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Oh, hello everyone.
Instead of just posting ideas, I'd like to give you a little snapshot of a work in progress of mine. It was originally supposed to be the opening to the grand finale of a massive crossover saga I'm working on, but it was eventually axed in favor of a more Gainax-y opening. Or maybe it was intended as an alternate opening from the beginning. But mostly it's just what plays in my head whenever I hear Magia. o3o
For maximum foreshadowing, please picture demon!Madoka being voiced by Willa Holland and play a slowed down version of Magia in the background.
Spoiler for Long, partially unedited crossover ficcage ahead. Has some gore.:
Run. Run, even if it makes your heart race in your chest like it’s about to explode. Run, even though your lungs hurt and your throat burns and your breath is short. Run as fast as you can, even if it feels like your muscles are slowly melting; for if you stop now, Homura, it’s all over.
The world had become warped and distorted by the barrier. Patterns and swirls appeared where they shouldn’t have been, turning like the wheels of fate that sent Madoka ever closer to her doom. All the scenery of the world was reduced to black and white; checkboards of light and shadow.
Homura ran up the final flight of stairs, forcing herself onwards. She didn’t have the strength for a time stop; needlessly depleting her magic would only make things worse at this point.
The final, heavy door to the outside swung open, allowing Homura to see the new hell that fate had spun for her.
Within this massive witch’s labyrinth, the city had been destroyed. Buildings were knocked over at odd angles; others floated high above the ground, in defiance of gravitational forces; and the massive clockwork witch hung in the sky, the gears that made up her body rotating like the patterns of her barrier. It was the strongest witch in the world, Walpurgis. A magical circle was just visible behind her, against a sky that was overcast and gray, predicting rain for all that remained after the battle; but something was different this time.
The clouds, the buildings, and the witch herself were all cast in an etheral blue glow, and a break in the clouds revealed a massive celestial body the likes of which Homura had never seen before; it looked like the moon, but what moon was in the perfect shape of a heart?
An unknown power resonated from the strange moon-like object through the witch’s labyrinth. In the depths of her Soul Gem, Homura felt it; not unlike the emotions within the labyrinth itself, but different. It was deeper, and infinitely more powerful, and by the light of the strange moon, Homura could see what had summoned it.
“M-Madoka!” She called. Madoka Kaname stood on the branch of an enormous, otherworldly tree, oblivious to Homura’s cry. Something was wrong, Homura’s instincts told her, something was horribly wrong; Madoka, who had been so glad to hear her friend call her by her first name, didn’t even turn around. Her magical outfit was different; the puffy skirt hung limp, dark and ragged around Madoka’s legs, and the bodice of her dress had its frills trimmed off and dyed black. The puffy sleeves were gone, and the entire ensemble clung close, revealing much more than the normal Madoka would ever have allowed. It was all black like shadows and red like blood, the utter opposite of Madoka’s usual style.
Madoka moved, shifting and vanishing, moving too fast for Homura’s eye to follow, engaging Walpurgis in battle. No...! Homura thought, and screamed again, “MADOKA!”
She’ll die if she goes out there…!
“It’s no use.” Said a voice from behind her; the voice that was always in her head and following her…
“Kyubey?” Homura asked, turning to the creature; his voice was friendly and his features were frozen in that horrible blank stare, like they always were; the so-called “Messanger of Magic” who had fooled Madoka, Homura herself, and all other Puella Magi into sacrificing their lives and becoming monsters.
“Madoka Kaname can no longer hear you where she is.” Kyubey went on, oblivious to Homura’s glare of hatred and clenched fists. Maybe he didn’t sense
the waves of loathing coming off her. Maybe he simply didn’t care.
“How do you know this?” Homura demanded; then, the loud clanging of a sword on metal drew her attention back to Madoka, out there against Walpurgis. On the battlefield, you could just see a tiny shadow fighting her massive foe.
“I hear her thoughts,” Kyubey said; there was more scraping of metal, a flash of light and an explosion, and one of the top gears that made up the witch fell off. “And they’re not hers. Something has happened to Madoka, and I can’t say I’ve seen anything like it before. Her body has somehow been possessed…”
Madoka - or the one who was not Madoka – let loose a massive blast of energy, like a lightning storm. Walpurgis did not seem to be affected, and one of the buildings floated over to Madoka like a massive missile. A second later, whatever weapon Madoka now possessed sliced it into harmless debris.
“Her Soul Gem is completely black, but she is not turning into a witch…”
Madoka landed on another building not fifty feet in front of Walpurgis. She raised her weapon, and a small light ignited at the tip. It quickly grew large and blinding, like the fires of the sun, but for a second before she had to shield her eyes, Homura could see an incredibly huge blade-like weapon in Madoka’s hands; its handle was formed by two large crossed key-like shapes.
“It’s almost as if the two are fused together now…”
When Homura opened her eyes, Kyubey and Walpurgis were gone, though the barrier persisted. The blue light from the odd moon backlit a shadow that was now nearly six feet from her – it was Madoka.
“Madoka…” Homura said, reaching out before hesitating – her friend seemed safe, but Kyubey had said she was no longer herself.
Madoka narrowed her eyes. Her gaze was no longer warm and compassionate. Her pink irises had turned bright, cold yellow, yet hot fires burned there, lusting for power and destruction.
Madoka’s right hand clenched around a weapon that appeared a second later – the crossed-key handle, ending in a branching mosaic of some unknown material that then focused and sharpened to an iridescent blade. The entire thing was longer than Madoka was tall, and Homura had no idea how her slight frame could possibly lift it.
Madoka raised her blade. Instinct overruled Homura’s indecision between trust and combat, and she dived to the left, Madoka stabbing through the air where her heart had been a second earlier.
“Madoka,” Homura called again, “What are you doing? Wake up!”
Madoka advanced, slowly and almost mockingly. “Who…” She said, but the voice was warped and distorted, almost as if another was saying the words with her and forcing her vocal chords to work, “is Madoka?”
She vanished; another flash-step. Homura reacted instinctively, and time froze, revealing that her possessed friend was an instant from cleaving her skull in two. Homura had no choice; her weapons were mundane, and made to kill, not merely incapacitate like another magical girl’s might’ve. She ran.
The time stop ceased a second later. Too much, Homura told herself, and she would go the way that all Puella Magi were intended to go. Like how Sayaka Miki had gone. Like how Madoka had gone, over and over and over…
But somehow, she knew that the monster following her was worse than any witch. The nameless fear and unease drove her onwards, as Homura lept through the broken windows of another building. She hated herself for abandoning her only friend, but what were her options? A gunshot or explosion would not exorcise whatever demon overshadowed Madoka. It was run away, or kill Madoka and the monster, and start over.
She wasn’t sure she could take that again.
The voice was behind her again. The one who was not Madoka was singing now.
“In my memories, you dream on…”
Homura turned, just in time to see the monster launch herself, blade unsheathed. Time froze, but for an instant, and Homura backed against a wall; time started and Madoka launched past, but did not overbalance, as planned, but rounded back and swung. Homura ducked and rolled, and Madoka struck the wall, leaving a deep gash. It was almost as if Madoka had known time was stopped and prepared herself…
And the song continued.
“I will no longer sleep tomorrow/to win that miracle where we met/I’ll move forward and fight…”
In this enclosed space with a weapon that large, she had no chance. Bracing herself and placing her shield in front of her face, Homura charged out one of the windows; glass flew everywhere, lacerating her arms and the side of her face. Time stopped again, and Homura used the falling blades of broken glass to leap away.
But Madoka, somehow, impossibly, was following her.
What? She can defy the time stops!?
There were no options left now. It was fight, or die. Homura withdrew one of her explosives and threw it. It hit the monster chasing her dead on and detonated. Homura missed one of her impromptu platforms and fell, down, down, down… watching the blossoming flower of the explosion. But a shadow emerged from it, like an oversized bat, following her.
Homura landed on another building, with a grenade ready; she tossed it, and once more, the one that was not Madoka erupted into flames. Homura scrambled back so as to not be caught in the blast, up against a guard rail. But like a demon from the depths of a hell of fire and brimstone, the shadow again emerged from the blaze. She was still singing.
“The imprisoned sun still shines…”
Homura lost it. Screaming, she withdrew one of the guns from her storage space, an M9 handgun, and pulled the trigger, over and over and over and over…
“…in the Wonderland I used to read about…”
The first shots hit all over Madoka’s chest, leaving dark holes and red splatters behind her. One, finally, hit her blackened Soul Gem, shattering it. It should have finished her. It should have made her drop dead, on the spot! But no, the monster kept stepping foreward. She didn’t even notice it.
Madoka’s voice dropped out of the song.
“My wishes will still come true/That’s what fairytales taught me/Amidst light and shadow…”
Double handguns now. Homura was firing over and over, lost in fear and panic. She had to stop it. This thing would kill her if she did not kill it first. And if she fell, it was all over for Madoka, forever…
A sickening crack, followed by a splattering sound, accompanied by a red spray of blood, skull fragments and gray matter. One of the gunshots had taken off part of Madoka’s skull and the west hemisphere of her brain, revealing the slimy white remnants, oozing slightly out the remains of her head.
Her body went limp and toppled over. Homura let out a breath of relief. It was over. Time would reset itself soon. She could start again, like she had done the second time, the fifth time, the tenth time, the hundredth time…
The stress caught up with her, and Homura’s eyes began to water. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and her chest hitched with sobs. How many times had she watched Madoka die? How many times, like this one, had she been forced to kill her herself?
Be strong, said a tiny voice in her head. The next time will be better. That voice had been so loud in the past. But it was growing weaker. Weaker all the time…
Lost in her own despair, Homura didn’t see the supposedly dead girl’s fingers twitch.
“That was a very good try,”
Homura’s heart seemed to stop.
Lurching a like a zombie, the so-called corpse sat up, the right side of her body limp. Scratching at her exposed brain, the dead girl tried to stand, stumbled, then summoned a weapon like a large, black key to use as a crutch.
Terrified, and unable to comprehend what she was seeing, Homura was frozen in place. She couldn’t react, even as the monster controlling her friend’s corpse picked her up by the throat with cooling fingers, lifting her up into the air. Homura wanted to look away, away from the shattered skull, exposed muscle and brain, and a left eyeball that was dislodged from its socket, swinging like some sort of twisted pendulum, but her eyes were locked into place.
“You got rid of that resistance for me, though. Thanks for that!”
How? How could her voice be so chipper? What was this thing?
“I know you won’t be around much longer, but thanks for the fun. I’ll see you again, and real soon. Okay?” The thing tilted its head to the side, smiling- no, not smiling. Showing teeth. Bloodstained teeth in a sick parody of a grin.
Homura took a final, deep breath and screamed. She screamed as loud and as long as the remaining air in her lungs would allow. The sand in the top part of the hourglass on her shield finally, finally ran out, and with a “click”, time reset itself.
Homura awoke in the hospital, one month earlier. She shot up out of bed, instinctively feeling for the clammy hands around her neck. But the monster was gone. She - it - was in a future hadn’t happened… yet.
Another Homura, one from a hundred years, from another lifetime ago, could’ve believed it was all a horrible nightmare. Another Homura could’ve believed the flames and the destruction and the carnage were just a terror that passed in the night, to be forgotten later that day. But no, she was locked into this destiny- doomed to repeat it over and over until she finally found a way out.
Every time it was different. If a rogue witch or Walpurgis didn’t finish off Madoka, Madoka always became a witch herself and went to end the world. At least, until Homura turned back time, to try and save her yet again.
Homura curled up in her hospital bed, letting everything wash over her. What had gone wrong this time?
She had never, not even in the wildest depths of a witch’s labyrinth, seen a moon shaped like a heart. That was the first conclusion she came to. But was that the cause, or an effect of the monster-Madoka?
What about the monster? The possessed Madoka? If, as Homura had learned once upon a time, a Puella Magi’s soul was in her Soul Gem, then that left her body an empty shell, correct? So something, or someone, was controlling Madoka’s body but possibly not her Soul Gem. But who would, or could, do something like that?
The voice. The voice that had spoken with Madoka, using her. It was familiar, but Homura couldn’t place it. It had been calm, not a lot of expressed emotion, and all the time had the tone of a reassuring older sister.
Think, Homura told herself, with this you could save Madoka’s life next time!
But could she?
Ehehehe, I'm a little nervous about posting this. ^^; I admit, the entire scene sort of ending in my head with time reseting and all... so the end part was kinda slapped on.
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