Tonight is the night for Bad Decisions. Mainly in that I'm making this to begin with. I've got...
Nothing Left To Chance [PMMM]
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Prologue - (HL) Epiphany
ColdGoldLazarus
Contrary Quester, Spreadsheet Queen, Pink Flamingo
- Location
- Challenger Deep
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Tonight is the night for Bad Decisions. Mainly in that I'm making this to begin with. I've got another story here and a quest I'm working on, and I still need to track down all my old notes (this is a project I came up with back in 2012) so it's going to be low on the priority list, but I figured I'd at least get this started. I had all but forgotten about it, to be honest - but I think it's worth not letting it slip away again.
She stood before the dark-haired girl, trembling. Tears streamed endlessly from hollow eyes, helplessness threatening to overwhelm all. "You... you knew... why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you help them?"
Below, so far below the wrecked skyscraper she stands upon yet still so painfully visible, three splotches of color. Yellow and red and blue; two clad in fine dresses, one in a dull beige school uniform... all three dead. Above, the sky is clearing, sunbeams showing through what was once thick, dark clouds. It is free of the oppressive presence that had occupied it a half-hour prior; the upturned jester hanging from a cradle of gears finally gone.
And two girls. One dark and cold, the other rosy and distressed. "I don't understand. I saved you." The dark one says. Deep down she does understand, but she doesn't want to admit it to herself. "Isn't that enough?"
The pink-haired girl goes limp, like a marionette with her strings cut, staring into nothing at all. "You... you didn't care about them at all, did you?"
"No." The dark girl responds, then adds "Once." Both statements are true and false in equal measure.
The pink-haired girl's eyes harden, shedding her ragged despair like a coat as a core of unbreakable steel shows through. "Then I have nothing to say to you." She turns to the white cat that wasn't there a moment ago, ready and waiting to hear her wish.
The dark haired girl doesn't give her the chance, simply reaching over to grasp the buckler on her arm and twist it. Time shatters like brittle glass, the pieces pouring down into the hourglass as space folds in on itself and cause becomes effect becomes cause...
***
Homura Akemi awoke in her hospital bed, a familiar leaden feeling impacting her like a brick dropped straight through her chest. It's two months prior, and her heart was still weak after a recent surgery. On her nightstand rests her glasses and a purple glassy egg wrapped in elegant gold. It is the latter she reaches for first, bringing it close to her eyes to heal them, vision sharpening abruptly. Then down to her heart, and her arms and legs, atrophied muscles strengthened with magic - a familiar ritual at this point, but always a frustrating one to have to repeat. As she flexes her muscles to test them, she thinks as always about what went wrong.
But nothing had, this time. She'd done everything perfectly, kept Kyuubey away, prevented Sayaka from contracting, kept Mami from the truth of the witches, and suppressed Kyouko. She'd kept Madoka safe and she'd kept her from contracting, and let the others save the city from Walpurgis. She'd succeeded...
And yet still she'd failed. Bringing the soul gem level with her eyes again, she saw blackness rising like a tide, up and up and up, faster than ever before, until the healthy violet was drowned out by pitch darkness. Darkness filled her vision as well, the small room in clinical white being overtaken by a murky expanse of grey checkerboard, a Labyrinth... She was spinning... spinning endlessly, a broken record playing the same loop over and over pointlessly. There was no way to win like this, it suddenly became clear to her. It was all or nothing, she knew there was no way to save everyone...
Wait.
Suddenly the hospital room snapped back into focus. Homura stared ahead into emptiness, trembling as the beginnings of a revelation began to percolate through her mind. Madoka could never be truly happy if her friends weren't safe as well. It was all or nothing, and Homura had already tried to save them. But had she, really? She realized, heart sinking, that no... she had given up on them from the start. Madoka was all that had mattered.
Madoka was still all that mattered, but now Homura realized the narrow-mindedness that had led to her failures. The others... their friendships and connections... they were all part of Madoka as well though those bonds. If she did not save them too, she was not saving Madoka at all. They were part of her and she would never be complete with them gone.
Homura closed her eyes as despair surged within her once again. But how... how could she do this? Keeping track of Madoka was hard enough as it was, but to ensure everyone else took the right path as well? She could stop time and keep tabs on each of them, but she couldn't be in five places at once...
But once again, this sudden insight had yet to run its course in full, and operating purely by instinct, she stood up and transformed. Her outfit was different, she vaguely noted, but her attention was on the shield, and the hourglass set within. Staring into the ruby sand contained within each globe, so reminiscent of the incubator's eyes, a thought came to her. It was terrible. It would be terrible and cruel and far more ruthless than anything she'd done to this point... but it might just work. She couldn't be in five places at once, but perhaps she didn't need to be.
Homura grinned, a shark-like expression that was wrong on her pale features, and glanced back at her soul gem. It was almost entirely pitch-black, but there was just a tiny spot of bright purple at the top, that faded in and out of view and made her wonder if she wasn't just imagining it. A tiny bubble that threatened to pop at any moment, yet somehow did not. If the path before her was a dark one, this single speck of light promised it would be all worth it in the end, and she'd have a lifetime afterward to atone for the sin she was about to commit.
It wasn't much. But it was hope.
She stood before the dark-haired girl, trembling. Tears streamed endlessly from hollow eyes, helplessness threatening to overwhelm all. "You... you knew... why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you help them?"
Below, so far below the wrecked skyscraper she stands upon yet still so painfully visible, three splotches of color. Yellow and red and blue; two clad in fine dresses, one in a dull beige school uniform... all three dead. Above, the sky is clearing, sunbeams showing through what was once thick, dark clouds. It is free of the oppressive presence that had occupied it a half-hour prior; the upturned jester hanging from a cradle of gears finally gone.
And two girls. One dark and cold, the other rosy and distressed. "I don't understand. I saved you." The dark one says. Deep down she does understand, but she doesn't want to admit it to herself. "Isn't that enough?"
The pink-haired girl goes limp, like a marionette with her strings cut, staring into nothing at all. "You... you didn't care about them at all, did you?"
"No." The dark girl responds, then adds "Once." Both statements are true and false in equal measure.
The pink-haired girl's eyes harden, shedding her ragged despair like a coat as a core of unbreakable steel shows through. "Then I have nothing to say to you." She turns to the white cat that wasn't there a moment ago, ready and waiting to hear her wish.
The dark haired girl doesn't give her the chance, simply reaching over to grasp the buckler on her arm and twist it. Time shatters like brittle glass, the pieces pouring down into the hourglass as space folds in on itself and cause becomes effect becomes cause...
***
Homura Akemi awoke in her hospital bed, a familiar leaden feeling impacting her like a brick dropped straight through her chest. It's two months prior, and her heart was still weak after a recent surgery. On her nightstand rests her glasses and a purple glassy egg wrapped in elegant gold. It is the latter she reaches for first, bringing it close to her eyes to heal them, vision sharpening abruptly. Then down to her heart, and her arms and legs, atrophied muscles strengthened with magic - a familiar ritual at this point, but always a frustrating one to have to repeat. As she flexes her muscles to test them, she thinks as always about what went wrong.
But nothing had, this time. She'd done everything perfectly, kept Kyuubey away, prevented Sayaka from contracting, kept Mami from the truth of the witches, and suppressed Kyouko. She'd kept Madoka safe and she'd kept her from contracting, and let the others save the city from Walpurgis. She'd succeeded...
And yet still she'd failed. Bringing the soul gem level with her eyes again, she saw blackness rising like a tide, up and up and up, faster than ever before, until the healthy violet was drowned out by pitch darkness. Darkness filled her vision as well, the small room in clinical white being overtaken by a murky expanse of grey checkerboard, a Labyrinth... She was spinning... spinning endlessly, a broken record playing the same loop over and over pointlessly. There was no way to win like this, it suddenly became clear to her. It was all or nothing, she knew there was no way to save everyone...
Wait.
Suddenly the hospital room snapped back into focus. Homura stared ahead into emptiness, trembling as the beginnings of a revelation began to percolate through her mind. Madoka could never be truly happy if her friends weren't safe as well. It was all or nothing, and Homura had already tried to save them. But had she, really? She realized, heart sinking, that no... she had given up on them from the start. Madoka was all that had mattered.
Madoka was still all that mattered, but now Homura realized the narrow-mindedness that had led to her failures. The others... their friendships and connections... they were all part of Madoka as well though those bonds. If she did not save them too, she was not saving Madoka at all. They were part of her and she would never be complete with them gone.
Homura closed her eyes as despair surged within her once again. But how... how could she do this? Keeping track of Madoka was hard enough as it was, but to ensure everyone else took the right path as well? She could stop time and keep tabs on each of them, but she couldn't be in five places at once...
But once again, this sudden insight had yet to run its course in full, and operating purely by instinct, she stood up and transformed. Her outfit was different, she vaguely noted, but her attention was on the shield, and the hourglass set within. Staring into the ruby sand contained within each globe, so reminiscent of the incubator's eyes, a thought came to her. It was terrible. It would be terrible and cruel and far more ruthless than anything she'd done to this point... but it might just work. She couldn't be in five places at once, but perhaps she didn't need to be.
Homura grinned, a shark-like expression that was wrong on her pale features, and glanced back at her soul gem. It was almost entirely pitch-black, but there was just a tiny spot of bright purple at the top, that faded in and out of view and made her wonder if she wasn't just imagining it. A tiny bubble that threatened to pop at any moment, yet somehow did not. If the path before her was a dark one, this single speck of light promised it would be all worth it in the end, and she'd have a lifetime afterward to atone for the sin she was about to commit.
It wasn't much. But it was hope.