Renegade Magica (PMMM/Mass Effect)

[Sir Bill]

Sarah Shepard leaned against the wall. In the crowded bowels of the ship, a wall to lean against was one of the closest things to a creature comfort that they had available to them.

They had finally managed to get the door to sit right, and there it sat, having been knocked over, she could smell the flames even as she hid, even as she heard her parents-

She shook her head. The batarians didn't like it when they cried, and thinking about that would just make her eyes water. Suppress it. Hide it. Stay strong, just for a little while. She doubted that they'd be able to keep track of them at all times, and she could vent when it was safe.

Her hands reached to the back of her neck before she stopped herself. They also didn't want them to scratch at the implants, even more than they disliked shows of emotion. No matter how much they itched.

She could wait. As long as she told herself that she was- as long as she continued to think that she was waiting, she could make it through this. Somehow. She wouldn't break.

Her eyes glanced to the rest of the hold. They'd done little to separate the prisoners, other than by age, which was… confusing, to her. The slavers were clearly trying to break their will, but why keep them together? Was it cheaper that way, or did they have some other goal in mind?

She didn't know if they had been separated from their parents, if they were on another shuttle, or… she knew what had happened to her own, though.

She'd seen-

"Hey." Sam knelt down next to her. "Don't worry, you'll get through this. We'll get through this. I mean, for you, even if we're stuck like this for the rest of our lives, well, you won't be so bad off, right?" He tried to grin. "Look at you, keeping all cool like that even after all this," he probably hadn't meant it to sound accusatory.

"You're dignified. You're aloof. You'll probably end up a house slave or something, more of a status symbol than a laborer, right?"

They didn't like it when they talked, why wouldn't he shut up? At fifteen, he wasn't that much older than her, there was no need for him to act the leader.

"Well, no reason to worry for the rest of us. Next shift, next time they'll be bringing us food, I'm breaking us out here, I'll attack them, I'll do… something." How many times had he said something like that so far?

He got up and wandered away. He was only, what was it, fifteen years old? And he still acted as though he were in charge.

She huffed, unable to stop herself. They wouldn't be able to do anything, now. There were krogan on this ship. Plural. Even if they could take the first few guards, even one krogan getting close to their group would end a riot before they could do more than get themselves killed. Even without that, the devices in their necks would cripple them before anything could happen.

She curled up further, and waited.

Lunch or dinner came, she didn't know which, and nothing came of Sam's plot.

Just wait until they got to a planet. Then she'd have a chance to do something. She wasn't giving up, she was waiting.

She glanced to the far side of the cage, to where Talitha was curled up.

She wouldn't be like that, couldn't be like that.

She'd survive. For now, though, she'd rest.

~~~~

It took her some time to fall to sleep, but when she awoke, it was to a foot in the side.

"Get up." Sam said, a scowl on his face. His arms were marked with bruises. Had something happened?

Sarah looked at him. "What?" Her voice was hoarse. How long was it since she had bothered speaking? Only a few days, right?

"I am tired, of your attitude. Acting like you're better than me, than the rest of us!" His foot struck her side, harder this time. Shepard rolled with the blow and crouched, ready to stand up at a moment's notice.

"I see the way you look down at me, but I'm trying, I'm doing something, alright!"

As he looked down at her, Shepard's foot found his leg, and knocked him over. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, but she was in better shape, and her fist struck his groin, making him wince, and allowing her time to stand up, and she slammed her foot into his nose, making him scream in pain and fury.

Shepard backed off, waiting for him to rise, but the door to the prison slammed open, and a guard came in. "What the hell's going on here?" he asked, his four eyes glancing between the two of them before settling on Shepard.

She wasn't supposed to have stood out, not supposed to have drawn attention. "I, I" at the guard's impatient look, she hurried, "He attacked me."

As he glanced between the two of them, Sam yelled out, "She just started hitting me."

She didn't know who the batarian would believe, or if he'd just punish them both. She had to do something, and there was, back of her head… some etiquette she'd heard of when it came to batarians, tilt her head, left or right? One would be submissive, the other arrogant. She took a gamble and tilted her head to the left, ever so slightly, not making eye contact, and the batarian sighed.

"You've proven yourself more trouble than you're worth." He said as he approached Sam and grabbed him. "Tell you what, the vorcha have been complaining about a lack of proper rations."

Sam didn't seem to react for a moment, before his eyes widened, "No, wait, stop, I'm sorry, I'll be quiet!" he yelled, grabbing at the floor as he was dragged away, and Shepard forced her face to a neutral position. The batarian glanced at her.

How should she react? Thank him? Beg for Sam's life?

No. Any of those might imply that she felt that she had any power at all.

She tilted her head to the left again, keeping her face as controlled as she could.

He shook his head again and walked away. "Just two more days of this and I'll be resting in Camala. And next time, try not to hit them in a place where it will show."

As she watched Sam be dragged away, her hand ever so slowly clenched into a fist.

She tried to ignore the way that the others stared at her as she stood up. She had enough space, she could do some stretches, at the least.

Two more days.

~~~~~

She could feel it when the gravity shifted, when the ship approached the planet.

It still took, she couldn't keep track, but at least a few hours before the doors opened and they were slowly herded out. As she followed the crowd, she walked out of one of the larger airlocks, and couldn't suppress a deep breath as she took in the fresh air. It had a taste to it than Mindoir's air, a vaguely unpleasant one, but it was still almost… refreshing compared to the recycled air and stuffed confines.

The sun, though, that still felt wonderful on her skin.

They walked, and even with the stretches she'd done, actual moving still made her legs uncomfortable. Still, as she noted Jessica trip and get hit by a baton, struggling to stand up straight again, she imagined that things would have been worse if she hadn't bothered.

Eventually, they came across a platform.

Was this… an actual slave auction?

She didn't see where any of the adults were, and she had seen them brought into the ships, but maybe they were brought somewhere else?

Regardless, they all assembled onto the platform with only a few nudgings, as the rest of the captives seemed to understand what was expected of them instinctively.

She was, by coincidence, near the front.

She looked out at the crowd, their four eyed faces staring at her in curiosity, contempt, amusement… she couldn't see any pity in their expressions, no sympathy, and she fought to keep her expression neutral, but judging by the glances that she received, she wasn't quite successful.

Hello there.

Her eyes widened, and one of the most infamous figures in the galaxy sat at a corner no one else seemed to be interested in.

She almost spoke out loud, but with a glance to the sides, she remembered one of the things that she'd read about Kyuubey, and projected her thoughts at him. Hello, and the thought seemed quick even in her own head. Are you here to make a contract with me?

The auctioneer was speaking, but it wasn't in English, and she didn't have a translator on her, so the conversation continued uninterrupted. Yes. I trust I don't have to tell you about what accepting a contract means?

Shepard gulped, and shifted her gaze from the red eyed thing. There weren't many human girls her age who hadn't had stern talks with their parents about this exact subject. Yes. You give me a wish, and then you take my soul, and I spend the rest of my life fighting, up until I die or…

Kyuubey nodded. A rather basic explanation, but yes. With your karmic weight, there is very little that lies beyond the power of your wish. What do you want?

Sarah glanced at her fellow captives, the markings on their necks where the implants were inserted, and out at the crowd, utterly uncaring of the suffering, of the-

I want to kill them all.

Kyuubey tilted his head for a moment. Are you certain? The question didn't seem to have any moral judgment to it, more of a request for a confirmation than a question of morality.

I want to kill every last batarian on this planet.

Kyuubey nodded. Your karmic weight outweighs that of the collective weight of the batarians on this planet. This wish can be granted.

With that, the Incubator hopped onto the stage, and approached her. Your wish shall be granted.

As its ears outstretched, the world shifted. Her eyes saw the ambient sound as colors and sound as she heard the colors and nothing made sense it was her body but it wasn't as her soul was ripped from its body and then, everything was normal again.

She stood, and looked at her black gown, and at the scythe in her hands, even as the batarians shouted and lifted their weapons.

A glance at them as she raised her blade and lowered it-

What she saw then was a blur. A single face shifting in size and coloration with a hundred subtle differences at a rate where she couldn't identify where one began and another ended. The environments around the face changed, again and again, but the face shifted stayed similar, the same build with endless variations.

The only constant were the four eyes, even if the coloration changed there were always four eyes and-

The blade fell to her side, and the crowd in front of her erupted in red.



AN: So, as I was writing Haunting at Shanxi, I hit some writers block. Like, major writers block. I tried curing it by rewatching the series, watching a review of the series, and reading some fanfiction, but in the end, all I really got inspired to write was what I had intended to be the sequel.
So, HaS is now a prequel that I'll be writing concurrently with this.

 

[Sir Bill]

Sarah watched as the blood expanded with her eyes wide. That was all… her? She glanced at the scythe and the still dripping blood. She looked to the shocked stares of the others, the humans, as no batarians were left alive at the auction site.

Kyuubey looked to her. You are now a Puella Magi. Of course, there are currently no Witches on this planet, and as such I can direct you to various craft capable of reaching other civilized areas of space.

Shepard looked to him, then back to the scythe. Did I… kill them all personally?

That was the wording of your wish. Time and space was bent so that you could slay each and every one of them with a single blow. Its head tilted back. I believe that was what you actually wanted, wasn't it?

Shepard paused, It, it was, yes. She looked out at the bodies. This is what I wanted. She took in a deep breath. So, what now?

I could guide you to a ship, but before I do, would it be safe to assume that you want to disable the kill switches hooked up into the slaves of this planet? Your own is currently disabled as a side effect of becoming a Puella Magi.

Her eyes widened. That hadn't even occurred to her. "Yes!" She shouted in a half-panic, and the nearby survivors jerked back at the noise.

Just, go ahead and do it. She thought at him.

Kyuubey froze for several seconds, before looking at her again. It is done. Though, all I did was disable the deadman's switch and prevent the devices from receiving the activation signal. If the actual device is to be removed, they would need a surgeon's assistance.

You just did it? Shepard asked, glancing back at the crowd. No, stipulations, no selling their souls or anything?

Kyuubey tilted its head. Why would I do that? Their deaths would serve little purpose at this time, and would be a pointless waste. Besides, all I did was manipulate electronics, and that requires very little actual energy.

An Incubator's only sense of morality seemed to involve some twisted form of honesty and a distaste for waste, Shepard reminded herself, thinking back to the lectures that her parents had- that they'd- her face turned towards the ground.

I suspect that you will need to hunt down a Witch sooner rather than later, at this rate. I have the location of at least one fairly quick ship that should suit your purposes.

Shepard glanced to the crowd, who were just now starting to react. "What about them?"

If you'd like, I could direct them to a different ship, but they would be likely to want to rescue the rest of the slaves scattered across the planet before evacuating, and the situation is fairly more time sensitive for you.

Am I… really that close to despair?

You are… mostly stable, at the moment. But that isn't the thing that you have to worry about.

Shepard glanced at the Incubator. What do you mean?

Oh, after what happened here, there are a variety of factions that might want you dead. The Hegemony is likely to know that what happened here isn't something that can be repeated, as that level of speed was a onetime event, and as such they are likely to send a few agents to attempt to kill you, if they can't send an entire fleet against you. The fanatics among the hanar tend to target any particularly powerful magical girls, and there are factions in the Citadel that would be quite likely to want to punish you for the wish that you made.

That was… something that she hadn't considered. With a glance to her side, a soul gem appeared in her hand. It was dark green, and the darkness wasn't counting the encroaching black tendrils dancing around inside of it. Is that… normal?

Not really, but you were contracted under fairly unique circumstances, and are one of the most powerful Puella Magi ever contracted. Some peculiarities are to be expected, and I wouldn't worry about it.

So, she should be worrying about it? She shook her head even as another set of thoughts was projected towards her. Is there anything you'd like to do before leaving?

Shepard paused. She… didn't really know anyone else, did she? Most of the people she knew were… gone, and the rest… she didn't know where they were. She glanced at her Soul Gem. What color was it supposed to be when clean? She couldn't imagine that she had much time.

No, there's… nothing.

A small thought, an impulse, and he turned to the left. The ship is in that direction. I'll give you more precise instructions once you get there.

Shepard ran.

~~~~~

She tried not to look to much at the surroundings as she ran. The pedestrians at the sides of the streets, the crashed cars, the sheer… stillness of the city, with the only noise being the occasional crackling flames and the chiming of the billboards as they advertised their products in a language she couldn't understand.
They deserved it. She had seen their aloofness, their lack of outrage at what was happening, and- all of them?- No time to think about that now, as Kyuubey told her to take another right.

She soon stumbled onto what seemed to be a private spaceport. The ship in question has been left unlocked. Dock 8 is your destination.

Sarah glanced at the Incubator. How do you know all of this?

Investigations into all nearby space ports were begun the moment that your wish was made. We didn't want you to starve before you had a chance to save yourself. It would hardly be fair if we abandoned you on this planet without the ability to track down a witch before your soul gem completely darkened.

Shepard had already entered the port by the time Kyuubey had finished talking. The ship was… about frigate sized, she supposed. One of the smaller frigates. She… didn't know ships.

This ship was purchased as a gift from an exceptionally rich family, and has been designed to need very little actual knowledge of piloting to operate, as most of its systems are automated. It is not the highest quality vehicle, but it should suit your purposes.

Shepard walked to the ship, before her eyes widened at a leaking puddle of blood.

Kyuubey glanced at her, Ah, one of the reasons that this ship was unlocked was because its crew was already preparing for launch. All systems should be ready for takeoff, though I would recommend removing the bodies, first.

Shepard took a deep breath. This… why would this be so surprising? She thought to herself as approached the first body. H- it was a batarian, face down. She walked to it, holding her breath to limit how much of the stink of blood entered her nostrils, grabbed the arm, and began pulling, dragging the body outside of the craft.

This… wasn't as bad as she thought it might be, she thought as she heaved the rest of the body down the ramp, watching it slide.

Ah, that would be because your sense of smell and certain reflexes have been suppressed. Kyuubey hopped up to a crate sitting at the top of the entrance. I would imagine that this would be far more stressful for you if you had your natural reflexes.

Do you mean… you're altering my mind? Shepard froze. That wasn't like anything she had heard before, when it came to Incubators.

No. I'm simply weakening some of your base instincts, such as the need to vomit when exposed to certain stimuli, for the duration of this flight, because otherwise I doubt that you'd survive the trip. There are three more bodies still on the ship. You won't have to worry about the cleaning up the bloodstains; the previous owners had a VI cleaner capable of handling liquids on board.

~~~~~

Three bodies later, Shepard sat in the captain's chair, watching as the ship slowly ascended.
Kyuubey was perched on top of the copilot's seat. Air traffic won't be a concern, so breaking orbit won't need to pilot input.

Shepard leaned back in her chair, watching the skyline shift as the vehicle ascended. Her eyes shifted further up, and she saw a mirror, the sort one might see in an aircar, probably put there as the owner's idea of a joke. She was still in costume, a black and white dress that almost looked like a maid's uniform, but with silver threads running throughout. It also had more cloth. Short and dark brown hair completed the look.

This was who she was now.

So, what happens now? She glanced at Kyuubey.

Do you mean what happens to the other captives, the broader implications of your wish, or what is to happen to you?

She paused. All three, I suppose.

Kyuubey paused. The other captives have mostly reunited by now, and have had a chance to speak to others who happened to have been freed by your wish. There are several ships available to them that should be able allow for them to evacuate the planet, and from there they should be able to reach Citadel trading lanes without too much difficulty, and from there any attempts by the batarians to recapture them are significantly less likely to succeed.

Shepard let out a deep breath. That was good news. The… broader implications next, I guess.
Much of this is simply conjecture, but currently, we expect for the batarians to take at least a few days to actually begin investigating, as anything that makes a planet disappear so completely so suddenly would likely make them wish to investigate in force rather than send a smaller patrol fleet. If that is the course that they choose, it would provide a larger window for the slaves to escape. Regardless, it should take them some time to discover precisely what caused this event.

Kyuubey glanced through the window, continuing to speak. The only way that they could learn of what happened would be if someone at your contracting informed them, but it is more likely that the information will be leaked through the Alliance media. Regardless of the means that it does so, it is unlikely that the nature of your wish will remain secret for too long.

Shepard frowned. Couldn't the information be… suppressed, somehow? If they went straight to the Alliance?

Kyuubey shook its head. No, the issue of magical girls is still too contentious. Hundreds of people likely know exactly what happened, and there's simply no way to suppress information on events of this scale with the limited control over the media that the Alliance has.

Besides, Kyuubey continued, no matter what, there are those who would use the deaths on this planet to push their own agenda, those who would leak it from incompetence, or those who simply believe for whatever inexplicable reason that to keep a secret like this would be inherently immoral, regardless of whatever potential consequences the leak might cause. That particular trait of humans makes diplomacy with them rather more difficult than it needs to be.

So, no matter what she did, people would know what she wished for. Her fist clenched at her side. Like they would have any right to judge her for what she did. I think I want to talk about what happens with me, next.
Very well, all I had left was conjecture on how the market prices of slaves and eezo would be affected by your wish.

Well, probably a good thing she cut him off when she did. Where do I go from here?

While there are a number of planets that have Witch Alerts posted, it might be best to avoid Alliance space for the time being. This ship doesn't have the proper documentation to get through to Alliance planets, and would likely be impounded for long enough to be inconvenient. There's also a chance that they would delay you long enough for the fate of Camala to be revealed, and I cannot currently predict the actions of the System's Alliance should that information be revealed.

So, I need documentation as well? Shepard frowned, and her Soul Gem appeared in her hand. It… looked pretty dark. She didn't know what it looked like when perfectly clear, though. I can't afford to delay.

Of course. There is one place that currently has a Witch in the area, as well as having facilities where proper documentation could be forged.

Where is it?

While there are alternatives available, the most… neutral area with those parameters would be Omega.

Shepard frowned. The name didn't sound familiar. Well, I know nothing about that sort of thing, so, Omega it is.




~~~~~

I had planned to answer (and raise) a few more questions, but this started feeling a bit too exposition heavy as it was, and I decided that I might as well wait until after some stuff has happened to reveal more information.

 

[Sir Bill]

Shepard grabbed the dishes from the sink, and placed them in the cupboard.

I'm not quite sure why you're doing this. Even if it's purely natural energy, it might be useful to conserve it.

Shepard paused. How to best explain that she wanted the ship to look less… lived in, to have less of an impression of the people who had previously lived there? "It… puts me in a better head space."

In that case, I won't attempt to provide advice for a field I've never fully understood. Kyuubey paused. Though, there are some magical girls that swear by meditation or yoga, if you're looking for a way to calm yourself.

"That… doesn't really seem like my thing."

Hm. Well, if you want something to do, we'll be landing on Omega soon. Would you like me to tell you what to expect?

Shepard sighed, and sat down at one of the chairs. "Would knowing the area really make a difference when it comes to fighting a witch if I'm going to be fighting inside of a labyrinth anyway?"

Well, first you'll need to track the witch down, which could be difficult in a more… three dimensional area such as Omega.

"What do you mean?" Shepard leaned back.

The station is essentially a hollowed out asteroid. The entire station is a mess of architectural design motivated by adapting areas that were never meant for living spaces into homes or simply taking whatever actions seemed convenient at the time. You might not encounter such difficulties in the more trafficked areas of Omega which were more thoughtfully designed, but in the secluded areas where a Witch is likely to make her home?

"Huh." Shepard frowned. "Do you have any advice for me?"

Tracking witches through triangulation is normally a relatively standard method of searching for them if they haven't left an obvious trail, but that becomes substantially more difficult when one takes the third dimension into account, and many of the pathways around Omega are rather unintuitive, especially when one considers the need to maneuver around gang territory.

"Wouldn't the gangs let me through if I'm there to kill a witch?"

Most of the gangs are not particularly fond of humans or of magical girls in general, and others simply wouldn't trust any stranger with access to their territory, even if there is a Witch in the area. That's why we're going to meet with Aria as soon as possible.

"That's the…" Shepard paused. "Aria's the crime boss of Omega, right?"Kyuubey had mentioned that at some point in the past few days.

Yes, and getting her permission to operate on the station would make things substantially easier for you, even disregarding the possibility that she might be sufficiently annoyed at being snubbed that she might attempt to directly hinder your investigations.

"Right." It made sense. Everything Kyubey told her made perfect sense, and even when she didn't ask, he always seemed to have an answer to her questions. "Kyubey, why didn't you just… let me turn into a witch back on Camala?"

Kyuubey was silent for a moment. I suppose denying an ulterior motive would be pointless. Suffice it to say, you are a fairly… unique magical girl, and we have never successfully contracted someone with your raw potential before.

"Wouldn't that just make you want to, to harvest my Soul Gem sooner?"

Not… quite. This is the first time that we have had a chance to observe a magical girl of your power yet. We would like a chance to at least observe your soul gem being purged a few times before you complete your transformation, as there's a chance that a more thorough understanding of the processes involved could allow us to increase the efficiency of the system Witch system.

That seemed… sensible. Shepard peered at the Incubator's face. No tells. Obviously.

We will be arriving at the dock, soon. Is there anything else that you wished to know about Omega?

"Nothing off the top of my head."

Very well. Though, there is something that we should decide now before we land.

"What's that?" Shepard tilted her head.

Where do you plan to stay?

"I…" Shepard paused. "I was thinking that I'd just stay on the ship, actually."

The only dock I was able to rent is rather far from any of the major areas on the station, and going back and forth during your search would be rather inconvenient.

Shepard paused. "I guess I can see- you rented a spot?"

Well, there are several free docks available, but considering that we have no crew on the ship to defend it while you're on your search, renting a more secure area seemed prudent.

I was more thinking that renting something seemed pretty boring for an Incubator. "Er, actually I was surprised that you had money."

It makes certain things more convenient, and it's not too difficult to set up an anonymous account and earn money on the stock market. Incidentally, you might want to keep tighter discipline on your thoughts. I get the impression that you didn't intend on transmitting that last thought. While I don't particularly mind, encountering a new magical girl might be awkward if you are unable to keep your thoughts private.

Shepard scratched the back of her neck. I'll, uh, keep that in mind. So, considering the question of where to stay…

I have looked at a few options, for you. There are several apartments for rent near the area where the Witch was last suspected to have placed her labyrinth, but none of their owners are particularly trustworthy, should a bounty be placed on you, and the conditions are not quite sanitary. While you would survive an illness, it would be an additional strain on your Soul Gem.

Shepard winced. That… didn't sound comfortable. "Anything else?"

There are several other apartments whose residents have died recently.

"The Witch? How is that relevant?"

No. These were killed through normal crime on Omega. I do not believe that any of them were close to any other residents, and so your living in their homes would not raise any suspicions for at least a week, which should be enough for you to accomplish your objectives there. There is also a Cerberus Foundation safehouse available, but I am not certain as to whether or not they would be willing to support you, once the events of Calama come to light.

"Right." Shepard said as she considered it. "I think I'll go to one of the abandoned houses." It seemed… safer and less filthy.

Very well.

~~~~

After having played a few cheap games on her omnitool, Kyubey jumped near her. We have arrived at the station, and will be docking within three minutes. Is there anything that you need clarified before we dock?

"No, there's… nothing."

With that, Shepard stood up and walked towards the airlock.

There was a thud felt throughout the ship as it moved in against the dock and locked itself in, and a few moments later the door opened.

She walked along the airlock. It was clean, but there were numerous scuffmarks around the floor. Whoever did cleaned the chamber did so more to enable sanitary conditions more than any desire to make it look nice.

She walked through the corridor before she opened a door. Dark red lights with the occasional white lights that lacked any sort of warmth to them dotted the ceilings and lined the floors, and most of the surfaces were either dull metals, rock, or clinical white plastic.

Here, in the more common area, apparently they cared rather less about keeping things clean, though this stink was more… industrial, she supposed.
A man, human, ran up to her. "Hey, did you just come off the Gilded Copper?"

"The what?"

Kyubey nudged her. That's the name of your ship.

Ah, Shepard thought. Out loud, she said, "Ah, yes. Why did you ask?"

"Because the captain of that ship owes me money." The man said with a scowl on his face.

Hm, I didn't see anything like that in the records of the ship. Of course, it might have been the sort of arrangement where neither party wants to leave a paper trail, but I doubt that these two were the sort to travel in the same social circles.

Shepard paused, "Well, I own the ship, now."

The man looked her up and down. "Really, now." Oh, right. She didn't look like a person who would own a ship like this.

Or who would own a ship at all, really.

"So, this ship is yours, eh?" He glanced at the airlock. "Well, the way I see it, the debt probably passes along to whoever owns the ship, if you catch my drift." His hand trailed to his waist, Shepard's eyes widened as he revealed a gun.

I'd suggest transforming, now.

Shepard shook her head, trying to dismiss the shock. Of course, she was in her civilian clothes. She pulled out her Soul Gem, and forced her magic to travel throughout her body, as quickly as she could.

With a flash, her colony clothes had disappeared, and her outfit was there for all the world to see. Her scythe filled her hand, and she seized it.

The man's eyes widened, and he took a step backwards. "Oh, fuck me, I had no idea you were, uh, fuck, just, don't kill me and I'll-"

Give her your gun. The man's eyes jerked to the side, and Shepard knew that Kyubey hadn't been visible up until that very moment.

The man dropped it, not even bothering to put the safety on, and ran.

Shepard exhaled, before Kyubey leapt to the ground and looked at her. He wasn't truly a threat to you, you know. Mass accelerator weapons tend to do minimal organ damage as well as overpenetrate, which makes them poorly suited to killing magical girls.

"I… yeah." Shepard had seen the videos of magical girls fighting, or occasionally just preforming stunts to demonstrate their physical abilities, but… "It… still hasn't kicked in, honestly. I mean, I haven't even been in a fight yet. Guns are still… something that could hurt me, to my mind." She paused. "He ran… pretty quickly. Are magical girls so… feared?" There was terror in the man's eyes, real terror.

Ah, not everywhere. In Alliance territory, they're admired or pitied, but it's only in places where there is minimal law enforcement that they tend to need to fight enough people to instill terror. He had also threatened you, and your scythe manifested rather near his face, so his reaction was
understandable.

Shepard took a deep breath. "Alright then." She leaned down and picked up the gun. "Is there any reason why you wanted me to have this?"
Occasionally, you might end up in a fight in which you don't want to waste your magic. Using conventional weapons can be a rather useful way to conserve your power. Kyubey looked at the gun. Rather more high end than it looked. I suppose that man was less of a desperate straggler than I had assumed. Ah well.

Shepard paused. "Should I transform back?"

Kyubey stayed still for a moment, before hopping back on her shoulder. You'll attract attention regardless, and considering that you'll need to transform to prove your credentials to Aria, you might as well stay transformed. The attention that you receive as a magical girl is somewhat less likely to result in harm to yourself than the attention that you'd receive as an unescorted young girl.

Shepard nodded. It… made sense, and it wasn't as if wearing the costume took much energy. "Alright, so, where are we going?"

There's a club called Afterlife, and Aria has made it into her headquarters. I'll arrange for the airfare to be paid for one of these cabs.

~~~~

Shepard couldn't see too many of the sights, from the darkened windows of the cab. When it landed, her eyes widened. The place was… pulsating, was the best word to use.

Dark flashing lights, and even from almost a block away she could vaguely feel the pulse of the bass from whatever music was playing. The line was… rather long. There were probably several dozen people in it.

Ah, it hadn't occurred to me. You grew up on a small colony world, and probably haven't seen anything like this. Just so you know, most people on Omega are rather contemptuous of new people or tourists, so I'd recommend attempting to not gawk at the sights or smells.

She glanced at the line. It… didn't appear to be moving, from what she could tell. Um, Kyubey? Do I have enough time for… this?

You should, but if you'd prefer not to wait, you could always attempt to speak with the bouncer at the front of the line.

Shepard nodded, and began to walk.

A lot of the people there were wearing extravagant outfits, things that looked like they cost a lot, no matter how much fabric they lacked. Still, she was the one that they looked at. She could feel their eyes on her, even as she tried to follow Kyubey's advice and stare exclusively in front of her.

It didn't take her too long to reach the front of the line. "Exasperation: Back of the line." The… elcor said to her, and she felt only a moment of embarrassment for not immediately placing the species.

She looked up at its huge, grey and humped form, "I'm here to speak to Aria."

"Mild aggravation: If you want to speak with her, you can wait until she approaches you in the bar. Now, back of the line."

"But-"

"Irritation with a vaguely threatening undertone: Back of the line."

Shepard stepped back, and prepared to turn around, before pausing. "Aria's people are dying. I'm here to hunt down the Witch that's been murdering them. This isn't something a bunch of," Shepard paused, thinking of an appropriate word, "thugs can handle. If you want to tell Aria that you turned me away, fine."

The elcor paused, making a few odd twitches. "Frustrated resignation: Fine. You can enter. She's currently in a meeting that's still more important than you, so you can wait until that's finished."

Shepard nodded, and stepped to the open door, as she walked in, she heard a stranger yell, "Hey, what if I'm a magical girl too, huh?"

"Resigned Exasperation: I can smell your pheromones, human. Your are not young, nor are you a girl."

And then Shepard couldn't hear the rest of the conversation, because she had entered Afterlife.

And it was loud.

She didn't recognize the type of music being played, but she could feel the lower sounds in her bones as they played. The place was crowded enough that even a magical girl didn't attract more than a passing glance.

Lights played against the faces of the people there, and they didn't seem to care as they danced their mad dances. The place smelled of sweat, mingled with other scents that were completely alien to her.

On top of a platform was an Asari who was… gyrating… indecently… and-

Remember not to gawk. Kyubey was sitting on the platform right next to the woman.

Shepard shook her head and turned away from… that. Uh, where should I go? She'd never been anywhere like this before, so…

The bar, probably. It's somewhat more quiet, and it will likely be less disorienting for someone as unused to this sort of thing as yourself.

There was a stool available, and so she took it. She glanced at the bartender. A turian. "I'll have a water."

"Do you mean the slang "water", or actual H2O?" He asked.

"Slang water?" Shepard cocked her head.

"A recent fad. There's a clear drug that can be placed in liquids. Somehow it started being referred to as water." He shrugged as he began pouring a glass.

"That's… probably confusing."

"I've got a few amusing stories about it, but honestly, it's less confusing than you'd think. Not many people come in here asking for water of all things, no matter how hot it tends to get. You looked like the type, though."

Sheppard nodded, and smiled. "Thanks. So, amusing stories?"

"Sorry, I only share those with customers who buy actual drinks." And with that, he went to serve the next person.

A frown crossed Shepard's face. She glanced at Kyubey, Right, so, I just… wait here?

Yes.

She frowned. Would it be too insulting if she covered her ears with something? Maybe…

Hey, Kyubey. You can dull my pain, right?

Actually, the soul gem grants you the ability to dull your own pain. I can only input certain sensations from time to time, not reduce it further.

Could I also dull my hearing? Or… my ability to notice my hearing?

It's theoretically possible, but it's come up so rarely that I couldn't walk you through the process. Incidentally, don't otherwise react, but stick your pinky out from your glass and waggle it.

Shepard frowned, but followed Kyubey's instructions.

Why did I just do that?

Oh, Aria just finished her meeting, and was trying to observe you from a mirror. You just acknowledged her observation.

Shepard glanced at Kyubey, who was currently sitting on the drinks shelf. Do I… go over there now?

Oh, no. You need to wait for her to send someone to you. But by acknowledging her observation, you've just made it so that she'll make you wait for a smaller amount of time. Enough to make it clear that this is a powerplay, but not enough to be actively aggravating.

I'm… kind of aggravated, honestly.

Kyubey lay down on his back and started kicking his legs in the air. This is fairly standard, a sort of language that doesn't need to be spoken. While it doesn't make too much sense to me, actually speaking the messages that these actions are meant to convey would likely be considered too demeaning to be tolerated without violence, and so they use these gestures to do so instead.

Shepard frowned. You… seem to understand an awful lot of these subtle emotional things. Which didn't sound like what she had heard of Incubators.

We aren't idiots, you know. We can observe certain patterns in behavior and acknowledge them, even if they make little sense to us. In addition, now that we've revealed our existence, we've had plenty of time to consult with human behavioral analysts to help us understand certain peculiarities.

Shepard paused. But, what about-

"Aria will speak with you now." She jerked upwards as a batarian spoke behind her.

"Coming!" She winced even as she said it. She… really wasn't made for this life.

She stood up and followed the batarian, and headed up to the booth. Oddly, her heading to the booth seemed to be more of an eyecatcher than a magical girl, and she could feel the eyes on her back.

When she reached the top of the stairs, at a couch on the far end of booth sat an asari, with face tattoos (the significance of which escaped Sarah).
She stood there, somewhat awkwardly, as a batarian swept an omnitool around her. "She's clean."

With that, he stepped back, and Shepard stood there, not entirely sure what to do. "I've, been told that you're the person to talk to if I want to… operate on Omega?"

With that, Aria looked at her with a vaguely contemptuous expression on her tilted face, "What do you know about me?"

Sarah opened her mouth and glanced to the side of Aria, where Kyubey was perched on the couch-

"And don't ask your little pet for the answers."

Shepard froze, how did she know-

She guessed, in all likelihood. Your glance wasn't particularly subtle, and our existence is known.

"Um, I was told that you were the boss, the, uh, owner, of Omega."

Aria shook her head. "No one owns Omega. This is a land that respects only a single law. Don't fuck with Aria."

Shepard stood still, resisting the urge to fidget at Aria's stare.

"I… don't… intend on doing that?"

Aria sighed and waved a hand in the air as she walked back to her couch. "And I'm supposed to believe that this green rookie of a magical girl is capable of hunting down the Witch?"

"I'm… the only one on this station with a chance. If you waited for another girl, I don't know how many people it could kill."

"So far it's only killed the dregs. Junkies, refugees, vorcha… tell me why I should care?" Aria said, with a narrowed gaze.

"Because it will just keep growing, if it kills more people, and there will be more than one once it starts sending out its familiars."

Aria shook her head. "I'll have one of my people provide you with information on the more suspicious suicides and disapearences. You kill this thing, I'll have five hundred credits transferred to you."

Just for reference's sake, that's a very low price for a job like this. Kyubey informed her.

"But-"

"Magical girls are disposable, after you've made your wish. I can always wait for another one. Besides, if you succeed, you can get paid in the Grief Seed that you'll find in its corpse."

"I-" Shepard hesitated. "Alright. I'll do it." The terms were terrible, but with the state of her soul gem, she wasn't in much of a position to bargain.
Aria gave a wave of her hand, and Shepard knew that she was dismissed.

She walked away, and left the club.

"That… wasn't right."

If this topic is what I think it is, I'd suggest speaking telepathically, for a while.

Shepard clenched her fists at her sides. I wanted to help, she's the leader of this station. She should care about her people!

She suspects that the witch was created when a different magical girl snuck onto the station and didn't manage to leave in time to find a Grief Seed. She has reason to be suspicious of magical girls.

Shepard shook her head. Then she could have asked for help, or tried to treat someone who was willing to help with something other than… rudeness!

Kyubey shook his head. Are you saying that you're hunting the Witch because you want to save people or because you want the Seed?

Shepard paused, thinking back to the way that Aria had spoken, the way she seemed so… apathetic towards those "dregs". I want the Seed, and I'll save people. I'll hunt down any familiars that are left until this station is clean, and I'll kill the Witch.

Ah, but if you think along those lines, than Aria was entirely correct in assuming that you would be willing to work for the mercenary equivalent of table scraps.

Shepard paused. I should have shown more bravery; I made an idiot of myself.

Kyubey tilted his head. You know, one thing I might advise you on…

Shepard tilted her head. What?

If you deaden your feelings, or deaden your sensations, while it does reduce your reflexes, it can allow you greater control over your facial expressions. If you're gazing in utter confusion at a target, it instead looks like impassive analysis or utter control, and is apparently somewhat unnerving. It should allow you to hold your own better in any future negotiations.

I'll give it a shot, sure. Shepard took out her Soul Gem and felt it. But for now, we have a Witch to hunt.

~~~~~

Video Archived for Societal Analysis re: Systems Alliance Affiliated Magical Girls

The girl, woman, really, lifted a sword into the air, and a strange cube of angelic wings rustled, and dozens of feathers shot out at her. Her sword, a cavalry saber, batted away the ones that would have struck at her and ignored the rest, leaving craters gouged in the earth around her.

She tossed dozens of them into the air around her, and with a gesture, they froze in midair. She leapt from sword to sword, ascending towards the Witch even as she dodged the waves of feathers shot out at her.

The Witch wasn't smart enough to realize that the magical girl was leaping in a pattern- not true, the Witch was preparing a trap. The feathers began rising again. They weren't simply ammunition; they were familiars, servants that rose from the ground and shot out at the girl from behind.

Without even looking, the girl put her sword behind her back and blocked, again and again, the force of each blocked blow allowing her to ascend that little bit higher towards the Witch, and she dodged the ones that came directly from the cubical Witch.

When she ascended to above the Witch, her blade grew several times longer, and with a single sweep, the Witch was cleanly bisected. The woman didn't stop there, slicing at each of the halves, then the quarters, until finally the Witch disappeared.

The woman, while apparently unable to jump that high, had no problems landing from the eight story fall, and fell to the ground.

During the entirety of the engagement, she was not harmed once, nor was she pressured. Level of skill possibly unnatural.

The point of view shook as the person ran closer. The speech is muted, but there's a flash of what almost looks like anger on the woman's face, before the image jerks as though something had been cut from it.

Now the woman, clad in almost practical looking armor save for the ribbons attached to it. Her armor is pink and white, a not quite sponsorship deal having been made with the makers of Phoenix Armor.

Her face is not particularly comfortable with the situation, and substantially more unease is present on her face than it was during the battle. She tries to hid it, but lacks an instinctive knack for public appearences.

She introduces herself as Ashley Williams, and entreats anyone watching to know that the Alliance is willing to recruit any magical girls who are operating on their own, and promises that they can receive training from the Alliance's veterans, logistical support in transportation and learning the location of Witches, and for their first few Witch hunts can share the grief seeds with the veterans accompanying them. She also promises respect and support for any girls signing up.

The statements have some element of deception, but are mostly honest. The speaker wants for them to be true.

Following that, Ashley Williams is standing, digitally superimposed before a flag while a much more confident voice gives a statement roughly similar to the one Williams gave.

End Video.

 

[Sir Bill]

Wee! Speculation pleases me.

This post will be addressing some of the comments, and the next part of the chapter will be posted after this post, which, while not too long, will be shortly followed by the next. It just structurally makes sense to split it, but I have a very solid idea of what's

Regarding the morality of the wish: So far I've been trying to hint that Shepard isn't totally fine with having exterminated an entire planet full of sapient beings, but, well, let's just say that she probably needs about a bucket's worth of grief seeds if she wants to engage in serious introspection on the matter.

Also, the galaxy's reaction to this is a fairly major plot point, and I do plan on covering the idea of non-human magical girls later. For now, suffice it to say that there are no non-human magical girls in existence.

As a side note, some elements are AU. Very AU. At least one such element will be made fairly obvious in the next snippet.

As a bonus for being so patient and all the speculation, have a Codex Entry!

Though, it's mostly for people coming in on the ME side of things.

Codex:

Interview with an Incubator: Karmic Weight: (transcribed to text by an interpreter)
Ah, karmic weight essentially refers to the term for a person's ability to affect change. Of course, that's a rather simplistic definition. Despite having studied it for longer than any currently living civilization has existed, it still requires careful consideration, and there are some aspects that we continue to work on studying, as there are a few anomalies currently in existence that our current understanding of the concept simply cannot account for.

It's not an easy subject to study, after all. While we could observe it, to a degree, we had no idea why some people could produce so much more energy than anyone else, despite having similar emotions. It took us encountering a species with a strict hierarchical structure to their civilization to realize that there was a strong correlation between karmic weight and social caste, and we only confirmed it when we allowed those with strong karmic weight to develop naturally, and they had a much more substantial impact on the world than any of their supposed peers.

As I'm given to understand that this interview is directed towards informing a less scientifically literate audience, I suppose I could give a rather simplified explanation, though I would remind everyone listening that this description is only intended to illustrate a concept rather than actually serve as a literal explanation of the processes involved.

I'm assuming that the people listening are at least familiar with the more basic interpretations of the Many Worlds Theory.

Every single choice that a person makes splits off several concurrent timelines, and free will is assumed to exist.

More important people, people with a greater ability to change the world, naturally produce a greater number of increasingly divergent timelines. What a contract does is, at the moment that the contract is being made, burns off all of the alternative timelines that could have grown from that person's choices, and splits it among the remaining timelines. While both numbers are, while not quite infinite, incredibly large, typically their ability to affect change was greater as a person who isn't a magical girl, and thus a great deal of energy is transferred to the universe where the magical girl was formed.

A portion of this power is transferred to the magical girl, but most of it is used to preserve the universe. Of course, this fails to account for those magical girls who manage to affect the universe at the same or even greater levels than their karmic weight would indicate, but, well, I did say that this was an imperfect explanation. Emotional instability and the fluctuations between hope and despair particularly, serve as multipliers for karmic weight, though the math, from what we've determined, is rather more complicated than a simple x added to the equation.

Oh?

The hierarchical species that I mentioned?

They've been extinct for a long time now.

Why do you ask?

 

[Sir Bill]

There was a ping, and Shepard activated her Omnitool. "Did… you give them a way to contact me?"

Shepard asked, the thought just occurring to her.

I suspect that they scanned your omnitool at the same time that they checked you for weapons.

That was… vaguely worrying.

We can get you a new omnitool with more advanced security later.

Shepard nodded, and looked at the screen. The email had an attachment, and opening the file, her screen showed a three dimensional map of Omega, with several spots highlighted.

Kyubey stared at the map. Each of these has an approximated date and time of the suicide or mysterious death. It might be best to avoid the non-suicide deaths, as odd circumstances surrounding a death are hardly unusual on Omega.

Shepard watched the map. But, there's an area on the map that has had several recent deaths deemed mysterious in what looks to be a tight cluster. She pointed to one spot, even as she frowned. Just how many people had this Witch killed?

Ttrue, but that's a densely populated residential area that typically houses long term merchants or people who are similarly well off and yet continue to live on the station. They tend to keep better records than other parts of the station, so a sudden spike in that specific area might simply indicate that there was a general spike in violence that went unrecorded in the other sectors. While the number of deaths is elevated for the norm in this area, it's not a dramatic increase, and could have alternate causes.

Shepard glanced down, suppressing a glare. Well, what do you think we should do?

Well, I have no ability to make your choice for you, but there are several clusters of deaths that are I would consider to have been probably caused by a Witch in several of the old refineries. Even if the trail is old, judging by the drop in the death rate over the last two weeks, it should provide a more certain route to the Witch.

Shepard looked down at Kyubey, before sighing. "I'll go with your plan." Besides, the manufacturing areas were closer to her current location.

Another aircar hired, and they were off.

~~~

She walked the corridors, Kyubey perched on her shoulder, with the dim green glow of her soul gem clashing against the red lighting of this area.

She could feel tugs and pulls, but in every direction, seemingly at random. How does this normally work?
It tends to be somewhat easier, as most areas keep vaguely better records and there are rather fewer suspicious deaths on more orderly planets.

What… made Omega like this? Shepard asked, glancing at the elongated shadows and the occasional straggler who refused to make eye contact.

A complicated question. There weren't too many legitimate jobs on the station not directly related to mining, and with the amount of cash to be found in mining the abundant element zero resulted in many people finding more illegitimate forms of entertainment as people began living on the station. The initial investors didn't care to curtail that early corruption, and the criminal enterprises grew with the station itself, until they were too entrenched for the various competing interests to be able to expel them.

The station isn't quite designed for mental well-being; it being a livable habitat was almost secondary to the mining. Many of the initial miners were batarians, and they tended to find the red lighting soothing, but that didn't particularly help the other species with adjusting. The plans for this station that were drafted millennia ago didn't account for the amount of growth that it has experienced, nor that it would become such a hub of activity, as they imagined it would remain a mere mining station.

Kyubey paused. Truthfully, with the amount of despair, criminal activities, secluded areas, and hopeful immigrants looking to make it big on this station, it's almost ideal for Witch propagation. I'd almost consider its creation to be one of our social engineering projects if I didn't happen to know that to be false. It's a perfect hunting ground for a magical girl.

I don't plan on letting any more Witches form, Shepard thought at him, letting the glare on her face appear.

It's something that you'll have to consider. Besides, as far as morality goes, if the Witches propagate here, they are statistically more likely to feed on those that you would consider to be "bad people", so it's really more moral for you to allow this station to develop a Witch population than it would be for anywhere else. Besides, is it ethical of you to deny that choice to other magical girls in more desperate circumstances based on your own code of ethics?

Shepard paused in midstep, staring at the incubator on her shoulder. Just… stop it with the morality. You suck at it.

Kyubey paused, considering that. You wish for me to stop concerning myself with matters of morality? I don't quite think I'll ever understand magical girls.

Shepard scowled. No, I meant that- she froze. Something about the way that the thought sounded in her head… Was that a joke?

Of course not. Humor is a concept that we have trouble grasping. Incidentally, you might want to keep moving, the asari on the other side of my body seems to believe that you're glaring at her. With that, he clambered across to her other shoulder, leaving her staring at a disturbed looking woman.

"Ah, sorry," Shepard said as she quickened her pace, a faint blush on her cheeks. Hey, Kyubey, quick question.

What is it?

It had been vaguely nagging at the back of her mind, with every conversation she had with him. Are you, an individual?

Ah, this question.

You've heard it before?

Of course. We seldom interact with the rest of the galaxy, and so this question does tend to come up from time to time. We are not a hive mind, nor are we a collective intelligence. We simply see little point in having large degrees of individual variance, and by and large when presented with the same information we tend to come to the same conclusions.

Shepard paused. That fit with what she heard, but, So, do you have a name?

I do have an individual designation, yes, but it's a rather long alpha-numerical code in a foreign alphabet and a base sixteen counting system, so I doubt that it would be of much use to you. It glanced at her. If you want a name to refer to me as, I have been referred to as "Guardian", before. It was a rather long time ago, before we determined the most efficient method of contracting young girls.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. Guardian?

Kyubey looked back at her. It was given to me by someone before they fully realized what it meant to be a magical girl.

Shepard shuddered. It was almost easy to forget that in the past, the Incubators weren't publicly known to have an agenda, or even that taking a contract would result in having the magical girl's soul removed from their body. What they did now was practically benign compared to the past.

I can't think of anything better, and it might avoid confusion later on, so, Guardian it is. Besides, maybe the irony would remind her not to trust the weasel. Or at least, to question what it told her.

Very well. "Guardian" thought to her. Incidentally, how long has it been since you've eaten?

Shepard frowned. How long ago- she frowned, it had been, hours, really. She hadn't been keeping track of the time. She felt at her stomach; she didn't feel hungry, though.

It appears as if you've managed to shunt your hunger off into your soul gem, which is a bad habit to get into. While you can sustain yourself purely off of magic, with your body regenerating whatever is lost from hunger, it is rather less efficient than simply getting some food.

Shepard winced. I, yeah, I hadn't even noticed. She concentrated on her stomach, and suddenly felt a dull ache in her belly. I… should probably get some food.

I can give you a credit account to pay for it, but I will continue to investigate for the location of the Witch. Besides, I imagine that you could use some time for yourself, at this point.

With that, Kyubey's back opened up, and a small credit chit popped out.

Shepard grabbed it. Alright then.

By the now, they'd entered an area of the station more designed for habitation. Sarah glanced around at the various restaurants, and then finally picked one that had the brightest neon sign that happened to be in English, for lack of any better method of determining the quality or edibility of the food.

A dozen sets of eyes glanced towards her as she entered, and she walked to one of the tables, glancing at the electronic menu.

She frowned, looking at the choices. Should she order based on local time, or what she felt was morning or evening? The diner was one of those twenty four hour ones, so it wasn't as if they only served some of the food at certain times…

In the end, she ordered bacon and pancakes.

Sarah frowned, staring at the screen, before switching it to television mode, flipping channels until she reached the news, only for it to be interrupted by a commercial. She frowned at the timestamp, this was going to be one of the longer ones that were still short enough that she couldn't skip it.

An image of a young girl, probably around twelve or so, appeared on the screen, and the picture had clearly been taken around Christmas, judging by the decorations in the background. A woman's voice spoke. "This is Maria Rodriguez. She enjoys watching professional soccer, and plays with her friends at a field near her house."

The picture switched to an image of her playing with a large dog, standing next to an Asari and a human woman. "She has two moms, and despite knowing that she was adopted, she has never felt that either of the women raising her were anything but her real parents."

The image switched to a picture of a bright blue soul gem. "This is also Maria Rodriguez. No matter where her soul is stored, she is still the same hopeful young girl who made her wish to save a friend from a wasting illness beyond current medical technology's ability to fix."

The image switched to one of the girl, in a standard magical girl outfit holding a small staff, standing between her two parents, each with a hand on one of her shoulders. "We can understand if you don't want your children to make that choice, but don't hate the child for sins born of hope and love. Don't hate Maria."

The image switched to one of a screen on which a stylized cartoon girl embraced a three headed dog. "Paid for by the Cerberus Foundation. Remember: Even magical girls could use a few loyal friends!"

The image shifted to some people talking, but Shepard wasn't listening.

She… she didn't even know what her parents would think of her now. Would they have supported her? They had never liked magical girls, though it had been a quieter thing than the sentiments of some of her neighbors. Would they have been willing to put that aside to support her, or would they have abandoned her like she'd heard of some parents doing to their children?

Dad would support her, she thought. He would be disappointed, sure, but, well, he would.

Her mom… She had always been the more religious of the two, though with less fire and more quiet strength. Would she approve, especially with the wish that had been made?

But…

She glanced at the few tears that had fallen to the table, and shook her head.

She couldn't afford to grieve. Her soul gem was already darkening, and she was preparing for a fight.

Suppression wasn't supposed to be healthy, but then, most psychologists never had to worry about turning into Witches, either.

She wiped her tears on her… costume. It wouldn't do to start a panic over a depressed magical girl.

"Your meal." A… quarian, she remembered, placed them on the table, and Shepard absentmindedly ran the credit chit through the scanner on the table. She left quickly, likely from nerves.

Sarah looked at the pancakes, and cut it with her fork.

The people speaking on the screen now were financial analysts, and she almost changed the channel before one of them spoke. "And we still don't know what's going on in Camala, and considering that it's a major exporter of element zero, prices are going up. It might not be a long term investment, but there are a lot of companies attempting to stockpile the element on the chance of a sudden drop in supply, while many investors are selling stocks from companies that are even loosely connected to Camala's industry."

The woman started speaking. "Until the Hegemony stops their blockade, release the information or allow reporters through, we don't know what will happen to the prices over the next few days. The incident had to have been major, considering just how many shipments were delayed without warning, but if it's something the people of Camala will be able to bounce back from, or if it's something that could cripple the economy of that entire region of space, well, we just don't have enough information to say."

Bounce back from. Shepard squeezed the fork in her hand, bending the metal.

That wasn't going to happen.

Kyubey popped up next to her. I located the Witch's Labyrinth!

Shepard got up, she'd remembered that she'd already paid, and left. She wasn't feeling hungry, and it wasn't because she was shunting her hunger off onto her soul gem this time.

An aircar brought them to the place where Shepard had originally planned on beginning her search.

She didn't bother mentioning it before, because she could feel the Witch. She glanced upwards, and saw a maintenance tunnel access hatch.

She leapt into the air, an instinct that couldn't have been natural, considering that the hatch was over thirty feet above her head, but she easily made the jump, grabbing the edges and throwing herself in.

Codex: Jessica

Archive Coreahbfae0fbaeusbnfu9

A little Boy ran to the end of the sky
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie
He cried, "Three cheers for the Fourth of July!"
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie

He saw three little Donkeys at play
He tickled their noses to make them bray
And he didN't come back until Christmas Day
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie​

Spoiler: we could stop them

Check for anomalies

 

[Sir Bill]

So, snippet will be delayed, somewhat.

As it turns out, I'll be getting my wisdom teeth removed today.

I thought to myself, hey, I'll be going under anesthetics, and I'll probably be a bit loopy from that, so that seems like a perfect chance to write out a scene in which Shepard is in a Labyrinth. But, obviously, I would need to edit it once I'm coherent again so that it's the interesting kind of loopy rather than, you know, rubbish.

I'm just going to respond to a few questions and try to . (I was going to include another Codex, but I think I'll save that for when I reach one of the relevant parts of Haunting at Shanxi.)

Cerberus is... different. There are a variety of reasons for that, reasons beyond "they're a bit silly". Though, I might as well state that I had them keep the name rather than create an entirely different organization for a reason...

I have to say, I'm excited for the fallout of the wish to really spread here. It will be especially fun when people start questioning why Shepard had so much karmic weight- more than a planet of people's worth at least, but honestly she probably had more than a noticeable percentage of the entire galaxy when you think about it.

The Cerberus foundation is interesting too... I wonder if it's still got the same goals, but is just approaching them from a more oblique angle?

Click to shrink...

Shepard's karmic weight is definitely a bit of a plot point, though, well, it'll probably be addressed once I get to the point where I can have more than three characters with speaking roles.

The morality of having a exclusively for the farming and harvesting of Witches, well, from what we saw from Rebellion, if you're a Witch, you're basically perpetually living all of your greatest fears and sorrows and failures.

It's probably the sort of thing that isn't considered a warcrime solely because it hasn't come up yet.

Besides, so far, there really isn't all that much of a Witch scarcity (for reasons that are mostly not conspiracy related, actually). It's killing them and remaining in the green while doing so that's the real difficulty. Also, transit times, because Witches tend to be spread out.

As a last note, when it comes to specially designed hunting grounds made using prisoners or the deployment of Witches as bioweapons, well, I do have a few ideas that I don't think I've seen in other PMMM stories that would make such a thing impractical. Another major flaw with that that is less setting specific and more of an interpretation of PMMM canon is that happen to be of the opinion that large gatherings of Witches are the way that Walpurgisnachts are formed, and that's canon for this story.

Even with orbital supremacy, a Walpugisnacht is... fairly bad news. (Of course, some have a different opinion on whether or not this would be worth it.)

On a more limited scale it might be useful, but... well,

Some of the politics of the Systems Alliance as they try and decide just what to do with magical girls legally speaking are a major underlying plot of the story. So far, I've only shown a pro-magical girl advertizement as opposed to some of the groups that are more strongly against the existence of magical girls for religious or moral reasons. Or believe that they should be very tightly regulated.

As a side note, since it's partially relevant to this point, while I won't be going into any great detail (since I am not a student of theology), the revelation of the existence of Incubators and their empirical proof of the existence of a soul as something with more significance than a bundle of neurons has had... interesting effects on most religions.

30 bucks says this version is much more competent, yet far more unlucky.

Click to shrink...

I don't know, how much more unlucky can you get then to have all of your everything take over the base and kill all the employees?

Click to shrink...

The above, but then the failsafe protocols fail to kick in; and the next thing ya know, Alliance News Network's broadcasting an exclusive on said epic failure.

Click to shrink...

Heh.

Let's just say that so far, Cerberus has not openly engaged in any activities that are so obviously evil that they are no longer considered a legal organization that can openly advertize with their logo.

What that means in terms of what they've actually done, however...

 

[Sir Bill]

Shepard looked at the corridor, scythe in hand.

It was… strange. Long, and not entirely even, for the artificial look of it. It… probably wasn't as surreal as some labyrinths were, nothing here actually seemed impossible for modern construction to create but watching a labyrinth on a screen was different from watching it on a screen on a screen was different from actually walking through it.

Well, this was it. Her first, actual, life or death struggle. Sure, she'd gotten into a few fights with other kids on the colony, but, this…
She shook her head.

She was apparently more powerful than most, so that likely made things a bit easier. Most magical girls did apparently die after either their first fight or their first month of combat, though.

Was there anything she should have done to prepare?

Training? Try to see what sort of powers she had in a fight?

In most cases, a magical girl learns substantially more in combat than they do training, even if they tried to train extensively. Besides, any delay weakens you, and at this point, you're likely best off trying to kill it with overwhelming power.

Shepard turned to her side. "Shouldn't I try to win by using as little power as possible?"

Ideally, yes, but trying for efficiency can put you at substantially higher risk of something catching you off guard, and it might be better to attempt more energy efficient kills only after you have some proper combat experience.

Shepard nodded. That… made sense. So, how should she approach this?

It might be best to hurry, as waiting and planning is likely to just make you more nervous.

"Right then, Kyu- Guardian," she corrected herself. That was going to be difficult to remember. She started walking.

The corridor narrowed or widened, slowly curving in and out, and its light blue walls and pastel floor would probably give her a headache if she stared at it for too long. She had the sneaking suspicion that it was curving, slowly moving her either to the left or the right, but with the build of the walls, she couldn't quite be sure of that.

So, should I charge in, observe, be cautious… I don't think a scythe makes a good throwing weapon, honestly.

She tried making it bigger, larger, pumping her magic through it, and she felt… something, despite the utter lack of physical change in the weapon. Was the edge glimmering more, or was that just the weird lighting that didn't seem to actually have a source?

It's entirely possible that your either your body or your weapon have more exotic effects that will only be apparent once you enter combat.
Shepard frowned. "I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually broadcast that last thought."

You didn't, but you were fairly obvious about what you were thinking.

Shepard paused.

And she continued walking.

It didn't take too long for the corridor to widen, and Shepard wasn't quite sure if that was because of distance she traveled, or if it was reacting to her presence. The perspective seemed to shift with every blink, to the point that she was rather thankful that her Soul Gem was apparently capable of preventing her from experiencing vertigo.

The room she entered looked to be a large party room, decorated as a kid's birthday might be, with streamers and bright colors with lots of pink.
In front of her, in the middle of the room was a long table, covered in cakes and tiny boomboxes. At each side of the table were rows of toys, dolls and action figures, some more abstract like putty or castles, each of which was at least her own height, moving animatedly as if they were talking, despite the utter silence in the room.

Shepard lifted her scythe, staring at the far end of the table, where a massive teddy bear sat, with stitches for eyes, smiling its sewn grin as it lifted its glass to her.

She could sense that the Witch was directly in front of her. That's the one.

Shepard glanced around, at all of the… festivities. It looked like she had time to make the first move.

So, how would she attack?

Run straight for the Witch, ignoring the familiars? Attack straight through the middle? Maybe even calmly walk past them, as they didn't seem to care enough to fight her, yet?

She didn't want the familiars to flee too quickly, not if she wanted to prevent the station from having an infestation. Taking out the Witch immediately might make her unable to kill the rest.

She took a deep breath, and stepped slightly to the side of the table, holding her scythe out. This is… I have no idea if it will work or not.

And then she ran down the sides of the table, scythe out, clotheslining her way through that half of the familiars. She felt some resistance, and could see the familiars dying, but it looked like she did in fact have the raw power to simply carve through that side of the table. Twenty familiars later, the Teddy Bear still hadn't noticed her, she angled to the side and with a leap, she removed its head.

Landing on the ground, the Witch failed to react, as its head full of fluff collapsed to the ground, disintegrating.

She stared at it. That was… too easy. Was she really that powerful? Was that Witch particularly weak, or- no, she still felt a presence. The labyrinth hadn't collapsed.

She watched the table, looking at the half of the familiars that she hadn't killed. They were staring at her, even the castle, unmoving.

She watched them. Was one of them the Witch, or- she saw motion out of the corner of her eye, and jumped, leaping to the side.

She looked back, trying to see what she had just avoided, and watched as the leg of the table retreated, looking more as a sharp edged tendril than the leg that it had appeared as at first.

The Witch had been the table all along? At least she had managed to dodge the surprise attack- a second glance showed a darker coloring to the leg than the rest of the table, and a glance at her shoulder confirmed it.

She hadn't quite managed to escape unscathed. She didn't feel it, though that arm seemed to be replying somewhat sluggishly.

The other familiars were standing up, watching her, even as they began to approach, with the castle apparently sliding across the ground.

A movement from the top of the table, and by purest instinct Sarah lifted her scythe and put it between the table and herself, shattering a plate before it could reach her. And with that, the familiars charged.

She cleaved apart a doll (did she own that particular Barbie, buried in her closet back at Mindoir?), some sort of military figure in Alliance armor, with a static face demonstrating its inhumanity (she didn't even know what had happened to the planetary garrison, sure, there weren't many of them, but-) this time a knife was thrown at her and she dodged.

That looked more like a steak knife than what she'd expect to see at the kids table, but- a blow was dodged- why couldn't she focus?

Concentrate on your Soul Gem, the leg was poisoned, don't let any feedback from your body reach your Soul Gem and you should minimize the consequences of the contaminant.

Shepard tried, but- she slashed at the soldier, did his face look familiar or- but it was rather hard to focus with all of these people- familiars keep them dehumanized- attacking her- she dodged a blow from some sort of elastic figure, arms stretched beyond normal- never think of any of them as human, you couldn't handle it- she froze, and a handsewn doll took the opportunity to punch her, slamming her across the room.

She felt it as she hit the wall. Well, that knocked her clear of the crowd, and so she concentrated, focused on the Soul Gem until nothing of the pain was left.

Her mind felt clearer, better, even, and she was able to will herself to make the gesture of a relieved sigh, and nearly failed to dodge the three chairs flying at her.

More followed, but she was moving too quickly for the Witch to follow, moving on the outskirts of the crowd. She held her blade out, and the ones on the edge were cleared.

She circled them, always moving her circles closer and closer to the table, still trying to throw objects at her but utterly unable to hit her.

The next loop, she veered to the side, closing to the table, and with a single upward diagonal slice removed one of the legs, and her mind absently noted that it was the one that had been stained with her blood.

It writhed, and she leapt on top of it, running along and dragging her blade downwards as she began to slice it in half.

She dashed towards the remaining familiars, who stood frozen in place, cleaving them apart even as the labyrinth collapsed around her.

She stood in the maintenance tunnels.

She took a deep breath, more from habit or… expectation than anything else. Not like she needed one, with the state of her body.

So, this is what the rest of my life is going to be like? Shepard let her body reconnect with her soul gem, and she could feel the ache of her shoulder, had she hit her wall with her wounded shoulder?

Doing this for, what, a year? Two, three, five if was really lucky?

Even the oldest of magical girls, Alliance posterchild Ashley Williams was only, what, in her mid-twenties? And no one else had come close to lasting as long as her. Ten years as a magical girl while fighting criminals and pirates on the side…

No matter how powerful I am, would I really be able to last that long? Probably not.

And for what?

Vengeance? She'd always been told that an eye for an eye left the whole world blind, and thinking back to those bloodstained streets, to the genoc-

She felt something touch her neck, and saw Guardian sitting next to her. You were very close to becoming a Witch there. He broadcasted to her. I hope that you don't mind my taking the initiative in using the grief seed on your soul gem.

Shepard's heart hammered in her chest, her previous thoughts forgotten. "How, how long did I have?"

At the rate your soul gem was darkening, it could have been anything from seconds to an hour, with how unpredictable the final plunge can be, but you were getting increasingly close to the point of no return.

Shepard took a deep breath. She felt, despite her nervousness… fine. Better than she had in a while, really.

One consequence most magical girls apparently don't realize is that the usage of grief seeds is capable of assisting even more conventional depression, so it's hardly anomalous if you feel significantly better than usual.

Sarah nodded. "So, I." She took a deep breath. "Thank you."

No thanks are necessary. She giggled at the phrasing. A lot of people said that in order to be polite, or to sound nice, but to an Incubator, he probably meant it completely literally.

She frowned, slightly. Giggling… how long had it been? She had never been much of a giggler. This time she just let out a huff. She wouldn't let herself turn into a Witch because she felt depressed over the fact that she had just giggled.

Guardian just kept on staring at her, and she absentmindedly rubbed his head.

She picked him up and dropped him on her shoulder, and walked to the point that she had jumped to reach the maintenance tunnel.

She shook her head and leaped down.

Incidentally, I have already sent confirmation of the Witch's death to Aria, and your pay should be transferred to your account shortly. Also, even with some additional funds, it might take time to set up an appointment with someone capable of properly arranging for the ship to be transferred to your ownership.

Shepard landed, and ignored the glances some of the people surrounding her gave. "Alright. I think… I want to go to one of the safehouses you mentioned."

Not the vacated apartments?

"Right." She wasn't in the mood to live in a place where she knew the previous owners were dead. Besides, what were the chances that she'd be able to keep who she was and what she had done a secret for all that long anyway?

~~~

The safehouse was sparsely decorated, with a single poster with the Cerberus logo cheerfully plastered on the wall. It had one room real living space, and a small bathroom.

The only thing that indicated any real expense taken was the lock pad on the door, and even that was disguised as an older model.

A quick check of the pantries showed that they were fully stocked, and Shepard glanced at the note on the side, taking a moment to decipher the poor handwriting. If you happen to have a chance, please buy replacements for whatever you use. If you can't afford it, though, don't worry about it!



Shepard stared at the note. It didn't look recent. Probably from someone who rarely had to handwrite anything. Was it from the most recent magical girl to use the safehouse, or had several seen the note and decided to leave it there? She shook her head and grabbed a noodle cup, pouring in the water and tossing it in the microwave.

"So," Shepard said, before collapsing on the Spartan bed. "What should I do now?"

Guardian leapt on top of the computer.

As far as I can tell, there are currently no more familiars on Omega, but it will take time to confirm, as the Witch's trail is too fresh to discover any sign of the familars on a station like this. Once you have the ship registered to yourself, you'll likely need to travel from planet to planet and hunt down witches if you continue to not allow the familiars to mature.

"Are you sure? The Witch killed a lot of people before I got here, so I'd think they would have had time to spread."

Apparently, this Witch's familiars were staying near the Witch, and most of the energy gained from killing those people went towards reinforcing those familiars. This Witch's personality made her familiars ill-suited to hunting or growing on their own, and the Witch had no interest in allowing them to become Witches.

Shepard frowned. "Personality? I thought Witch's weren't... intelligent." Had she just killed a person?

Less of an actual personality, and more of a set of instincts and urges based on what caused the magical girl to fall into despair, what her original wish was, and the magical girl's personality.

Shepard frowned. "So, they aren't the magical girls?"

The exact nature of the process still has many unknowns, but one thing that I can confirm for you is that if the magical girl who formed the Witch is still aware, then killing her is, by human norms, what you would likely consider to be a mercy kill.

"I, yeah, I could see that." A mercy kill. That's what it was. Like one of the cows back on Mindoir after it had its legs shattered.

Moving on, you might need to find a source of income.

Shepard glanced at him, even as the microwave began beeping. "What do you mean?"

My ability to quietly move funds around is limited, and there are other magical girls in need. Having a personal fund would allow you to purchase more than the bare necessities. Besides, since you don't actually trust me, wouldn't you feel more secure not having to rely on me financially?

She looked at him, trying to look for some hint as to what he was thinking. Was it a trick? Did he feel that her emotional stability would further his own ends, or did he want to make her trust him?

But… it was good advice.

Guardian jumped to the ground. I wouldn't worry about it too much, for now. I'll be investigating methods of acquiring that ship legally for you.

"Right then." Shepard got up, and grabbed the cup of noodles. " I guess I can wait for now."

~~~

Shepard sipped her drink in the café, watching the news. Several days later, and the batarians had finally announced the fate of everyone on Camala, though they were apparently keeping the cause of death classified, for now.

She shook her head. It might not be safe for her, but, well, being cooped up in the safehouse, playing cheap handheld games, it got boring real quickly.
Besides, she hadn't noticed it before, with, everything else she had to deal with, but…

She wasn't used to all of these confined spaces.

She'd lived on a planet, a planet with a very small population for most of her life, and things were so much more… open.

She wasn't claustrophobic or anything, but… it was weird to not have the sky above her head. And they did need to wait, as apparently whoever Guardian had contacted needed several days to assemble a legal proof of ownership.

Something about claiming salvage rights and slightly fudging when she had applied to actually have salvage rights.

"If you would pardon this one, there is a question that needs to be asked." Shepard glanced in the direction of the vaguely melodious voice, and saw a big, luminescent jellyfish. A hanar.

"Go ahead."

"You are a magical girl, correct?" He or she…. She'd just assume it to be a he, stared at her.

Shepard took a moment to consider the question. If he was asking her, it wasn't as if he didn't actually know already. "That's right." She paused, feeling vaguely as if she needed to say something else. "What's it to you?" … Maybe she should stop watching so many Westerns.

He flashed, and Shepard decided not to bother trying to read him. "This one has a request for you."

"Don't you hate magical girls?" Inwardly, Shepard winced. She had never really met all that many aliens, but she shouldn't assume that they were all alike, her parents had raised her better than that.

"This one is unlike many of its kin, in that this one views the existence of magical girls, as well as the situation in which humanity has found itself, as a tragedy rather than an abomination. This one pities your fate."

"Uh, thanks for… that." Then again, maybe some of the stereotypes had some basis in fact. "So, uh, what sort of request did you have for me?"

"The sort that promises a great deal of money in exchange for the task being done."

Shepard looked at him, hoping that she was staring in the general eye area. "What sort of request?"

"This one has discovered that a particular magical girl has landed on this station, for reasons unrelated to the recently slain Witch. She is an infamous criminal, and this one would be willing to pay you one hundred thousand credits to end her life."

Shepard's eyes widened. "A hundred thou-" she took a breath. "What did she do?"

"Her crimes are legion. A myriad variations on Grand Theft, murder vandalism and piracy, her crimes are worthy of her bounty."

"Vandalism?" The word came out unprompted.

"There was, before her actions, no crime on record for the act of crashing a space station onto one of our holiest sites, and we simply could not allow her to escape punishment for that specific crime."

Shepard frowned. "There has to be someone else capable of taking this job." Really, walking up to random people and asking them if they'd be willing to kill someone for you didn't seem like an efficient way of handling a situation like this.

"Most of the mercenaries that I contacted were unwilling to take the contract. If the magical girl is not killed in a very specific way, there is a risk of her creating a Witch, and the mercenaries were unwilling to take such a risk. As you are yourself a magical girl, that particular risk would be minimized in your case."

Shepard frowned, leaning back into her chair.

It… made sense. That seemed like a fairly large sum, but she could understand why it was offered.

The magical girl… she didn't sound like a good person. She sounded like someone who actually deserved to be killed.

But… killing someone for money, even if was deserved, (and even if it's a whole lot of money, a treacherous little voice in her mind said)? Was that a line she really wanted to cross?

Then again, she thought, glancing at the television screen, it would probably be a drop in the bucket compared to what I've done.

"Alright. I'll do it. What's her name?"

"Her name," the hanar flashed again, and this time Shepard could read the aggression in the light, "is Jack."

~~~


Sorry for the delay. I'd like to blame it on something, but truth be told, I'm just terrible at keeping to a schedule, and also occasionally a moron.

I can't promise that there won't be any future delays like this, only that I do have a very definite end of the story planned and that I do want to reach it.

Trivia for the day!

When I first started thinking about a potential Mass Effect/Puella Magi Madoka Magica story, one of the first things I considered was turning just about everyone on the Normandy into teenage magical girls with the exception of Joker and/or Kaiden, and it would essentially be the story of those two trying to keep the peace on a ship full teenage girls whose powers have a strong tendency to cause emotional instability, with a chance of horribly killing everyone.

It wasn't all that workable, and in the end, the tone of the story I wanted to write ended up shifting rather dramatically.

 

[Sir Bill]

The plan was… simple.

Jack was apparently here to buy some information.

So, go to where the deal was taking place, and pick a fight.

Her… employer? Contact? Was there a special term for people who hired people to kill other people?

Or did this count as bounty hunting work?

Mercenary sounded better, honestly.

She shook her head. She should really try and actually concentrate, but a stakeout in an abandoned mining shaft was really, really boring.
And playing games or watching movies while on a job seemed vaguely… unprofessional. And dangerous.

Though, she could have at least grabbed some food.

She shook her head. Focus.

Guardian was… elsewhere. He had told her that he'd only contact her again her ship was actually hers.

She leaned back against the wall.

And Shepard had thought that she was being clever by showing up a few hours in advance.

She'd probably spent an hour bouncing arguments for why what she was doing was right in her head, but she had to admit to herself hadn't gotten much further than, "Killing people for money vs she's a bad person and probably deserves it."

But she had agreed. On impulse. And refusing to do a job that she had agreed to do was unprofessional.

And unprofessionalism was much worse than murder.

She sighed.

Well, she was getting nowhere, but the fact that she hadn't just… left said a lot about what she really thought, didn't it?

Still, she'd had a chance to read a few articles on Jack.

From everything she'd read, it wouldn't surprise her if Jack were at least half the reason that magical girls tended to be feared in this part of space.

The other half being the possibility that they'd warp into twisted murderous monsters.

All of this time gave her a chance to observe the… battlefield. The room was large, and the interior made red by the various emergency lights. There were multiple metal platforms resting about the rock, each of which had enough large equipment on it that likely was too bulky to bother with retrieving once the area's lode of eezo had run dry.

Though she doubted that there were still any usable parts within the machines.

Still, this was a quiet place, where no one was likely to run into them fighting. Shepard knew she probably wasn't good enough to avoid harming bystanders, and Jack probably wouldn't care, and she'd need every advantage she could get.

Hey. A voice distinctly not her own entered her ear.

Shepard dodged to the side letting out an undignified yelp.

It took her two seconds to realize that falling really wasn't that much of a threat to a magical girl, and she managed to right herself midfall.
She descended, landing on her feet, and brushed at her dress.

Right.

That wasn't the introduction she wanted to make.

She glanced to the side, and saw her target. Her dress was an odd almost black color, shifting when the light hit it to a variety of colors, but mostly black.

Jack grinned at her.

Shepard froze. Uh, she… doesn't look angry, but… how am I going to explain- "So, how did you know I was here?" Stalling. That worked. Maybe.
"Eh, sometimes, whenever I enter a big room, I just give a nice big telepathic shout out to anyone in the area, just on the off chance that someone who can actually hear it will fall from the rafter like an idiot. Now, what the fuck were you doing up there?"

"Waiting." Why am I talking?

"Really? You're the person I'm supposed to meet, then?"

"Ah, no." Is there a way to say that I'm here to kill her without it being awkward?

Jack was the one to interrupt the sudden silence. "So, what's some green magical girl doing trying to meet up with me?"

Shepard paused, and in answer, manifested her scythe.

Jack glanced at it, "So, dark clothing, your weapon is a scythe, you're here on Omega, the funnest shithole of the galaxy, so, let me guess." She gave a thoughtful look. "You're some sort of colony brat of a farm girl, and you thought that Omega would be a great place to sell your illegally modified crops."

Shepard's eyes widened at the first part of that, before realizing it was a joke, but Jack was already continuing. "No shit, you're actually a farm girl?"

Shepard nodded, grip tightening on scythe. "Yes, yes I am."

"What the hell made you think that Omega would be a good place for, what is this, your first offplanet experience?" As Shepard nodded again, Jack laughed. "I am on a roll today. I was just giving you shit for the scythe, since you can't really get more Goth than that without sticking skulls on your dress, but what, was your little hope bringing Wish for a good harvest or some shit like that?"

Sarah almost laughed at that, but shook her head. "It wasn't anything like that."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Alright then, sounds a bit like your wish was a bit darker than I expected. So, what sort of wish was it? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Is that… really something I should talk about? But… she knew that it would come out eventually. And she… she wanted to tell someone about it. "Batarians took my parents."

Jack glanced at her. "So, you wished to get them back?"

"The batarians killed them." Even if it was understated.

Jack nodded, "Vengeance, then? Huh." She gave Shepard a thoughtful look. "Less stupid than half the wishes I hear about."

Sarah watched her, and Jack shrugged. "Guess I did promise, right? Well, long story short, as a kid, I had the potential to be the single strongest human biotic in existence." She grinned, and Shepard could feel the barely contained rage and madness in that smile.

"Then I got kidnapped by some organization, they prodded me, drugged me, took me apart and put me back together wrong, all to figure out how to make the strongest little biotic weapon that they could because who could possibly guess what a little ball of rage would make her first target? But I wasn't strong enough. I was never fucking strong enough. I was the best human biotic in the galaxy, and I wasn't fucking good enough." She flexed her arms, and the two columns surrounding her warped, twisting with a screech of metal.

"So, when I saw those little red eyes staring at me from the window, asking if I wanted to make a contract? Well, I knew exactly what I wanted to wish for. I became the perfect little biotic, everything they could possibly want, and I killed every last one of those bastards."

"I…" Shepard paused. What do you say to something like that? Jack wanted a reaction, but most reactions Shepard could think of would just make Jack even angrier. "Do you know who they worked for?"

Jack watched her for a few seconds. "Not really. Not like they'd plaster their logos on the walls or anything. I spent a long time thinking it was STG, but later I found out that a pyjac can't take a piss without someone trying to frame the STG just to cause confusion, and they're only right half the time. And fuck if I know why they'd want to make a human biotic superweapon."

"STG?"

"Salarian Special Tasks Group. They're spies and assholes, needed for whenever a job's too dirty for the Turians and too clean for the Spectres." Jack smiled, showing a lot of teeth. "Now that we've swapped our little trauma stories, you mind telling me the real reason you showed up here?"
Shepard froze, the sudden shift in topic surprising her, but she sighed. Better get it over with. "I came here," she took a deep breath, "to kill you for what you've done."

Jack stared at her. "No shit? Fuck, what, you heard about the big bad Jack, scariest human in this entire fucking sector, and you just up and decided to kill me?"

It did sound kind of stupid when she phrased it like that. "I- no, I was hired to do it!" And that sounded worse.

And Jack actually smiled, a completely and totally sincere grin. "Hah, and here I was worried that after this long conversation we had that you'd be one of those idiots who actually bought into the whole 'Magical girls are for truth and justice' crap. How much are you getting paid?"

"Uh, one hundred thousand credits." Shepard winced. None of this was going as planned.

Jack gave her a look. "Really? Not a bad payout. But what the hell made you think you could take me?"

Shepard adjusted her scythe.Guardian did say that I had more raw power than any other magical girl.

"I mean, I'm infamous. There probably isn't a head of state alive that hasn't heard my name, and more people than you have tried, and they were a hell of a lot less new than you." She shook her head. "Fuck it, now I'm in a bad mood." And with that, she waved a hand, and several of the carts lifted into the air in a blue glow.

With a twitch of her fingers they were hurled at Shepard, and it was sheer instinct that made her leap to the side, and her instincts didn't quite remember the sheer power of her legs now that she was a magical girl as she leapt off the platform. She reached her scythe out, struck the side of the platform and swung underneath and onto a girder.

You plan on playing Cat and Mouse? I'm game. Shepard's gaze was drawn to an odd humming, and saw a blue glowing Jack, hovering in the air.
"You can fly?" She shouted, even as she dodged a blue bolt, wincing at the scream of metal coming from her once safe spot. She leapt to a lower set of platforms, glancing behind her, and saw a girder flying directly at her.

Can't dodge.

Desperation made her stick her scythe between the metal and her body, and the girder sliced itself in half, the metal falling to each side as she rolled onto the platform.

Jack was flying after her, but stopped before the platform. "So you aren't completely helpless."

She readied her scythe, but didn't charge. If Jack was in the air, the advantage was hers, since Shepard couldn't maneuver while airborne.
She backed away from Jack, and Jack landed on the ground where Shepard had been standing. "But seriously, I'm one of the most powerful magical girls alive, and the strongest biotic too. I once made an Asari commando matriarch cry in a game of biotic horse. Why the hell did you think attacking me was a good idea? You have a deathwish or something?"

Something about the accusation made Shepard freeze.

Did she?

This wasn't planned, this wasn't carefully considered. She had just decided to up and attack one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy on a whim.

It would solve the threat of her becoming a planet consuming Witch, if she died here.

She shook her head. No. Can't think like that. I won't think like that.

Even the Grief Seed hadn't fully restored her soul gem. It still had tendrils of darkness running along it.

Just… stabilized her.

"Ah, hell. You actually have one, don't you? I swear, this job's getting less fun by the minute."

And now even Jack was judging her-

"Job?"

"Yeah, show up, pick a fight with the newbie magical girl, collect a bundle of credits. Simple shit."

Shepard frowned. "Who… told you that I was here?"

Jack shrugged. "Some hanar. Figured he wanted to fight magic with magic and end one magical girl's life. Pretty sure that's heresy or something, but maybe he just hated you in particular."

"I… was also hired by a hanar." He… had seemed nice enough. But… it didn't seem likely that this was just some other hanar who had decided to lie to them.

"Huh. He didn't bother telling me this was supposed to be an ambush. Maybe he just figured that one less magical girl in the galaxy would be worth it, and he didn't give a shit as to of which of us died?" The biotic glow around her fist showed how much weight she put in that theory.
A voice emerged from all around them, a mechanical tone distorting the almost musical words. "Why would this one kill one magical girl when two could be slain instead?"

Jack frowned. "I'm not getting paid, am I?"

"It is disappointing to this one that you refused to follow your destructive natures and that both of you have survived your battle, but this one had prepared for such contingencies."

At that, five flying transports flew into the room, two landing on the platform that they were. From it many spiky bipeds emerged, each toting a large weapon. A larger alien emerged from behind them, with a hunched back and an almost toadlike face.

"Vorcha and Krogan…" Jack said. "Fucking Blood Pack?"

"Of course. While this one generally disapproves of their brutality, they were the only ones willing to dedicate the necessary force for the amount that this one was willing to offer."

Shepard could see a hint of annoyance on the toadlike Krogan's face, but before anything else could be said, Jack spoke. "I swear I will track you down and find a way to strangle you to death with your own tentacles."

"Oh, there is no need to track this one down, for this one wished to attend to matters… personally." And with that, a tarp over one of the largest mining carts was undone, and from it arose-

"A fucking gunship?" Shepard wasn't one to swear casually, but the circumstances demanded it in this case.

Jack responded by laughing. "Well, I can't say that you insulted me by not pulling out all the stops."

And then the Krogan cocked his shotgun. "Let's quit the yammering and get to the shooting already!" Jack responded with a cart to the face. "I'll take this bunch and the gunship; you go deal with any snipers on the other platforms!"

Was this normal? Or at least, normal for Omega? Sarah thought to herself as she glanced to the side, seeing a rocket heading straight towards her. She had lived on a colony all of her life, maybe she really was sheltered. She moved to the side and leapt towards whoever had launched the rocket, flying through the air. The… vorcha eyes widened slightly, but she lead with her scythe, and the alien's head was removed from its body.
She had no time to consider the fact that she had just killed someone, the odd sensation filling her body, as another vorcha aimed a gun at her. She leapt above it, the scythe directly below her, and the movement sliced the mercenary in half.

She glanced to the side, and kicked a third, sending it off of the platform.

"Damn incompetent vermin," A krogan growled as he charged at her. She sidestepped, but his gun managed to follow her movements, and she caught the edge of the shotgun's blast. She winced, but her soul gem was dulling her pain, and she was only grazed.

She tried to leap above the alien, but a thick hand grabbed her arm mid leap and pulled, slamming her back into a crate. That… would have broken my spine if I had still been purely human.

She rolled even as a massive boot nearly crushed her skull, and only barely dodged the followup blast with the shotgun. She gave a low sweep with the scythe, wincing at the odd sensation as it struck a kinetic barrier.

Even the barrier only lasted a moment, and the blade swung through both of his feet. He still raised his shotgun at her, and she cleaved through the head.

She took a deep breath, before a bullet impacted her leg.

It buckled, even without the pain, and she winced. She turned around, and another platform was still there. She could jump far, but she couldn't make it that far, not with one leg.

But… there was a way.

She jumped on the good foot, leaping to the ground instead. Another shot came near her, but it missed.

She descended to near the base of the platform with the sniper, and her scythe was ready. It didn't seem to care about the strength of the material it was cutting, and so she dragged it against the pillar supporting the platform, and the blade went through. She went to the next one, and a shriek of metal heralded the tilting of the platform. She gave another one legged jump, to the opposite side of where the platform was falling, and winced as it collapsed.

Omega was big. It… probably wouldn't cause too much damage, right? She heard the whine of another transport, this one redirected at her, and- Another leap to the side allowed the shots to pass by her. It had guns welded onto it.

This… She couldn't reach it, it was a good fifty feet in the air, and leapfrogging wouldn't work, it wasn't fair-
She glanced at her scythe, and threw it.

It wasn't the most aerodynamic of weapons, but, well, as a magical girl, that didn't quite seem to matter.

It flew, and the transport didn't bother to dodge, and it couldn't withstand the scythe. It hadn't hit the cockpit like she had intended, but a strike to the engines left it lopsided as swirled around, trying to right itself, and it couldn't correct in time to avoid crashing into a third platform.
She watched the fight with Jack, as she threw another container at the dodging gunship.

It didn't look like there was anyone left of the force that had landed on the platform.

Now that her blood wasn't flowing, she could hear that the hanar hadn't stopped using the loudspeaker. "As slaves to the Red Eyed Ones, your existence is an insult to the gift of the Enkindlers!"

"Shut up!" Another biotic blast came from Jack, and the gunship rocked as it failed to dodge.

I'll just… sit this one out. She thought to herself.

She winced. There was no need for her to continue to be here, and her leg was still…

She looked down.

A bit bloody, but otherwise fine.

Huh.

She could regenerate.

That was… good to know.

She stood up, and began running towards the other battle.

Before she could reach them, however, Jack made a gesture with her hands, and she moved, surrounded by a corona of biotic energies, and landed on the cockpit of the gunship. It began weaving back and forth, trying to dislodge the girl, but a fist slammed through the canopy, biotic energies swirling around it, and Jack leapt off.

The hanar… probably hadn't made it, and that was confirmed by the sudden weave of the gunship, as it slammed into another platform. The same that Shepard's transport had slammed into, and she winced as it collapsed in a cloud of dust.

She… really hoped that no one had any sort of attachment to those things.

Jack's reaction, on the other hand, was to give a whoop, waving her hand. She calmed down, only to grin as a fire started, shaking her head as she glanced at Shepard. "Hah! That was more fun than I've had in a long time."

Shepard paused. What… was expected, now? They had just been trying to kill each other. Did they… continue? Jack didn't seem angry, but then, she didn't seem to need to be angry to fight someone.

She was no longer getting paid, but Jack had done a lot of things that really made it seem like she deserved to die-

Jack interrupted her. "So. That was fun. Want to hang out? I can teach you a few things about being a magical girl."

"I- sure." And now they would hang out.

As she started following Jack as the bald girl walked away, Shepard couldn't help but to think back to a question she had already asked herself.

Is… this normal? Is this what life is going to be like for me now?



Codex: Incubators and the Hanar

"While no species or government has friendly relations with the mysterious Incubators, even before their usage of humanity came to light, there are none quite as hostile to them as the hanar.

The hanar were uplifted by the Protheans, and place them into a position of religious significance, and their holiest texts are those few Prothean works that have been successfully translated. These texts are few and far between, as whatever mysterious circumstances befell the Prothean race destroyed most of their archives as well.

Of the surviving texts, most included mentions of the existence of the Incubators in a negative light, and hinted at a mysterious war between the two species. While it is known that war ended before those texts were written, the fact that the two species existed concurrently, combined with the fact that the Incubators have always refused to speak on the ultimate fate of the Protheans, has made them to be devil figures in many Enkindler sects.

These groups only strengthened in furor once humans entered the galactic stage, and the nature of the Incubator's relationship to them was revealed.

Many drew analogues between the way that the Enkindlers had treated them (kindness with enough respect to let them build their society as they willed) and the cruel manipulations of the Incubators and their shadowy influence over humanity.

The most extreme of these factions view their purpose in being made was to serve as opposition to the Incubators and their puppet species. A large portion of the converted drell population have embraced this interpretation, and several of the incidents of attempted assassinations of Magical Girls have been tied to young drell extremists."

An interesting summary, but one with a fairly obvious bias. They always seem to forget the important questions…

 

[Sir Bill]

So, I apologize for the very, very slow rate of updates for this.

I'd blame classes, but truth be told a major motivation in writing this story was to learn how to write long stories and write quickly.

First off: Rest assured that I do plan on finishing this. I have plans all the way through ME3, and an ending that I really, really want to write.
That said, next update should be soonish. I had a part that was giving me some trouble, then realized that I could just scrap it and take the plot relevant details and stuff them into the next scene.

Alright then; response time:

If I interpreted it correctly, what it said was that every universe, win or lose, where Shephard didn't become a magical girl was just burned for fuel.
That still allows multiple magical girl timelines. But it does mean the death of uncountable universes.

Click to shrink...

I should probably note that while it does kind of sort of explain the mechanics of it, that was still an analogy designed for a species that doesn't even include a "Sufficiently Advanced" in its science textbooks. (Haven't even empirically proved the existence of the soul yet, those primitives). It isn't... strictly accurate, but was intended as an explanation for why karmic weight=more power.

Love this, Sir Bill. Had a bit of a issue following who was doing what between Jack and Shepard at first

Click to shrink...

I'll try to take a look into it and see if I can clear things up when I'm assembling all of these snippets into a grand first chapter (Once I do that I'll also start up an FF.Net account).

And, again, Shepard has a few obvious powers, some more obscure powers, and, well... (honestly, as powers go, it's almost as much of a complication as a boon, but...)

As a side note, when it comes to Reapers...

I don't intend on dismissing them as a threat. And there's a pretty simple method of keeping them a threat, really, that doesn't get into spoilers.

Let's say, hypothetically, that a fully realized Shepard can spank Sovereign. Hell, let's say that she's capable of taking out a score of Reapers, all on her own!

Oh, hey, here's a couple hundred more.

And they all want Shepard dead. And even if she darts around in space like a hummingbird on crack, well...

GARDIAN point defense lasers are really, really accurate.

As to the discussion on what her powers are in particular... one aspect will be revealed next scene.

I don't want to post in this thread without providing some content, so here's a Codex Entry that I intend on going into more detail on once I update Shanxi.

Codex:

Krogan Rebellions: Massacre at Incubator Home System1​

	Krogan Forces (Led by Warlord Kren)	Incubator Forces
Fleet Composition	8 Cruisers 36 Frigates 1 Dreadnought Crew: 7,287 Dedicated Soldiers: 2,000	Unknown[post=PostId]Title[/post]
Casualties:	2 Cruisers 12 Frigates Crew: 7,287 Dedicated Soldiers: 2,000	Unknown

During the Krogan Rebellions, the krogan decided to target the Incubators, believing the historical hesitation of the Council Races to enter the home system of the Incubators to be mere superstition. As they were not known to have any sort of fleet presence, a fleet was sent in as a show of force, and it was believed that these forces would be sufficient in terms of eliminating even a somewhat more advanced fleet so long as that fleet was smaller than the krogan's own.

The exact circumstances of what happened after they emerged within the Incubator home system is unknown, as the black boxes within the krogan ships were corrupted. While speculation is rampant to this day, there are few certainties as to what had happened on those ships.

A conversation with only one perceptible individual, Warlord Kren, was recorded, in which he appears to be mocking a request that their fleet exit the system, and according to the cameras on the bridge he attempted to strike at an invisible target.

Shortly following this refusal, one of the krogan cruisers disappeared from all sensors, followed by two of the frigates2​.

Two minutes after the disappearance of those ships, all camera feeds on all ships appear to go out simultaneously.

One week after they arrived at the system, the fleet, devoid of crew, enters the Tuchanka system through the mass relay, and were on a course directed at sending them into the orbit of Tuchanka itself, though many of the ships sent were missing.

Crews sent to analyze the returned ships found numerous bodies3​, with various causes of death. Many appeared to die of exotic combat damage, including some by what appeared to be claw marks, but a majority of the bodies appeared to have been slain by friendly fire. In addition to this, eighteen krogan were found to have died of self inflicted wounds..4​

The only message included with the returned ships was a brief text message left on the bridge of the dreadnought, claiming that the return of these ships was an attempt at reconciliation. Most scholars believe it was intended as a mocking message or as a threat, as wiping out the crew of a krogan ship via apparent boarding action both sends the message that they are willing to face the krogan on their own terms and that, considering krogan breeding rates, they consider the krogan to be of such little threat to them that they are willing to risk them simply re-crewing the ships and sending them back for another attempt.

When asked about this, Incubators claim that this was an attempt at ensuring peace, and that the means that they used to eliminate the krogan were truly the most efficient means that they had available, though were unwilling to clarify.

After the incident, there were apparently talks between the Incubators and the salarians, and it is suspected that the Incubators either assisted the salarians in creating the genophage, or it was a subtle confirmation of the common theory that it was the salarian Special Task Groups that originally gave the relay mapping data containing the location of the Incubator Homeworld to Warlord Kren.

1​ While unimaginatively titled, the Incubator Home System (along with the Incubator Home World) is what they requested that the system be referred to as in any form of bookkeeping. The name of their species appears to be the only thing that they have applied any actual consideration for, referring to themselves as Incubators in the language of whatever group they are communicating with.

2​ Interestingly, the disappeared cruiser is one of the ships that was returned to the krogan homeworld.

3​ While some of the bodies appear to be missing simply because the krogans appear to have attempted to vent their ships, apparently in an attempt to defend themselves, many of the bodies appear to simply be missing, and only a third of the bodies were ever found.

4​ Krogans only rarely commit suicide by self inflicted injuries. Not only does it tend to take multiple attempts and persistence due to krogan resilience, but they typically prefer to commit "suicide by cop" by entering a blood rage and directing themselves at some foe that they believe to be insurmountable. Prior to this incident, the number of confirmed krogan suicides by self inflicted injuries was twenty seven within the span of the entire history of the krogan people.