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Your name is Sarah Goldman.

You're are an experienced battle mage working for an organization...
Post 1
Location
Wayland, Massachusetts
Your name is Sarah Goldman.

You're are an experienced battle mage working for an organization called the Apex Imperium. Currently you're standing in front of the portal waiting for it to be powered for your current mission.

You think back to your briefing

Article:
Your superior, Mr. Orion, had called you in to explain my next assignment

"One of our operatives recently identified a strange series of disappearances in an instance of earth. We have been able to identify the problem as magical however for now that is all we could do since we lacked the equipment for a more in depth analysis. That's where you come in, as the most qualified Mage we have available we are going to send you in to investigate"

You nod at him. "Understood. What do we know?"

He smiled. "Eager as always I see. We know that the threat is magical but have been unable to actually get any images or hint of what it looks like. Whatever it is the disappearances are happening all over. Luckily we found a pattern, almost all of the victims were young girls between 6 and 14."

"I see. So you want me to watch them until they are attacked?"

"Not exactly. If we knew more about why they were disappearing then that might be an option, but given the situation they might end up lost without you identifying the attacker even WITH your mana sense. Instead, you will be posing as a middle schooler in order to bait the attackers yourself. That way if they teleport the victims you will know where they end up"

While trying to look like a middle schooler would be annoying, it isn't exactly hard to do. Surgery exists to make people look younger and resources are not an issue.

"I knew you would be ok with it. Once you are there your objective will be to identify what is happening to these girls, figure out how we could replicate the attacks for future use and eliminate the ones using it. Also try to make sure no one knows why you are there, if you have to then you can tell people but it would hurt us in the long run depending on how this plays out."

A week was all it took to get ready for the mission and you now looked like a 13 year old girl.

You packed light: just a gun, a ring that lets you quickly get in uniform (a cloak that represented your status as a battle mage) and a lot of yen. The plan was to drop just outside of the city Mitakihara in Japan, the reason being it wasn't in the instances of earth we usually operated with so it was more likely than anywhere else to be the source of the attacks. Once there you would enroll in the local middle school and find somewhere to stay. From there it was up to you to complete the mission.

The portal opened, you step through into the planet. Mitakihara was now just in front of you as stepped out towards it and the portal closed behind you. They were going to open up another one in a few months but until then you were on your own.

[] Write-in
 
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Post 2
[x] Find a place to live then make sure you are enrolled in the local school

You aren't here to screw around or sight-see. You immediately get to work on getting ready for the future.

First things first, find a place to stay. Since you haven't been to this town you aren't sure where everything is. Luckily that is an easy problem to solve, you don't know where apartments or hotels would be, but the city's mall is very easy to find. You immediately buy a smartphone with a data plan and leave, map acquired. From there getting an apartment is easy enough, the paperwork could be filled at the building so it wasn't an issue. Turns out the land owner actually already had a girl around my apparent age living there alone already, so he didn't ask too many questions.

Either way you had somewhere to stay now. Next step was to get enrolled in the school. The school building was made almost entirely out of glass. Now that you thought about it most of the city used glass. You wondered if there was any particular reason behind it. According to your new phone the date is March 17th and school should be over for the day. You enter the building and walk up to the first adult you see. A young women who seems to be mumbling to herself.

"Excuse me miss. Could you tell me where the admissions office is?"

She keeps mumbling to herself, seemingly having not heard you.

"umm... miss?"

Her head jerks up.

"Oh! Sorry. Head up those stairs and it's the second door on the right."

She points towards a staircase. You thank her and head to the indicated room. Inside there is another much older lady working on something at her computer. She looks up at you as you walk into the room.

"Hello. Do you need something?"

"Yes, I just moved here and I need to transfer in. What do I need to do?"

She smiles and reaches into her desk and pulls out a few sheets of paper that she hands to you.

"Just fills these out and bring them back as soon as possible. We can work on getting you into a class as soon as possible once you've done that."

You bow politely and leave the room to head back to my apartment for now. Most of what was required is something you can fill in easily. Name? Check. Proof of residency? Check. Transcript.... that could be a problem. No worries though, it is fairly easy to get a fake transcript online if you have enough money, which I do. Checking the internet quickly gives me lots of ways to give myself the appearance of someone who didn't just now pop into existence. I'd have to wait a day or two in order to get them but I have time for that.

Either way that was as much progress as I could make there. I had some time to kill in the meantime.

[] Patrol the city to look for magical disturbances - "It is my job. This is why I am here in the first place"
[] Find the girl staying in the building with you - "Connections are useful even if it is just a kid. It might be good to start now especially if she is a potential victim"
- [] Do what if you find her?
- [] And if you don't?
[] Write-in
 
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Story 3
[X] Find the girl staying in the building with you - "Connections are useful even if it is just a kid. It might be good to start now especially if she is a potential victim"
-[X] Introduce yourself as a transfer student, recently from overseas. Ask for help to get acquainted with the city and school. Things like school curriculum and clubs, good stores in our neighborhood, dangerous places a girl should avoid.
-[X] If you don't find her, check your neighborhood for magical disturbances


You head back down to the base of the apartment complex where a registry of who was in what apartment room. Cross referencing that with a list of students enrolled in Mitakihara middle school from the internet gave you the name "Mami Tomoe" and her apartment number. You head up to her room and knock on the door.

"Comming!"

The door opens revealing a girl with yellow twin drill hair and golden eyes. A quick scan of her mana gives... interesting results.

Normally a persons mana follow their nervous system making most of their mana located in their brain and spinal cord with less but still some mana flowing across their limbs. Mami's however seemed to have all of her mana concentrated around her hand, and not her entire hand either, just one finger. Specifically a finger with a silver ring containing a shining golden jewel.

How strange.

"Hello. My name is Sarah Goldman. I just moved here and was told there was another girl my age. I was hopping to get some help settling in."

She seems surprised. Not that you blame her, people don't randomly knock on your door to introduce themselves very often. However she also seems to be staring intently at your ring. Does she think there is something special about it? There is but it shouldn't be something some random middle schooler would be able to detect, so either there is more to her than meets the eye, something you already know to be true from mana sense, or she has some other reason to be interested in your ring.

Mami looks you in the eye and you wink back at her.

"Well alright then. How about we go out and get a bite to eat? Normally I'd just cook something but this way I can show you around"

You smile at her.

"That would be perfect!"

You both walk out of the apartment complex and Mami takes you to the mall, on the way she points out various minor buildings such as business complexes. Once there she takes you to a sushi bar she recommended. You both sit down to order your food.

"Thanks so much for all of this Mami."

"Oh no problem! Will you be transferring into my school? Since you just moved here I mean."

"I will. I'm going into the 9th grade class once the paperwork is processed"

Since you're expecting to have identified the threat by the time the school year is over there isn't much reason to transfer in as an underclassman when an upperclassman is an option. Being able to just graduate means less questions if you need to disappear back to headquarters to report or just deal with the problem myself once you have the information required to do so.

"Really? You'll be in the same class as me then!"

"That's nice. What's class like there?"

She explained what they were being taught there. English and History seemed normal enough, Math however.... they were covering pre-calculus. It makes you wonder what they are covering at collage if this is what they are studying in middle school. Not that you can't do calculus, math is something you are very good at and you've already been to collage, so it shouldn't be anything you can't handle.

You switch to discussing clubs and she explains what extracurricular activity's are available. Mami herself isn't in any clubs and just goes home immediately after school. As she is going over everything you hear a soft thud, almost like an animal jumped on to the table, another sound but this time coming from Mami's shoulder, a slight indentation is now visable there in the shape of small paw prints. She seemed to slightly jump when whatever it is touched her but she said nothing and you couldn't see anything that would have made the noise or the indentation. You activate mana sense and you see a piece of void in the shape of some kind of bunny thing on her shoulder. A spot where the mana levels are lower than the general environment, clearly there is some creature there. You aren't sure how it avoids interacting with light.

Mami cuts herself off having noticed where you are staring. She looks back and forth between you and the creature. She finally speaks with a soft voice.

"Y-You can see him?"

Him. Interesting.

[] "Of course I can" - She clearly sees him too. If she thinks I can for the same reason she might give away what that reason is while letting us keep her mostly in the dark
[] "See what?" - No reason to show my hand. As far as she is concerned I am perfectly mundane
[] "What is he?" - If she knows something then it would be best to figure out what even if it means potentially blowing cover
[] Write-in


Fun fact. According to the show potential is more than just the girls raw energy but also their emotional instability. So an adult who can channel her mana is not considered a potential magical girl while a 12 year old who has no experience what so ever might be.
 
Story 4
[X]Technically I can't see him. Which only raises more questions for all of us I imagine.

You look Mami in the eyes and smirk a bit

"Well... technically I can't see him. I imagine you have questions about that? I know I do."

Mami goes wide eyed and looks back and forth even more frantically.

"...how?"

Her voice is quiet, no more than a whisper. You point at where the creature is sitting.

"Paw prints of course! So what exactly is he?"

"His name is Kyubey. We've known each other for years now."

"Really now. How did you meet."

She looked down at the table.

"I-it's a long story..."

Well that wasn't going anywhere. But you needed more information. If this isn't somehow connected to what you're looking for then you will be honestly shocked.

"Ok then. In that case what is your relationship with Kyubey."

She hesitated again before standing up.

"How about we come back to my apartment, I'll try and answer your question there ok?"

You nod and get up to go with her. We walk out of the mall to head back.

On our way to the apartment complex Mami's ring suddenly flashes. She starts to take off running and calls back to you.

"Get to the apartment. I'll be right behind you!"

Like hell you're going to just ignore that. You wait a second, using mana sense to make sure you don't lose her, and then you start tailing her from behind. As you follow her you can see her wearing a different outfit from before, you aren't sure where she got it but for one reason for another it is there. Maybe her ring works like yours? It does make sense and would explain quite a bit, however there is clearly more to it than that or it wouldn't have flashed earlier and she wouldn't have reacted like that. She hops on a building and starts running across the rooftops. Considering that all of the buildings around here are well over 50 feet tall you think it is safe to say she can use magic. Luckily you can ALSO just magic so it is no problem to keep up with her simply by telekinetically giving yourself a boost of speed when needed.

Eventually she hops down into the ground. You get up to the edge and look down, she's disappeared. You look around for a second too see where she could have gone. You activate mana sense.... you are surrounded. Suddenly the world disappears around you and is replaced by what you can only describe as chaos. Walls form around you in rapidly shifting panels, never staying the same for long enough to get a feel for the environment. It almost feels like a massive run down portal level. Even the ground itself is shifting giving ways to seemingly bottomless pits which are quickly sealed back up forcing you to jump from platform to platform to stay standing.

Some of the relatively empty spots on the walls start producing regular square shaped mana signatures. One of which suddenly rushes at you. Luckily you are able to jump out of the way in time but when you land another is already coming at you, and another, and another. You can't see what is attacking you however you can sense it no problem. Unfortunately you have no choice but to fight whatever it is, but...

[] How?
[] And what next?
[] Write-in
 
Story 5
[x] use telekinesis to hold all the attackers back so they can't rush at you.
[x] search for where Mami is


You don't have time for this. Mami was here and disappeared right before you did. Odds are she's here somewhere as well, and if she isn't then you still need to get out of here to get back to figuring out where she was going. The tile things are really making that difficult for you however.

You aren't having any of that, you start to levitate yourself above the floor so you don't have to worry about the pits and then you fly through the dungeon-esc area you've found yourself in. The tile things fly after you but you just knock them back with telekinetic blasts without stopping. Eventually you reach another area which has a more stable floor, allowing you to stop using energy to lift yourself, the entire area is much hotter than where you were before and there are still invisible threats attacking you. This time it's cylinders with robotic arms and legs. You imagine they would look like metallic robots if you weren't detecting them with mana sense instead of light. Either way you blast them away whenever they try to get close.

You hear gunshots in the distance down a corridor near by, lots of them too. You run towards them, if there are guns then there should be someone USING a gun, for better or worse. At the end of the corridor is a huge clearing. You see Mami in the outfit she was using earlier, she's being attacked by what looks like a giant titan of some kind from what you can get in mana sense. Mami pulls out an ornate musket and fires it at the monster before tossing it aside and making another to fire. You notice that there are a lot of spend muskets lying around the area. It seems needlessly flashy, you can't imagine that this method of fighting is particularly efficient. No expert would teach her to fight like this, you can only conclude that she is a civilian in over her head with power she likely doesn't understand. It's a mystery how she can do anything at all. On a brighter note her mana seems to be incorporated in her body at the moment with most of it at the head like you would expect, it seems like she has quite a lot of energy to work with now that you see it spread out.

Regardless she needs help, she's a civilian who doesn't belong on a battlefield like this. You run into the fray, knife in hand. You throw the knife at the titan using magic to make it faster and harder than it normally should be. You hear the sound of metal cutting metal. Interesting, it's a metal titan. Once you reach the titan you leap onto the knife and use it as a stepping stone to leap up to it's head. It's at this point that Mami notices you.

"Sarah!? What are you doing here!?"

You don't have time to answer or even turn around. Once you reach the head you give the titan a telekinetically reinforced kick while simultaneously bringing the knife back up to your hand. The titan stumbles, but before it can recover you throw the knife again, this time at it's face, making it completely lose balance and fall over. Once you land on you turn to face Mami.

"Talk later. Leave this thing to me"

"But-"

You take off before she can finish. Before the titan can get up you are already back on top of it grabbing the knife which you promptly stick into it's neck. Using the knife as leverage you pry open a hole. The titan brings up its hands to swat you off but Mami is already using her Muskets to shoot them off. Good girl. Once a hole is made you start stopping on it as hard as you can making it bigger and bigger. Eventually it breaks leaving the titan decapitated.

Suddenly the mana that made up the titan starts to compress and the dungeon begins to break down. It quickly fades leaving the normal world in its place. Where the titans body was stood a small black ball with a needle sticking out of it. The mana from the titan seemed to gather up inside of it leaving the body to disappear. You pocket the object and turn to Mami who is looking at you with wide eyes.

[] Talk
- [] Say what?
[] Go to your appartment
- [] take Mami?
[] Go to Mami's appartment
[] Write-in
 
Story 6
[X] Go to Mami's appartment. You've much to discuss, apparently, and some backalley is not the best place for it.
-[X] What was that thing? Why Mami decided to attack it?
-[X] What is this ball-and-needle thingie? Who's made it and for what purpose


You take a second to figure out where you are before turning to head back to the apartment complex, this time hopefully uninterrupted.

"Common Mami, we'll talk at your apartment"

Mami's body flashed and her outfit was replaced with the clothes she was wearing before. Neither of you said a word during the trip and you got to the complex without any additional incidents. You stepped into her appartment and took a seat by the table in the center of the main room. Mami walked off to grab some tea giving you a moment to think things over.

Just what was that? The titan you were fighting dropped some kind of small ball but what does it do? Maybe it's dangerous? It would certainly explain the disappearances. And what about her ring flashing? It seemed to be what made her run off in the first place, but why? Did it hypnotize her? Was it some kind of tracker? Too many possibility's to know for sure. Simple solution though, Mami IS right here. She comes back holding 2 cups of tea on a tray which she sets down on the table.

"Well then. Lets get started. So Mami, what do you know about the thing I just killed?"

She sighs

"Straight to the point I see. That was a witch, a being of pure grief that feeds on the misery of the humans it lures in."

That... explains absolutely nothing. It may use words that sound informative, however feeding on misery is ultimately meaningless. Emotions don't directly contain energy to consume (although the chemicals that cause them do) and you certainly cannot create a creature out of grief even in principle.

"Ok then. So what literally IS a witch. What are they made out of? Like if I checked the chemical composition of a witch what would I get."

"I'm not really sure. I didn't exactly have time to check."

That makes sense. They don't seem like they would be very cooperative to study, and Mami didn't seem like the type to investigate this sort of thing.

"Fair enough. What about the ball it dropped?"

You take the ball in question out of your pocket to show her what you were talking about.

"That's a grief seed. It's a witches egg, I can use it to recharge my magic."

"What exactly is your magic?"

She takes off her ring, it turns into an egg shape with a flash of light.

"This is my soul gem. It is the source of my magic and I can use it to track down witches among other things."

Well that certainly explains the outfit and MAYBE the guns?

"Alright then. How did you get it? Can't imagine something with the destructive power you showed earlier would just be for sale somewhere."

Mami giggled at that.

"Of course not. Kyubey gives them to girls with magical potential in exchange for a wish."

What.

You're not sure she understands the implications of that. Magic has been connected to information processors. This is why mana is stored primarily in the brain and partially in the rest of the nervous system. Having it inside of some kind of gem therefore might have massive long term implications, humans evolved to have that energy where it is for a reason. The long term effects of mana deprivation haven't been studied extensively yet, but it isn't expected to be healthy with the short term effects being exhaustion and slowed reaction time among other things. That's not even getting into the wish, is Kyubey even sentient? You guess he must be, you just assumed he was more of an strange pet of some kind.

Mami spoke up again.

"That reminds me. While you were in the witches barrier you used magic, but if you haven't contracted with Kyubey then how do you have magic?"

Oh yeah. You did do that.

[] Tell a cover story
[] Any more questions?
[] Write-in
 
Story 5
[X] What you are describing sounds nothing like magic as I'm used to.

Well this isn't going to be easy to explain.

"Mami. How much do you really know about magic?"

She stopped to consider the question for a second.

"...not much to be honest. It's some kind of mysterious force that can do amazing things, but I have no idea how it works."

Now how to explain what you do to a civilian who uses magic and thinks of it as mysterious? It really isn't fundamentally supernatural since it clearly follows explainable rules, even if they aren't perfectly understood, so it's as scientific as anything else. But it's effects definitely LOOK supernatural and the relative lack of time spent researching the phenomenon along with the fantasy naming conventions don't help.

"Ok then. First let me define the term 'Casting'. It is the act of transferring energy from one object to another without a medium to carry the energy in transit. A common example of casting that you see all the time is a magnet."

Mami's eyes perked up at the mention of something as mundane as a magnet being literally magic. It wasn't really, but showing that mundane things can be connected to fantastic concepts is the point you were trying to make.

"When you try to cast a spell you are taking the energy inside of your soul gem, or matter in the case of the guns and outfit, and transferring it to external objects such as the witch you are fighting. Before you cast a spell the energy is just Magical Potential Energy, also known as MP or Mana. Yes as in the gaming term. What you need to understand is that almost anything with a brain contains Mana, including you before you contracted, and regardless of having something to assist in using it everyone is always capable of putting that Mana to use."

"Wait so you are saying I had all of my powers before meeting Kyubey?"

Considering the complexity of the actions she was doing compared to her lack of training it doesn't seem likely that she would have had any magical success without the contract. You have no idea how the soul gem changes things there but if it's messing with her mana to manually take control over the casting process and the calculations involved in it then it seems plausible that such a device would work. It would have to be very advanced to be used fast enough to completely replace standard casting in combat, objects like your ring can be fast but they only do a single pre-programmed spell, a full spell kit would be a massive project to create in device form.

"Technically yes. But you wouldn't actually be able to use them."

You pull out my knife and hold it in front of me. You let go and start to levitate it in place.

"This knife weighs 410 grams. It takes energy to keep it suspended in mid air and I don't have anything to automate or simplify that. So I have to manually calculate the exact amount of energy needed per second and consciously preform the energy transfer. Doing that took me years to master"

I let the knife fall and catch it so I can put it away again. Mami spoke up again.

"Ok I think I get it.... but where did you learn to do that in the first place?"

And here is where I need to start using bullshit. I can't exactly claim to be an inter-dimensional alien from another universe, and I certainly don't want to reveal my employment to someone I just met, at least not yet anyways.

"I learned it with my father. He was a scientist who discovered Mana, I helped him in the lab with experimenting on how it works and how to channel it. I'm the one who came up with the terms I defined to you although he's the one who ultimately made them more rigorous. Once I learned that mana existed I just kept practicing it until I was as good as I could possibly be, it's almost reflexive at this point."

"And where is he now?"

"Dead"

Mami's hand went to her mouth

"I'm sorry..."

"It's ok. He was old when he had me so it wasn't unexpected. He lived a full life. Plus I have the ring he made for me to remember him by."

She examined the ring a little closer than she did before when she first saw me.

"So THAT'S why you have it. Does it do anything? I could have sworn I felt some magic coming from it."

You hold out your hand so she can see it better.

"It's a bit like your soul gem. It was the result of trying to program a spell into a small object. Specifically it can store a single object. Right now it has a cool mage cloak in it. I guess it's kinda like a prototype to the transformation trick you did back there or whatever you did to get the guns."

Mami nods her head in understanding and then starts to stare at a spot on the table. Apparently that is where Kyubey was for this entire conversation, why isn't Mami saying anything? Suddenly a while bunny cat thing with strange red markings appears in the spot, it seems Kyubey has made himself visible to you. How convenient.

<Well you are certainly an interesting person. What do you plan on doing now?>

What the fuck!? Is he in your head? Wait that wouldn't actually make sense. If he was reading your mind then he wouldn't need to ask me anything. I don't know how he's using telepathy but it doesn't seem to be anything beyond that as far as I can tell. Just to be sure however...

"Wait are you reading my mind? How does that work exactly?"

<I'm using telepathy to communicate with you. It is possible for you to direct your thoughts to me but I am not a mind reader>

Ok that's comforting you guess. For all you know he's lying but it doesn't seem THAT likely. Well lets try out this telepathy thing.

<Testing testing 1.. 2.. 3..>

<You are doing it right>


Interesting. It feels a bit strange but nothing you can't handle.

<So why did you reveal yourself to me now of all times anyways?>

<You could clearly detect me anyways. There wouldn't have been much point to continuing to hide and since you are involved with magic there really wasn't a reason to keep myself hidden from you anyways>


Fair enough. That makes sense. The 3 of you sit around for a bit longer. Clearly neither Mami nor Kyubey have more to say, so now what?

[Ask Kyubey something]
[Ask Mami something]
[Go to sleep]
[Write-in]
 
Story 6
[X]Ask Kyubey something
-[X] Are you doing the calculations to let Mami do magic?
-[X] Why?


Mami moves to stand up.

"Well if that's all then-"

You cut her off immediately. You're aren't done here quite yet.

"Wait. I still have more questions for Kyubey"

She sits back down. You turn to face Kyubey again.

"Kyubey. Your the one who created Mami's soul gem correct?"

<Correct>

"Ok then. Spells require calculations by their nature. Are you preforming those calculations when Mami tries to use a spell? How exactly does that work"

<I am not required for Mami to use her magic. Her soul gem is capable of processing information using the body as input, this information processing is what provides the specifications for the spells she casts>

"So can she cast like I do?"

<In theory yes. However her soulgem is designed to be particularly efficient at a few types of spells. All magical girls can naturally use their magic for healing and reinforcing objects. In addition to that all magical girls get a power set based off their wish, this includes a weapon they can summon at any time. In Mami's case it is a ribbon.>

A ribbon? Didn't she use guns?

"Where did the muskets come from then?"

Mami turns to me

"I figured out I could use my ribbons to mimic other kinds of objects. So I used them to construct the rifles you saw me using!"

She looked proud of the accomplishment. And for good reason, even old fashion riles are complex machines that must have taken days of practice to understand the inner workings of. Considering that she can summon them fast enough to be reliable mid-combat she's had months of experience doing this at least. Probably years considering she didn't have a trainer and might not have even had a reference to work with.

"I see... one more question. Why are you doing any of this? Like why did you contract Mami instead of going to the military for support against the witches, or at least someone with combat experience."

<I can only contract someone who has enough magical potential. There is a strong tendency for those people to be young girls a little younger than Mami, so there simply isn't any candidates in the military for me to contact in the first place>

What.... That doesn't make any sense. Age shouldn't effect your mana capacity, if anything age would be a positive factor since they tend to be more efficient and even if they weren't magic is like a muscle that can be trained. And I've never heard of girls having more MP than boys on average. Why would things be any different here? Is there some biological difference between people in this instance of earth compared to back home? It wouldn't really make much sense for there to be one, since anything that could cause such a difference would also cause bigger more obvious differences in biology. So why is it?

"You aren't making any sense Kyubey. What does being a young girl have to do with your mana capacity?"

<Girls in their preteen years experience the greatest amount of emotional fluctuation compared to any other demographic. This fluctuation allows for them to gain more magical energy than is otherwise possible by a wide margin>

That... still doesn't make any sense. However it doesn't seem like he has a better explanation than that. I'll simply have to figure it out on my own then, maybe it's more of a compatibility thing? It could be that the soul gem is just more efficient when connected to a more spontaneous mind. That would explain why he isn't making a move to contract you despite your well above average mana capacity, the tech just isn't flexible enough for it.

<So is that all?>

Oh right you said that was your last question.

"For now yeah"

You and Mami both stand up and Kyubey jumps off the table to wander off... somewhere.

"Thank you for having me over Mami"

You bow as you speak.

"It's no problem Sarah! Come whenever you like!"

You smile and exit the apartment. A quick look at your phone tells you it's late, far latter than you would have guessed. Well then, you should probably get some sleep. The mysteries of Magic aren't going anywhere just yet after all. You enter your apartment room right next door (which you note is hardly furnished), get on the bed and drift off to sleep.


Once you wake up:
[] Gather additional tools
- [] What tools?
[] Follow Mami to school
- [] Openly or secretly?
[] Patrol the city for witches
[] Patrol a DIFFERENT city for witches
- [] Which one?
- [] Write-in

As fun as it would be to make this Q&A the quest I kinda want to keep things moving. Sorry about the delay on this update I've been busy with midterms.
 
Story 7
[x] Follow Mami to school
- [x] Openly

You wake up the next day and get up to get ready for the rest of the day.
Your apartment mailbox has the fake transcript you ordered the yesterday. Damn that's fast work on their part, better get it to the school then.

When you exit the apartment complex you see Mami just ahead of you. She sees you walk out and pauses to let you catch up. She smiles at you once you reach her.

"Good morning Sarah"

"Morning Mami."

After that brief interaction you both continue on your way.

"Are you heading to the school with me?"

"Yeah. I need to drop off some paperwork so they can finish transferring me in. Hopefully I'll be going to classes with you by the end of the week"

"I see. Then I'll be looking forwards to learning with you!"

Well she seems excited about this. Guess the whole magical girl business makes it hard to get close to the uninformed. Actually how are there uninformed people anyways? I mean yeah the witches and incubators are invisible to most people (Still need to figure out how) but the magical girls aren't. And even if none of the magical girls wanted to expose the existence of magic, there would still be the matter of the disappearances, a few might be excused as just mundane tragedies, but with the scale of the threats and the clear pattern for who is at risk it doesn't make sense that no one would have figured anything out by now.

Once you reach the school turning in your paperwork is a simple matter. You walk in the door give the transcript and other papers to the lady from earlier, she thanks you and says that you will get a letter once everything is ready.

Now with that over you scan the school for Mami's magic signature and... oh...

Oh my that's big

You sense a massive mana source inside the school. Walking through the school to track down the source leads you to one of the second year classes. Luckily the wall is glass allowing you to easily see the students. The one radiating the massive amounts of energy is a fairly cute girl with pink hair and red ribbons. Did she dye it? You would assume so, pink isn't exactly a hair color people tend to have naturally, either that or the mana is doing something weird to it, you've never seen so much energy in once place. If you didn't see it right in front of you then you might not have even thought it was possible. Either way figuring out how exactly she got so much power is a top priority, possibly more so than reverse engineering the witches potentially. After all while artificial cloaked monsters are great and all, an army of godlike mages would be unstoppable. Maybe you should try and hire her? Certainly not something you can do right now, but it's something to consider.

On closer inspection the blue haired girl right next to the pink haired girl is radiating a great deal of mana as well. Not nearly as much as the pink haired girl but still far more than even the average mage. Both of them easily have more energy than you do. This definitely requires further investigation. For now through this probably is starting to look creepy to anyone watching you right now. You track Mami's mana and go to her class room like you initially planned. Once there you take the time to shadow the class, none of Mami's other classmates seem remarkable at first glance, they don't have any meaningful amount of mana output from compared to the average, a few might make mediocre mages with proper training, but it wouldn't be worth the effort considering their background.

Either way it doesn't seem like anything is going to happen at this point so you just tune out the rest of the class. Once lunch starts you wave to get Mami's attention and meet up with her.

"Hey Mami I was wondering. Kyubey said he contracts those who have potential, is there any way for you to track down those who do?"

Mami discreetly turned her soul gem into it's egg form.

"Yes actually. I can sort of feel when it picks up on someone with magical powers. It doesn't seem to pick you up however for some reason, but it is particularly sensitive to potential magical girls. So yes, tracking potential magical girls is quite easy in fact."

Hmm. That might actually be a problem for those 2 girls. Either way it's something I can make use of.

"Are there any here?"

She holds her soul gem out and closes her eyes for a second. Once she opens them she turns to where the 2 girls I checked out earlier are.

"Found one. They are in that direction somewhere."

She indicates the direction she is talking about.

[] Go meet the potential magical girls
- [] Talk to them
- -[] Say what?
- [] Just watch them
[] Talk to Mami
- [] About what?
[] Write-in
 
Story 8
[X] Talk to Mami
-[X] That's interesting, just one? Pink or Blue?
[x] Go meet the potential magical girls
- [x] Talk to them
- -[x] "Hello. Please join my friend and I at lunch. We have much to discuss."


"Only one?"

"Yes, I only sense a single signature"

Hmm... you suppose it makes sense, the Pink haired girl's energy would be enough to completely drown out the other girls mana to a direction based tracking method.

"Well then. Let's go meet her then!"

You start walking over in the indicated direction.

"Wha.."

Mami reaches out for you as you walk. But quickly shakes her head and starts following you. Eventually the 2 of you reach a cafeteria where the girls you saw were sitting with another green haired girl. She didn't seem to have any real magical potential, so there is no need to really bother her with anything at the moment. You turn towards Mami.

"So which one is the potential?"

She narrows her eyes and looks down at her gem and back.

"hmmm... it seems I was mistaken, there are 2 with potential. The blue haired girl and the pink haired girl."

Just like I thought.

"Well then lets go say hi!"

You start walking over to the group. Mami reaches out for you again, this time actually grabbing your hand.

"Wait! We can't just go over and start talking!? What would we even say?"

"Well obviously we would inform them of their magical potential and the target that puts on them."

"We can't just go around revealing magic to total strangers!"

But you start walking over to them anyways, making sure those girls are defended is a priority, if their power falls into the wrong hands (that is to say anyone's hands but yours) then it would cause major problems for you if they end up being turned against you. Thus you need to make contact with them ASAP, no matter what Mami's feelings are on the subject.

"If you don't want to talk to them that's fine. But I'm going to meet them."

Mami just stood there at a loss for words as you walked over to their table. Once you got close you put on a smile as they started to notice you.

"Hi! Can I talk to you 2 in private for a bit?"

You point at the pink haired and blue haired girls as you say that. They look at each other and then at the green haired girl a bit insure of themselves. The blue haired girl shrugs and stands up.

"Um.. I guess? You alright with being alone for a second Hitomi?"

"It's fine..."

The green haired girl is Hitomi, got it. They all are acting a bit nervous about this whole thing, but anyone would if some random stranger went and did what I'm doing.

"Either of you know somewhere we could chat alone?"

The pink haired girl speaks up

"Well the roof is usually empty."

"Perfect. Lead the way"

She nods and the 3 of you start to walk. The blue hair girl starts to size you up before speaking again on the way there.

"So just who are you anyways? Do you even go to this school? You aren't wearing the uniform."

"My name is Sarah Goldman, I'm the process of transferring in as an upperclassman. What are your names by the way?"

"Madoka Kaname."

"Sayaka Miki."

And just like that you've reached the roof. It's pretty fancy too. Sayaka still seems a bit suspicious of you, not that you can blame her.

"So what's so secretive that you needed to drag us all the way to the roof for anyways?"

You drop your smile

"Do you 2 believe in magic?"

They look at each other and they both say no.

"Ok well for starters I'm a mage. That is to say I'm someone who has learned how to channel mana in order to use magic. And I can assure you it is very real."

Sayaka immediately steps forward.

"Oh yeah? Prove it!"

"Sayaka, don't be mean...."

Yeah proving telekinesis is not exactly difficult. You levitate Sayaka about a meter into the air.

"OMYGODOMYGODOHMYGODPUTMEDOWNPUTMEDOWNPUTMEDOWN!"

She suddenly starts to flail her arms around in a panic while Madoka steps away from her with wide eyes. You gently put her down only for her to immediately start panting. Madoka just looks worried for her friend?

"Sayaka! Are you ok!?"

"I-I'm fine but, oh my god it felt like I was falling."

Technically it does feel like that. Unlike being lifted, when you use telekinesis like that I'm controlling all parts of her body at the same time. The good news is it means you can accelerate her as fast as you want without damage (although friction would be an issue at high enough speeds) but the downside is that it can mess with your sense of balance. It's easier than trying to balance forces on the edges of her body though and once you get used to it the feeling of falling goes away.

"You were floating, not falling. It just felt like that."

Due to Sayaka being... incapacitated. Madoka turns to speak up.

"So... why are you showing us this anyway? What makes us different from Hitomi?"

Moment of truth time.

"Because both of you have a massive mana capacity. Far more than I've ever seen in my life."

Sayaka stares at me.

"WHAT!? No way!? Are you saying we could do stuff like what you just did?"

You smile.

"Of course it would be possible. But you are missing the point."

"???"

They both look confused at me.

"Ok lets put it like this. If I was able to track you down this easily. Remember I just got here and wasn't looking for you or anyone like you. Then that means any other mage can too and very easily. That puts a target on your backs considering that a captured potential super mage has it's uses, and trust me it's nothing pretty."

Madoka gulps. Sayaka looks horrified at the idea of hostile mages going after them considering that just lifting her slightly put her off guard as much as it did. Madoka was the regain her wits. Surprising, since I figured Sayaka was the one who would be the most assertive about this sort of thing.

"T-then you're going to train us how to use magic right? You know, like to defend ourselves? If we have so much power then maybe it would be enough?"

Well that was the question now wasn't it? Normally the answer would be no, but with their shear strength the efficiency practice that made up the bulk of a mages training would be unnecessary allowing them to be combat ready in days instead of years. Maybe even sooner, you haven't exactly interacted with anyone with this amount of raw power before. So in this particular case it wasn't a matter of if you CAN train them, but rather of if you SHOULD train them, at least if you should train them NOW anyways.

[] Of course - They need to be able to defend themselves, Madoka is right, their power is best used to their advantage. Plus it might get them on my side for later if I ever want to recruit them to my organization. Plus they did ask.
[] No - The last thing I need is super mages that could potentially turn on me should things get bloody, they may be strong but they are also just kids, in my line of work they would be too soft.
[] I can't do it myself but might be a way... - Kyubey has presumably been recruiting girls like these for years, he would certainly be able to pull it off. Plus it would give me the chance to see the contract process for myself.
[] Write-in
 
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