> Refrain.
> …buuut maybe still try the telepathy thing?
You watch as Sayaka walks under a series of small numbered signs stuck in the right wall, each one flickering with dull light as she passes underneath them. You… no, you can't tell her you're here. This is the first time this morning that Sayaka has actually seemed relatively content, or at least not actively, visibly upset. You don't want to jeopardize that
now. Besides, these tunnels are complex enough that you're starting to worry you might not ever even
find Sayaka, in which case it'll be a moot point anyways, and you'll have pissed her off for no good reason. There's just not enough advantages to making her aware you're here right now.
…that being said, maybe you should still give telepathy a quick try? You'd bet Sayaka would be a lot less incensed by your talking to her if you weren't using her as a mouthpiece to do so. Granted, none of your other former abilities remain, so you don't really expect the psychic phone relay to be the exception, especially since you're pretty sure it was at least partially dependent on Kyubey to act as a sort of central router. Still, you never did get to try it yesterday, and you know you can hear Sayaka's attempts at it now that you're linked, so maybe...
<Sayaka? Are you there?> you try.
Sayaka abruptly stops dead in her tracks and quickly looks from side to side, bringing her cutlass into a ready position. That's... promising, you think?
<Sayaka? If you can hear this, try talking back to me.>
"What is...?" Sayaka mutters under her breath. "Witch? Is that you?"
<Yes, it's me.> you respond, encouraged.
<I'm->
"I knew it!" Sayaka hisses. "Whatever you're doing, stop it, right now!"
<Please calm down, I'm just trying to see if I can use telepathy to talk to you.> you tell her.
<You CAN hear this, right?>
"That's not telepathy!" Sayaka denies, seeming unsettled. "Telepathy just feels like hearing someone's voice in your head! What you're doing is like… I don't know, pushing
subtitles into my mind, or something!"
...that kind of makes sense, actually. Telepathy does usually just feel like listening to someone's mental voice, but since you
have no voice, you suppose yours might be coming out sort of... soundless? Which would make what you're doing with Sayaka more like thinking words at her than actually "talking" — sort of like silently reading a book to her, if that makes any sense. That honestly seems more like what telepathy probably
should be in your opinion, but you're guessing it's slightly more disconcerting to experience.
<Sorry.> you apologize, trying to send the sentiment as being spoken in a calm, soothing voice of your own imagining.
<Does this help?>
"Does
what help?! Cut it out!"
Damn… well, one more idea.
<Fine, I'll stop, just… let me try last one thing first.>
You imagine your next words to Sayaka as being spoken in a specific voice again, but this time do so using the one voice you technically possess — namely, hers.
<How about now?>
Sayaka jumps. "That's- why do you sound like
me?!"
Hey, it worked!
<Since I don't have a voice, I'm using yours as a template.> you explain.
<This is better, right?>
"That's even WORSE!" Sayaka yells, startling you. "Don't DO that!"
<I was just->
"DON'T!"
You stop, your hopes shot down once again. Well, you screwed that up royally; now she's upset again anyways. At least the concept is sound…
"I don't care how you do it; I don't want you talking to me, and I especially don't want you talking
like me!" Sayaka says irritably, throwing open a nearby pale blue door. "So just-!"
Sayaka abruptly stops speaking as about a dozen different heads inside the room she just opened suddenly turn towards her. Over half of them belong to Pyotr, most of whom are currently lying down on slightly beat up hospital beds, but there are also several thin, humanoid familiars with similar target-like faces standing nearby, dressed in a pale pink nurse outfits.
Her surprise fading, Sayaka darts forward and cuts one of the Pyotr in half, along with the bed it's sprawled out upon. As she does however, one of the nurse familiars picks up a small remote attached to another bed and hits a large red button near the top. As the remaining Pyotr spring to their feet and leap towards Sayaka, a different door on the other side of the room opens, and at least twenty more familiars come charging through it, including eight more of the nurses.
You want to tell Sayaka to run, that the battle isn't worth fighting, but stop yourself, unsure which way of doing so will make her least mad. In your hesitance, the familiars surround her, cutting off her escape routes and leaving her very little room to move.
Sayaka spins, cutting through another two of the Pyotr as they lunge, but her sword comes to an abrupt halt as it clangs against the needle of an oversized syringe one of the nurses is now holding. She twists and slashes again, her next strike cutting through the plastic center of the unorthodox weapon with ease, but before she can follow up on it a Pyotr throws itself into her back, unbalancing her. A second impact from a different giant mouse sends Sayaka stumbling forward, right towards a nurse holding a scalpel the size of her arm. It immediately stabs at her, only the slowness of the motion keeping the blade from puncturing the magical girl's exposed stomach.
<Sayaka, get out of there!> you mentally yell, your concern for the girl ultimately overriding your concern for what she thinks of you.
Sayaka must realize just how badly this fight is starting to go for her, as she doesn't even protest your use of her voice this time. Kicking off a music platform that forms beneath her feet, she soars over the familiars' heads and lands back at the room's entrance, scrambling back through it as the miniature horde rushes after her.
Uh oh… perhaps you should have told Sayaka you're here after all, because it's looking like the emergency backup might be needed right about now.
You hasten through the tunnels as quickly as you can as Sayaka starts sprinting through them herself, running down corridors and staircases with the same wild abandon as when she first entered the labyrinth. The sound of numerous scurrying feet and the abundance of squeaking following after her however assures you that the familiars have yet to lose her trail. In fact, they're only growing louder — presumably the horde is either gaining on Sayaka, or picking up additional members in its wake as it goes. You think you can even hear them from where
you are now-
Wait, that might be a good thing!
You slow slightly, trying your best to follow the increasingly louder sounds of stampeding mice and medics. Unfortunately, even as close as you think you must be, it's all still echoing too much for you to effectively locate. You can't pinpoint where it's coming from at all...!
Sayaka bursts through another door in the wall and into somewhere totally different, a misty white area with strange, shadowy lighting. There's a bunch of clear jars floating in the air, filled with what you think might be various types of medicine, but Sayaka doesn't take the time to stop and look as she runs for another nearby door, this one standing in the middle of the floor with no obvious support or anything behind it.
Yanking open the isolated door, Sayaka sprints straight through and into another new area, now finding herself standing on a long black bridge speckled with bright red polka dots, surrounded on all sides by enormous birthday candles whose burning wicks can only barely penetrate the pervasive gloom above. Meanwhile, you're running Tome into walls and catching the top of your stalk on the ceiling in your rush to find a similar exit. Hopefully the doors Sayaka just went through aren't the only way forward; all these tunnels have to lead
somewhere, don't they?!
As Sayaka runs across the bridge, she chances a quick look back, and sees the familiar horde pouring through the door she just emerged from like a living wave. It's definitely grown since she first started running, its numbers having swelled to at least twice what they were before. The glance she takes over the railing of the bridge is somehow even worse, as the pit of cake and icing below seems to contain an entire
sea of Pyotr, many of which are currently marching on frosted pathways up the side of the depression's walls. You're not sure they can actually get to her from there, but-
Something large slams into Sayaka from behind, tripping her and knocking her to the ground. She flips onto her back to see a nurse familiar dismounting from a rolling hospital gurney attempt to bring its foot down on her head. She catches it before it can land and throws the nurse to the side, where it slams stomach-first into the railing of the bridge before falling over the edge into the pit below. The moment Sayaka manages to get back to her feet however, the rest of the horde is upon her. Not good-!
You fly out of a tunnel into a new part of the cavern. Tome clips the head of a gummy bear the size of an actual bear, knocking it onto its side as you pass over what looks like a candy button carpet that leads to a pair of light purple double doors. You yank them open, almost turning away again in your haste, before you notice a glimpse of a giant candle behind them. Finally, a way in! But... damn it, you're too big to fit through this! You need to be smaller!
You try to curl in on yourself, coiling your stalk around like a spring in an effort to minimize its height, but even then and with Tome all of an inch off the ground, you're still too tall to squeeze through the doors. Frustrated and panicked, you try shoving yourself downwards- and seem to almost
fall into Tome, your stalk and arms abruptly plummeting halfway into the paper, as though you suddenly decided to become some sort of huge, book-based turtle. Tome hasn't shrunk at all, and Novella is still hovering above you, but you're much, much shorter now.
...a nd just small enough to fit through the doors, as it happens.
Deciding not to question it at the moment, you manage to float through the opening and into the bridge area. Now with vastly more space to maneuver, you push yourself back out of Tome, reemerging from its pages like you're pulling yourself up from the side of a pool. That was weird, but you'll think about it when you don't have a magical girl to urgently save. Right now...
You quickly look around. It's dark in here, but with your higher viewpoint, you can see that the bridge you're now floating over appears to be merely one of many, dozens upon dozens joined with each other to form a huge, interconnecting network. Thankfully, save for a few truly mountainous piles of doughnuts and biscuits here and there, it's all almost completely open, allowing you to spot Sayaka in the distance, still struggling against the swarm of familiars. You float as fast as you can in her direction, restocking on shatterwords as you go.
On her side of things, Sayaka is busy defending herself from all sides, whirling in circles as she struggles to keep up with the frantic melee. It's actually going slightly better than the one a few minutes ago, as she seems to have figured out most the familiars' capabilities, and with so many of them around the familiars are actually getting in each other's way more often than not. It's still a battle of one-on-fifty though; even none of the familiars seem to be particularly capable fighters, their numbers are
overwhelming. Sooner or later, Sayaka is
going to slip up...
And as you watch, that's exactly what happens. Sayaka spins to lop the head off a nurse, only for a different one wielding a pair of medical scissors to lunge in and swing them at her head. Sayaka moves to slash through it before it can reach her — but a trio of Pyotr jump and knock her arm off to the side, and suddenly she's no longer in a position to do so.
A stabbing pain hits, and the left half of Sayaka's vision suddenly turns black, while the right half watches a spray of crimson blood spatter over the familiars in front of her.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
The nurse with the scissors is cut down within half a second later, but Sayaka's left eye remains utterly nonfunctional. Shit! Hopefully those healing powers Novella mentioned work well enough to regrow organs!
You're close enough now to see all this taking place in person, but you can't just start firing on the battle with Sayaka in the middle of it all. You need to extricate her, have her come your way so you can help, but you're pretty sure that no matter how you do it any distraction from you right now is just going to get her hurt again. How are you going to get her out of there without-
Oh, screw it, you can't waste time like this! You'll deal with the fallout later!
You yank Sayaka's control away from her and have her body bound backwards through a hole in the throng, landing with a single foot on the railing of the bridge. Pirouetting on her heel, you turn and start leaping towards yourself, the familiars thankfully seeming to take a few moments to realize their target isn't among them anymore.
<What the-?!> Sayaka mentally yelps, whether at your sudden appearance or her loss of control you're not entirely sure.
"Sorry Sayaka, I'll make it up to you later or something!" you say through her mouth as you begin retreating backwards, trying to buy some time as the familiars rush to follow.
<Why you- YOU-!>
While Sayaka psychically sputters at you, apparently not entirely sure how to respond to this turn of events, you make an effort to activate her supposed healing ability, concentrating on her ruined eye in particular. Nothing seems to happen however, and an attempt at making one of her cutlasses to throw backwards at the horde of familiars fails similarly a few seconds later. Can you not use her magic?! Arrrrrgh, not a great time to find that out!
"Sayaka, listen!" you yell, having her sprint behind you as you come to a stop. "I think you have healing powers, but either I just don't know how to use your magic or I can't use it at all! It should come easy to you, so use it to fix yourself while I hold off the familiars!"
You drop your control again, leaving Sayaka to hopefully follow your instructions as you face the oncoming legion, prepared to fight it out.
The tide of familiars surges forward...
[-] Get above the familiars and fall, squishing them beneath you like ants.
[-] Bombard the familiars from a distance with shatterwords.
[-] Distract the familiars with some sort of illusion. [Write in: What?]
[-] Use Tearful Storm to blow the familiars back across the bridge.
[-] Some combination of the above. [Write in.]
[-] Write in.
] Realize too late that you forgot the crackers!
She's a Walpurgisnacht foil, I tell you!
