before being torn apart one by one. Homura didn't mind. They were easily fixed or replaced, and they bought her just enough time.

"Didn't you always wish to protect us? To shelter us from harm?" Isn't that why you left, Homura wanted to say, but couldn't. "You should be happy that I've made a world that will be safe."

A third needle was slipped into the fabric of the nowhere, and then all at once they were ripped out. Space tore inwards, rupturing along the faults Homura had drawn. The Abnormality's eyeless face remained locked on Homura as reality collapsed around it. In an instant it was over, and there was only empty space left behind.

It wasn't over. Homura wouldn't make the mistake of letting her guard down.

"If you truly believe that I wanted to separate you from any danger, then you were not paying attention."

The void tore open again, and something impossible spilled out. Arms and claws and thorns of stark, untarnished colors reaching towards her from every direction. In its center, a lone pale blue eye stared out across her Barrier. Everywhere it looked became dust. Homura felt its gaze fall on her for a moment, and the way its attention ground against her very soul was enough to ensure she would not allow it a second glance. She vanished into the darkness once more, rearranging her Barrier to bring the scattered altars closer together. She couldn't touch the space too close to them, the places where the Qliphoth Facility leaked into her world, but she could still control everything between. At the same time, she dodged another gleaming spear hurled by the Abnormality and returned fire with a beam of darkness that left a long scar along its chest.

"I raised you as I would any Agent of mine. You were directed to challenges you could overcome, and I was always there to support you through it." the Abnormality said calmly as it lashes out with its weapons. Homura's smile wavered for a moment as she was struck, returning the assault in kind. The two beings stared one another down, each bleeding impossible colors as their wounds sealed.

"And I'm grateful for what you did. But there's no need for that anymore. Now everyone can live in peace, without any reason to fight." Homura asserted once again. She hadn't expected X to understand her reasoning. Her study of the Law of Cycles had never once come close to finding a way to free Madoka from it. Homura had accepted that there were some things her mother simply couldn't do, but had she really tried? Had she cared in the way Homura did? She hadn't overlooked the way the Abnormality referred to Homura and the others as Agents, not children. Could she really have given up on Madoka once she served her purpose?

No, that was wrong. X had promised Homura that they would work together to save her. She and nobody else had experienced and understood what Homura went through. She wouldn't have turned her back like that.

In the moment Homura's thoughts drifted away from the battlefield, a foggy white tendril erupted from the space beside her and wrapped around one of her legs. "And did they ask you for this peace? Or did you decide for yourself what their wishes truly were? Do you understand what you've done to yourself for the sake of this momentary dream?" The tendril held Homura in place as the Barrier's fabric tore open a second time and the impossible thing's eye gazed through, casting the floating wreckage that filled the Barrier in cold pale light like the sun rising on an empty battlefield.

A pair of pitch black scissors emerged from nowhere and severed the tentacle, giving Homura free reign to disappear from the spot before the eye could open fully. In turn, she clutched her Soul Gem and a tangle of red threads lashed out both at the Abnormality and its constructs. The Daughter of the Sun and Moon chose to protect its creations, allowing the threads to catch on its body while raising a wall of metallic branches from the void's bedding to guard the altars. The branches folded themselves into a line of mechanical soldiers, which exchanged fire with the toy musketeers Homura summoned with a wave of her hand. With her other hand, she pulled back the threads and with them tore chunks of steel flesh from the Abnormality's body. It offered no reaction to the gaping wounds, keeping its head turned towards Homura as she soared above the sea of darkness below.

"I know exactly what I've done. If a Devil is what's needed to challenge the order of God, then I will bear that role happily. But what about you?" Homura asked. A pair of dolls sprang into existence, intercepting a spear that she couldn't dodge. "You were so afraid of letting us see you like this. Did something change?"

"I have not changed." the Abnormality denied, "And neither have you. No matter what masks you chose to hide behind, your true nature is not so easily disguised by performance. Certainly not to me."

Homura looked down to see the jaws of an enormous worm rising up beneath her, closing in a way that resembled the horizon folding up on itself. She kicked off of nothing and soared up, clearing the creature's teeth by a hair's breadth. Before she could glance up, a hand formed out of scarlet light burst from the air in front of her and slammed into her chest. Homura tumbled back, her smile thin, only to be struck by a glowing pale spear a moment later.

"I wasn't being dishonest when I said this act doesn't suit you. You can't lie to me, especially not about how you feel."

"I'm not lying at all. Weren't you always telling me to be honest with my feelings? To not be afraid of them? This is me accepting my love after all these years. No longer hiding what I feel or who I am from the world." Homura's mind whirled as she dragged obstacles into her Barrier's space, half-remembered constructs intended only to delay her opposition. She couldn't let anything X was saying get to her. She had to stay focused.

Homura had fought opponents who were stronger than her before. She had fought opponents who had more tools available than her, if more rarely. She'd been weaker back then, but she had still managed to survive when nobody else ever seemed to. She could still push through here. She just needed a plan.

X had taught her about Abnormalities. It hadn't made much sense at the time. She and the other girls had recaptured the last Abnormalities weeks after Madoka was lost. X had taken Homura along on every hunt, keeping her moving in the days when she could barely drag herself out of bed. Maybe she'd known that Homura would need to do this one day. They were creatures of instinct above all else, always behaving according to certain rules and patterns they could not break. Even those that thought and acted like humans were bound to act in specific ways. If you could learn those patterns, you could claim the advantage.

Unfortunately, Homura did not have the time to execute that strategy. The Daughter of the Sun and Moon's influence was digging into her Barrier, forcing its way through and replacing the world Homura had made. She could paint it back over with her Barrier if she focused, but that would take her attention away from the battle at hand. Even now, while she was retreating, wave after wave of her Familiars pressured the Abnormality to ensure it couldn't fortify itself. Homura would need to end the battle as quickly as possible.

The former Magical Girl turned sharply upward, pulling up away from the dregs at the bottom of her Barrier and back to the thick of the battlefield. Where there was once empty space was sudden flooded with movement. Shadowy shapes rushed forward on every direct, matching the Daughter of the Sun and Moon's creations with an army of her own. The Abnormality rallies its forces, but Homura's Barrier has been present for weeks now. It had to build its position, while Homura's is already there. It just takes a little more focus.

With no more Witches, Grief still existed. The universe needed some way to process it, and Homura had become the one to decide where it would go. The Incubators had served as a convenient receptacle for all of humanity's suffering, but if Homura wanted to she could direct it elsewhere. Though some vindictive part of her that Homura had barely been aware of hesitated to end the alien creatures' suffering even for a moment, it was overruled by the part of her that needed to succeed. Homura had not survived this long by letting her feelings deny her useful advantages.

A simple thought and all of the universe's sorrows poured into the battlefield. Any semblance of form or structure was drowned in an endless, featureless swirl of murky colors. The Abnormality was a single point of light in the darkness, burning away the sorrow that dared to touch it. Its form blurred as it rushed to shelter some of its creations, leaving the rest to be swallowed up. For some reason, Homura couldn't help but wonder if that was what X would have done. She had been dedicated to keeping Homura and her sisters safe even when it seemed impossible. She had stood by Homura after Madoka had made her Wish. Homura had never been able to understand past the basics of her research, but knowing X was doing something had been one of her few comforts. Somehow, it had seemed inevitable that X would get Madoka back at the time. She could do anything, accomplish things Homura could only barely grasp at.

But here she was, trying to end what Homura had worked so hard for.

Homura didn't mean to dive in, drawing Grief around her as she went. The opportunity to attack was there, and the best course of actions she could find to deal with the Abnormality was to pressure it constantly, but that should have been done from a distance. Homura was still in control, she didn't need to push into the Abnormality's territory herself. But she did anyways.

"Everything I did, I did because I loved her. I loved her and I didn't realize it for so many years."

She struck the Abnormality head-on, reopening the gashes in its body that had not yet finished healing. There was no time to let up. No time to rest.

"You were the only one who remembered. The only other person who knew what had happened. The only one who knew what I went through!" She didn't intend to yell, but the words spilled out regardless. The Abnormality made no attempt to defend itself, its hands empty of the weapons Homura had grown so used to seeing.

"But you left. And when you finally return after leaving me alone for years, all you can do is tell me to give up?"

The shadows sharpened into claws in her hands, digging through metal flesh with startling efficiency. The battle continued around them as the Abnormality's remaining forces confronted Homura's creations, but they all felt distant.

"Why did you even come back if you were just going to hurt us? Were you just upset that I saved Madoka when you couldn't?"

"Did Madoka want to be saved? This was her choice, her sacrifice. Not yours." the Abnormality spat back. The vitriol in those words was nearly enough to make Homura pause. But only nearly. Instead, she struck with even more force.

"She never wanted to go. If things had been different, she would have stayed. Would have lived. Would have been happy. Doesn't Madoka deserve that much?" Homura stopped, staring at the Abnormality. It had gone still, as if something vital that had once laid within was now absent. A mess of emotions swam within her. It couldn't be over, not that easily. Homura wouldn't let her guard down so easily. X's explanations had been clear on the fact that Abnormalities didn't die. So she had to be alive. She-

Homura's panicked line of thought was cut off by the feeling of something pushing its way into her Barrier. Somewhere outside the battlefield she had made. Reaching, searching, and then settling on its goal. On Madoka.

Homura scanned the interior of her Barrier. How had this happened? The Law of Cycles couldn't be here. It couldn't have Madoka again. What had she missed? Had the entire fight just been a distraction?

It didn't matter. Homura could still fix things, all she had to do was-

Her thoughts were interrupted once again, this time by a sharp pain piercing her chest. She looked down, the movement slower and stiffer than it should have been, to see the end of a nail nearly the size of her waist protruding from her stomach. Its surface was some sort of black material, though she couldn't begin to guess what it was actually made of. Its tip glowed a sickly yellow-gold, restrained by thin dark bands and joined to the nail's body by tattered cloth bindings.

"Too easily distracted, Homura. You should have kept your focus on me until you knew it was over. Did you really expect to claim victory without sacrifice?"

A sudden force shoved the Nail the rest of the way through Homura's body, exiting in a spray of violet sand and murky sludge. The amethyst grains twinkled like countless stars against the black night sky that bled from the gaping wound. Homura turned, turned so slowly, to stare back at X. The Abnormality held in one hand a black hammer, made of the same impossible material as the nail and decorated around the handle with white feathers stained red around their edges. In her other hand were another three nails.

"You claim Madoka would not have wanted to disappear. That she wouldn't have wanted to leave you without her. And you're right." X said. And it was her voice, her tone and cadence, unmistakable even beneath the metallic hum of the the Abnormality's voice. "But it doesn't change what she chose. That is what makes it a sacrifice. Even if you don't want to hear it now, I want you to know that I know that pain. I know how much it hurts when they don't love you enough to stay with you."

Soft as her words are, X does not stop attacking. One of her forelegs lashes out, throwing Homura through the air. She crashes through a metal wall that she was sure wasn't there a moment ago and lands within a small lounge area, crumpled atop a pile of splinters and scrap that might have been a table and some chair a moment ago.

"You must have known she didn't want this. Why else would you hide the truth from her? If you are really being honest with your feelings, why not share them?" X says softly. The wall blooms like a flower to make way for her entrance. They're in the Facility now. When Homura rises to stare at the Abnormality stalking through the room, it stares back. Dozens of glowing eyes, peering out of the wounds Homura tore into its body. Some hold a soft, kind gaze. Others are pained, on the verge of tears. Yet more are furious, burning with rage.

"Madoka would have been pressured. She would have been forced into it. That's why she made her Contract, not because she chose it." Homura insists between mouthfuls of thick black blood. A wave of her hand casts rays of darkness towards the Abnormality looming over her. X lunges forward and parts the shadows with the nail in her hand. Her free hand reaches for Homura, and she has a moment to appreciated just how large the Daughter of the Sun and Moon is before it seized her by the waist. X spreads her wings, and they too stare accusingly at Homura before a single flap sends her through another wall.

They land on a tube-shaped protrusion covered in a shallow layer. It extends from the mesh of rooms and hallways that is the Qliphoth Facility over the now-emptied battlefield, branching and splitting without direction. Homura barely rises to her feet before a sudden impact forces her through back down. The fluid is cold and slightly thicker than water, lapping against her skin for a moment before she is forced through the ground underneath. She surfaces on the tube's underside, spreading her wings and darting back just in time to avoid the follow-up blow that cracks it in half.

"Whatever the circumstances, Madoka still had a choice, and she made her decision. Nothing ever changes without loss."

Another nail tore through the air, and Homura could not summon the strength to move out of the way. It struck at the base of one of her wings and dragged her with it until it struck the ground. X landed only a moment behind, cracking the earth under her weight.

"Did you even know what happened to her? Or did you just assume that she needed saving? That she would want to be saved this time, when she never did before, because you finally found a situation where she asked you?" X accused. Her tone was scolding, not truly angry, but the Abnormality's movement told another story. It charged in, tearing apart the crimson threads Homura cast out in hopes of deterring it. Needles were deflected or ignored, dolls crushed and broken, all in the span of a single movement that took it from where it stood to Homura's side. Its forelegs reared up and landed on Homura's arms, pinning her to the ground.

"You must have known the truth. But you didn't care if it gave you the reason to put on this performance. You just chose what to believe." Bit by bit, the words lost any warmth they might have held. The Abnormality leaned down and grabbed hold of the nail still stuck through Homura's wing with one hand. It twisted the weapon, driving it further through, before taking hold of her wing in the other hand and tearing. Homura didn't feel it. Her body had gone completely numb.

"Don't forget, my agent. You could only ever delay their deaths on your own. It was my guidance that saved them, that guided each of my children to reaching their fullest potential. And look what you've done without me." X released her hold on Homura, assured in her success, and raised the limp girl up in her arms. The care and gentleness with which she held Homura felt so distant from the brutality she had displayed a moment earlier.

"You've made such a mess of things while I was gone. But it's alright, because I'm here now. I will fix everything for you as many times as I need to, Homura."

A presence drifted through Homura's mind, familiar and yet impossibly different. She had felt Lobotomy's touch many times. First when she and X had only recently made their deal, burning away the Grief that clung to her. Then many times after Madoka's disappearance, quieting thoughts Homura refused to give name to. She knew Lobotomy didn't have to feel like anything, but that X had grown to prefer creating a presence for it to let Homura know what she was doing. It had been a comfort then. Now, it felt more like a threat. It moved between thoughts and memories, barbed and slinking, occasionally resting on one just long enough for Homura to believe it would act before moving along. And that was only what she could feel. X didn't need to make her modifications noticeable, after all.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to change anything." X said in answer to Homura's unasked question. Even though she shouldn't have, the former Magical Girl believed her. "Some part of me considered removing the focal point of this incident, but I wouldn't do that to you. Even if you were willing to do it to your sisters." Her voice had softened again, but the note of accusation remained. "I may have taken this shape, but I am still myself. Even if there are some troublesome instincts I can't always cast aside." X sighed, and the Abnormality's shape peeled back and shrank until it was nothing more than a coat hanging over her human body. She was still large enough to carry Homura in her arms without trouble. Light flared around them for a moment, and they were back in the courtyard.

"I know it won't be easy. But I will be here with you this time, I promise. You are going to be okay someday."

And maybe someday Homura would believe it. That everything would be alright. But for the moment, all she could do was cry into her mother's arms.