But then the girl steps like she's starting to dance - and sparkles appear in the air around her!  Her pants billow out into a poofy dress, and a sword appears in her hand out of nowhere - and she vaults onto the roof of the school and vanishes!

Lila stares.

There's no way she could have hidden that dress or that sword anywhere.

Something interesting is happening!  Can magic be real after all?

But how can she join in the story?  She didn't see the magical girl's face - and (she stumbles back) she can't see her on the roof of the school anymore -

The young student who just turned the corner doesn't not lock eyes with the young woman she sees also boggling at the roof.  "...Did you just see someone absolutely trounce the standing-start high jump record while wearing a poofy skirt and holding a sword?  I need to know if I need to deal with having some sort of mental break in the past thirty seconds.  Though I'm pretty sure I'm not experiencing the - odd alterations to salience - that I would think might also appear with a hallucination, and you're looking for - whatever that was - too..."

Lila whirls, only to see another student in perfectly normal clothes with absolutely no magic visible.  Unfortunately.

Well, she's involved with the magic too now!

"Yes - and the sword and skirt appeared out of nowhere while I was watching her!  Complete with sparkles and... maybe ribbons?... and I was boggling too much to even ask her what was going on or who she is!"

"One presumably would!  ...Why the heck, if the existence of magical girls or what-have-you is not common knowledge -

"Why did we see her?  Am I going to have to watch out for some sort of - antimemetics task force trying to break into my house to keep the Masquerade up?  I do not like that idea..."

"I don't know!  But I hope someone shows up so I can find out what's going on!"

So I can be a magical girl too, she doesn't say.  She's suddenly hoping for that too much to say it out loud and have it dashed.

"... though yeah, if there's a Masquerade, maybe I shouldn't go telling just everyone... there has to be some reason we don't all know about them already, but..."

"For all we know, it's a really dumb one like 'hiding is traditional' - would you recognize the student if you saw them again, maybe we could ask them -"

"I - I caught a glimpse of her face while she was jumping, but maybe the magic changed her face too not just her clothes?  And I didn't recognize her; I don't know if she's even a student - this's a big school, but if they're hiding, maybe there's a secret Hogwarts next door?"

Speaking about names and faces - "You're Diana, right?  I think I remember you from English.  Lila."  She sticks out her hand.

"I - yes - good to meet you - again?"

She...shakes it!

"So unless we see her again, we need to track down clues some other way...  I wish I'd gotten a picture.  I've already looked for any traces of magic, so just looking again won't do any good... unless maybe it was there all along and we can suddenly see through hiding-spells now for some reason?  Do you have any other ideas?  I guess I could always run over to the buses and start yelling about magic?"

"Too likely to backfire, in my opinion.  You don't want a crackpot reputation; even if you find proof afterwards you'll be dismissed.  That would suck."

"Plus your Masquerade enforcers.  In fact..."

She sets down her backpack, pulls out her math notebook, and writes on the next page (angling it so Diana can read):  "Saw Real Magic.  Girl conjured a sword and jumped to the roof of the school.  Diana from English saw her too.  Going to try to find out how to be a magic girl too!"

A - creature that is definitely not a cat - lands on the page before she gets too far into it.

:I would prefer,: it thinks at her, :that you didn't finish writing that.  On the other appendage, if you wish to find out how to become a magical girl...All you need to do is ask me.:

Lila starts and almost drops her notebook.  "Yes!  Tell me how!"

A moment later, she looks over at Diana - "Did you hear that?  It said to ask it how to become a magical girl!"

:If you make a contract with me, you can become a magical girl!  I did not say that.:

Diana squints at the not-cat suspiciously.

"And what do you get out of it?  Power never comes free around here."

:It is in our interests to ensure the continued existence of the universe, no matter the cost, Diana Adelene Vitalis.  You surely know this.:

"...Then how the fuck does this lead to that?"

The creature that continues to be not a cat curls up on Lila's notebook, now that that surface is less unsteady from surprise.

(Being thrown about would damage its dignity, which it needs in order to bring this conversation to a preferable end.)

:The process of creating magical girls has results that are ultimately negentropic, despite the significant startup costs.:

A bit of suspicion has leavened Lila’s eagerness ever since the word “contract.”  She has heard the fairy-tales about Fay bargains.

At least entropy gives an explanation… at least for the “why” part.

“What would I be contracting to do?  As Dad says, nothing we do can really reduce entropy… at least without magic?”

:You would, in exchange for the otherwise unrealizeable potential energy of your soul, receive one "wish" in proportion to said potential.  Wishes are determined primarily by the intent of the bearer, but may be shaped by the words they choose to form them into things that are less satisfying - this, I tell you because buyer's remorse is not in my interests.:

Because magical girls produce more power, on net, if they do not immediately witch out.  Though of course, it is not actually saying that, or in any way acting to reveal it.

:No other obligations exist in the contract.:

"I'm giving you the energy of my soul?  What does that mean for me?"

That... doesn't sound not like a Fay bargain.

:My apologies; the prior communication was unacceptably imprecise.  In exchange for my assistance in assembling the necessary structures for converting that potential into useable energy.:

Being able to use up the energy of her soul still sounds like it might be bad... but on the other hand, magic!  And a Wish!

"And then... we get other magic?  Or was that other girl's wish to have magic swords and dresses and jumping?"

(She wouldn't dislike wishing for that, but... there could be more.)

:That was not her wish, no.  Transforming, and summoning a personal item that is usually a weapon, are inherent functions of being a magical girl.  Enhancing physical force is often a learned technique, as it was in this particular case.:

"...So why, exactly, is it usually a weapon?"

:I cannot answer that question.  The full extent of the factors that determine what a magical girl is most readily able to summon is not yet known.:

"How long do I have to decide my Wish?  There's so much I don't know about magic, and what I'd get anyway and what I'd want to wish for!"

:I am not, precisely, 'in a hurry' about this; however, due to factors I am unable to understand but that have been conclusively measured, you will get more value if you wish between now and the time you graduate this educational institution.:

"Oh, I won't be waiting that long!"

(She can guess what the value is - more time to have fun with magic and get involved in interesting things before being tied down to a job and boring normal grown-up life.)

"... Diana, what're you thinking?"

"I'm not sure, yet.  Something is still - rubbing me the wrong way, about this whole thing.  But - fuck, I can't let you go it alone, can I."

:There is no external factor stopping you from doing that, to my knowledge.:

" -- see?!"

She kneels down next to the cat-fay.  "You don't think like a human, right?  And we shouldn't be expecting you to?"  Pause.  "What are you?  Are you a Fay?"

:I do not and you should not.  I am an Incubator.  I am not a 'Fay'.:

"That doesn't change the point that I'm making that - we are being treated like numbers on a spreadsheet, there is a Masquerade, and we don't know why, and yet you're entirely ready to rush in where angels fear to tread!"

"But would you really rather be left on the outside of the Masquerade to wonder what could've been!?"

"I don't know, will I be?!"

:I do not do anything like wipe the minds of potential contractees.  That would be counterproductive.:

That combines with Diana's point about the Masquerade (still rattling about Lila's head) to give her some guess about the shape of things.

"So... can I go home and tell my parents about this?  Not saying I want to - they'll tell me to be safe and how I really should stay out - but someone would probably do that?  Unless you're only talking to people you know wouldn't do that?"

:They would find it very hard to believe you, even if you did magic directly in front of them.:

Which is not false.  Why this is, is, of course, another question entirely.

"A weirdness censor?"  It isn't really a question.  "That isn't the worst thing... even though I'm really glad I'm on the inside of that!  You too, Diana?"

"I do generally have a preference that I know things."

"What about we take the afternoon to think of our wishes and then... tonight?  Before school tomorrow?"

:You should know that you are presently only protected from the 'filtering' around certain things by virtue of your potential to make a contract,: the Incubator follows up.  :I do not expect either of you to lose that potential by tomorrow morning.:

Also true, albeit misleading in a way.

"...Gah.  Fuck.  Fine.  Tomorrow.  After school lets out and we've talked to that other girl, which," she glares at Kyuubey, "I'm sure you can arrange."

:I cannot guarantee her availability.:

"Then get her phone number or something.  Surely she isn't Baned, or the school would've exploded."

:The concept you communicated would not necessarily lead to this building exploding.  You are correct that magic has no particular detrimental effect on technology that it is not intended to.  I will ask the girl you saw.  I cannot guarantee she'll agree.:

Kyuubey is not planning to make her; Lila is quite firmly on the hook, and Diana will follow her out of misguided responsibility.

"Yes - and please do that today rather than waiting!"

:The request you have made of me will indeed be completed at an appropriate time.:

She's not really surprised by the non-answer.

"Thank you!  For everything!  How should I call you when I'm ready to make my contract?"

:I will contact you at the appropriate time.:

And then it is gone.

"...What, I say again, the actual, fucking, fuck."

She is going to support herself against this convenient wall, and try to process what just happened.

Lila looks around the world that's suddenly brighter even though she can't see any of the magic just now.

This really isn't a time to think about math homework, or to pretend the magic didn't happen amid a world that wouldn't believe her.

"Yeah... this's bigger than anything else that's happened to me... and there's still so much I don't know...  I was planning to stop by Emerald Books on the way home, but maybe I should check out old fairy tales instead for advice on wish wordings..."

...She can solve this problem.  "Read science fiction instead; it's got better explorations of how even well-meant ideals can go wrong.  You already know enough about fairy tales to not wish for something directly counterproductive, and - that's basically what we need to worry about in the department of wish planning.  I'm near certain there's still something we'll regret not knowing about all this, but - I can't just leave you to get fucked over by it."

"Of course there's something we'll regret not knowing - but I'd regret staying out a lot more!

"And - I'm glad you're here too, so I can talk to someone about this without having to make my wish first.  And if it does go wrong and you do end up twisted in some enchantment or something, I'll try my best to save you."

Diana nods firmly, in mutual assent.  "Seriously, though, just based on the vibes I expect the rug we get pulled out from under us isn't going to be a witch's curse - it's some sort of - externality."

Lila was half hoping for a similar promise from Diana, but then Diana is saying she's mostly in this for Lila in the first place... and that really is worth a lot in itself.

"You mean something from the magic itself, or from the Masquerade, or something like that?"

"Yeah.  From the magic.  At least the Incubators are plausibly strict utilitarians; I can - hopefully find the right way of feeling about things that whatever they'd gain by attempting to fuck with us is counterbalanced by my 'no, fuck that'.  Or something.  Why did you decide on tomorrow!  That's not enough time!"

"Because I know I don't want to wait any longer with a magical world beckoning me in!  Why would you want to wait?  Just to find out everything about it first?"

"Because it could be dangerous!  To both of us!  And I don't want to stand by and watch as you get yourself killed by rushing in too far too fast!"

"Yes, it could be.  But..."  She sighs.  "I don't think there're any dangers that mean I wouldn't want to make the contract in the end, and I don't think knowing them beforehand will..."

She pauses and taps her chin.

"Actually, that is a point.  Maybe there's something that considers us fair prey once we make the contract.  There was that odd point about weapons - I mean, I'd conjure a sword too just for the looks, but I'd conjure a lot of other things more often.  And maybe we could write some other terms about protection into the contract if we knew.  I still don't want to wait too long, but now I do want to talk to an actual magical girl first."

(Plus, the idea of talking to an Actual! Magical! Girl!)

Kyuubey may actually have to expend effort manipulating the magical girl that hunts here, then.  This is a lower-utility branch of probability-space.  If it experienced emotions, it could be said to be frustrated, but experiencing emotions does not maximize utility.

"I don't think that - whatever it is - is likely to agree to support us even if we're not producing value for it.  It's trying to maximize numbers.  Not be good to people."

Lila nods.

"So what shall we do now until we can talk to her?  I was planning to walk home - I'm over on Mulberry Drive - but I can brainstorm wish wordings just as well somewhere else.  Or read science fiction."  And put off math homework some more.

"...Have we been approximate neighbors this whole time and I never noticed?  I'm over on Crescent."

"Oh, great!  This'll be convenient!"

Lila slings back on her backpack and starts walking, if Diana will follow.

"We might have my house to ourselves, if we're going there - Mom's out at work, but Dad's schedule's unpredictable.  He's an astronomer at the university, and he never knows when something interesting will come up in the data."

"Huh.  You would think astronomy is a pretty - patient - discipline.  Or does he do, like, SETI?"  Diana will indeed follow!

"My mother is a bit...image-obsessed, so I can't invite you over right now myself because of the ongoing renovations."

"No, he works with comets and asteroids.  You'd think it's patient, but time on the big telescopes can be hard to schedule, and when you get it there's a rush to analyze everything as quickly as you can.  I think he'd like to look for aliens - when I was a little girl he liked to tell me he was checking to see if the asteroids were alien ships - but..."

She shrugs.  "Wonder if these magic cats even have a spaceship.  Anyway, my place it is?"

"...what, they have to watch it coming in live or not at all?  ...We should ask; the Incubator might even tell us given it - can't really impact much.  And, yes, your place."

This'll take a bit if they're walking, though!

At the end, when Jenny has nobly pierced the labyrinth and cut down its maker - she is disappointed to find it was just a familiar.  There's no grief seed; just the satisfaction of another quest done.

She runs her sword over a little patch of grass - it doesn't need cleaning, and wasn't dirty even if it had, but she still likes doing it - and then looks up to see another Kyuubey.

"Oh, looking for a grief seed?  Don't have any; you gotta wait."

:I am not visiting you to acquire grief seeds at this time.  I am looking to arrange for a potential magical girl to contact you, by her request.:

"Oh, huh."  She shrugs.  "Potential?  You talked to her and she wanted to talk to someone less annoying?  But then how'd you hit on me?"

She glances down at her half-empty soul gem, shrugs, and slings her sword over her shoulder.

:You were the magical girl they saw transforming.  I do not and will not lie and say I asked you about this when I did not do so, though my preference as to whether you accept and are available is likely to vary dependent upon factors that are presently unknown to me.:

Maybe she should've looked around before changing?  Oh well; no harm no foul.

"Sure, why not.  Where are they?"

:I will arrange for you to meet the potential that asked to meet you tomorrow after your educational institution closes, if it is necessary.:

"I'm up for it now - why wait?"

Everyone's telling her to be more patient - her parents, her teachers, the Kyuubeys - but there're so many things that can be done now.

:I would prefer you not scare them off.:

She throws up her hands.  This's nothing new either.  "Oh, okay.  You know about any other witches around here I can go hunt?"

:I do not, at present, detect any witches' Barriers within a mile.:

This, too, is normal.

"Oh, too bad.  Guess I'll be going home then."

She jumps to the next rooftop, her skirts billowing in the air for a moment, and then down to the street.

Lila's house is empty when they get there.  She throws off her school backpack, glances at the speaker system, but instead heads for the living room with wall-to-wall bookcases.  "A lot of that's my fantasy and my dad's astronomy, but there's a good amount of sci-fi if you want it.  Or - wishes."

She sinks down on the couch.  "What're you thinking?"

"I'm - not sure.  But my first thought is that - it has to be something you mean.  It has to be something you can wish for with all the power of your heart, if you want it to - count.  And I'm not sure why that is, but...I'm in the habit of trusting instincts like that."

"Of course.  If I get one wish, I don't want to spend it on anything else.  I'd want to wish for... being able to meet challenges.  Being able to be significant.  Being able to see the big story.  Or something like that."

"...I think...Being able to meet your challenges is a very good wish.  That - that no matter what faces you, you will meet it on a field you can win.  ...Perhaps I should wish for that."

"If I'm trying make it proof against something like evil genies, I'd also want to wish to actually have some significant challenges... but the magic cat did say it'd be mostly by my intent... though it said the words also matter..."

"...I will be quite happy if I never have to face another challenge again after defeating the deaths of men and stars."

"Defeating all death!?  Is that a hope, or plan, or -"

"A windmill to tilt at, I think, except that - Sancho Panza - the Incubator - is not trying to turn me away; they're spurring me on."

"... maybe we can actually do something toward that now that there's magic in the world?  At least maybe you could wish yourself immortal and then maybe see what else you can work on in the next centuries?

"- immortal and eternally young, of course; you don't want to end up like Tithonus from that Greek myth."

"What kind of shitty immortality allows you to senesce?  But - Wishing for personal immortality is thinking too small and trying to hammer a screw.  You do not attack the enemy where they are strong; you attack where they are weak."

"Ask the Greeks.  They had all sorts of weird curses like that.  Hey, you know, if magic can make you immortal, maybe there're ancient Greek magical girls and we can ask them!"

"Somehow I don't imagine they visit the middle of American suburbia very often," she quips, "but hey, it's worth asking."

She gets up and runs her fingers over the spines of the science-fiction shelf.  "... What were you saying about science fiction helping choose wishes?"

"Well, have you ever heard about the Three Laws of Robotics?  By Isaac Asimov?  It's - they're things that sound like they're eminently sensible ways to direct robots to handle their goals, that solve their own problems, but...they don't.  Because they're - even though they're driven by the best of intentions, they're not - stable enough, I think, that you can - if you made a wish that everything would be okay, where would it get the definition from?  Would it make things incapable of ever being good?  And that's the sort of thinking I think you need to learn how to do?"

"Yes, I've heard of them...  But can we know that?  We can ask this other magical girl about her wish, sure, and we can ask that magical cat, but I don't think any of them will really be willing to tell us about how magic gets its definitions!"

"We can't - know it, know it - but nothing is truly knowable and we can achieve sufficient confidence that we're not...

"Going to get monkey's pawed?  Or just...get only what we said because it wasn't compatible with what we meant.  That's a concern I think you're - better suited to spot, perhaps - but I'd hazard I've got better unintended consequences radar."

"Hmm, how?  The cat doesn't seem like it wants to answer too many questions.  At least not from us."

"...Yeah, but - I don't think it's the kind of creature that can lie about trades if it wants anyone to make them.  The all-powerful gambler can't cheat, or what good is playing?  So we have - enough, already.  The variable in this situation is us more than it's the Incubator's incentives."

"You mean, if we're specific enough and we write out all the conditions like lawyers?"

"If we write out the right conditions and - figure out where having a specific condition could only hurt us, instead."

She flops back down on the couch.  "Getting into details like this sounds like something we should be doing after we talk to whatever-her-name-is."

"We're not going to have enough time then unless you legitimately think you could hold out under both internal and external pressure.  I saw your expression; you really want magic.  That cat wants our contracts, and it wants them - yesterday.  So we need a plan, before we meet them again."

She nods.  "So for me... what sort of challenges; what sort of being able to meet them... and make sure it doesn't create challenges that'd be too horrible for other people.

"And what about your wish?"

"I think..."

She muses, grabs pencil and paper, starts writing some things down.

"I think I'm going to wish that I will always be able to rise to the challenges I face or choose to meet, and think really hard about the end of entropy when I go about it."

"Think really hard about it as in... remember it whatever you're doing?  Keep it in mind?"

"Yeah.  Something like that.  Maybe do a little speech beforehand, get myself centered.  Really - lean into the dramatics of it, y'know?"

"Hmm, yeah, the cat said it goes off what we mean... which means I shouldn't do my wish offhand.  I should do it in a properly dramatic moment.  Maybe the very moment I found out about magic would have been properly dramatic and gotten the meaning across... but that option's already gone."

"...I'd offer to go first, except that I think that has the wrong thematic resonance - hmm - you need something, yes, but what is it?  I don't think it's - your wish is about being prepared, excitement wouldn't help - so what drives you to want that?  ...and my apologies, if I, in asking, have tread too close to any ground I shouldn't."

"It's not being prepared, really... it's that I want to be part of what's happening, and do well with it whatever my part is.  Which probably means I need to be prepared, but."

"...Mmm, that as written sounds like it could get you dragged into a role you wouldn't want to play, though, so - maybe, maybe - hmm.

"Honestly I'm not sure I've got anything good along those lines.  Might have to let it percolate, come back to this later.  But maybe something about getting your say in the script?"

"Maybe... But if the story's already going on, I want to be in it... but yes, choose my own lines."

"I think I can't really help you figure out - correctly resonant wording, unfortunately; our aesthetic senses are kind of different.  But - choosing your own lines isn't bad, I guess.

"Not really broad enough, though, I think."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be too broad either..."

"There's - broad applicability and then there's broad or vague wordings."

"What do I specifically want then...  What do you specifically want?"

"I - think I'm settled.  The ability to face any challenge I put my mind to, you know?  That's - bullshit, leveraged correctly.  What about you?"

"... To face exciting challenges, to be able to do it well, and to do good in the world - I mean, the cosmos.  And... I don't know how to be specific about what challenges, but... to look back and be happy with it?"

"...'to look back and be happy with it' is the sort of wish that fucks with your head!  You're the faerie bargains specialist, Lila!"

"I didn't think they would -"

She stops mid-sentence, as they hear the sound of the front door opening.

No, calm down, Lila, there's no good reason to think it's magical enemies.  Why would they come attack now?  And why would they unlock the door rather than bursting through the walls?

A moment later, she calls, "Er, hey, Dad?"

"...huh.  Well, anyway, interrupting dad aside, why don't you think the GM would take that interpretation?"

It's only a moment before Lila answers.

"Well, the whole thing about offering a contract makes me think that if he'd do that, he would've done it already..."

She trails off as her dad comes in.

Lila's dad looks a bit surprised to see the two girls there.  "Oh, hello.  A new friend?  And back to role-playing games?"

Lila nods (glad she can be vague rather than lie, at least so far.)  "She's Diana, from my English class.  We're trying to plan things out together."

"Well, make yourself at home; feel free to raid the pantry."  He pauses for a moment and shakes his head.  "Don't suppose your GM needs more ideas?  We were arguing this morning about a mysterious thing that almost looked like a comet, but was probably just a meteor.  Or maybe space junk."

She nudges Diana.  "Wouldn't think so, but maybe he could use that..."

Why are these magical cats hiding anyway?

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned up, honestly, but I'm not putting money on those odds.  It'd probably be a wish someone else made if some random astronomical event is anything, really.  But I'm...curious how you'd get those categories confused, actually; don't you have, like...triangulation?"

Regardless of the answer, she continues with a follow-up to Lila: "I'm pretty sure that the wishes are granted in the way that requires the least magical effort, given that this whole project is part of an attempt to gather up massive heaps of magic for faery purposes - so does fucking with your head so that you're always happy with what you're doing, or actually doing fate manipulation, sound like it'd be less costly an outcome?"

"To triangulate, you need multiple telescopes looking at the same part of the sky - and that usually doesn't happen by chance.  Except for amateurs of course, but it takes time to hear back from them."

"That doesn't ring quite right... but yes, let's avoid that risk.  Say we're going by what I want when I'm wishing.  Or maybe even what I would've wanted yesterday."

"Guess we'll have to hope for some amateurs."

"Mmmm.  Then the question is - can you - well, your character - feel so strongly about that to make it work.  The roleplaying's important."

"Oh yes, we always do.  But it's vanished now, so it probably burnt up as a meteor.  Or we don't know it wasn't aliens."

He chuckles, shrugs, and goes back into the kitchen.

Lila looks after him for a moment, wishing she could say it.

Then she shakes her head, and turns to Diana.  "My character could definitely feel that way.  I don't know how strongly it takes to count, but - I think she could hit it."

"If I find out it was aliens I'll let you know, huh?  Nice meeting you, Mr. Roisen."

"...Okay then.  Just - you've gotta make sure you preserve the nature of what you value."

"Or that the wish comes true in a way I like anyway."

"...Yeah, I guess?  But I mean, if you tread anywhere near altering your feelings themselves."

"And what about with your wish, about 'the challenges I choose to meet'?  Lots of plothooks there, if the GM throws in mind magic."

"It frontloads my choice, though; there's nowhere to throw any."

"... if 'choose' gets interpreted that way, rather than 'will choose when I'm meeting them'.  Probably better to explicitly say 'would choose now'."

"...What?  No?  Those are the same thing?"

"Oh, that's what you meant!  You're choosing that challenge - and an epic-level challenge at that!"

"It's the most important one to win."  She nods, firmly.

Lila's dad pokes his head out of the kitchen.

"Yes, Dad, our game really is getting this esoteric. I'm surprised too."

She looks back at Diana and bursts out laughing a friendly laugh.

Y'know what, it kind of is funny, when you put it that way and aren't thinking so desperately about the potential consequences of everything.

The math homework doesn't get done, even after Diana goes home.  Magic is in the world; she's about to get magic; she's about to get a Wish; there's no time to spare for math!  Better to read a good book and stare out the window checking if every rustle just might be a magic cat or magical girl or magical something else.

She almost tells her dad, but doesn't.  At least not till she finds out why everyone's keeping magic a secret.  There might be a good reason, and she can't un-tell him... or maybe she could?  But she knows she couldn't use mind-magic on her dad.

Next morning, her notes include a lot more about magical musings than the teacher's lectures.

(And a few quickly-scribbled equations so she has at least something to hand in for math class.)

Jenny considers cutting class and hunting witches, but she ends up not.  She's got enough charge, no particular leads, and seeming responsible might help make a good impression on the new girls.

Finally, after much too long a school day, she ducks into a corner of the hall and whispers, "Hey, Kyuubey!"

:Hello, Jenny Burton.  I will be with you momentarily.:

It thinks that the girls will be more likely to Wish if there is a short period of time before they meet Jenny where it can carefully tell them some truths.

Lila is waiting by the door where she and Diana said they'd meet, musing over what she might do with magic, and what ways it might be staying secret.

Diana is also there, pacing, clearly thinking heavy thoughts from the tight-lipped frown of stress on her face.

::Good afternoon, Diana Adelene Vitalis and Lila Roisen.  Jenny Burton is occupied at present, and will be some minutes delayed, but I shall give you some advice: Your working relationship with her, as agents in the fight against entropy, will be bolstered by seeming impressive.  You will be more impressive if you have contracted, and wish well.  Furthermore, she is blunt and impatient, and likely to blow someone who is wasting her time off entirely.::

"Oh -"  She covers her mouth and continues more quietly.  "Thank you - and I'll thank her too -"

She glances down the hall, with several other groups of students in sight, and then at the empty classroom near them.  "Let's go in there.  Diana?"

"...Sure."  She'll follow Lila inside.

The Incubator has no objections.

::Do you wish to make a contract with me and become a magical girl, Lila Roisen and Diana Adelene Vitalis?::

-- but it is Diana that speaks up first.

"...Not really, because I'm almost certain that anything you're trying to sell this hard has some sort of catch to it, but I can hardly leave Lila in danger alone.

"I'll go first.

"I wish...that no matter what challenges face me, and no matter what challenges I face - be they so simple as math homework, so complex as the repair of a broken body or a broken mind, or so grand as the death of stars and the heat death of the universe itself - I wish that when I face these challenges or they face me, that my facing of these challenges shall happen on a field where I have the tools, skills, knowledge, and will to overcome them."

The Incubator watches.  The Incubator listens.  The Incubator, on autopilot, processes a wish.

-- There is a short, sharp, look of surprise upon its face, insofar as its kind experiences any such thing --

-- and Diana is facing down the heat death of the universe, the boldest, grandest task a magical girl can ever face --

-- and her soul ignites, brilliant and hopeful and shining, a new star flaring in the firmament that is still a thimble trying to empty the ocean, but that would leave her wish un-done because that challenge is un-met, that is not her intent, to briefly make negentropy does not a solution to the problem cause --

-- something shifts, reality twisting around the bright sharp line that is Diana's Wish and will to overcome all evils, to render their harms undone, cutting through the Grief that tries to mar her soul and marks her body with freely falling desperate tears as a wish with power well beyond her theoretical starting potential is drawn forth because this too is a challenge and she will face it and win --

-- there is a path to a brilliant, shining future.  And she will find it.  She will pick the lock that is the strictures of reality, until the tumblers --

click.

And so she stands, despite the weight of the cosmos she placed upon her shoulders.  And so she strives, to carve a path through space and time she only knows exists.

But exist it does, and therefore so she shall.

The Incubator, of course, has precious little care for the feelings of man, for all that it has live access to most of them.

It was rather more concerned that the Wish would spiral out of control and immediately eat the other candidate; that would end up balancing unfavorably.

Still...This magical girl seems quite usual, as magical girls go.  Higher-than-average 'idealism', perhaps, and certainly above-average intelligence, but a past full of 'trouble'.

Perhaps its sensorium was miscalibrated; all past wishes that utilized the words 'stars' and any conjugation of 'death' came from particular patterns of human, and this Diana Adelene Vitalis scores far too high on the 'self-sacrifice' index to have considered a wish for immortality for only herself.

(Those seeds are generally thrown into the nearest unorbited white dwarf or neutron star, when their 'grief' inevitably overtakes them, and they are discorporated.)

And as for what Lila sees?

A moment, where space twists and time shatters - 

and then, Diana, rising to her feet, using an honest-to-goodness warhammer for leverage, though something about it seems a bit strange, like it's not quite the thing it looks like it ought to be, that it's more things somewhere else.

As for her outfit, perhaps the best term is 'spacesuit chic'; the traditional layers and ruffles and bangles are still present, in a way - her color scheme is gold on star-speckled midnight blues and steely greys, with the occasional accent in orange, mostly to mark pockets - though her helmet and gloves and boots are literally the sort an astronaut might wear; white, with variably-transparent faceplate - and not a single inch of skin goes uncovered.

Lila shakes herself after a moment's staring.  She feels that she must've missed something, and she doesn't want to look and stare at magic when she can get it herself!

She squares up her shoulders, folds her hands, and declaims like she's onstage:  "I wish to face exciting challenges - and to be able to meet them - and by meeting them do the kind of good things that if I knew it now, I'd be happy with."

(Vague images of stories are passing through her mind.  Sometimes the protagonist dies, sometimes she changes who she is and realizes her previous visions were too limited, sometimes she changes who she is and falls while completing her mission, sometimes she stays herself and gets a happy ending, sometimes she only does half the job and leaves the rest for someone else - but regardless, in part or whole, she wins.  Unless she fails; there's always that risk - but because of a bad decision of her own.)

And then, for a moment, she's inside a swirling cloud that feels like the story possibilities, or one of them - but it's going past her like someone's reading the book at twenty times human speed -

And then she's in a shimmering grass-green dress with sky-blue trim, and with a crossbow hanging at her side and a quiver of arrows at her back and a ring on her finger, and with her hair waving lightly in a wind that doesn't exist in the material world.

She laughs in glee.  She's magical now!

"That looks very pretty on you."

...Well.

::Jenny, you should come in now.::, it sends.

::There are, unfortunately, more tangible representations of the forces of entropy - magical girls call them 'witches'.  You would be more vulnerable to their manipulations without having wished.::

"Thanks, Diana!"  Lila twirls in her new magical dress.

... only to suddenly stop at the cat's words.

Of course there was something the cat was hiding, just like Diana said.  Of course there's a reason for the magic to have nicely provided them weapons.  The cat might be telling the truth that they'd be more vulnerable otherwise, but there's probably something it's hiding there too.

"What do the witches do?"

::They are drawn to places of what humans most commonly identify as 'suffering', and they then exacerbate the locale's problems with unusual deaths and disappearances.::

"...And how do they do that, exactly?" she snaps out, full of bitter resignation and resolve.

::The total list of known methods is too large to transmit in a timely fashion.  The common elements between all witches you are expected to face in the course of being a normal magical girl are as follows:

::Witches have - and are, in some senses - a Barrier, that produces and contains a themed environment often but not always aligned with where the witch is found.

::Within that environment are Familiars; Familiars are the primary way by which a witch kills, as they can enthrall unprotected 'despairing' minds and lure them into the barrier to die.  They cannot do this without a Barrier, but Familiars can grow into new Witches if they are not slain.

::When a Witch is slain, it will leave behind what most magical girls call a 'Grief Seed'; these items are useful in the purification of magical girls' Soul Gems, but if tarnished and left unattended, will hatch into a copy of the Witch they fell from.  Incubators can dispose of these when they are tarnished.::

Lila is starting to smile now, thinking about the possibilities.  This's already been going on all along, and now she can fight it.  That's the sort of thing she'd love to use magic for.

She's about to ask more about grief seeds, but --

Jenny (still in her normal school jeans) throws the door open.

In addition to a Kyuubey, there's one obvious magical girl and... well, that frilly ?spacesuit? obviously isn't school clothes, so she's probably a magical girl now too.  That's a surprise, but shouldn't be a problem.

"Hi, I'm Jenny.  You both already wished?"

She sticks out her hand.

Lila sinks into a curtsy.  "Lila.  And yes, I wished for adventure and victory."

"Well, you should be getting some of that.  You heard about witch-hunting?"

"We did, yes.  And I am rather annoyed that I wasn't told about that before I actually wished, but I suppose it would have negatively impacted my long-term gains if I'd actively considered the possibility of combat more than I had, so - I have to tentatively endorse the outcome, even if I absolutely despise this thing's methods.  Diana."  She shakes Jenny's hand firmly.

...Really, the 'frills' are more in the form of 'pouches and belts'.

Her handclasp is firm, too.

"Long-term gains?"  She chuckles, shrugs, and sits on the edge of a school desk.  "Well.  I'm told you just saw me transform yesterday?  What has Kyuubey told you?"

"Magic exists, there are certain people with potential that the Incubators can convert into negentropy-and-wishes.  And the whole witches-exist thing."

"Hah.  Well..."

There's so much they don't know, but she's not really in a teaching mood, much less a mood to comfort them if they go off the wrong way about soul gems.  Which both of them seem like they just might, in different ways.

"... Let me show you how to dowse for witches, why not.  Change back into your muggle clothes - they'll give you second looks if you go through the halls in this - and let's go outside."

"How... do I do that?"  She fingers her dress as if feeling for her old blouse under it.

"Just will the magic.  It's instinctive, but it might help if you hold up your gem."

(She intentionally isn't saying "soul gem.")

Lila holds up her hand and concentrates on the gem.  She pictures herself in her normal boring everyday clothes.  She feels an urge to move that feels something like dancing, and gives into it - and then a moment later, after a burst of light and a motion she can't quite comprehend, she's back in her normal clothes.

With, still, a new ring on her finger.  As if it's a sign of the magic still hiding in her.

Diana - places her hand over her breast?  Where is her soul gem?  It's not immediately visible on the outside of her outfit - and -

twists, along a dimension she didn't previously know to exist -

and is now standing there in perhaps not quite the same outfit she started in, because she wasn't wearing what is perhaps best poetically described as a mantle of stars 'round her shoulders beforehand.  The long, thin tapering crystal in the golden-winged brooch-clasp holding it together shimmers oddly; the light that reflects within (or emanates from) its faceted diamondoid surface seems to have a heartbeat's swell.

"...Huh."

She lifts up the clasp contemplatively.

"...Well, I probably could get that to go away if I tried, but...it would feel...itchy?  Wrong.  So I'm not gonna."

"Ooh, beautiful!"

Partial costume? That's a new thing.  Jenny squints at Diana.  "Okay, well, people will notice, so... if you can't take it off, stuff it under your shirt or something?"

A moment later, Jenny notices Diana isn't wearing a ring - is there something odd with her soul?  Well, she can't ask that question yet... though she probably should before they meet a witch.

"I can do better than that if I must, I think.  Since it does -" she fiddles with the crystal brooch, waves a bit of cloth around from where it looped through one of the three 'wings' - "let me rearrange how I wear this more than that.  I'm thinking a chest-wrap.  ...Though perhaps that's a matter best left for later experimentation."

Jenny shrugs.  "Yeah - just something that makes sense for you to wear.  Random people on the streets don't think anything when they see me in my magical-girl skirts, and I don't think they would around school, but..." She shrugs.  "They might care about your whatever-that-spacesuit-is, Diana - or maybe not; I think there's something magic there too."

"If anyone does make a fuss, it's easy enough to pass off as cosplay.  ...We should ask -- where'd the Incubator go?"

It's certainly not here anymore!

"Beats me.  Don't expect them to be around when you want them.  Just like ordinary cats, I guess."

She throws open the door and leads the way toward the same back alley where Diana and Lila saw her yesterday.

And Diana shall follow her!

In the alley, Jenny runs her fingers over the ring she's wearing and slips it off her finger.

(Diana and Lila will notice it's got a large gem on it, glowing a slight magical glow. Except for the color, it looks a whole lot like Lila's new ring, and something like the gem on Diana's brooch.)

"These gems..."  She pauses, considering what to say.  "... are really important.  I'll tell you more about them later.  But one of the things they can do is dowse for witches."

She fingers it in another way, and it transforms into a bauble, still glowing but now a little duller.

"It's shining a little - that means there's a witch probably somewhere around town, but not close by.  You'll get to know what they mean later.  But for now - take yours and transform them too?  It's intuitive, just like your costumes."

"I'm pretty sure the Incubator said they were soul gems, and I haven't caught it in a lie yet, so yeah, they sound pretty damn important.  ...Let me just, see what I have..."

...Apparently Diana has an astrolabe, with a funny little protrusion on the bottom that looks like an old-style key.  She even seems to know how to use it.

"...hang on, that's not the right starscape for where - and for that matter, when - we are...though I have to admit, I'm not sure how I have such certainty of that fact!  ...Probably -" she shakes her head, and then continues on with more surety, "- actually, definitely wish stuff.  ...Tools, skills, knowledge and will, to - face the challenges that are coming to me.  It'd fit."

Lila has a bauble like Jenny's, but with a more ornate setting and what might be a pen-tip on the bottom.

"Does this give us a direction, or do we just need to walk and try to triangulate the witch while it's... making people depressed, I guess?"

"Or killing people, sometimes.  And yes."

Jenny walks down the alley, bauble in her hand.

After they go a few blocks, it's somewhat brighter.

"I think I know where the witch is," Diana chimes in.  "Or, rather, that I can derive it from what the astrolabe's showing me.  ...Lila, do you know how to use your weapons?  Jenny, tell us about how we fight."

Lila nods.  "I've fired a crossbow before."  She reaches to her belt, remembers that her crossbow's vanished with her magical skirts, and shrugs.  "Does the magic make it different, Jenny?"

Jenny nods.  "It gives you some more skill and strength with your weapons.  But if you've used it before, I think that helps."  She hasn't talked with too many magical girls about their personal histories, and the ones she has talked with tended to brag.

"So the witches have a barrier around them, to hide themselves from the world and let their despair leak out.  Sometimes you can see a cloud like some fog or smoke, or sometimes they look like they aren't there.  Once we pierce the barrier - then it's a crazy world with whatever theme twisted to horror, like a kitchen or a playground or something.  We need to get to the center with our weapons and kill the witch there."

They come to an intersection; Jenny frowns at her bauble and, guessing, turns left.

Diana frowns at Jenny, having sensed her uncertainty and decided that this needs to be done better - does something twisty with her astrolabe -

"This way.  That way won't get us there in time," she states with surety as she continues straight.  "We'll be guessing at alleyways for too long."

Jenny frowns.  She could've wished for something about tracking, maybe?  "You sure?"

"Mhm."

She waves her astrolabe at Jenny; it sure does appear to - have sprouted some very intricate machinery that is tracking their location in 4D? - as they move relative to another known point.

"Gotta get there before it eats someone else, you know?  That's important.  Not on the scale of saving the universe from itself, but - every life saved is important.  Every life brought back is important, come to think of it - I'm not there yet, but I'm damn well planning to make it there someday - though it's much better to be prophylactic in your interventions rather than reactive, mostly, so I hope it's not...

"...Who am I kidding, it's always already urgently needed here or I'm already a bullshit-tier time-traveler faking my observable universe so I Wished with the appropriate intent and intensity.

"...Not sure which I'd prefer.  Leaving aside the outside guess of wishes not needing to bother with such piddly little things as self-consistency in time-travel.  Which - right now, nothing's impossible.

"Is there some reason we're not in uniform right now, incidentally?"

Jenny's mouth drops open.  If that's a real map, it's going to be a lifechanger.  "How'd you get that?" she breathes.

"- Eh, why should we be when we're not going to be using magic at the moment?"

"...Magic...?  I did - want tools.  Properly useful ones."

"...We could stumble across a Barrier -- okay, not a Barrier, not like this, but a familiar that needs obliterating - at any moment, and taking the time to transform only then would be risky?  Seems better to be transformed than not, unless there's - some concern I don't know about."

Well, if she's obviously a magical girl on someone else's hunting grounds, she might get into a fight... but then, she's in her own territory, with two other girls with her.  She should probably tell them about that sometime, though.

Shrug.

"Let's do it!"

Lila clutches onto her gem and focuses, picturing her beautiful new MAGICAL!!! dress.  She feels a similar urge to move in some incomprehensible way - and she does, and she feels all the magic around her.

With a burst of light, she's in her shimmering grass-green dress again, with her crossbow hanging at her side.

Jenny transforms a moment later, into the same poofy skirt and red blouse she was wearing when Lila and Diana first caught sight of her.

Up close, the blouse looks straight, almost like a military uniform shirt.  Her sword is hanging at her side.

Diana presses her astrolabe to her chest, the key that extends from it set at the base of her throat; there is a thrumming, fluorescent flash, and then -

She is dressed for war.

It's still the same outfit, really - but the stylization is different; it's the same sort of difference that you'd see between a dress uniform and combat gear, though hers isn't camo-painted, and the deliberately sharp - and sometimes even sharpened - edges where, previously, space-age smooth curves reigned, bears out the true purpose of it.

(There is also a camera on the back of her helmet, for combat awareness purposes; someone that is paying careful attention could notice the light from its projection changing on her face.)

She pulls the astrolabe - now on a chain, without the key - out from beneath a fold of her armor plating, consults it, nods sharply, and sets off at a jog.  "Boggling later, Jenny; witch-fighting now."

Jenny does stare, but only for a moment.

Then she shakes her head.  "Well, that's going to give a workout to the muggle-veiling magic.  But OK, let's go."

"Cosplay!", she rejoins chirpily, much like one Captain Jack Sparrow says 'Pirate!'.  "Regardless.  Witches to stab.  Let's save our breath."

As they walk through the city, Lila spins and twirls every so often, sometimes letting off sparkles from her feet as she dances.  She has magic!  She's on an adventure!

It's Jenny who stops them, by a dumpster behind a restaurant where Diana's astrolabe is clicking disturbingly fast, and Jenny and Lila's soul gem baubles are shining disturbingly bright.

"The witch's here."  Jenny draws her sword, and points with it behind the dumpster, where the shadows seem to be shifting a bit as they watch.  "See how it's a little too dark there?  Let's go in - and stay together."

"Mhm.  You lead, Lila takes center, I hold the rear?  Keeps the ranged attacker out of the scrum, has the person who knows what she's doing in front."

Lila is nervously holding her smile while running her fingers up and down the crossbow, walking through in her mind every step of how to fire it.  "Ready.  But... what will we be fighting?  What will it look like, I mean?"

"Yes, good plan, Diana.  Yell if you need help.

"I don't know, Lila.  It's different for every witch.  There'll be something like animated something - one time it was kitchen pots and pans, another time trees, another time dogs - and then the witch at the center of the labyrinth.  Whatever it's like, we'll need to get through and kill her."

She squares up her shoulders, draws her sword, smiles - like always at the start of a fight, whatever she might be feeling afterwards - and steps in.

Diana pulls out a nebulous blur of possibility from its hiding-place, hefting the resulting spear in her hands because it is one of the easier weapons to learn, and follows Lila in.

Her expression?  Grim determination.

As they step through the shadow, they're suddenly in something like an exaggerated school classroom!  A huge clock and bell hang from the front wall, ticking off the seconds with a chilling throb.  Pencils poking up from the desks look razor-sharp.  Half-readable papers hanging in the air drip something that looks like blood.

Jenny slices at the papers with her sword.

They come alive and start folding themselves into airplanes and dive at all the girls!

Lila jumps back, almost tripping over a chair before she looses the trigger of her crossbow.  Her bolt pierces two of the planes, which sink to the floor in clouds of ink-or-blood.

But more are coming - and some of the pencils are flying at them, too.

-- oh, only razor-sharp?  Well, then.  She's got armor plating.  She can handle razors just fine.

She twirls her spear much like a pencil, batting a quick-to-strike plane aside and moving in unrecalled instinct as she sweeps up Lila, providing supportive cover - and having a crucial moment necessary for her weapon to shift into something that isn't not a mulcher, shredder, nor leafblower - ...Leaf vacuum?  Regardless, it's already whirring up suction with which to devour her enemies the witchpaper and witchpencils.

She also reaches out and brushes her mostly-free hand (the one that steadied Lila) against Lila's crossbow, a pulse of magic enforcing - be better - upon it, building a repeating magazine, enhancing the fundamental construction -- "Jenny!  How bad do you think this is for you, matchup-wise!"

Lila shoots again and again, pierced papers fluttering to the ground in streams of blood and pencils snapping in midair.  She's surprised at her own aim, how she's managing to hit something as small as a flying pencil.  The magic must be giving her better aim too.  She likes that.

Jenny's sword is whirling in the air, batting things away as they get close.

"Not so bad - just - so many.  Come on, let's not stay here.  We need to get to the center!"

She starts walking toward the door at the other end of the classroom, with a glance behind her at the others.

As she glances, a desk reaches out to trip her - but she sees it and jumps over it in one bound.

Leafblower go vrrrrr.

"Lila, cover Jenny's right, shoot anything that looks like it could possibly move.  I'll cover her left!"

Crossbow bolts break several desk and chair legs - including a couple behind Jenny that were making grabs for Lila herself as she's following.

Less than a minute later... probably; not like anyone's counting the ticks of the clock... Jenny opens the door into the hall.

It fades into a foggy blur several doors down, but they can see tall shadowy figures in the fog, waiting for them.

Lila looks questioningly at Jenny, and then shoots.

One of them goes down.

Then two more.

The others vanish even as Jenny is springing forward into the fog, sword waving.

"After me!" she calls.

Diana brings up the rear, easily shifting to blasting the fog away.  "They're not humans, the proportions are all wrong!"

The fog keeps re-forming ahead of them, as they pass door after door.  More shapes loom closer and closer, sometimes going down to Lila's bolts and sometimes lasting long enough to reveal themselves as vaguely humanoid vaguely troll-like before facing Jenny's sword.

Then another shape starts becoming visible through the fog - something looking like a giant bar or desk, with another ticking clock above it.

And thick books come barreling toward them.

Fuck.  She condenses her implement down to a kite shield, thinks for a second - "Lila shoot the clock!" - ducks forward to hand the shield to Jenny with a "Gonna try boosting your weapon" drawing inspiration from Star Wars' blasterbolt-turning lightsabers to sheathe the sword in reflective energies that will hopefully blow books apart on contact, and sets to brawling, pulling that same blue nimbus around her fists and boots.

Lila sends a bolt for a book that's barreling toward her, and then shoots the clock.

Something that looks sort of like a human - but taller, with a mask over her face, and shrouded by shadows like a black dress and cape so you can hardly see the outlines of its body - jumps up from the mist with a shriek and explodes Lila's arrow in a bolt of magic.

"That's the witch!" Jenny calls.  "Get her!"

Something changes in the energy around her sword, and the next book she pierces is set on fire and thrown into another cloud of books.  She strides forwards.

...Why does she look like a magical girl.

There is a frozen moment of time that - seems to pass, as something spins through the tumblers in Diana's brain, knocking processes into and out of alignment - and something  --  goes  - - - -   c  l  i  c  k ,  - - - - - -

Diana - acts on instinct.

And the instinct is hug, a blur of motion and emotion, a humming afterglow in her wake as she tackles the ?girl? and murmurs reassurances - she's here to help, you'll make it through this, it's gonna be okay, you're not alone, this too shall pass and if it does not pass she will make it pass, because her Wish is for you too, once-human, pain-stricken but still alive -

The witch's shadows reach out to envelop Diana's spacesuit armor in deadly chill and a sense of hopelessness and darkness and failure as the clock goes tick... tick... tick... above them.

Jenny sees the witch's shadows reaching around Diana, and something screeches inside her as well.  She's not going to lose another partner - no, not again - not on her first battle too!

Jenny jumps forward, flaming sword outstretched, and pierces it into the center of the witch's shadows.

... as Lila, her breath catching in her throat, shoots another arrow straight into the clock above them.

And suddenly, the whole misty school vanishes, and they're in the back alley next to the dumpster again.

Diana, no longer with anything to tacklehug, is now lying on the ground.

Spacesuits don't get cold, and she brought a light.

Her gem still shines, bright and radiant, as she curls up on the pavement, shaking - "I think - they might be people -"

And, after a minute or so of - tears streaming down her face, even as the flaring heartbeat of her gem gets stronger, not weaker like Jenny would expect -

She hisses, and stands up.

"I have an Incubator to have words with, I should fucking think."

She does not have an Incubator in her possession with which to communicate!

Jenny was diving downwards herself when the labyrinth evaporated.  She lets her sword clatter to the pavement, catches herself with her hands, snatches the grief seed while she's at it, and then stands back up.

She stands over Diana, unsettled, not sure what to do even without considering what's happening to the gem.

... what's that?  She shrugs.  "Witches?  Yeah, of course they're people."

"More than that - I'm guessing this one... used to be?... a human."

"I would put money on it if I had any.  I did not sign up to be the Incubators' pet executioner.  Not, to be clear, that I would leave witches or familiars to hurt others, but that to be thrown at creatures that once were and still are people enough to - have emotions, even if all they are is grief! -

"That, I cannot countenance doing without far more information!"

Jenny purses her lips.  "I'm not sure whether they feel grief or they just want us humans to."

(Not that she's really thought about it much.  Or more than an idle thought.)

"Do all the labyrinths look like this?  Sort of like real places, I mean?"

(She's not quite sure she's going to be so comfortable in school tomorrow, after fighting through this.)

"It feels like this witch was actually in school sometime."

Jenny nods slowly.  "The last one was a kitchen; the one before that was a grocery store... yeah, they're all realistic places.  Maybe they're human?  At least, they're nothing like the Kyuubeys."

Fairy bargains.

She should've been a lot more cautious if running into magic can turn some humans into this.

...Does she want a hug?

Yes.  She does.

Jenny, who isn't quite in the mood for hugs, hangs back.  "My first fight wasn't the easiest either.  But you learn."

"...I don't think that that's what either of us are upset about - though, come to think of it, I probably should be upset about not even getting guaranteed college tuition out of this, we're child soldiers -

"...There is something fractally wrong here!"

College tuition doesn't sound like it belongs in the same world as magic.

"It's good that we'll learn," she snaps over Diana's shoulder, "but if these witches were human, how'd they turn into witches?"

Jenny purses her lips.  She's never really thought about that before.

"I... don't... know.  Hey, Kyuubey!"

(Not that she expects an answer, but.)

If it did not hear the question, it is not obligated to expend effort answering it.

(Or, more likely, deciding to not answer it.  There are too many anomalies; it does not think that the risk to the project is worth risking.)

Jenny shakes her head.  "She usually doesn't come.  No telling when she will or won't."

She shakes her head slowly.  "That's a... thorny question.  Yeah, something's wrong somewhere."

"And I want to find out where and fix it.  Do you know any way to find out about magic besides talking to the Kyuubeys?"

She shakes her head.  "You can try doing things with your own magic, of course."

"...I believe there was something mentioned about purifying soul gems.  What causes them to need that?"

"Using too much magic, or being too sad or down."

"...so experimenting with magic is in fact contraindicated."

...She's rather displeased about this.

"So in fact we shouldn't be using magic just for fun?"

Shrug.  "If you want to be careful.  But -"

Jenny jumps up in the air, conjures some transparent red shape, jumps off it even higher, somersaults, and lands back in front of Lila.  "I'm not one for 'careful'."

"...You shouldn't have to be careful.  Magic ought to be the thing of joy it could be, rather than the stone the Incubators hang 'round our necks that it is."

Her soul gem pulses, bright conviction shining from it with her words.

"Yes!"

Jenny glances at Diana's soul gem.  Huh, it's full; she would've thought it would've been lower after fighting the witch and then sinking into tears...  Lila isn't advertising hers, though, and Jenny's not going to ask to see it.

"I could introduce you to some of the other magical girls.  Maybe they have some ideas...

"I wish Kiri was still here.  She used to talk like that some, but then..."  Jenny shakes her head.  "Her parents moved out of town, and I tried to tell her she could just stay behind by herself with magic - we don't really need to eat, did you know that?  And we only need a bit of sleep - but she wasn't up to that."  Jenny hangs her head.  "She hasn't shown up online in a while.  I hope a witch didn't get her, but."

'Full' is perhaps not the right way to describe it.  It's - definitely brightly scintillating, and not - dull, that's not in question - but...something is weird about it.

"...I hope that the Incubators didn't."

She pauses.  Considers.  Plans.  Acts.

"We should - make a trip out to her new address, you're her friend who's concerned about her wellbeing, and - search public records, probably.  I can drive.  We - need information if we're going to survive.  Let alone to win fighting against this ongoing travesty."

(Jenny's grades and school attendance record are much too bad for her to be permitted a driver's license.  Not that she's going to mention that if there's a way not to.)

Jenny looks confused for a moment, then brightens.  "Sure!  Thanks!  She isn't too far - we should be able to get there and back in a day - I think I've got her address somewhere -"

She could never just skip school and head out of town without even telling her parents.  Not for anything less than...

... well, actually, this could be enough of a good reason.  But still...

"I'd rather not skip school tomorrow unless I have to, unless we're going to tell Mom and Dad everything... and that still seems dangerous until we know more.  I could get away Saturday... but if we stayed there more than a day, they'd still be worried.  And we might have to."

"I wasn't proposing we do so immediately, no, though I want to do it soon.  ...Maybe we should 'have a sleepover'," she air-quotes, "and investigate instead?  ...hm, no, too much risk of inquisitive parents interfering...  I'll do the public records search from the library tonight, that'll help with planning."

"I think there are ways to use magic to make sure the parents don't mess things up..."

"No!"

Nod.  "Wouldn't know how, anyway.  Not yet."

"We are not mindwiping anyone unless it is - somehow a primary objective of whatever is happening.

"I could get behind magic body doubles though."

"Body doubles sounds expensive, especially if we're going to be a couple hundred miles away.  I've seen girls do them for half a minute or so in the middle of a fight, but nothing more."

A thought suddenly strikes her, and she pauses a moment.  "That reminds me...  I think Lynn - one of the girls who did that - might've known something about witches?  Least, she made some bad jokes about it, like saying some missing girl was probably a witch now.  But Lynn's dead; died fighting a witch last year."

"...Hm.  Yeah bilocation would be pretty expensive, probably...Still, like.  ...Do enchanted items that aren't soul gems, like, exist whatsoever?"

Jenny rumples up her skirt a bit.  "These clothes, I guess?  And our weapons?  One girl said she had a magic flute, but I didn't actually see any magic from it, just good music."

Lila is now totally enraptured by the idea of having a real magic flute.

"Can we talk to her?  Or maybe that's something the Kyuubeys will answer next time we can talk to them?"

Jenny shrugs.  "We can try if you want.  Patricia, over on the other side of town, sort of stuck-up."

"Probably worth trying.  ...And, I mean, outside of our - symbols of office?  Paraphernalia?  The raiment?

"Is there anyone who - makes stuff that is not intrinsically tied to the magical-girl nature, that you know of.

"..If not, we may well have to ask the Incubators.  Which I am not happy about.  They're - hiding far too much."

"Symbols of office.  I like that."  Jenny lifts her sword at salute, grinning.

"Stuff not that - like I said, Patricia, maybe.  And someone else was joking about enchanting her car, but I'm pretty sure that was a joke...  Kiri mentioned the Kyuubeys' ship once, just before she moved?  Not sure what she meant, but if they've got one, I'm sure it's magic."

"...Well, they must've gotten here somehow.  They're not a kind of thing that evolution normally produces, I shouldn't think, or - well, there'd be more human magic than this.  ...What did she say?"

"We were talking about... our bodies, sort of?  How they're full of magic and we don't need to eat and we don't have to feel pain when we fight the witches and stuff like that.  And Kiri said 'we've got more magic packed in here than anything 'cept the gems and the Kyuubeys' ship.'"

(She shifts her voice a little to imitate Kiri's.)

"Didn't ask her about that; just kept talking about our bodies and how we really could live off magic without parents.  It'd run down the gem faster, of course.  But."

But it would've meant she wouldn't have maybe-died.  Maybe.

"...How did she even come to find out that they had one..."

"...There was some really weird astronomical stuff, recently, oddly enough.  I wonder if it's related."

"Yeah!  I should ask my dad if there've been more weird astronomical things recently... but then, how long have the Kyuubeys been here... and if they've been here too long, we'll start getting into how there've been more and better telescopes recently; Dad was complaining about that..."

She wrinkles her nose and slings her crossbow over her shoulder.  "Anyway.  Maybe let's talk somewhere that isn't right next to a dumpster?  Unless there's a cheap way to turn off smell?"

Jenny laughs.  "Probably is, but I don't know it.  Where to?  Try to find Patricia, or dig in records, or see if there's another witch in town?"

She heads off, if Diana's going to follow?

"...I'll defer to your judgement on whether contacting Patricia is a good idea right now; otherwise we should go to the library, I think."

Jenny makes a face.  She doesn't really like the notion of buttering up Patricia again, but she likes libraries even less.  "How about I look her up while you go to the library?"

"And ask her if she can play her flute for us!"

The one from the opera could cast a spell on the listeners, but Jenny isn't talking about Patricia like an enemy.  Besides, those spells were obvious, and Jenny hadn't mentioned anything like that.

"If you think that's a good idea.  ...Be safe, okay?"

And presumably off they go.

Lila doesn't stop to change out of her magical girl dress.

She's in a better mood by the time they get to the library, skipping down the sidewalk and twirling her skirts.  She's going to the library in a magical dress!  To study magic!  Really!

(Inside, she reflexively turns toward the fiction section before remembering to go the other way to the computers, newspaper racks, and the old microfilm machine.)

Diana's taken a firm pace as they walk, and while she, too, feels the allure of fiction and escapism, she's here on a mission.

The mission takes her directly to the information desk.  "Excuse me.  I've a few interrelated things I'm looking into for a journalism project - Strange disappearances in the local area, especially when tied to any nonfiction accounts of magic that may or may not exist.  Where would you recommend I start?"

(She is not in her full regalia, merely the partial form from earlier, her cloak of stars wrapped close.)

The librarian looks at this weird teen... cosplayer?... budding conspiracy theorist?... and says, "If you want local, you'll want the newspaper archives and maybe the police's list of unsolved cases.  You can look at the latest newspapers out there" (she gestures) "or if you're asking for an older specific date, I can get it for you."

"Starting within the last year."

"I can't really bring out all the newspapers from the last year... are you looking for something specific?"

"There's someone in particular who I'm looking for;" she got Kiri's last name from Jenny, right?

Yes - Kiri Dermot.

"Dermot, Dermot..."  the librarian muses.  "I think I heard about a young person by that name somewhere start of last summer?  I can get you the papers from back then, if you want to dig through them."

"Yes, please.  ...Want to is rather a too-strong claim, really, but it'll have to do."

"...Actually.  Let me see if I can just..."

...She'll consult her astrolabe really quick, for divinatory purposes!

"...Should be able to narrow it down a bit further."

The librarian has already taken the excuse to vanish to the back room, so this girl won't have to actually make up results from whatever superstitious ritual she's pretending to do.

Several minutes later, he comes back pulling a cart with two large plastic crates full of newspapers.  "Here's the Etinnsberg Herald for last May and June.  I think you want the "C" pages?  It'll still take a while to get through, but good luck."

Annnd she double-checks the astrolabe, consults her internal awareness of the stars, and...

Pulls out the paper for June 13th.

The front page says something about the state governor, and something about a new bridge opening.  It's not the thinnest newspaper.

The librarian watches with good-natured bemusement, and then helps pull the cart over to a free table.

She checks page C.

The paper doesn't mention Kiri inside, either... but back in section "C", the chief of police is quoted mentioning recent "sad disappearances."

Several minutes later, Lila comes over.  "What'd you think, this library has our school yearbooks, but nothing about the Etinnsberg schools.  Still, I found Kiri's photo."  She plops open the yearbook from the year before last.

"You found anything?"

"The Chief of Police going on about 'recent sad disappearances'.  Plural, apparently.

"Don't like that."

She'll check back a few more papers, from here.

Lila picks some of her own, also from a little before then.

Before too long, Diana finds it on June 7th:  Kiri Dermot reported missing; last seen leaving home the night before last to meet up with her friend Catherine Baker.  Catherine herself also reported missing, last seen leaving home the morning before Kiri vanished.  The next day, someone reportedly saw someone they later recognized as maybe Catherine.

...Well, that sure...is.

Heeeeeere Incubator Incubator Incubator, she has a question for you about past magical girls!

So does Lila!

"I'd wonder if she just ran away like Jenny was trying to convince her to - but then why wouldn't she have told Jenny!?  It could've been a witch, or..."

"...That 'turned into a witch' '"joke"' that that one girl Jenny knew made," she airquotes, "is sounding less and less funny with everything we find out about this."

The Incubator is still, and perhaps somewhat pointedly, absent from this scene.

"Yeah."  Lila shivers.

She glances down at her magic dress and magic gem-in-ring to reassure herself.  Her soul gem is still sparkling.

"I want to find out more about the magic... but I'm sure there's something else we should be able to look into while we're here in the library."

Diana wordlessly leans into her supportively.  Her own gem still shines as bright as it ever has, no matter the gloom in her thoughts.

"...The question is, what?  There's too many questions.  Maybe historical myths of or involving the Incubators...If they have arbitrary magitechnological supremacy over us - and they probably do, because why wouldn't they, they talk like a superintelligence and fucking hell that's terrifying - then we probably want to look for books that were published before digital publishing really took off, too easy to tamper with a file as it goes to print.  Much harder to 'disappear' distributed notes.  Assuming that they need - augh, this is a fucking mess.

"And I'm going to sound like a fucking paranoid schizophrenic if I ask, though at least..."

Her thumb rubs over the warm surface of her soul gem, taking reassurance from the way it swells in her hand.  "I do have evidence of a sort, if I need some.

"...Anyway.

"Can't really trust the computers but we might still get somewhere by looking at what is in the system and seeing if there's anything that those sources mention that isn't.

"Though it's...rather a longshot.  It assumes that they weren't capable of keeping their Masquerade as 'up' as they need it to be at any point in their history of operations, and considering that I damn well suspect we'd have never been allowed to know about Jenny if it weren't for our own potential...

"This is still a mess.  And we may well have to get lucky to solve it.  It's not impossible, though.  That would be breach of contract.  I'm facing challenges, you know?"

The tight grin on her face is positively feral.  She is full of radiant DETERMINATION.  She stands up, and heads back to the Information desk.

"Hello there.  I'm looking for books documenting anecdotal, folk, or historical belief in magic that probably predate the advent of digital publishing and may or may not be accurately filed, and especially any of those that -"

She'll just sketch a fucking Kyuubey -

"- mention a creature that looks something like this."

"Folklore about magic?  That would be in the 390's" (he points to one shelf) "or the 800's" (he points to another shelf.)  

He looks down at the drawing.  "... Cat spirits?  I remember some mentions in Japanese folklore?  Maybe European too?  But I'm not really familiar."

Lila catches up to Diana.  "I've been through about half that shelf already.  We could try, but... if you're looking for really old stuff that just hasn't gotten scanned into computers, there's a lot of it somewhere, but not here.  Old folktales and chronicles, but also everything down to graffiti and shopping lists that nobody's gotten around to yet.  My dad was grumbling last year about ancient star catalogues.  And most of it isn't in English - I've got okay French, but not much else."

"I'm looking for things that happened after the Industrial Revolution and its population booms, but before electronic records tampering.  It's fine - or at least, not as likely to have had a mysterious accident - if they got digitized after the fact."

In this matter Diana overestimates the capabilities of the Incubators - far too many are quite busy with what's already become obvious.

The librarian is even more confused now about what this girl's looking for.  "... If you don't want electronic records, then I do recommend those shelves."

Lila nods.  "Let's go look for myths while we're here."

Sure, that sounds like a good plan.  She'll maybe ask where to go if she wanted to find more things that fit her criteria than here, but right now...mythology and whatnot.

It becomes obvious, when they look over the books of folktales and fairy-tales now, that magic cats and rabbits are common.  Unusually common.  More so than any other magic animals.

They give quests, and appear to give the heroine cryptic hints and occasionally taunts.  And yes, they appear more often in stories with girl protagonists.  Occasionally they die - in various story-appropriate ways, whether to magic or physical means - but often another one will appear later in the story.

"These heroines don't really read like magical girls, really..." Lila muses, "but a lot of them read like something that could've been inspired by magical girls.  Which makes me wonder again:  why aren't they - we, I mean - more open?"

"But now that I think about it, I'm sure there're a lot of significant things we did in history that would've have happened without us - like that one Roman emperor, Mar-what's-his-name, who they said was killed by some goddess who suddenly appeared.  I think I know what happened now."

"Wouldn't have, you mean?  As for why we're not open...My best guess is 'Kyuubeys'."

"Yeah... they're mysterious enough I want to blame them too."  She shakes her head.  "Maybe it's unfair - maybe there's some other problem they can't or don't want to explain to us - but if so, then they can defend themselves."

"Well, if we trust the tales, we've learned they can be killed.  But it apparently doesn't do any good.  Half of me wants to try to find more historical magical girls, but then I also want to go somewhere else where Kyuubey can maybe show up out of public sight.  And talk with Jenny about what we're going to do now that Kiri's dead."

"That doesn't seem like the worst idea ever. 

...Um.

Kiri's body was never found, is the thing.  So...I think I want to see if I can find - anything useful about that."

Lila gets up and starts stacking up the newspapers and books to put back.

"If she... became a witch -

"Wait a minute; there wasn't a body left when we killed that witch.  So if she did, would there still be a body left behind already?  Or would the magic take it?"

"...I dunno, but thinking about what was left behind when Jenny killed that witch, I find myself worrying about Grief Seeds."

"Ugh.  Makes me want to give it a good burial rather than -

"Oh no, we refill our soul gems off it, like vampires."

She shoves the last papers together and into the box.

"That is...not pleasant.

"...I want to try something with this one, when we have a chance.  There was something...I didn't have time for, when we fought her to begin with."

"Me too.  But - let's get out first."

They take back the newspapers, put the books on the To Be Reshelved shelf, and then Lila makes one detour to the history shelf on the way out and grabs a biography of Joan of Arc.  "Maybe she might've been - one of us?"

"It's certainly possible, given her, well, everything.  Though it's notable that there seemingly aren't any Kyuubey."

"I think I remember some butterflies or birds or something around Joan once?"  She shrugs.  "If we have any other ideas...  I can ask Dad to bring us to the university library.  Though I think it's best if we get some leads first."

Jenny, in her nonmagical jeans, is leaning against the wall outside the library, looking like she's been laughing to herself.  She waves lazily to Lila and Diana as they come out.

"Hi.  Patricia says she's too busy to play the flute for us today; maybe some other day.  What'd you find?"

"Not much but suspicions.  Kiri wasn't the only girl who disappeared, though..."

Jenny's smile drops away.  Witches get lots of girls, but she still doesn't like hearing about it.

"No surprise," she says somberly, shaking her head.  "Don't think I know anyone else over in that city... no, wait, Kiri mentioned she was hunting with a Kate?"

"...That might be the person reported as Catherine Baker; they disappeared at the same time."

"Well, guess that means we won't be heading over there."  She kicks at the wall a bit.  "So much for whatever she knew."

"She might have kept notes."

"Yeah, but what'd we say to her parents?  'Hi, I'm your dead daughter's old friend; can we dig through all her papers for something that may or may not be there'?"

"We think we might know something about why she disappeared, and - it's not enough to tell the cops about, yet -" her face scrunches up at the idea of actually involving the cops, because, no - "but we'd recognize clues if we saw them."

"Yeah, and she'd been talking with you about maybe running away - that part's even true - and you think she might've written down some ideas in ways that look like fantasy novel notes -"

Jenny thinly smiles.  She doesn't want to just give up on Kiri's memory, after all.  Or maybe - there's still a faint hope - maybe she is still alive.  "OK, but you two do the talking.  And the driving."

(For not the first time, she wishes her grades and attendance are good enough to get a driver's license herself.)

"Sure.  We're the ones who heard you mention it and pushed you to actually go look.  Which's also true."

"Sounds like a plan.  Meet you...here, Saturday at 10?"

It's earlier than she cares to be up most Saturdays, what with witch hunting being better in the evenings.  But this's worth it.  "Sure."

"I'll need to ask my parents, but I think they'll be fine if we're back that night... so I think we should be planning to be back that night?  And have you got a car, Diana?"

"I don't - have a car, have a car - but I'm not going to be begrudged my use of family-held vehicles.  As long as I don't do anything stupid like throw them at witches without a damn good reason, I guess.  And I feel like I could leverage my wish into something if we needed that, but, like...  That would be overkill, and probably cause problems, given, y'know, The Masquerade.  Don't want to throw Kyuubeys at the DMV.  ...And yeah this is a day trip only, otherwise I wouldn't be trying to wake up that early."

"This's the sort of thing where I would be willing to stay out overnight if it needs it, parents or not."  An actual adventure.  Doing actually important meaningful things.  Maybe saving someone's life.  "But I don't think it'd need it here."