There's a girl with short pink hair, a jean jacket with patches, a serious look on her face, and a biology textbook open in front of her, absentmindedly eating.

Another girl, over in the corner, staring out the window with her brow furrowed. She's apparently ignoring her food. Most of her stuff's pretty nondescript.

And a third girl, her orange lunchbox pushed to the side, apparently trying to nap. She, like the other two, is also alone.

Well, she doesn't want to interrupt a good nap. And studying is probably important.

She sets her stuff down by the girl staring out the window. "Hi! Anybody sitting here?" she asks.

"No."

"Hi, then! I'm Ariel, I'm new here, what's your name?"

"I'm Sue. New city or just school?"

"New city! I move around a lot, so I'm always on the lookout for new friends."

"And I looked friendly?"

She shrugs. "Looked like you could use a friend, maybe. If you'd rather I got lost, I'm amenable to that too."

"I don't like talking to people. You can sit, though."

"I do like talking to people, though... I'm gonna see if anybody else is more interested in social, sorry for disrupting your groove."

She picks up her backpack and relocates to Textbook Girl's table. "Hey there! I'm Ariel, I'm new in town!"

She looks up, smiling. "Oh, hey! Welcome, I guess! I'm Sakura. Been here a couple years."

“Oh, you were once the new girl too? Nice.” She sets down her backpack. “Sakura is a really pretty name! And your hair is such a nice color, too!"

She touches one strand, smiling. "Heh, thanks! It's a bit of a pain to keep up, but I like it."

"I tried to dye my hair with Kool-Aid a couple years ago and it was a disaster, I've got nothing but respect for anybody who can make it work."

"Heee. It is a bit more complicated than just Kool-Aid! Though I guess if your hair's pale enough you could get a tinge... My friend Anna's like that. Platinum blond."

"I didn't just pour Kool-Aid in my hair! I looked up this whole procedure online where you mix Kool-Aid powder with conditioner, but my hair was longer then, and I had trouble sectioning it out so I could get it all the way down to the roots, and I was too impatient to let it sit long enough to permeate properly, so it was all uneven and stuff, and it just ended up getting on my pillow anyway. That was what got me kicked out of that set of fosters, they got super mad about the pillow and me wasting the conditioner and I was like 'can you guys for once in your lives chill' and then whoops, back to the agency."

She sighs. "Man, I have no idea why some people decide to interact with kids, like, ever..."

“I know, right? Those weren’t like, the worst ones I’ve had, but like, hot take? If you can’t deal with Kool-Aid stains on a pillow, maybe don’t be foster parents. Or maybe just chill.”

She laughs. "The weirdest are the people who can't handle messes and decide they want a baby."

“Oh, man, yeah - thankfully I never had to deal with that kind, I was with my mom until I was 10. Then she vanished under mysterious circumstances and I was introduced to the wonders of The System.”

"My dad and mom split before I can remember - apparently a toddler was the last straw for mom. Live with dad now, and he's really chill."

"Nice! Cool parents are cool."

Ariel takes a moment to examine the patches on Sakura's jacket.

"They are!"

Visible from the front, there's a biohazard one, a skeleton garden, a rainbow heart pin, a cherry blossom, a first aid patch, two that look kind of like Girl Scouts patches...

"Nice jacket!" Ariel confirms. "I like the skeleton garden. And all the other ones."

"Thanks! I've been collecting them for a while now."

"They're really cool. The cherry blossom one is cute - because it's a sakura, right? I only really know the connection because of anime, which is maybe a little embarrassing."

"Yeah. It's maybe a bit silly, but I actually do like the flowers..."

"I don't think it's silly at all! I think it's nice having something your name actually means, and having it be something interesting is even better. Ariel means lion of God in Hebrew, I always have to explain that when people think I'm named after the Little Mermaid."

She laughs. "That'd get annoying! I like the original tale, actually, but yeah the actual meaning's more distinguished."

"Yeah, definitely. I don't even mind the movie, it's cute! Just, I don't think that's what was on Mom's mind when she named me."

She bites her lip for a second. "By the way, this is gonna sound a little bit out of nowhere, but do you want to come to the mall with me after school? I've gotta get some new clothes, and I always feel kinda weird going to the mall alone. Mall visits should be cheerful wandersome occasions with friends."

"Only if we invite one of my friends - she's a big mall junkie, and will pout at me if I don't take her along."

“That’s no problem at all! More the merrier, and all that."

Ariel looks around for more topics of conversation. Her eyes fall on the napping girl-

- last night, she had a dream - a nightmare - she was watching as a girl - that girl - fought against insurmountable odds - something big - something without mercy or remorse - she stood on a precipice, watching her fight, and a creature said to her, You can change this, you have the power to change it - the girl looked at her, full of despair - Make a contract with me, and become a magical girl! -

- the moment is over. She shivers. "Whoa."

"Something up?"

"Just got- déjà vu or something. My brain's trying to tell me I had a dream about that girl with the orange backpack last night, which doesn't seem super probable given I've never seen her before in my life."

"Huh. Brains are weird, yeah."

"I know! When I was younger-"

The bell rings. Ariel shakes her head. "Damn, I totally lost track of time. Should we exchange numbers or something, for the mall thing?"

"Yeah!" She scribbles hers down on a scrap piece of notebook paper.

Ariel does the same, picks up her backpack, and sets off, with one last look at the girl with the orange backpack.

Girl with the orange backpack heads off for class a bit after her, apparently not noticing her at all.

It would probably be weird for Ariel to feel slightly disappointed by that.

She's slightly more distracted than she already was, during her afternoon classes, trying to pin down the details from her dream. She doesn't usually care about her dreams, but they're not usually this weird, or this coherent. What was that thing the other girl was fighting? What was that creature that was talking to Ariel? Why was she so hesitant to take its offer?

After school, she uses her phone to triangulate the location of both Sakura and the mall, and they meet up. "Hey there!"

Sakura has a friend with her, a girl wearing a purple halter top, white tank top, and purple shorts, with her platinum blond hair pulled into a high ponytail.

"Hey!" Sakura says. "This's Anna, the friend I was telling you about."

"Hiya. Ariel, right?" Anna says, sticking her hand out with a grin.

"That's me!" Ariel gives her a firm handshake. "Nice to meet you, Anna, I've heard nothing but good things about you."

Anna laughs. "Sakura mostly just said you're a friendly sort and seemed promising," she says, chipper.

Sakura rolls her eyes. "Come on. You needed clothes, right, Ariel? Got a planned price range and budget and all?"

"Clothes, yeah." She lays out a price range and budget that would be reasonable for an average teenage girl with reasonably permissive parents, which she is not.

"We know some good places for that all, yeah."

"Great!"

Ariel proves to be just as outgoing while shopping as she was at lunch. She always seems to have something relevant to say, no matter the current topic, but she tries not to monopolize the conversation too much.

Her clothing preferences are a little bit out there; half the stuff she picks out might as well be from a different planet from the rest. For her first day at school, she wore a black and silver western shirt, long swishy red skirt, and black steel-toe combat boots embroidered with roses. She deliberates over baby-pink polo shirts, graphic tees that say things like HAVE FEWER OPINIONS or MY EYES ARE OVER HERE ->, a biker jacket with a flaming skull on the back. She's pretty clearly having the time of her life.

And so's Anna! She compliments Ariel on her fashion sense, helps her pick out things that set off her complexion well or go with other pieces, points out things that seem to be striking a chord Ariel's going for, apparently has a perfect memory of every clothing store in the mall and what they tend to carry and even recalls a few places having sells...

Sakura seems mostly content to just spend time with her friends.

Anna seems to get what Ariel is going for, which is great. They can spend a very companionable amount of time buying clothes and chatting about various topics!

Then, as they're cutting towards the exit - after dark - around the back of the mall, something begins to feel... Off. The air's heavy. Everything sounds weird, distant, like their eardrums are about to pop.

The lights flicker.

"...uh. Anybody else feel kind of weird?"

"Yeah. What's going on?" Sakura says, looking around, worried.

Anna has a hand to her head, and is frowning, eyes not focusing well.

"I don't know, this is- Anna, you okay?"

Sakura goes to help Anna stand, as Anna says, "I really don't think so..."

"Okay, that's a problem." Ariel moves to support Anna's other side. "I vote we continue toward the exit, but if the weird feeling gets worse we go backwards and find another exit?"

"Yeah," says Sakura. "Come on."

She starts moving.

Ariel helps support Anna and moves with purpose toward the exit.

An injured creature runs towards them out of a gloomy side corridor. White with red markings, long ears. Breathing heavily, bleeding.

Oddly familiar.

"Oh what now-"

Ariel gets hit with a wash of déjà vu and shudders. "Goddammit. Sakura, can you support Anna on your own? I need to make a bad decision."

"Yeah."

She takes more of Anna's weight.

Ariel snatches the creature up in both hands, fully prepared for it to start scratching the living hell out of her, because she is picking up an injured animal and this is a terrible idea.

It presses into her.

And somebody familiar rounds the corner - following the same path as the creature.

She stops short when she sees Ariel.

She's dressed like she was in the dream. Orange and dark blue dress, orange shield...

Oh thank fuck it's domesticated. It's a little bit weird for it to be this friendly even so, but she is not looking the mystery animal in the mouth.

"I love your color scheme," she says inanely to the girl from her dream. "Is this yours?" She nods to the creature.

"Thanks. And, yeah, can you hand him to me?"

'Don't let her take me,' a voice echoes in Ariel's head. Somehow, she knows it's the creature's.

Ariel startles. “Jesus, this day just keeps getting weirder... He says he doesn’t want to go with you.”

"He's not trustworthy."

“See, here’s the weird part? One of you lied to me just now. It wasn’t him.”

"Truth and trust aren't the same thing."

"I'm not handing a person over to someone he's afraid of without a very good reason. Also, my friend just had a stroke or something, and my priority right now is getting her help, not arguing with you on the basis of zero evidence about whether this adorable telepathic cat is secretly evil."

"Your friend needs help because there's a monster that feeds on emotions nearby. If you'll let me touch her, I can heal the effect."

Ariel wracks her brain for ways this could be some kind of trap. She sucks at distrusting people.

"...fine," she says. "I'm still not giving you the talking cat, but if you can heal Anna, please do."

She doesn't get too close to the talking cat - though she keeps him in her line of sight.

She taps Anna, who sways then blinks, apparently better.

"You guys should leave before the monster gets here. And that thing is called Kyubey. They like to try manipulating young girls into deals for their souls. I'd suggest just avoiding them."

"...okay, I'll bear that in mind. Thanks for your help. Come on, guys."

She heads for the exit, still carrying the Kyubey in her arms.

The hallway is now a dark route into - what looks an awful lot like a nightmare carnival with enormous rose vines growing through it.

There's things moving around them, weird distorted shadows and walking roses...

The girl in the orange dress curses and pulls out a gun from behind her shield, aiming at the moving things.

Ariel curses too, and backs up to be nearer the girl with the gun. "You got a spare pistol in there? I don't have magic powers, but I can shoot pretty well."

"Yeah. Don't shoot yet; they haven't noticed us."

She hands one over. The gun's a caliber and weight Ariel's familiar with, too.

"Normal guns don't work too well, but I've modified these. Ideally I go ahead, draw their attention and get to the center - I can tank hits better than you - and you guys stay as near the edge as you can."

“I think we can manage that.”

She looks back at Anna and Sakura. Do they look like they can manage that?

They look scared, but resolute, and Sakura nods, sharply.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

It’s not that Ariel isn’t scared. But her life is a YA novel now. She's been preparing for this her whole life.

Also, she has a gun, which helps a lot.

"I'll be back. And Kyubey's probably gonna try pushing you into a trade for power, so ignore him, okay?"

She takes off without waiting for an answer, jumping clear over a row of monsters before firing into them - definitely drawing their attention.

Ariel's gun is down by her side, because she knows basic firearm safety; Kyubey's on her other shoulder.

She keeps an eye on the closest flowers.

Some of them start coming close and seem to notice the three.

The orange girl is mowing through her section, but she's advancing farther and farther from the girls, and losing the attention of the monsters near the edge.

'If you made a contract with me, you could be safe, and fight like she does,' Kyubey says, to Ariel and Sakura.

"...Not even gonna try to deny you're after our souls?" Ariel wonders, shooting a flower in the center of its blossom.

Flower: explodes.

'That is a misleading and inaccurate summary. Your soul isn't part of the contract. I give you a wish, and in exchange you become a magical girl and fight witches like this one.'

"Not being helpless sounds nice..." Sakura says, glancing around nervously.

"Hey, guys, who are you talking to? I don't hear anything," Anna says.

"Oh, yeah, I all kinds of want to be a magical girl, but," she shoots another flower, "the one girl who seems to have taken him up on it really doesn't want us to do it, which sets off some alarm bells for me, and I want to give this whole thing way more thought than I can afford right now. At the moment, I've got sixteen bullets left, so we're safe for now; if it looks like I'm gonna run out, maybe then we talk about making some hasty life choices. Anna, we're talking to Kyubey, the little critter on my shoulder. You missed his entrance because you were... hypnotized by a witch, apparently. You can't hear him talking?"

"No! I can't see him either! Or whatever you're shooting at!" Anna says, starting to breathe a bit hard.

"This is really freaky..." Sakura mutters.

"Shit, that's unfortunate. Kyubey, how come Anna can't see the magic stuff?"

'She isn't a potential magical girl. Only potentials and magical girls can see me or any witches.'

"Okay. Apparently we can only see him because we've got magic potential. So just - sit tight, and I'll keep us safe, hopefully just with target practice but potentially by making very hasty life choices."

She shoots a couple of flowers that are getting a little too close for comfort.

Flowers continue encroaching -

And then someone in a flat white, sharply angled dress with smooth black accents arrives through a runed portal that opens near the edge. She has a bow out, and starts firing glowing arrows that each take out a number of monsters -

"The other girl went in already, right?" she shouts over.

"Yeah," Ariel calls back. "Thanks for the help, I don't have so many bullets left."

"I'll clear these guys then go help her."

She's apparently both faster and more efficient than the orange girl, taking down everything in eyesight, then taking off after the orange girl.

The landscape dissolves soon after, revealing the mall once more.

The two magical girls are staring at each other, fairly nearby, the one in white frowning and the one in orange looking uncomfortable.

Ariel offers the girl in orange her gun back. "Never caught your name, did I. Uh, I'm Ariel."

"Nausicaa," she says, taking the gun. "It's - good to meet you."

"Sue," says the girl in white. "Nausicaa - I'm guessing you're new, so you can have the grief seed. Though - why were you bothering to attack Kyubey? You do know his bodies are expendable, right?"

She pauses, then mumbles, "None of your business."

Ariel bites her lip. "I don't want to pile on, but this is kind of important - why don't you want us becoming magical girls? If Sue hadn't shown up when she did..."

"Most end up dead pretty quick, and wishes go wrong a lot."

"...Is that it? Then I still want to do it. I'll think really hard about my wish, and I won't get too attached to it, but - I don't want to be prey. I want to be a hero."

"You won't. All you'll cause is misery. For every joy that your wish brings you... You'll just inflict equal misery on yourself and everyone around you. Magical girls only hurt people - and when you fail, because everyone fails, you'll become a witch, and go on hurting people for eternity. There are no heroes in this world."

"You did not mention that I'd become a witch."

"...I'm kind of used to it being an infohazard. Magical girls who learn that they can become a witch get upset - which makes your magic run out faster, and if your magic runs out you turn into a witch."

Now somewhat concerned, Ariel glances at Sue.

"I've known for years. But, yeah, usually an infohazard."

Ariel blinks a couple of times and does some mental math. “You were fighting witches in middle school? Man, and I thought my seventh grade was rough.”

"Elementary. I wished at seven."

"Jesus Christ." She shakes her head. "So - the world is full of sanity-rending monsters. The only people who can fight them are magical child soldiers on a death timer, who are manipulated by shady yet adorable alien creatures, who are in fact perpetuating or possibly effecting the situation by the very creation of those magical child soldiers. I can see how that could lead to despair spirals, yeah."

"Yeah. Bad situation all around."

"Kyuubey, any commentary? Feel like you deserve the chance to explain whatever scheme you're running here."

'Witches threaten humans. They feed on negative emotions and destroy positive emotions. They increase deaths dramatically, and you can track a large witch's movement by watching for spikes in suicides and homicides. Left uninterrupted, a witch will spawn familiars, which will grow into new witches, and witches can come from sources other than 'was once a magical girl.''

'The higher a girl's potential when she wishes, the more powerful she will be. Potential changes over time, and it's highest between seven and seventeen, with the exact timing of the greatest potential spike varying between people. Prepubescent magical girls actually tend to survive longer, because they have more steady and less complicated emotions and by the time they hit puberty they already have experience. It's puberty that's dangerous emotionally, and magical girls who survive past puberty can live for centuries. Magical girls also destroy more witches than the single one they can create, and not all magical girls become witches.'

"Okay, so, pro tip for parsing Kyubey - they can't or won't tell actual direct lies, but they can imply whatever they want. 'Witches weren't always once a magical girl' is true even if the only sources of witches are magical girls and familiars spawned by witches, though I actually don't know if they can come from other sources, and Kyubey claims not to know all the potential sources of witches, but will start expounding on emotional magic theory in a way that doesn't actually answer the question if you poke."

"Also, I've never gotten a straight answer on if you ever can fall below the minimum wish threshold for potential if you're still conscious. Also note the 'can' in there, and that 'all magical girls become witches' would be false even if exactly one magical girl avoids that fate - which, there's a magical girl whose wish apparently precluded ever witching and who's been alive for millennia - and is technically false given you can't prove we'll ever become witches."

"Of course, it isn't clear that wishing's always dumb - I don't regret it, for one."

"Thanks, I didn't catch all of that - although I did notice that he said nothing meaningful."

She rubs his ears. "You really are a fucker, huh," she says into his fluff. "Awful boy. Squishy little bastard. Jail for one thousand years."

'One thousand years of jail would be very inconvenient and rather disproportionate.'

"I'm bringing you before the Hague," she tells him, playing with his little toe beans.

"Anyway," she says, abruptly remembering that everyone else is still here, "I think I'm not going to become a magical girl just yet - partly because I can't really think of anything to wish for. But I want to keep the option on the table - like Sue said, it's not always a bad idea. I'd rather go out fighting than be unable to fight. And if I do have a good wish idea and I'm not in immediate danger, I'll run it by y'all first. Does that sound agreeable to everyone?"

"I don't actually care. It's your life. But I'll tell you if you're being stupid if you come to me, sure."

"It... Makes sense, yeah," Sakura says, slowly.

"Still here, still can't hear half this conversation, but like, wishes, powerful, so..." Anna says, squinting at Ariel's shoulder - eyes not quite landing on Kyubey.

"I - can talk you through wishes but you shouldn't, you absolutely shouldn't, it's never a good idea."

"I know you don't like the idea. But - if I can really make a difference, if I can word something well enough that it can't go wrong - I want to try. I probably can't wish world peace, or something, I know that's dumb, but - maybe I can make things better. For everybody."

She seems to be struggling with something.

"I - the more you try to use this to make things better - the worse it always gets."

"I can't... work that way. I can be careful, I can look before I leap, but I can't just resign myself to doing nothing. I know you regret it, whatever you wished. But if I can help people... it doesn't matter if I regret it. If the game is rigged, then I won't start playing until I think I can do it right, but I have to try."

"...I don't regret my wish. At all. Ever."

"...Sorry. I assumed... well. I hope I can find one that works as well for me."

She sighs.

"...what say we get out of this weird creepy place," Ariel says, placing Kyubey on her shoulder.

"Yes, please," Sakura says, Anna nodding firmly with her.