Character Scramble Season 17 Semifinals: The Sacrifice

[u/Tadprole]

THE SACRIFICE IS COMPLETE. LINK HERE FOR ROUND VOTING.

Congratulations to all of our hardworking semifinalists, you've done a great job getting here!

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THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED BY AN EXTRA 24 HOURS

The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion, who gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next Scramble!

The theme of Character Scramble 17 is Silent Hill. Round prompts will be based on scenarios and setpieces from classic survival horror games, which participants’ characters will be forced to endure all the while avoiding the terrifying Slasher characters also submitted this season.

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Round 4: The Sacrifice

Whatever horrors your Survivors faced in the depths of the mansion, they fled with more than just their lives. They know now that escape from Scramble Hill is possible.

Somewhere in the town, there is an old bridge. Crumbling. Rickety. And long disused. But a bridge nonetheless. Symbols have power in Scramble Hill, and this makes the bridge a precious link to the outside world. All your survivors need to do is make it across in one piece.

But such is the cruelty of the curse laid long ago on Scramble Hill that the town reserves its most terrible trials for those with the most hope in their hearts.

As your Survivors make for the bridge, the hidden figures in the fog which have until now been content to lurk and wait and watch finally make themselves known. All the monsters of Scramble Hill emerge into a snarling, ravenous, feral horde rallying behind your most persistent antagonist--the one who has been there from the very beginning. The town is making its final jealous effort to trap you here forever. And it has chosen your team's Slasher as its executioner.

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Round Rules:

• Key Points: The Survivors have discovered a means of escape from Scramble Hill---a bridge. The town's curse is trying to keep them there, and has summoned up all of its monsters at once in a massive horde to try and stop them. This, and the dismal state of the bridge, means that the survivors will lose something of themselves in the attempt to cross.

• The Horde: Scramble Hill does not let go of its prisoners lightly. It’s sending everything it has to drag you screaming back into the fog. The usual Dread Pool rules do not apply this round. Details below.

• Head of the Pack: All of the evils which dwell in Scramble Hill have gathered to halt your Survivors in their tracks, and your own team’s Slasher has emerged to lead the charge. This time, they are out for blood. No more games. No more toying with their prey. They and their horde will pursue your Survivors with a dogged single-minded ferocity betraying desperation. Why are they so intent on keeping your team from escaping? And what do they stand to lose if they fail?

• Left For Dead Too: Your opponent's Survivors are also looking for a way across the bridge to freedom. They're more than willing to work with your team to escape. Whether they'll make it out alongside you is up to fate.

• The Bridge's Toll: Salvation is within your team’s grasp. They’re so close. Just a little bit further… but one final obstacle remains. A bridge too far that will force them to strain to their breaking point. There’s no way to get through it in one piece. One or all members of your team must lose something important to them in order to proceed. This could be a treasured object. A limb. Their special powers. Even their immortal soul. Do they give this sacrifice up voluntarily, or is it snatched away from them?

• [OPTIONAL RULE] It's Your Funeral: Everything in equilibrium. One life spared means another life taken. If you chose to adopt a new Survivor last round, then this round you must kill off one of the Survivors on your team. This can fulfill your team’s sacrifice for the purposes of the round rule above.

• The End…?: Once across the bridge, your Survivors know they should be safe. They've earned a moment of peace at last now that it's finally over. Or is it… The curse of Scramble Hill still has its hooks in them. Leave this round with a spine-chilling cliffhanger for the final fright to come.

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Normal Rules:

• There was a hole here. It’s gone now: The environment of Scramble Hill is disorientating and hostile: creeping industrial rust, out of place landmarks, stairs and corridors to nowhere. As much as Slashers might pose a threat to your characters, the town itself should feel like an antagonist.

• Fear of Blood creates Fear for the Flesh: This is a horror themed Scramble. You don’t have to try to scare the reader with your stories, but they should include spooky elements. Scramble Hill is full of things that would make a normal person shudder. How do your characters react when they encounter them?

• We're safe... for now: This is the story of your characters’ survival against terrifying forces. This means that however scarred and broken they emerge, they’re going to make it out alive. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!

• If I kept it, I'm not sure what I might do…: Survival Horror is all about scavenging for something, anything you can use to stave off the monsters in the dark. You are absolutely encouraged to write your characters gaining or losing equipment/abilities/injuries/sanity. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes and vice versa.

• The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?: Give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. Be sure to mention things like powers, personality, history, just stuff that the average reader should know before reading.

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The Horde

This round, you may select as many enemy Slashers as you like (minimum 1) which you HAVE NOT written previously. You may choose from your opponent’s adopted Slasher or from any previous round’s Dread Pool.

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Semifinals will run from Wednesday August 9th to and end Friday September 8th 9th at 11:59 PM Central Daylight Time on the dot. Voting will last for three days after that. Remember to get your vote if you don't want to be disqualified.

In recognition of confusion over previous deadlines, we're switching to a compromise time zone that works better for most Scramblers. For reference, that is 12:59 AM on September 9th 10th EST or 5:59 AM BST.

To make things even easier, check out this site to convert the deadline to your timezone.

The universal code is - 1694235540

Character limit is 9 full length Reddit comments, or 90k characters.

While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup.

[u/GuyOfEvil]

Sayaka awoke in the Velvet Room, sat at Margaret’s table as always. Normally she would find some amount of comfort in this, but today something was different. Margaret had a forlorn look in her eyes.

“Is something the matter?” Sayaka asked, or at least, it felt like she asked. Talking in the Velvet Room, talking to Margaret, often felt far too dreamlike.

“Have I been helpful to you?” Margaret asked, Sayaka couldn’t tell if this was in response to her question, or if it was simply on Margaret’s mind. “Of course,” Sayaka replied, “You saved my life, remember?”

“I mean as master of this place,” Margaret replied, “I am unsure if I have lived up to the role. My readings, have they been of use?”

“What brought this on?” Sayaka asked.

“Just please, answer as honestly as you can.”

“Alright…” Sayaka began. Had they been useful to her? It was difficult to say. Often the Tarot Readings had guided her on her next step, or led her to trust somebody, but just as often they had been vague, or had not seemed to come to pass. But still… She looked Margaret in the eyes again, “Yes. Even if i cannot understand them, it makes me feel better to think there is a way forward, that there is a future I am making my way into.”

Margaret gave a soft smile, “Good. I am sorry if my granting of Personas has been inadequate, I… understand why my old Master always left it to another. I do not think I can grant you another, but…” She put out her hand, and a card from her Tarot deck flew to fill it, she turned her hand to show to Sayaka, the card was Death, “Take this, it may serve an important role later.”

Sayaka accepted the card, and it vanished, “Really though, what brought this on?”

“I do not wish to say too much, so as not to distract you from the final leg of your journey, but I fear we may be nearing the end of our association like this. For now though, let us continue as we have been. Allow me to read your fortune once more.”

Sayaka nodded apprehensively, and three cards spread across the table.

II. The High Priestess. Upright

“The High Priestess, the card representing Mother Earth, refers to one who bridges the gap between the observable world and that which lies beyond. One who listens strongly not just to their inner voice, but to the voices of the world around them. The High Priestess is often seen as the card of a teacher, but it may not be so straightforward who must teach and who must learn.”

The second card flipped.

XII. The Hanged Man. Reversed

“I’ve always found this card ironic. Reversed, the Hanged Man sits perfectly upright, yet is still hanged. This often represents one who understands their path forward, yet is still chained to something. While the upright Hanged Man would fall if cut from what chained him, reversed, he does not. Even if he destroyed every attachment in the world, he would be no better off for it. Simply put, it is one who seeks a revenge they can never truly obtain.”

The third card flipped.

X. The Wheel Of Fortune. Reversed

“A rather self explanatory card, but no less dangerous for it. The Wheel Of Fortune symbolizes just that, fortune, luck, omens, that which is outside of your control. It also symbolizes negative cycles, whereby bad luck is cycled on and on and on…”

Margaret paused, uncharacteristic of her fortune telling sessions. She looked Sayaka directly in the eyes.

“I think I can be direct with you, Sayaka. This card symbolizes omens, and no omen is worse than a black cat.”

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

July 11th, 2029

Sayaka awoke in an apartment she had never seen before. It was relatively neat and bare, save for the futon she was lying in. It was probably Ryuji’s, but she was surprised by how clean he kept everything. It wasn’t, like, clean clean, but it was pretty far from the disaster area she lived in.

And speaking of Ryuji, he walked in through the front door, wearing a leather jacket that looked too tight for him and too hot for the middle of summer. He saw her sit up and did a little speed walk over to the futon, “Yo, hope you weren’t up long, I was tryna get back before you woke up.”

Sayaka waved him off, “All good, where’d you go?”

He unzipped the jacket and laid it down, revealing a network of bandages across his chest, “Somehow, our local back alley doctor is still in business. She literally has several friggin’ medical awards hung up on the wall, but she’ll still take ‘yeah, I fell out of a window on accident.’ I love this part of the city sometimes.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised you know the local back alley doctor,” Sayaka said with a smile, “You gonna be ok?”

“Ehh… I was probably better off doin’ this kinda shit at fifteen as opposed to now, but I’ll be fine as long as we can save Alice.”

Save Alice… Right, they still needed to hurry on that, Alice was still stuck in that place, and Pukin was still out there. God, she hoped Doreen was ok.

“But before we do anything,” Ryuji said, “I feel awkward as hell walkin’ around that stuff we both said yesterday. I’m chill if you wanna talk about it or if you don’t wanna talk about it, but let’s pick one, yeah?”

Sayaka thought about it for a moment. Immediately she wanted to say no, let’s not talk about it, I don’t want to be a burden, but that was just another layer of selfishness wasn’t it? She still thought she was worse off than everyone else, she still just wanted to wallow in her own misery. And hell, she was just thinking about herself AGAIN, Ryuji had his own trauma he never talked about, and he had still given the whole decision to her. Ugh, she knew what decision she was supposed to make.

Sayaka took a deep breath to lock in her conviction, “I’ll tell you what. I still owe you a drink, so how about once everything is through you and me and Alice all go out to drink, and we’ll talk about everything. But for now…”

Ryuji gave a huge grin, “Hell yeah, for now we’ve got a Treasure to steal.”

Sayaka couldn’t help but return the smile. Seriously, Ryuji was amazing. If it were her, navigating this would’ve taken like half an hour of awkward conversation, but now all the awkwardness was taken care of, and she was feeling pumped.

RANK UP! Chariot Rank 7

“Let’s save our friend.” Sayaka said. She led them out of Ryuji’s apartment, and back to the 7/11, where they’d be able to reach Wonderland.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Something had changed about Alice’s head. She wasn’t terribly sure what, even as intimately familiar with her head as she was, but something was certainly different. She supposed, or knew rather, she supposed, that it was because of her Treasure being stolen. The Queen of Hearts’ castle, a mainstay of the Wonderlandscape, had now disappeared completely, and all of Wonderland felt lighter somehow. Her best point of comparison was the feeling of lightened gravity in a dream, but it felt silly to compare a dream to a dream.

So instead she chose to compare it to nothing, Wonderland was changing because her head was changing, and even though the whole world felt a little more unstable, she couldn’t be more pleased. She felt like there was nothing tying her to this blasted place now other than physically being here, and if she could steal her other self’s Treasure just like they had stolen hers, maybe even that would end.

But of course, just as she was about to make a decision for herself, the Cheshire Cat showed up, “You may want to consider your actions more deeply, Alice. Upheaval is often terribly unpopular with those being upheaved.”

“And I suppose that includes you?” Alice asked, she often ignored the cat when she was on her own, but like she had thought, she’d changed somehow.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s a terrible cliche, but I somehow suspect I’ll land on my feet.”

Something had changed about the Cheshire Cat as well. Rather than his usual patterned blue and gray, his fur had become pure black.

“Has something happened to you?” Alice felt compelled to ask.

“We’re birds of a feather,” The Cheshire Cat appeared next to Alice and held out her hair, it was nearly the same color as his fur, “Or mammals of a hair, perhaps. Just as you’ve recalled something important, so have I.”

“But my hair didn’t change at all, seems a rather flimsy explanation.”

“Over a hundred years in this place and you still question what does or doesn’t make sense. My warning was certainly lost on you, but try and heed it anyways.”

Alice didn’t bother trying to get a reply in, she knew the cat would just vanish to preserve its right to the last word. Hmph, Among all the denizens of Wonderland, he had come to be one of the ones she’d miss the least, only slightly more than the ones that tried to kill her all the time.

She put the cat out of mind, and began traveling to the courthouse in earnest. It was a long road, but a shockingly empty one as well. On her last trip to the courthouse she practically had symbolic statues and groves and alcoves falling out of her ears, but now there was almost nothing. All this space for her to process everything that had happened to her, and she felt she had very little to process at all. She wanted out, and that was that. The geography couldn’t help but cooperate.

And not too soon, she finally reached the forest at the heart of Wonderland. Strangely, there was something there. Or rather two somethings. First was Sayaka and Ryuji, who fell down right next to her, the same way they always did. Ryuji went PLOP and Sayaka went SQUISH.

“Hello,” Alice said, bending over to watch Ryuji push himself up and Sayaka reconstitute herself.

“Yo,” Ryuji replied, “We’re here to steal the Treasure from the other Palace in your head, you down?”

“Capital,” Alice said, “I was just on the way to do so myself.”

“Like hell you were,” a voice came from within the forest. Ah yes, she had been so swept up she had forgotten about the second thing. Right in the center of the forest was a tea party!. And the Mad Hatter had just come over to greet her. He was looking shockingly good, seeing as the last time she had seen him he was a mutilated mess. But now he was as human as she had ever seen him, he even looked vaguely Japanese, which narrowly made sense.

“Hello, Hatter. I don’t believe I have time for your tea party today.” Alice said as curtly as possible.

“You misunderstand, Alice. I’m no longer in the business of pasty British tea parties, no ma'am, me and my guests are throwing a genuine American tea party,” He gestured back to the table, and Alice noticed it was not quite his usual company, “Mice and hares just wouldn’t do for a tea party like this, so I’ve traded them in for Gryphons and Jabberwocks. And you won’t believe the most delightful part, Alice. If we’re the Americans, that makes YOU the tea!”

“Ah,” said Alice, “So you’re the upheaved.” She looked back to her friends, who seemed to just be watching the interaction bemused.

“Is there a problem?” Sayaka asked.

“Yes there’s a problem!” The Hatter replied, “If this blasted girl takes the Judge’s treasure like she wants to, Wonderland will be gone forever! And some of us happen to live here!”

Alice knew that, of course. She looked back at Sayaka and Ryuji again. Would they think her cruel? Likely not, most of what they had seen of Wonderland had tried to kill them. And Alice supposed most of it tried to kill her too, but still, to some extent they were “real” people she was snuffing the lives out of. She remembered the train, remembered how hard she tried to save Wonderland, and now she was it’s doom and she just… Didn’t care so much. She was ready to move on.

“I’m terribly sorry, Hatter, but I’ve had my fill of tea parties. Can’t you all just shuffle off stage calmly?”

“Not a chance in hell,” The Hatter replied.

Alice drew the Vorpal Blade, “Well, then I suppose you’ll be spending your last moments in pieces.”

“She said it may go like this. Gryphon, go inform the Judge. We’ll hold them here.”

The Gryphon got up from the Hatter’s table and started flying away. Unlike the Hatter, he had certainly seen better days. The last time Alice had seen him, she threw him into a volcano. Now he looked the part, turned completely to stone, just like in the photos her father had once shown her of Pompeii. When her family died in the fire, she had thought the same might’ve happened to them. It was a fear that weighed so heavily on her mind that Wonderland sported a large volcano that formed after their deaths. But focusing again on the Gryphon, somehow its stone state had made it no less mobile, and it flew off.

The other party goer did not fly off. It got up from its seat and walked slowly towards them. This was the Jabberwock, a fearsome dragon that Alice had also previously knocked into a volcano. He looked the part, much of his flesh had been burned off, leaving him skeletal and burning.

As he approached, Sayaka and Ryuji drew weapons.

“Now remember, we can’t kill her.” Hatter said to the Jabberwock. It made no sign that it was able to understand him.

As the Jabberwock passed the Hatter, Alice pounced. Or at least, she attempted to pounce. Upon trying to leave the ground, she realized she was completely stuck.

“HA. HAHAHAHAHA.” The Hatter said, “The moment you took a step towards my tea party you’ve been caught in my trap. An invisible substance which has the properties of both rubber and gum. How do you like it?”

Alice struggled against whatever he was talking about, but to no avail. It was up to her friends to help her. Ryuji summoned the pirate and began blasting the Jabberwock with lightning, and Sayaka cut her feet off to free herself from the substance. She stuck her sword in the ground and shifted her body to a one-handed handstand atop the sword. The Jabberwock swung its fearsome claw at Alice, but Sayaka pushed off and into the Jabberwock’s attack, knocking it off course.

She stuck another sword in the ground and used it to change direction, allowing her to carry her momentum and land directly in front of the Mad Hatter. She produced another sword and pointed it at his neck.

“Let my friends go,” She said. She was certainly not a person who often made threats, but she was doing her best.

“HA!” The Hatter replied, obviously not particularly threatened, “It matters little what I do, by now the Gryphon has probably already reached the Judge, and she’s managed to warn herself in the real world, and then…”

The Hatter was cut off by his company disappearing. The Gryphon had successfully reached Shadow Pukin, who had stabbed herself in the head and used her power to warn the real world Pukin, who took a momentary break from her increasingly long winded battle with one Doreen Green to release her transformation and revert to Alice Liddell, thus shunting Alice, Ryuji, and Sayaka out of Wonderland.

“Good,” The Hatter mused to himself, “But knowing that girl, she and her friends will be around again.” He turned to the Jabberwock, “I think we may want to invite a few more guests.”

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Sayaka, Ryuji, and Alice found themselves shunted out of Wonderland and into what seemed to be a mountain of squirrel corpses. A scene that was almost not weird enough to comment on at this point.

“The hell?!” Ryuji exclaimed, it was only almost not weird enough to comment on.

“Goodness,” Doreen said, appearing from somewhere nearby. She had a second mountain of living squirrels behind her, “Is it over now?”

Sayaka shook her head.

“Darn,” Doreen said, “I don’t think I can keep going for much longer. Can you guys help me get home? I can get the squirrels and Marcy to keep an eye on her.”

Sayaka ran over to Doreen and put her arm around Doreen’s shoulder. She slumped into it. Although she didn’t seem physically injured, this fight must’ve taken an insane amount of magic to orchestrate.

Ryuji ran over too. “Can you just tell Alice we’ll meet her back in Wonderland and figure out a plan?”

“Sure,” Doreen said, she then looked at Alice, “ðeɪl miːt juː bæk ɪn ˈwʌndəlænd tuː ˈfɪɡər aʊt ə plæn, ˈəʊˈkeɪ? fɔː naʊ ʤʌst rʌn əˈweɪ.”

Alice gave a thumbs up, then turned and ran away. Sayaka and Ryuji helped Doreen in the other direction towards the street. They made it less than a block, until Doreen just decided to hail a taxi.

As soon as the three of them got into the taxi, Sayaka collapsed. She felt a little bad, as Doreen had collapsed out of literal physical exhaustion while she was only frustrated. And even still, Doreen was empathetic enough to try and help her first.

“What happened in there?” She asked.

“She kicked us out, somehow. If she can keep doing that, I don’t know how we’re gonna…”

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Doreen replied, putting her hand on Sayaka’s shoulder. Even outside of her exhaustion, the fight seemed to shake her up too.

Ryuji, on the other hand, was grinning like a madman, “You guys are thinking about this the wrong way. We have to steal something, but in order to do so need to handle a bunch of impossible seeming problems and obstacles? There’s a word for that, it’s a heist!”

Sayaka took a deep breath, “A heist… Sure.” Break down the problems, make a plan, execute the plan. They could deal with this.

Doreen perked up, “Oh my gosh, if you guys are planning something, you have got to come back to my apartment, I have a great cork board I never get to use.”

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Doreen led Ryuji and Sayaka into her place, got out the cork board, then said she needed to lie down for a second, walked to her bed, and instantly passed out.

“Well,” Ryuji said, “I guess we’ll just get started.”

“Ok, breaking it down, we got two problems, actually stealing the thing, and not getting booted out of Wonderland.” He looked over at the corkboard, “She seemed really excited about this, but I’ve got no friggin idea what we’re supposed to do with it. Does she have like… pins? or paper?”

“I have no clue,” Sayaka replied, “But let’s stay on topic. If we’re gonna meet up with Alice we can put the first one aside for now, so how do we stop her from transforming?”

“Right. So she does it by just… un transforming? Can you just do that?”

Sayaka shrugged, “Pretty much, yeah. It’d be dangerous to do it in the middle of a fight, but… Obviously not helpful to us.”

“Damn.” Ryuji said, “It’s gotta be something else then.”

“That flying statue thing had to go to her Shadow, right? Can we just avoid anyone in Wonderland so that she wouldn’t know?”

Ryuji shook his head, “Nah, if the treasure has solidified, she’d just be there to guard it.”

“Can we just kill the Shadow?”

“Uhhhhhh, maybe? Killing the Shadow also kills the person, but if Alice already has a Shadow it might work? But also I don’t really want to bet everything on ‘it might kill Alice but maybe not,’ y’know?”

Sayaka sighed, “Yeah… Shit, what else?

“Hmm… D’ya think we could make it so she doesn’t want to transform? Or is that stupid?”

“Better than anything else we’ve come up with. Is there a good reason she wouldn’t wanna transform?”

“If she’s anything like her shadow she’s a total pompous asshole, so probably?”

Sayaka snorted out of her nose.

“She talked to you for a bit yesterday, right? Anything stick out?”

Sayaka thought back to the two times she had seen the real Pukin. The first time, when she was with Daud and Specter… She didn’t know Specter’s real name did she? No. No pity party. When she dropped in to kill Daud, it was like, right when he was about to say her name, and she had a line for it too. She must’ve been waiting there the whole time.

“She’s dramatic,” Sayaka said, “I think if she’s gonna do something, she wants it to be cool.”

What else… What did she say when she attacked Sayaka yesterday? Ryuji was there, she supposed, he heard everything too, but still, there had to be something.

“She had this whole attitude like she was better than us. I guess that just falls under ‘pompous asshole’ though?”

This time Ryuji snorted out of his nose, “Maaaan, There’s somethin’ to all this crap for sure, I wish we knew just a little bit more.”

A squirrel ran into the room and chittered, it almost sounded like it was in reply to what Ryuji just said.

“The hell?” Ryuji said.

It chittered again, this time moving its head towards the door.

“I think it wants to take us somewhere?” Sayaka said.

“I know she controls squirrels, she said it and I’ve seen it, but damn if this isn’t some disney bullshit,” Ryuji said.

“Who cares, let’s just follow it.”

Ryuji let out an exaggerated sigh, but still followed the squirrel out the door.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Pukin was ravenous. Normally after a big fight she enjoyed celebrating with a large meal, but this was not that. She would struggle to even call what she just did a fight. She knew about Doreen Green, knew she was one of, if not the strongest Magical Girl in Japan. She had intentionally avoided information about her powers in order to make this trip more interesting, but now that they had actually clashed she wished she hadn’t.

She had just spent over a day doing nothing but killing squirrels. No interest, no challenge, just a question of “will you run out of energy before I run out of squirrels?” Pukin was still not actually sure of the answer, but she truly did not care to find out. When she suddenly had the urge to transform back into Alice, she was all too happy to cut the fight short. But now she was left on the feeling of being completely drained, without the satisfaction of having driven her enemies before her. Annoying, annoying, annoying. She would have to find some way to have that girl’s head without another direct confrontation.

Her brain was too foggy to think of the specifics now, she needed to eat. Nearby was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, something that she had already tried before, but she didn’t care. The concept of a conveyor belt of food she could shovel into her mouth sounded perfect. She found the place and went in the back door. There was one chef inside the kitchen, also perfect. She walked up and stabbed him in the back.

He was not going to stop making sushi, his life depended on it. Food had better be good too.

She removed the sword, and the chef noticeably sped up a little. She smiled and walked out the kitchen door and took the seat where the conveyor belt started. The first plate was three orange slices. She was just not savagely hungry enough to remove the peels before eating them. Everything else was not so lucky. Rather than waste time with forks or even chopsticks, she simply used the first plate to shovel the contents of any future plate directly into her mouth. No subsequent plate escaped her wrath.

There was a single other person in the place, who cleared out pretty quickly once he realized he wasn’t getting any food. The host made an attempt to walk over to her, but was intimidated out of it, either by her glare or by her sword. The chef didn’t stop making food, and she didn’t stop eating. She actually would’ve killed the chef if the food wasn’t good, but truthfully she was eating too fast to even tell, she was Just. So. Hungry.

This went on for about thirty minutes, until a certain black cat slipped through one of the place’s open windows and jumped to the counter next to Pukin. She marked the thing’s entrance, but didn’t really want to stop eating, so she just continued shoveling sushi into her face.

“Hard at work I see,” The cat said to her.

She bonked it on the head and continued eating.

“I don’t much appreciate your attitude. I asked you to do a job, and you’ve been lazing around like you’re on a Japanese vacation.” The cat said, standing arrow straight and looking right at her.

She finished chewing the current set of sushi rolls, she would never stoop so low as to speak with her mouth full, then deigned to reply to the cat, “I don’t recall a contract, let alone any kind of payment. You informed me of something interesting I might do, and I have thus far pursued your goals as far as they have interested me. So why do you come to me and complain?”

The cat let out a sound as close to a sigh as a cat could get, “What I told you was that you were in a precarious position, and that position might be improved by you assisting me with Sayaka Miki and the other girls here. You have not improved your position in my eyes.”

“You told me they were strong Magical Girls, so far they have done little more than bore me. Perhaps if you do get mad enough, I’ll finally actually find these strong Magical Girls.”

“Is that really what you want?” The cat asked.

“No, what I want is to eat in peace,” Pukin said, “Look how much sushi has passed me by on account of you.”

The cat jumped onto the edge of the conveyor belt and swallowed a piece of sushi whole, Pukin took this as an invitation and went back to eating whole plates at a time.

“So that’s how we’re going to leave it?” The cat asked.

Pukin kept eating. The cat made the sighing noise again, “Well then, perhaps you’ll get your wish.”

The cat took another piece of sushi, then jumped from the counter to the window, “Rather dry, no?”

Pukin again didn’t reply, so the cat rolled its eyes and jumped back out the window. Pukin wasn’t marking what he was doing beyond that, so she was not particularly sure why a man yelled out “What the fuck, Morgana?!” from directly behind the window.

Laboriously, she stopped eating and turned around. As she did, she spotted the back of the head of… That man who had proclaimed he would steal her heart. That was strange, she was sure he had thrown himself out a window. As she watched him, her ears picked something else up

“Ryuji you idiot…” Pukin couldn’t help but chuckle, crouched below the window was who else but Sayaka Miki.

---

Sayaka cursed silently, Pukin definitely heard that. It was ok, she’d be fine, she had like, most of a plan coming together in her head.

Pukin hung her head out the window, locking eyes with Sayaka upside down, like they were in a Spider-Man movie. Did it say something about Sayaka that she was face to face with a serial killer and thinking about a movie scene where two people kiss? She hoped not. The thought helped her look a little less scared.

“Hello… Pukin.” She sounded like an idiot, but surprise entered Pukin’s eyes all the same.

“Xiaohei didn’t say my name, did he? So how, pray tell, do you know it now?”

Sayaka chuckled, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Just like Pukin did when she killed Daud, dramatic. Sayaka could tell she was bought in.

“Maybe I was wrong about you, Sayaka Miki. Are you just here to spy on me, or do you want to become a Witch by my blade for real now.”

Sayaka stood up and met her head-on. She thought they needed a little more, but now, standing here, she felt an unexpected surge of confidence.

“Neither, I’ve come to make a proposal.”

“Oh?”

She was invested. Putting together everything Sayaka knew about Pukin, this had to work. Although she thought she was better than Sayaka, she didn’t want to be. She was bored, she wanted something flashy and dramatic and exciting to distract her after being alive for nearly two hundred years. And if she got something like that, she almost certainly wouldn’t be willing to give it up.

“A duel. In five days, I want to duel at the top of the Tokyo Tower. No more cat and mouse bullshit, just you and me, swords and magic, to the death.”

Pukin laughed madly. Sayaka’s confidence started dropping as she went on laughing, for practically a minute straight.

“How truly interesting. In three days, I will be at the Tokyo Tower, and I will crush the pathetic delusion that you could ever compare yourself to me.”

Sayaka had no idea what to say back, she settled on “good.” No point in taking it any further. Pukin looked at her for an uncomfortable few seconds, then went back to eating. Sayaka walked away.

It was only when she made it a few blocks away that she released the lingering tension in her body. She had offered Pukin an interesting, dramatic fight where she would prove she was better than Sayaka once and for all. That would have to hold. Now the only problem would be actually making it interesting.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Ryuji chased the cat for well over five kilometers. It seemed to just want to run in as direct a path as possible and shake him by wearing him out, but friggin’ come on man, he was two years removed from running a marathon and could do another one tomorrow if he wanted to, this weak shit was not going to work on him.

After a while longer, the cat started looking back at him, like it couldn’t believe he was still chasing him. This lapse in attention was enough for the cat to run itself into an alleyway and get cornered.

“Ha!” Ryuji yelled through a pant, “I got you, Morgana.”

The cat looked back at him incredulously. Upon closer inspection, despite the fact that this was a talking black cat, it wasn’t Morgana. It looked at him blankly, “You’re an idiot.”

“Well then what does that make you, a cat that got caught by an idiot?”

It didn’t seem fazed by the taunt, “An Incubator, do you know what an Incubator is?”

Ryuji had no clue what an Incubator was. An incubator might have had something to do with chickens or something, but Incubator, no clue. Before he could even form a lie, the thing responded to the blank look in his eye.

“Of course you don’t. And yet somehow I know who you are. Sayaka Miki’s hanger-on. Barely a bit player in this little game, and yet you persist, seemingly to do nothing more than gawk at its real stars. Let me offer you some perspective, young man. You are not a Magical Girl, and you stand on a game board that is absolutely littered with them. You have nothing to offer this place save a swift death, and believing otherwise makes you little more than a fool. If you do not run, you will die.”

“Fuck you, cat.” Ryuji replied.

“Why even waste my time with an idiot?” The cat jumped, and landed on top of a fence at the side of the alley, seemingly never trapped in the first place.

So, Ryuji was left alone. He walked towards a nearby vending machine to get a drink, and wondered why that stupid cat’s words stung him so much. Without much thinking he came to a conclusion, it wasn’t the first time he had been called an idiot by a cat. It probably wasn’t even the thousandth.

Before this thought ran too deep, he got a phone call from Sayaka.

“Yo.”

“Hey, I think I’ve got the keeping Pukin from transforming part of the plan covered, she’ll be indisposed at sunset in three days, but it’ll mean I can’t be in Wonderland. Do you think you can meet Alice and figure the rest of it out on your own?’

“Uhh… Yeah. I think I got it. Are you gonna be ok, you sound a little nervous.”

“Nervous? No. I’m totally gonna be fine, I’ve got three days to get ready for a fight with her, I’ve totally got this.” She was pretty obviously nervous and trying to psych herself up, but Ryuji couldn’t really blame her, he was gonna have to do the same thing.

“Meet me at work and we’ll go over everything one last time, then we’ll both start getting ready. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Sayaka replied, “It’s getting late though, let’s do it tomorrow.”

“Gotcha,” Ryuji said, then hung up.

Alright, Palace heist was all up to him. He totally had this. It was high time to prove at least one stupid ass cat wrong.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

July 12th, 2029

Sayaka met Ryuji at work early in the morning. A guy Sayaka didn’t really know was on the register and he gave her a slight glare. Which she probably deserved, out of the last twelve days she and Ryuji had worked like, three.

She walked back to the storage room to find Ryuji was already there, and had already done a little doodle for their heist on the whiteboard.

“You’re at it early,” Sayaka commented to him.

“Yeah…” He replied, “I couldn’t really sleep last night, too busy thinkin’ bout this.”

“You get anywhere?”

“Not really, for the most part I just need to ask Alice what we’re dealing with. How ‘bout you?”

Sayaka shrugged, “I fought her super briefly twice, she’ll underestimate me, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough. You got any tips for pulling a sword battle win out of my ass?”

“Hell if I know. Try throwing sand in her eyes?”

“Ha. Maybe.”

Before Sayaka could say anything else, Braum suddenly burst into the room, “What are you two doing in here? I am running convenience store business, not secret clubhouse business. Get to work!”

For a second, Sayaka felt her heart drop, before Braum gave the two of them a huge grin, “Is joke.”

Ryuji laughed, “Damn, dude, you scared the shit out of me!”

“You hate thought of working for me that much?” Braum asked, his voice getting all serious again.

“Uh… Well…”

“Is still joke,” Braum clarified, “For saving Alice, I will help however I can.”

Ryuji laughed even harder than he did before, “Damn, boss, you have a shady past AND you’re funny? You’ve been holding out on us.”

“You simply never talked to me, Sayaka knew these things already, because she talks to me.”

It was true, sort of, Sayaka had briefly started developing a bond with her boss, but she hadn’t gotten particularly far. He had been in some kind of war? She was really hazy on the details.

“But seriously. If you need to stay here, it is no problem. If you need to use company truck, it is no problem. If you need weapons, it is only small problem.”

“Weapons?!” Ryuji exclaimed, “For real?!”

“Maybe not for you, I have seen how you treat fake shotgun.”

“Man…”

He looked to Sayaka, implicitly asking if she thought she’d need anything. She had never held a gun, so she didn’t like her chances with those, but she had the start of an idea, “Do you think you could get like, y’know those remote explosive vests they have in movies? Is that just C4?”

Braum looked up at the ceiling, “C4… I think this could be done. When would you need it?”

“The 14th,” Sayaka replied.

“Little time, but yes, I think so.”

“Awesome.” That was one problem solved, sort of, maybe.

Before he left, she took another look at Braum. He looked more relaxed than usual, somehow. She guessed being the kind of person that could procure C4 in three days was the kind of thing a person couldn’t help but feel guarded over, and now that he’d revealed even part of that to somebody, it made his life just a little bit easier, and it made the two of them just a little bit closer.

RANK UP! STRENGTH RANK 4

“Well shit,” Ryuji said, “If you’re already makin’ progress on your end, i’d better head to Wonderland.” He walked over to the freezer, pulled out his phone, and did just that.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

plop. Ryuji landed in Wonderland. He was through complaining about how he landed, he had work to do. And besides, right where he was, a nice looking man was there to pick him up.

“Hullo there, lad.”

Ryuji took his hand and got up from the ground, “Um… Yo. I’m looking for Alice, have you seen her?”

“Aren’t we all, these days. I suppose you’re one of her friends from out there?’”

“I guess so.”

“Well it’s good to meet you, I’m The Carpenter. That’s all I have for a name, can you believe that? That’s part of the reason I need to find Alice, you see.”

“Yeah?” Ryuji nodded, he did not really like the vibe this guy was giving off.

“We just think she’s a little misguided, you see. She thinks all us denizens of Wonderland are just something she created to help her deal with trauma, and now she doesn’t need us anymore. So you can see how that might seem a little unfair to all of us, to be discarded like out of season toys. Do I strike you as just a reflection, or do I seem to have a deep interior world?”

Ryuji had no idea which answer The Carpenter wanted, “I dunno man, a little bit of both?”

“You don’t get our plight at all, do you? You know Alice once thought I was meant to represent Jesus Christ himself? Do you know what trying to play that part does to a man?”

“No?” Ryuji said. He had no idea what this guy was talking about, but somehow felt like he had better respond anyways.

“Not interested in the philosophy of it all? A dullard, perhaps? Well I suppose it doesn’t matter, I was just buying time anyways.”

Before Ryuji could ask for what, a giant creature pounced upon him. If he hadn’t already experienced the flesh castle, the giant disgusting mass of exposed organs might’ve been enough to make him vomit.

“Finally seen fit to show up, eh, Walrus?” The Carpenter asked.

“I’m sorry, you seemed to be quite enjoying your blathering,” The thing replied. Ryuji could not really see how it was supposed to be a walrus.

He didn’t have time to wonder though, he was in danger.

“Persona!” Captain Kidd appeared at his call and rammed into the creature, moving it at least partially off of Ryuji. He now had an arm free enough to reach for his shotgun, which he pressed directly into the side of the thing and fired. Along with another charge from Captain Kidd, it fell to its’ side, and Ryuji scrambled to his feet.

“That hurt quite a bit,” the thing said, “I don’t think we should have to put up with rudeness like this.”

“Indeed,” The Carpenter said. He shook his hand, and a crude wooden blade appeared in it. Shit, he didn’t have time to be in a fight like this, he had to find Alice.

It was a massive bailout that Alice managed to find him. She practically burst into existence right next to him, “Why don’t we go somewhere else, Ryuji? I detest these two even in normal circumstances.”

She grabbed his hand and ran in the opposite direction. He didn’t resist, only slowing a little to let Captain Kidd fire a few lightning bolts at the two of them. They seemed largely unaffected. At first, the Walrus and Carpenter didn’t seem to be taking the chase very seriously, but as they started to actually get away, the Carpenter turned his wooden weapon into a whip and hopped on the back of his partner. Despite the thing being what looked like a haphazard clump of organs, it was damn fast, and they started gaining on Alice and Ryuji right away.

“They’re gonna catch us!” Ryuji yelled, looking back at the two of them.

“Ha,” Alice said, “They couldn’t possibly catch me here.” Then she went digging into her dress, until she produced a small bottle. She handed it to Ryuji, “Drink this.”

Ryuji didn’t even have to think about it, he absolutely trusted Alice enough to drink a mysterious bottle of liquid she handed him no questions asked. So he did. Immediately after swallowing he felt weird.

Alice jerked him to the left, and he felt like his brain was gonna fall out of his head, then all of the sudden she jumped, dragging him what felt like a hundred meters in the air. He looked back, and the “Walrus” was now even more grotesque than before, massive entrails he could see in more detail than ever before… Or no, they had just gotten smaller.

The Walrus lunged, but not fast enough, by the time he was on their position they had fallen through a small hole in the ground, like a mole hole or some shit.

“Oh, pish posh,” The Walrus said into the hole, he knew he could chase no further. The Carpenter didn’t say anything.

Alice quickly whisked Ryuji into a side hole, before the Carpenter stabbed into the hole. His weapon morphed, snaking straight through the hole’s main drag, but left their alcove untouched. They both stood still for a few moments until the weapon receded, and they heard a shambling off above them.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief, “If I never see those two again it will be too soon.”

“Who were they?”

“Oh, I don’t know, characters from a poem I once read, a man who did jobs for my family, maybe religious figures? I don’t particularly care anymore. They’re just two more of a great big group that’s joined the Hatter’s little party.”

“Oh, shit. Ya think they’ll go and get me kicked out again?”

Alice shrugged, “Who knows with those two. But enough about me, have you come up with a master plan to steal my other Treasure?”

“Well…” Ryuji began, shit, he was all full of hot air just up until he had to actually deliver, “Sayaka figured out a way to stop me from getting knocked out of Wonderland, but she needs to be in the real world for it, so it’s just you and me in here to take it, as for getting past all the assholes, I dunno.”

“Well I’m sure you’ll think of something, Or I’ll just walk up and kill as many as I can, either way, why don’t I show you the full roster of Hatter’s little affair. Hopefully it’ll get the blood flowing for at least one of us.”

Alice led him through a maze of interconnected tunnels and roots, until they finally arrived at a staircase carved into a tree. They climbed until they reached a hole in the tree, Ryuji was pretty sure they had some technical tree name, but whatever, it was a tree hole. From the tree hole they could look down onto the Mad Hatter’s table. The “Walrus” and Carpenter had already made it back, joining what was becoming a pretty big group.

“Ideally, this will be everyone,” Alice said, “You’ve already seen the Hatter and Jabberwock in action. I’ve gotten no closer to figuring out what the Hatter’s new trick is or how to beat it though. It’s quite unfortunate Sayaka won’t be with us.”

“Otherwise, you’ve met the Walrus and Carpenter, and you saw the Gryphon briefly. He's a lion with wings and also made entirely of stone after I pushed him into a volcano.”

“The large turtle creature there is the Mock Turtle. I thought he had drowned, but I suppose that’s a foolish thing to think about a turtle. I have no earthly idea how he’s become so big.”

Even with the warped prospective, Ryuji could tell the beast was probably three meters tall. He also looked more like a tortoise than a turtle to him, but maybe that was what the mock part meant?

“The lone woman there is the Red Queen. I think she’s recently styled herself as something vampiric, you know red, blood, all that. But she’s red because that was the color of the chess set at a family friend’s house, and her fangs are because she’s supposed to be their cat. Rather typical of them to have only invited one woman I must say.”

Ryuji snorted.

“And last is them- him? Them.” Ryuji understood the confusion the instant he laid eyes on the rotund man with a second head coming out of his neck. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. They used to be twins before one of them suddenly transformed into one of those inky black creatures you’ve seen around here. I killed it, of course, but then Tweedle Dee ate its corpse. I thought him disgusting, mad, and foolish, but I suppose he was only one or two of those things, as his brother really did come back. Now they both inhabit that same body.”

“The Hatter could perhaps convince a few more, but I doubt all that many will stir. So if we want to get into the castle, this is the lot we’ll have to go through.”

“You don’t seem very worried about any of them,” Ryuji said. She was making light of everything, but Ryuji guessed he was trying to do the same thing. Maybe she was just trying to hide her nervousness.

But of course, she wasn’t, “I suppose I’m not. When my mother would get cross with us she was always fond of saying ‘I brought you into this world, and by God I’ll take you out of it.’ I never doubted her ability to do so, and I don’t really doubt mine. The only one I’m really worried about is the Hatter. He’s really changed to meet the occasion.”

“Huh. So if I took care of him, do you think we’d be golden?”

“Almost certainly,” Alice replied.

“Great. I can do that probably?”

‘I’m sure you can, Phantom Thief,” Alice said with a genuine smile. She believed in him way more than he did.

“Sayaka’s distraction will be at a specific time, yes? How about you go back and think on your part, and I stay here and think on mine, and the next time we see each other, it will be the signal to go.”

“Sure,” Ryuji said, two days to figure out how to deal with one guy? He had to be able to do that.

So why couldn’t he make that stupid voice in his head shut up, the one that kept telling him he couldn’t, the one that kept going “Poor stupid Skull…”

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

July 13th, 2029

In the early hours of the morning, a black cat stalked the streets of Tokyo. If it had any emotion, it might find the situation somewhat profane. When the Incubators came to Earth, they were meant to keep some sort of division. Kyubey was meant to operate in Japan, and Xiaohei was meant to operate in China. Kyubey and Xiaohei, it was almost a joke. There were others, of course, and those others had ended up breaking that stricture. Kyubey was one of them, and it had directly resulted in his current state. Humans might call that an “omen” or “sign of misfortune” but Xiaohei didn’t. Japan was the most important source of energy at the moment, and as such he was here.

He was accompanied by a strange man in yellow. While in Japan, he had managed to uncover Kyubey’s completed research into Artificial Magical Beings. The one he had created, Maelstrom, was soundly defeated by Doreen Green. Xiaohei used the technology a bit more specifically. Scorpion, the creation he walked with now, was created with a singular purpose, the death of Alice Liddell. He had intended to create a second one, for the purpose of the death of Sayaka Miki, but upon thinking about the problem, he came to a much simpler solution.

The Incubators had many ways of tracking down girls that might be viable recipients of a contract, and this morning he walked into an alley, seeking one such subject.

“Who’s there?!” Despite being asleep, the girl bolted awake as soon as Xiaohei and Scorpion entered the alley. Xiaohei already knew that this was a girl living on the streets who was full of despair, but her awakening revealed something more. She was blind.

Xiaohei got closer before he spoke, “I’m here to help you, if you can help me. There’s somebody dangerous in this city that needs to be destroyed, and you can do it if you form a contract with me and become a Magical Girl!”

The girl was far less apprehensive than he had assumed, “I get magic powers, and I get to kick somebody’s butt? Sounds awesome.”

“Excellent. There’s just one small matter to address and we can form a contract, you just have to make a wish.”

“A wish, huh?” She didn’t seem to be thinking very hard about it, “That’s simple. I wanna be queen of these streets!”

“Then our contract is sealed.” Energy flowed from Xiaohei to the girl, unlocking humanity’s innate gift for magic and placing her soul within a Soul Gem. And thus, the twelve year old Toph Beifong was transformed into a Magical Girl.

She could defeat Sayaka Miki and leave her a Witch, or be killed by Sayaka Miki and cause the girl to fall into despair. Xiaohei had no real preference for one option or the other.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Sayaka woke up later than she was supposed to. After all, she had set up a sword lesson today. She got dressed as quickly as she could, then flew out the door to her apartment to meet up with her teacher.

The cafe they always met at (or outside rather, he was weird about going in for some reason) was only about a twenty minute walk from her apartment, although that was a little bit more stressful as a seven minute run. She went as fast as she could, and made it, just barely, on time.

Her teacher, Sakurai Yuuto, was leaned against the wall of the Milk Dipper Cafe, as if he had been there for over an hour. He watched her as she walked up to him panting, “I wouldn’t have cared if you were late, you know.” He looked like he was bothered she wasn’t twenty minutes early.

Sayaka was too busy panting to form a response. Yuuto gave her a second, then stopped leaning on the wall, “Well, I suppose we can skip a warm-up. You have your sword, right?”

Shit, she was out the door so fast she had forgotten to get one. Although, that wasn’t all bad she supposed, she had thought about telling him everything anyways, this just forced her hand.

“Uh… Do you mind if we talk about something first?”

“Sure,” Yuuto said, it seemed like he expected it.

“Alright, where do I start… Uh, you’ll believe me, right?”

“How about I start? Twenty-two years ago I was recruited by myself from the future to fight time traveling genies. If you’re telling me something more outlandish than that, I’ll be impressed.”

Sayaka laughed, “Guess you do have me beat. Alright, how about I start here.”

She transformed. It was probably a little dumb to do it in the middle of the street, with all the light it produced, but nobody else seemed to see. Her transformation ended, and she stood in front of Yuuto in a full Magical Girl outfit. He wasn’t surprised at all.

“If you can believe it, this is shockingly close to what I was expecting. So, if you can transform, what’s your issue?”

“Before, whenever I fought, I’ve been super reliant on, well… This,” Sayaka took her sword and cut her hand off to demonstrate her healing.

Yuuto recoiled back as a bit of blood splashed on him, “What the hell?!”

“Sorry! You were so chill with the transforming that I thought…”

Yuuto took a deep breath, “It’s fine, I’m all good. So you have a healing thing.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her old hand, writhing on the ground, spurting blood. For someone so battle hardened, he was weirdly uncomfortable with blood. Maybe time traveling genies didn’t bleed? “I’m fine, seriously, continue,” He said shakily.

“Ok, so usually when I fight I would rely on that, but the person I’m going to fight basically beats me if they hit me once, and they’re a way better swordfighter than me. That’s why I wanted to train with you.”

“Alright, when are you going to fight them?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Right… We’d better get to work then. I don’t think I’ll have a ton of time to teach you any theory, so we’ll just spar, and I’ll try and get as much into your head as I can.”

“Sounds great,” Sayaka said.

So, they headed to the park and began sparring. First touch wins. Sayaka… Did not do a lot of winning. Every time Yuuto hit her, he pointed out her error.

“Always be prepared to defend, even if you’re attacking.”

“If you’re going to lunge, your whole body has to move as one.”

“Your posture is terrible.” (He said this one a lot)

“You can’t just parry, you have to know what you’re doing next.”

“She can hit you anywhere, you can’t just hold a block and hope it will be good enough.”

As the day wore on, she started to win more often, but that seemed more like a testament to her Magical Girl stamina than any real improvement. At least, until the sun was setting.

Even tired, Yuuto’s skill eclipsed her by far, the point before last, he fended off her vigorous first offense, then got her with a killer feint, he went left, she shifted towards it, and then he slashed her right in the hip.

“Focus on the tip of the sword, You can feint everything else, but the tip only goes where the rest of the sword is going.”

She nodded, like she did with every piece of advice, doing her best to internalize it. Then they went back to a neutral position.

She took her stance, feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, weight on the balls of her feet, sword held at the center of her body. Rather than go in, she let Yuuto set the pace. He moved in slow and controlled, giving no clue as to where he was going to go. Any step could simply be a step, a lunge, a transition into a slash, or a feint. She did like he just said, focused on the tip of his blade. As he got closer, she tensed up. His eyes flashed down at her muscles, and he stepped forward again.

Finally, he gave something away. He lunged forward, but his arm didn’t move. His sword shifted down a little, and she got it. He was about to swing low, at her legs. She pushed her sword forward a little, so as not to give up that she knew, and he committed to the move. As the sword came at her ankles, she jumped. The swing went right over her feet, and she landed just before Yuuto finished his swing. He couldn’t move the sword under her weight.

She smiled and put the sword to his neck, “Gotcha.”

Yuuto smiled back, “That’s enough for today, let’s end on a good note. I don’t know if you need it, but take the rest of the day to rest, relax, and keep everything I told you in your head.”

‘Right, thank you so much, Master.” Sayaka sheathed her sword and bowed.

“No need to thank me now, you won’t know if I was worth anything until tomorrow, yeah?”

“But still, I’d have no chance at all without you,”

Yuuto sighed, “Whatever, you’re welcome. Now go get some rest already.”

Sayaka thanked him again, then finally took his advice and headed off. Once she was gone, Yuuto collapsed on a nearby bench. He was damn tired.

After a bit, Deneb showed up and sat down next to him, “Yuuto, you finally made a friend!”

“I guess so, just hope I was useful to her.”

“She’ll be fine. Her teacher is the best, even if he won’t admit it. She thinks so too”

Yuuto smiled, “Shut up Deneb.”

RANK UP! HIEROPHANT RANK 3

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

July 14th, 2029

Today was the day. Somehow, after hours of tossing, turning, checking her phone, eating, and going to the bathroom, she had somehow managed to get a decent amount of sleep. Or, y’know, an amount of sleep. She imagined Pukin sound asleep in that fancy hotel room and her stomach dropped, one second into the day and she was already at a disadvantage.

She shook her head, shouldn’t think like that, everything was gonna be fine. She started making some instant coffee and checked her phone. Braum would meet her at the tower with the stuff she wanted, that was awesome. No texts from Ryuji, but they didn’t really have anything to communicate anyways. The only real surprise was set of texts from Marceline.

heard about your thing

come to Doreen’s today

I might be able to show you something useful

Sure, is whenever fine?

totes

Awesome, I’ll head over in a bit

She finished her coffee, got dressed, and headed out the door. After a half hour train ride, she arrived at Doreen’s apartment. As soon as she walked in she wondered if this was a good idea.

“Yo! You’re finally here!” Marceline said. She was sat down next to a large tub of water, and a bowl of shattered glass.

“Uh…”

“This probably looks a little weird, but I was thinking about your fight, and as somebody that’s had about a thousand of super healing experience, I remembered a stupid trick you might be able to use.”

“And this stuff on the floor is related to that?” Sayaka asked.

“Yeah. Have you ever drowned before?”

Fear shot into Sayaka’s eyes, “Wait, are you gonna drown me?”

“Uh, yeah? It probably won’t kill you.”

“Probably?! I’m not gonna let you probably kill me.”

“Look, I’ve done this before, I didn’t die. If this works it’ll be super helpful, and if it doesn’t I’ll just turn you into a vampire and that’ll be super helpful. It’s a win-win.”

Sayaka was still apprehensive, “Except for the part where I have to get drowned.”

Marceline got a little more serious, “No, you’re right. I was trying to ease you into it by being jokey, but it is scary. The first time it’ll be scary. But I really do want to help you, please just trust me.”

God, was she really considering letting Marceline drown her? At some point she had made a promise to herself that since she had put her story out there she would let herself be more open next time she was with the support group girls, but this certainly didn’t count, right? She’d be stupid to guilt herself into being drowned?

She transformed and walked over to the tub, “Alright, let’s do it.”

Marceline grabbed her by the back of the head. “I promise this will be helpful,” She said, then dunked Sayaka into the water.

Drowning really does suck. Sayaka was used to her brain giving her panic signals, so she got the worst of both worlds. She felt a massive spike of fear, but was also able to think perfectly clearly. She knew it would be over faster if she just opened her mouth and inhaled, but it was so hard to make herself do that. Even though her body would do it by reflex anyways, it wouldn’t even hurt. Eventually, her logical brain won out, and she inhaled the water.

Her ability to think logically vanished instantly. That was not supposed to be there. Pure panic seized her. There was no way she’d be able to survive, she couldn’t heal water out of her lungs. She could feel something happening, but the water was still there, still there, still there. She started to thrash, but Marceline held strong.

It took about three minutes of panicking until she realized she wasn’t blacking out. Marceline was right, this couldn’t kill her. She stopped thrashing and gave a thumbs up, and Marceline let go. As soon as Sayaka was out of the water she started coughing.

Marceline laid her down and started doing chest compressions, “Sorry, it’d be faster if I just cut you open, but Doreen said I should try not to get a ton of your blood on her floor.”

It took a bit, but eventually, they got the water out. All Sayaka could say was “Woah.”

Marceline smiled brightly, “See, I told you it’d be helpful.”

“It was cool, but I don’t really see how it’s relevant to a swordfight.”

“It’s simple… Kinda. I only know this works because I've done it before, and I was looking it up yesterday and I mostly get it. Yesterday, when you were swordfighting, your body was getting tired, right?”

Sayaka was still confused, “Yeah?”

“And just now, you felt how your healing was going off all over your body, right?”

Wait… “Right.”

“Normally to make a part of your body not feel fatigue, you’d have to cut that part off and let it regrow, I’m sure you’ve done that before when you’re tired or something right?”

It clicked, “Wait, this is so smart! If I can’t breathe, every part of my body that needs oxygen will just make up for it with magic, I wouldn’t get fatigued at all. I wouldn’t even have to breathe.”

Marceline was feeding off her excitement, “Exactly! It takes a ton of magic, but isn’t that so sick? It’s literally like an anime super form.”

They were being loud enough that Doreen came out of her room, “Is the drowning part over?” “Yeah,” Sayaka said.

“And it totally works!”

Doreen smiled, “Cool. I don’t really wanna think about you inhaling glass, but I’m glad we could do something helpful for you.”

“Don’t feel like that, you are seriously like, the single most helpful person I’ve ever met.”

Doreen looked extremely flattered, “Thank you so much. Once you take care of this, the support group will always be here for you.”

“Totes,” Marceline chimed in, “Once you’re done with this, come out and hang with us.”

Sayaka smiled, “I’m already taken for right after this, but I’ll take you up on that sometime for sure.”

The world darkened for a moment, and for the first time, Sayaka was beginning to feel confident about all this. At the very least, she wouldn’t have to worry about having enough magic to use this trick.

RANK UP! MOON RANK 9

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

After a ton of thinking, it was the day of, and Ryuji was no closer to having a plan. But he was closer to a way to come up with a plan.

With the Phantom Thieves, whenever they got stuck on a mission, they just needed to gather intel on their target. And while this was not quite a one to one situation, he was starting to feel desperate.

So, as early as he could he headed into Wonderland. He had to find the Hatter, and figure something about him that would let him carry out his part of the plan, and he had to do it fast.

plop. Here he was.

Looking around briefly, he was still in the forest, which he more or less expected. He was also, once again, feet away from somebody looking for Alice.

Or two somebodys, he noticed the black second head coming off the man’s neck. Alice said these guys were the Diddle Brothers or something. “Well look…” The first brother said, pausing for an unnatural amount of time, “...What we’ve found here.”

“We should eat him!” The disembodied brother replied.

The bodied brother sighed, “We can’t do that, we’re meant to bring him back to the Hatter.”

“Can we eat him there?”

“No, we need ‘im to catch Alice.”

“Can we eat Alice?”

At this, the bodied brother bonked the other one on the head, “No, you dolt, we have to keep Alice alive, that’s the whole point of all this.”

“Oh.. right.” The head slinked back behind its brother.

Ryuji finally had a break to cut in, “Yo, y’all said you’d take me to the Hatter, yeah?”

The two looked at him, as if they had completely forgotten he was there, “Oh, yeah, right this way.” He started walking, not even bothering to restrain Ryuji. This was maybe stupid, but maybe it’d be fine? He just had to get in, talk to the guy, and get out.

Just about the only thing of interest on the walk over was the weird friggin way the Diddle Brother walked, he kept crouching and going back up for no discernable reason. He didn’t wanna say anything, but it was driving him crazy, why the hell was he doing it?

Before he was annoyed enough to comment on it, they reached the tea party. Some of the creatures were out looking for Alice, but it was still like a damn zoo in here.

“Hatter, we found one of the people we was meant to be lookin’ for, uh… Rooney.” He swept to the side, and put his hand out, revealing Ryuji. This one finally clued Ryuji into what was weird about all his mannerisms, there were meant to be two people doing them.

The Hatter sighed, “You people, like cats trying to impress their master with a fresh kill. I ask you for Alice and you bring me any old blasted thing besides Alice. And that’s if YOU’RE EVEN LOOKING FOR HER,” At the last part, a few of the creatures loitering around the tea party got up and walked out into the forest.

“Now, how about you go back out there and look for Alice, and I’ll see what the Judge wants us to do with this one.

“Yes…” The bodied brother paused and bonked the other brother on the head.

“Yes sir,” They both said in unison. Then they turned around and went into the forest.

“Now, as for you…” The Hatter reached into his pocket and walked over to Ryuji. With the other hand he held Ryuji’s hands together, then he clasped them together. Ryuji couldn’t feel anything on them, but he could instantly tell they were bound together. So great, the glue shit couldn’t be felt, couldn’t be seen, shit, could he smell it? He lifted his hands to his face, it did smell kind of like gum…

“Ow!” He got hit in the back by a cane or some shit.

“Quit lollygagging,” the Hatter said, “I’m taking you to the courthouse.” He rapped Ryuji on the back with the cane again, softer this time, but pushing him to follow, Ryuji had no choice but to follow.

He was trying his best to remain positive. Sure, he had just gotten captured, but he had also figured out a way of detecting the sticky shit. Also, he was on the way to the courthouse. Maybe he’d just be able to steal it there? He was doing anything to avoid thinking that he might’ve ruined everything.

As they walked up the hill leading to the courthouse, the Hatter spoke to him, “I was lying back there, you know, the Judge asked us to alert her immediately if we found your blue haired friend, but she has something else planned for you. She sounded terribly mad about whatever previous plan of hers you ruined.”

Shit. She still wanted his head. Maybe that was usable though, if she wanted him dead, she wouldn’t spit him out, maybe he could just grab the treasure, and then he’d be the hero twice over.

It was this hope that carried him all the way into the main room of the courthouse Palace.

Hatter threw the doors open, “Oh Great Lady Shogun Judge, I have something that might be of interest to you.”

The room was pretty much the same as it was when they were first here, a courtroom that looked like it got hit by a damn tornado. The only major change was the Treasure, which really had solidified into a giant ornate mirror. Shadow Pukin was in the room, but was sat facing the wall of the room. He actually might have a shot at this.

“Captain Kidd!”

His Persona appeared directly in front of him and fired a cannonball, he ducked under it, and it struck the Hatter, carrying him clean out of the room, and then ripping straight through his chest. The cannonball flew out of the courthouse, and deposited the Hatter on it’s floor. With him gone, Ryuji sprinted towards the Treasure, Captain Kidd at his back. If he could just get it out of there, the Palace would start to collapse, just a couple more feet…

“Did you truly believe you’d get one over me again?” Shadow Pukin turned around. A tentacle holding her rapier flew towards Ryuji. He juked to the left, but it wasn’t aiming for him. It was aiming for Captain Kidd.

As soon as the rapier hit Ryuji felt like a limb had just gotten hacked off. Even in the real world he could feel Captain Kidd, it was an extension of his self, his true self in some ways, he could use him as easily as he breathed, and now it was gone.

Shadow Pukin retracted the tentacle, and Captain Kidd floated over and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. His Persona floated upwards until it held him eye level with Shadow Pukin. She rooted through his pockets, grabbing his shotgun and phone, then grinned madly.

“Looks like our idiot thief is all out of tricks,” She cackled madly.

With the part of himself missing, and the sinking feeling in his stomach, the words seared Ryuji. He really was a fucking idiot. Why the fuck did he let anyone rely on him?

“You owe me a public execution, and I intend to collect,” Shadow Pukin said, but he barely even registered it.

Fuck.

[u/GuyOfEvil → u/GuyOfEvil]

Sayaka had decided to spend the rest of the day with Doreen and Marceline. She didn’t think she had the time to get any more prep in, so the best thing to do was to just stay as relaxed as possible. She also felt weird about walking around with plastic bags full of glass shards for any longer than she had to.

So, Doreen had made them some tea, and they were mostly just sitting around.

“I was kinda out of it when you guys were telling me,” Doreen said, “you’re stealing Pukin’s treasure, right?”

“Yeah,” Sayaka said, “Or at least, Ryuji is. I just have to keep her distracted in the real world.”

“Gotcha,” Doreen replied.

“Ryuji…” Marceline said. “Is he really gonna do it all by himself? I like the guy, but it drove me crazy how unconfident he was about everything.”

“He’s fine,” Sayaka said, “Didn’t him, y’know, saving all of our lives change your estimation of him?”

Marceline just shrugged.

“Although, I still haven’t heard from him, maybe I should text him.”

She dropped him a quick You all good for today?

She got a reply back weirdly fast, I’m going to kill your friend

Her blood ran cold. Why the hell did she think Pukin would just sit on her thumbs for three days. She looked around the room for a squirrel.

“I need to get to Pukin, now!”

Doreen waved a hand, and the squirrel ran out of the room. Sayaka followed it as fast as she could, staying transformed. She figured this was the point of the whole thing, getting her to waste energy now, but Pukin really would kill Ryuji, she had no choice. She kept running as fast as she could.

She was so focused on running she didn’t notice a sheet of solid rock as it flew into her. Half the bones in her body broke and she ragdolled across the street. She bounced a few times until she was deposited at the feet of a little girl, couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

“Sorry lady, but a cat told me I’ve gotta kill you.”

---

Pukin inhaled the last of a chinese food delivery order. She had done practically nothing over the last few days other than sit in this hotel room and eat. Even though she was pretty sure Sayaka Miki would give her no trouble, the idea of showing up in anything other than top form somehow felt like it shamed her.

Which made it truly tragic that somebody was attacking her. A chain flew through the wall of her hotel room with a blade on the end of it. She lazily drifted to the side, and the chain sailed past her. It quickly retracted, and Pukin could see a man dressed in yellow through the hole. He was preparing to do something that would probably break the wall down, and then he’d probably say something to her, and then… God, what a bore. Why couldn’t it be sunset already.

As he drew his head back and prepared whatever the previously described move was, Pukin stepped to the side of the wall. Once the wall was burned down, she slipped through the edge of the hole and stabbed the man in the side.

He didn’t want to kill her, in fact, he wanted to… This wasn’t working, was it?

“Surprised?” The man asked. Yes, idiot, obviously she was surprised. And she had little patience for solving the riddle. She cut a circle out of the man’s yellow outfit and revealed the answer. He was a skeleton; no flesh for her to pierce. Fascinating.

He removed his mask to reveal an accompanying skeletal head, “You took everything from me, and now I’m gonna take it back.” He was speaking Japanese. She was surprised not to remember him, had she really killed that many people here?

The man prepared to do another fire breathing attack, and she spotted Xiaohei out of the corner of her eye. Of course he was here, despite ostensibly being beings of pure logic, Incubators sure did love to gloat.

She jumped to the edge of the roof to avoid his attack. So far he seemed like a total pushover, a man who had been a fighter in life and had awoken magical abilities a few days ago. But if he was the creation of an Incubator, and she could think of practically nothing she could do to actually kill him.

She dodged his chain again. In fact, there was a pretty much surefire strategy for defeating an Incubator. Although they were smart, they were completely unprepared to deal with the rapid evolution of humanity. So she would just have to rapidly evolve.

The man teleported next to her and slashed at her with a knife, which she lazily parried. She slashed at him, confirming she couldn’t cut his bones, which she already figured. She could perhaps beat him in a long, drawn out battle in which she wore him down and eventually cracked him open, but that was probably exactly what the Incubator expected. Something else would work far better.

Honestly she didn’t even care how she was being attacked at this point. Whatever he tried was easily avoided

It wanted to take her to Sayaka Miki.

The squirrel ran off, and Pukin followed it, her increasingly frustrated attacker following close behind.

---

Sayaka went flying again. God this was frustrating. She had spent the last three days doing everything she could to sharpen herself as a weapon, and her reward was this. A fight where she was a swordswoman and her opponent was a child.

The child launched another boulder at her, which she easily dodged. If she was on, the girl had no hope of hitting her, her attacks were too slow, too telegraphed, too raw. It was just, she couldn’t bring herself to stab a child, and any hesitation or attempt at some hand-to-hand move was enough for her to catch a giant rock wall to the face.

She charged in again, at the moment the closest thing she had to a plan was to take the next hit as bloodily as possible, and hope that would scare the girl off. The girl stomped on the ground, the thing she had been doing to create a rock wall, and Sayaka jumped, clearing the rock wall half way as it went flying towards her.

It caught her legs but not her torso, and the top of the wall acted a little bit like a blade. Her legs and upper half were partially separated, but her spine stayed mostly intact. She managed to push herself over the wall and land just in front of the girl, a bloody misshapen mess.

“I heard cracking, how the hell aren’t you dead?”

She made another rock wall and knocked it over like a domino. Sayaka did not really want to take this one, and managed to roll out of the way. She remembered her first Magical Girl fight with Kyoko. If Kyoko was here, she’d be able to beat the girl bad enough so that she’d get what she was into. But Kyoko wasn’t going to come, Kyoko was dead.

She instantly felt guilty for the thought as somebody else arrived, Pukin.