"If you want to see the serious firepower we should go out to the backyard so we don't damage anything in here." She nods to the door and starts heading towards it.

She follows, stumbling a bit on the way up. "I am probably more worried about what the other side's serious firepower can do to you. They're cooking up some really nasty stuff from what I overhear."

"The other side isn't one of the Darwinist nations you mentioned, right? So their stuff would be mostly metal?"

"Yes, most Clanker tech will rely on metal in one way or another."

"My magical girl name is Iron Maiden Magnetar."

"So you have magnetism 'magic'. Maybe it can crush walker-legs, bend gun barrels, and crumple tesla coils from a distance? Good stuff, unless they ambush you."

"It gives sensory feedback!"

"Hm, what kind of range? The big tesla cannons have ranges measured in kilometers, and the big slug-throwers get tens of kilometers."

"...I have a really good reaction time, so I'm less worried about the slug-throwers...maybe I should have a faraday cage?"

"Faraday cage is a good start but it'd have to be a big one to shield you from the plasma flash... Ferric chaff in the air would help there but still it's better to not be shot at probably."

"I think I need to learn more things about these weapons."

"Ironically enough you are talking to exactly the right person for that. They had me build tesla cannons for eight months. If it's any defense I didn't point out any of the obvious flaws I saw."

"Excellent."

Pause.

"How badly would you say you want this to work?"

"Well, a lot. Revenge and justice and saving lives in one tidy package. Not sure if you can put numbers on it or anything, hahaHAHA..." She wavers. "I think the lack of sleep is gaining on me."

"I ask because the way one becomes a magical girl in my universe is basically 'want power for altruistic reasons really hard and hope whatever it is that hands the powers out notices.' Wanna step through our door for a bit, give it a shot?"

"It sounds kind of permanent."

"I mean, it is, but it's also possible to just never transform and live exactly as though you had never become one--your choice, it just seems like it might help. For that matter, we should probably fetch more people from our world to help, it probably wouldn't even be difficult to get volunteers."

"Then I will totally grasp for altruistic power."

"Okay. I'll hold the door, you can step through and focus on the task at hand and Edie can round up some help."

"Let's do this! Even if I can't become a magical girl I can help dismantle the evil government anyway."

"Definitely."

She opens the door.

Edie darts through and starts making phone calls.

She steps through and closes her eyes and thinks about all the bad things the Nazis have already done, and how they keep getting worse. How other histories say 'worse' is an understatement. How she personally has suffered and seen people suffer under the evils of a sadistic, racist, uncaring government.

How she is going to do her damnedest to stop it once and for all. If she has to do it without power. If she gets to do it with power. If she dies trying. Maybe the her from two years ago wouldn't have been able to muster this kind of determination... But now, she knows almost any price will be worth it to turn the tide on evil tyrants.

To begin with, it's less like something happening and more like the moment when the lines on a blueprint click together to form a coherent whole in one's head.

She is surrounded by a sphere of cogs, each one whirring along with its neighbor in perfect harmony, to perform some grand ineffable task.

She sees herself, dismantling a Tesla cannon before it can fire.

She sees the tools of horror smelted, leaving their despotic wielders helpless to inflict harm upon the innocent.

She sees toxic or tyrannic systems, in Germany and elsewhere, interrupted, disrupted, destroyed.

She is offered a choice.

She can have this power. Will she?

Yes. She will.