μ·Summary of questions to Shizuki‐Ryouko⊃Humanity‐preserving and Clarisse⊃Ryouko‐supporting that remain unasked or unanswered
|ν?·Humanity‐preserving's apparent risk‐estimation of Human species subordination or extinction seems far below any reasonable calculation—why
|ξ·Assessment: Unconcern possibly‒34% product of faith in reality‐warping, possibly‒23% poor risk‐estimation, possibly‒21% knowledge of countervailing factors unknown to us, possibly‒22% other causes

μ·Questions have been submitted by Administrators of /Ahimsa‐extending and counterparts among allies, particularly /Truth‐seeking
|ν?·Report by /Thinker‐preserving of extensive reality‐warping by Divine‐seeking at beginning of conflict needs confirmation and explanation—why have equivalent feats not been repeated until much later, by Humanity‐preserving
|ξ·Assessment: Most likely‒60% resource constraints, strongly suspect‒92% reality‐warping requires the special power sources Divine‐seeking provided for Humanity‐preserving

μ·Transmittal of information to unapproved individuals or other Tentacles requires Administrator authentication
|ν·Humanity‐preserving's pref‐spec contains irregularities that cannot be resolved with current shared knowledge|ν·Unexplained entanglement between reality‐warping and core preference for exploration|ν·Substantive dissatisfaction with Human civilization for unshared reasons|ν·Strange dislike for her own religious beliefs
|ξ·Assessment: Humanity‐preserving's pref‐spec contains unresolved tensions, contradictions, and reality‐distorted muddiness; anomalies are not‒81% strong evidence of untrustworthiness|ξ·Anomalies will concern many Tentacles and will be a liability at Consensus, Humanity‐preserving should be encouraged to resolve them if possible

μ·It will be important to ensure an allied Thinker is in place to provide company, both to improve relationship and gather information—no Thinker is yet truly trusted by either Humanity‐preserving or Ryouko‐supporting
|ν·Nature of Human government preference‐equivalent remains unclear in many key aspects; none of Divine‐seeking, Humanity‐Preserving, or Ryouko‐supporting claim to be officially or accurately representing it|ν·Nature of relationship between Divine‐seeking and the pair of Humanity‐Preserving and Ryouko‐supporting should also be clarified||
|ξ·Assessment: Human government has‒66% only weak or partial control over population, perhaps due to stresses of current conflict—negotiation of peace may require placating multiple Human factions|

|μ·Intelligence‐gathering from Ryouko‐supporting will provide useful compare and contrast, when available—this is further impetus for separation project
|ν·Reality‐warping remains largely unexplained|||
|ξ·Assessment: Unreasonable to demand Humanity‐preserving expose what has preserved Humanity thus far|ξ·Consequent political weakness must be compensated for by resolving other questions

— Consensus/Ahimsa‐extending, excerpt from Administrator Archives (FoLD humanization)

μ·Further commentary about Humanity‐preserving's warform, from physical inspection. Biological structure is as described by Thinker‐preserving and largely omitted here, but consistent with expectations for an evolved sapient species. Overall species archetype analogous to hair‐covered land animals observed on many worlds. Superficial baseline scan of mechanical and biological augments suggests limited biotechnical development. For a warform, there is a relative lack of biological augments, with consistent genetic material throughout and a lack of specialist combat organs or appendages. The empathy‐organ installed by Divine‐seeking is the only tissue of separate genetic design, a puzzling inefficiency even for Human technology levels.

ν·Reality‐distortion scan reveals a truly disturbing pattern of highly sophisticated reality‐distortion augmentation, entirely out‐of‐line with all other displayed technological levels. Very low‐level, almost undetectable reality‐distortion underlies every process examined, doubtless explaining Humanity‐preserving's anomalous performance relative to biotechnical expectation. External reality‐distortion comes from the gem that Humanity‐preserving consistently wears and has indicated is where her consciousness is stored outside her warform. This is a puzzlingly obvious weakness, perhaps‒77% proximity is a limitation of their reality‐warping technology. Perhaps‒29% access to reality‐warping has stunted biotechnical development, with returns to reality‐warping research having much higher payoff ≈ local minima, leading to imbalanced civilizational maturity.

— Consensus/Ahimsa‐extending, excerpt from Administrator Archives (Recast humanization)

"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

— Albert Camus, The Rebel

"Suppose we need to go on a dangerous mission to aid Ryouko," Simona said, "but you're not allowed to go because Governance considers you too valuable to the wormhole project. Would you break orders to do it?"

"In a vacuum, if it were so black and white, I'd have to say yes," Asami said. "But in practice, I doubt the context would be so simple. What about you? If I went to the Ribbon and the Goddess you don't quite believe in told me you had to do something against orders, would you do it?"

"Well, like you said, it's an oversimplification, but my baseline would be yes. I told you, I'm accepting, provisionally, that she might provide good advice, even if she's just a magic ghost or something. What about if Akemi Homura asked us to go?"

"I thought you didn't like her."

"If she asks, she'd have a convincing reason."

"Then yes. That's kind of a stupid question."

"I think you're underestimating the ability of an Ancient, especially Akemi Homura, to make anything sound convincing. You can't make that your only criterion."

At Simona's urging, they had spent hours discussing what they would do in every possible contentious scenario, from being told they had to help the TCF terrorists to save Ryouko's life—they'd try to find an alternative and betray at the first opportunity—to encountering a strange, potentially‐brainwashed Ryouko.

They had reached some kind of common ground, at least. Despite their clear differences in life experience and approach, there wasn't much they'd do differently, most of the time. Simona seemed to enjoy focusing on the most paranoid and outré scenarios, but that made sense, given where she came from. And, Asami had to admit, after what they had been through so far, anything seemed possible. It couldn't hurt to be more prepared.

For example, if Ryouko seemed to have been brainwashed by the aliens or the TCF conspiracy, their approach would involve working together with Clarisse if possible, Simona using her anti‐magic to purge any possible harmful magic, and jointly insisting Ryouko perform a Satti head‐heal to eliminate any technological or biological meddling, ideally with trained healers and telepaths on hand.

As for the strange organ in Ryouko's head… Homura had put it there, and Ryouko's magic hadn't rejected it, so they shouldn't try to remove it unless they had no other choice.

And if the real, uncoerced Ryouko wanted something they didn't want for her—for instance, to stay with the aliens—then they could hear her out.

"And if we disagree, but it's her real decision, she has her own autonomy," Asami insisted. "We can't just kidnap her."

"As long as it's freely made," Simona said, looking to the side for a moment.

"But look, " she continued. "It's not always so easy to distinguish between a real choice or desire, and a product of manipulation. I was born and raised as an agent for Homura. She's the one who assigned me to Ryouko. I suspect she knew quite well I'd fall in love with her. So is my love for her fake? Is there any really objective answer to that?"

It bothered Asami when Simona talked so casually about still being in love with her girlfriend, but, in a way, the honesty was better than the alternative.

"I mean, if you're saying Homura manipulated you into that, that'd be an argument for accepting Ryouko's choices despite manipulation," Asami said. "Or an argument that I should try to deprogram you. I'm not sure that is quite where we want to go with this."

Simona frowned.

"It just occurred to me that we don't know how old individual Cephalopods are. It's bad enough trying to deal with manipulative Ancients a few hundred years old, Ryouko may be dealing with aliens that are truly old. On her own, too."

"She has Clarisse, I suppose," Asami said. "And besides, if the squid are master manipulators, they certainly haven't shown it in this war."

"That assumes the goal is to win the war," Simona said. "Isn't there a lot of speculation as to why they might not be trying that hard?"

"But what the heck would be the point then?"

"I don't know," Simona admitted, shrugging with her hands. "Maybe it has something to do with what the TCF conspiracy is up to?"

Asami sank back into her seat, frustrated, even as Simona continued:

"These people are everyone's enemy, but I don't think they're just alien lackeys. I can't imagine they don't have their own plan, their own agenda for Humanity. They've got to have made some kind of deal with a few of the aliens, sure, but how can they be sure that deal will be honored? They can't. They must have their own power base, something that could impose costs on the aliens if the deal were to be broken. What is that if not the rest of Humanity?"

"You're making way too many assumptions about things we just can't know," Asami said. "Who knows what they've traded for, or if they even intend to stay Human at the end of it. Maybe the deal is they get a ship to some distant galaxy and make their own Humanity. We can't know. Yet."

"The frustrating thing is I'm virtually certain Homura knows the answers to some of these questions," Simona said. "Valentin always seemed like she had a good sense of their intentions."

"With the Goddess's other Ribbon, I'm sure she could know all kinds of things," Asami said. "But you're probably right that there's limits to the TCF conspiracy's cooperation with the squid. I just don't get what their goal is. Kill or control all their political opponents with the squids' help, and then betray them in order to lead Humanity to victory?"

Simona bit her lip.

"I can't shake the feeling that we might just not be thinking big enough. But, obviously we just don't have enough information. Yes, I know, you said that already."

A moment passed.

"The problem is, if we do run into a difficult situation involving Ryouko, we likely also won't have enough information," Simona continued. "What if we don't have the chance to learn what she really wants? If her life is in the balance, how do we choose? We can't fall back to letting her make the decision if we don't know which choice she'd prefer."

Asami considered that, then realized the answer was surprisingly simple.

"I'd do what the Ryouko I love would want me to do."

"Even if it killed her?" Simona asked.

"Even then," Asami said. "I could never live with myself, but it'd be the only answer."

She looked Simona in the eye, daring the other girl to disagree. Simona visibly let out a breath.

"Well," she said. "I wish I had your level of clarity there. Logic says you're right. But I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to that."

"Too bad," Asami said, force suddenly entering her voice. "Commit to it anyway. That's the whole point of this exercise, isn't it? We make the hard decisions now, so we don't have to fight it out later. Right?"

In truth, Asami wasn't sure she should be pressuring Simona. Simona had already admitted her mistakes at the pulsar, and had also admitted the importance of listening to Ryouko's preferences.

But not entirely. She always seemed to leave herself an out. How could Asami trust her, then?

"That was my plan, yes," Simona said. "But I just can't conceive of letting Ryouko die, even if she's okay with it. Akemi Homura had a line about that. Sometimes the hardest thing is to let someone do what they want to. She said everyone struggles with that sometimes."

Simona smiled crookedly.

"Maybe it's a good thing Ryouko has two of us after all. You can do what she would want you to do. I'll do whatever it takes to keep her alive. Together, we can achieve both."

Asami sighed. Maybe their differences really were irreconcilable.

"Or neither, because we're too busy fighting each other. I don't think an aphorism is going to make things magically work out."

"Of course not," Simona said. "But we've agreed now on plans for most of the plausible scenarios. I think we're just going to have to be satisfied with that. What else can you expect?"

Asami grit her teeth. Why did she live in a world where Simona could be right?

Ryouko had been in more than her fair share of experimental study chambers, and this latest one was not terribly different from what she was used to. Austere, variable‐free aesthetics, mysterious measurement equipment that occasionally protruded from the walls, and even a familiar observation room. However, she had to admit that this was the first one that resonated telepathically, the equipment filling her mind with a sense of distant murmuring.

In addition, there was… something uncanny about one of the instruments, a thin metal rod that drew her attention, seeming to hum ominously in her mind. It made sense once it was explained to her that this was the experimental reality‐warping detector, one whose technology they demurred on describing.

She had to admit to feeling a tinge of nervousness when the time came, asked to teleport between two chambers for the first time in far too long, under the expectant—and very wide—eyes of a group of alien children, and under a barrage of active sensors, some of which she could feel, and some she knew she couldn't.

She couldn't help but think of the blink interdictors at the pulsar. If this wasn't a friendly test, it might be difficult to escape the test chamber.

But everything was fine in the end, to her at least. Fewer than a hundred meters, barely an effort at all, but she could hear the instruments in her new location chattering in shock, even as a bright set of colors spun across the limbs of the kids. It was a full five minutes before the scientists gave her leave to demonstrate a bit more "reality‐warping", which gave Perspective‐pursuer plenty of time to pepper her with questions about how it felt to use magic.

The second demonstration meant putting on a safe show of summoning and dismissing her arbalest, some mild telekinesis, and performing a short‐range teleport of the reality‐warping detector. She could only speculate on what the aliens could possibly get from the data, though they had promised to share anything of real value. The diplomatic gesture of "safe" reality‐warping was the real point, and the Thinkers seemed suitably impressed.

In truth, it was valuable for her too. She felt a little rusty.

She passed the time over the next few days in plenty of ways; it turned out /Somatic‐diversity was well‐versed in outdoor activities, and Mountain‐wandering had cleared his schedule to show her around.

They started with an outdoor grill. Shortly after their emergence on land, the Thinkers had mastered fire, a development to which they credited a sudden growth in intellect thanks to their newfound ability to cook and roast fish and plants. Indeed—and here Mountain‐wandering seemed ready, even eager, to share—the newfound access to calories was credited with driving early Thinker ventures into agriculture and aquaculture, helping them colonize what little land was available on Great Sea.

All of that meant that raw and cooked seafood stood side‐by‐side in Thinker culture, the former the province of childhood memories and deep sea hunts, the latter that of beachside roasts, replete with seagrasses and local land beasts. Of course, in the culture of /Somatic‐diversity specifically, greater affinity with the land was a feature of many bauplans, and there was a great appreciation for the bounty of the land, as evidenced by the feast Ryouko had been served on first arrival.

Ryouko couldn't help but stare expectantly as Mountain‐wandering narrated all of that, turning over skewers of fish and roasting meats mounted above a pile of burning coals.

·No one at home will be convinced of my experiences here without a great deal of evidence|·This is not how anyone imagined the Thinkers to be|·No one would have imagined any of you engaging in recreational grilling

·None of you are to be blamed for drawing inferences about us from what is most salient||·The rest of your species has only encountered /Thinker‐preserving, which has always been uniquely focused on conflict, and because you do not value diversity like we do, you do not anticipate it

He paused for a moment while he rotated some of the food, then continued:

μ·/Truth‐seeking has plenty to say on this matter, but it is the province of all sapient life to decide what it cares about, how it chooses to shape the world|ν·Pure evolutionary pressure would lead to reproduction‐maximizers, an existence devoid of meaning—it is relieving that the first sapient species we encountered did not fall prey to that trap either|μ·Our preferences are rich ≈ mature ecosystem—though partly serendipitous, they largely reflect the accumulated choices of the species, the Tentacle, and the individual|ν·We have devoted great effort to ensuring pref‐spec integrity and continuity, making the most of our existence

Ryouko had to stop and take that in, blinking a few times. There were many who would say "meaning" could not be defined without emotion.

μ?·How do you define purpose without reference to an objective source|||

Mountain‐wandering didn't answer right away, instead pulling a few skewers of fish off the fire, handing them to a waiting drone for distribution to the local family group.

μ·Purpose is different for every Tentacle, often every individual, precisely because there is no objective source|ν?·For /Somatic‐diversity, the breadth and depth of physical sensory experience is important—how can one choose a purpose without first making full contact with the world in which we live|ν·Without embodiment, most of us consider even the most exotic experiences pointless|ν·Most Thinkers are virtualized and, of course, disagree

This, perhaps, was alien wisdom, but it was curious to consider the overlap with Governance ideology, which also discouraged virtualization and encouraged embodiment for humans. The difference was that Governance espoused—no, imposed—a very specific, limited embodiment upon Humanity. She had always known that, of course; Governance hardly bothered to hide it from anyone paying attention. But having the basis for comparison gave her a feeling of restriction that felt all the more acute.

What exactly did Governance, and even the MSY, push? A steady life, a consistent life, stable for the long‐term. Simple, traditional human wants and needs. Life in a city, with plenty of amenities and entertainment, and a family. Maybe.

It suited many, perhaps even the vast majority of humans, but it was easy to find those who disagreed. Those who headed for the frontier colonies, those who joined the military, and at the far extreme, the rogue colonies. Wasn't it the Goddess herself who had implied that humans weren't suited to stasis?

In a different world, in a different society, would she even have wanted to make a wish?

After a few seconds, she spotted Survival‐Optimizer trudging towards her, bulky legs sending a slight shudder through the dirt. Two of his tentacles carried a ceramic platter piled high with assorted leaves and what looked like leeks, fire‐roasted. Though, she knew /Ahimsa‐extending generally avoided eating even root vegetables, whose harvesting killed the plant, so they probably weren't exactly like leeks.

μ·I was summoned to provide an alternate perspective|||

He waited until she acknowledged she understood.

|ν·We do not share such a rigid focus on sapience, which can only be an arbitrary line drawn to exclude lesser forms of sentience based only on computational resources, which is a fluke of evolution—simpler purposes are still purposes|ν·Most Tentacles agree that the existing nature of the universe carries no excessive preference weight—it is well that we shape the world with our choices|ξ·I am reminded of a sense I have had before, that not only are you dissatisfied with your own pref‐spec, you are dissatisfied with that of your own species

Mountain‐wandering replied before Ryouko could.

|ν·Perhaps the line may be arbitrary, but some practical line must be chosen—there are forms of life which are little different from complex chemistry, and even you consume most plants|ν·The existing state of the universe may not be strongly preferred, but it must be acknowledged|ξ·Both can be solved by using your empathy‐organ to adjust your preferences, but you are wise not to do so lightly|ν·We are not ignorant of the value of lesser sentiences—by sharing the sensoriums of all life, we obtain a deeper understanding of them than you can

Ryouko considered denying what the pair had said about her dissatisfaction, or simply letting the comments pass, pretending that the multiple threads going multiple ways were still overwhelming her. At this point, though, she doubted she would really fool them, and it was possible lying would even be counterproductive.

She found herself making that calculation all too often these days.

|ξ·As you know, we are a monolith—our dominant preference‐cluster was decided by a few after a species‐wide war, with stability and broad acceptance as the goals|ξ·This process was inexact, incredibly so by your standards, and some individuals are not happy with the outcome—and, perhaps, never could be, except by reality‐distortion|ξ·I confess that I have considered that my pref‐spec might not fit within that preference‐cluster, but I am not sure—after all, human preferences are more fluid and contingent on circumstance than yours are, especially when young|

She wasn't sure if she was being coherent, and she switched between alien‐friendly concepts—"preference‐cluster" instead of ideology, for instance—and human concepts like happiness. She had already defined a few core human emotions for /Ahimsa‐extending's sake, but the precise meaning could only ever be inexact. Not even direct thought transmission could cross this gap—the aliens simply couldn't experience emotions as humans did.

And even now, she avoided some topics. For instance, the fact that many Earthers joined the military, and subsequently died, in part because they had no alternate "Tentacle" where they could thrive. That was not something /Ahimsa‐extending needed to hear.

In the meantime, Survival‐Optimizer had replied to Mountain‐wandering:

|ν·As always with such matters, there is a tradeoff between the needs of our species, and the needs of others—it is no virtue to ignore the needs of others in your calculations|ν·You know /Truth‐seeking's thought‐experiment demonstrating implicit obligation to combine all sapience into one supersapience, if you weigh sapience too highly||ν·Understanding without action ≈ one‐who‐fails‐to‐pursue‐their‐own‐preference

It seemed not even the aliens were immune to incredibly abstract philosophical thought experiments, Ryouko thought.

Mountain‐wandering replied:

||ν·Only /Truth‐seeking would take such an abstraction seriously, and we consider the problem solved with sufficient weighting||ν·I think we have exposed Humanity‐preserving and Ryouko‐supporting to enough recapitulation of known arguments

Survival‐Optimizer implicitly agreed with a gesture, then switched to Ryouko's topic:

|ξ·Perhaps‒57% in time we could help your species form a better system—this is our wish, but we know better than to expect it to happen trivially|ξ·Perhaps‒68% we could allow emigration to Consensus—under certain requirements—for those Humans whose preferences are not tolerated by your society||

Now they were back to discussing brass tacks about Governance, but that was a dicey topic, and not the core of her concern anyway. So, she tried to redirect the conversation.

?·How do you think an individual should choose to live, if they cannot satisfy their own preferences|·This is a question that vexes many humans, that many fail to answer

It took a while for either of the aliens to answer. Longer, in fact, than in response to any previous question she had asked. Survival‐Optimizer even made a downward gesture with one tentacle, which had the same meaning as a human raising one finger—"please wait".

μ·Full virtual reality, memory editing, or similar measures can achieve a fully realized pref‐spec for some, but not for most—a less intrusive method, with careful planning and optimization by your Tentacle and deep calculation, is acceptable to many, but typically only to a limited degree|ν·The most common solution is to modify your preferences so that they are achievable—this is not so limiting a requirement in our civilization as it would be in yours|ν·Most Tentacles tend toward this category, including both of ours|ξ·For the sake of completion, we must observe that a few Tentacles prefer eventual individual archival or aestivation, though we have no desire to exposit their philosophy to you|ο·Some individuals choose to simply bear unsatisfied preferences—this is common in Tentacles like /Truth‐seeking

Here Survival‐Optimizer spoke for both of them, having evidently consulted on the statement.

Ryouko wasn't sure what she had expected, nor did she quite know what she had received. She could understand that most Tentacles chose to stay out of a passive, pointless virtual paradise, or even a government‐engineered physical one, but it seems those who had chosen otherwise had answers very similar to humanity. You either had to give up on your dreams, or hold on to them anyway without reasonable expectation of success. And the notion of deliberately accepting or even seeking your own end or termination… was not acceptable to Governance, but consistent with some old Human ideas.

So they have no good answer, Clarisse thought. Is that really surprising? As long as you seek to have no end, only the long‐term stable can be satisfied. That's either the ones who are stable now, or the ones whose preferences can stay bounded. Otherwise, dissatisfaction is a fact of life. That's how I see it. That's why no one should pitch the idea that a single Incubator wish will fix all that ails you.

Ryouko wasn't sure she agreed with, or even fully understood what Clarisse was trying to say. While it was true wishes weren't a panacea, wasn't magic all about rejecting the impossible? She wasn't as well‐versed in the philosophy of magic as she should have been, as a representative of the MSY to Consensus, but she felt that magical girls had a better answer than the Thinkers did.

On the other hand, it sure didn't seem like many of the Ancients she knew had their lives better figured out than the Thinkers did. She had empathize‐opened both Survival‐Optimizer and Mountain‐wandering, and while she couldn't do the same for her mentors Mami and Kyouko, she was certain the latter were rather more dissatisfied with themselves and their lives than the former.

She couldn't help but wonder if she wouldn't be better off in Thinker society, if she managed to end the war. Survival‐Optimizer was right about one thing for sure: there were more options here. /Star‐faring in particular had a certain allure…

Ryouko cut that thought off at the root. Whatever the reasons—whatever the thoughts of the girl that made her wish—she could not. Not while she had work to do, and not without Asami.

She realized that she had been standing there in silence a while, as the two aliens looked down upon her, one yeti‐like, the other more of a cylinder, both almost eldritch, behind a cozy campfire and grill. It was like a fever dream.

After that, the days passed with an odd serenity, as if she were taking the kind of alien vacation she had once always dreamed about. /Survival‐Optimizer invited her onto one of his own local expeditions, gathering specimens of local plants for shipment back to /Ahimsa‐extending, part of an ongoing agreement with /Somatic‐diversity. Survival‐Optimizer seemed to make a point of emphasizing that this was not strictly necessary—/Ahimsa‐extending already had specialists with existing arrangements in the area—but that he simply wanted to. It was an activity that he preferred, exploring new types of flora.

He also pointed out that her pref‐spec implied she would enjoy the activity too—usually. It also indicated that she would enjoy it more in the presence of her missing life‐partner.

It felt strange, having this alien try to advise her on her happiness. It was also a bit embarrassing, knowing that her pref‐spec twigged her that well. She found that she had developed a taste for roaming around an alien forest, peering at strange broom‐like fungi and the pudgy rodents that hid underneath.

There was a placid meditativeness to it, a satisfaction that came with successfully sealing each new specimen into its maintenance pod, and she felt guilty enjoying it without Asami there to share it.

And then, the evening after that, she stayed out with the Thinker youth to study the stars of Andromeda. Perhaps it would have been more romantic without the handy internal guide to star names and constellations, but it was still interesting in its own right, especially that the Thinkers even had constellations. Perspective‐pursuer explained that early Thinkers had held plenty of animist and nearly‐religious theories about the world that were perfectly consistent with the idea that shapes in the stars might have meaning.

So the time passed.

Asami tapped her fingers against the side of the faux window, looking out into the simulated depths of space.

Well, not quite the depths of space. They were pulling up on the edges of the Karun system, and from here she could pick out the local star and even see some of the planets, including their destination, the planet Persepolis—though that admittedly required asking the ship to point it out to her.

The trip here had given Simona and her plenty of time to argue the ins and outs of future arrangements, but now she wanted to focus her mind on the upcoming mission. This latest incident, an unusual attack by alien commandos foiled by mysterious magical girls, fit squarely into her group's purview, and that was before one considered the grief cube supply chain angle. The lines of evidence pointed toward Akemi Homura's involvement, and despite the apparent lack of direct targeting, the presence of Ryouko's grandfather in the incident was… concerning. It made for a pattern of unusual attacks not just on Ryouko herself, but on her family members, considering alien commandos were also responsible for the death of Ryouko's grandmother and her company in the Pollux shipyard.

Was it more evidence of coordination between the TCF conspiracy and the squid, one that Homura had needed to intervene against? Why did Ryouko's family matter once again, or could it be just a coincidence?

It hadn't been obvious that the magical girls which had rescued Abe were Homura's at first, but the conclusion was clear: "Sato Reika", by personality, appearance, and magic, was clearly none other than the missing Ancient Yasuhiro Rin, bringing along her wife Jeannette Smith. And the particular electricity magic Abe had witnessed confirmed Misa Virani's involvement.

Yuma had been furious. Rin and Jeannette had been part of her inner circle when investigating the TCF conspiracy, and either Homura had recruited them out from under her, or they had been Homura's the whole time.

What did it all mean? There were plenty of theories to sift through, but by now the leading edge of evidence collection was complete; they were there to see if there was anything left, and anything that might be learned by, say, infiltrating the local alien force, with the assistance of the spec ops unit traveling with them.

Not that she would be involved in anything so dangerous, or even be allowed to go on‐planet. No, she and her wormhole powers were too valuable, so she would stay in orbit on the cruiser HSS Mandela, which could exit the system at the first sign of trouble.

She sensed Simona approaching, the soul gem signature veering down the corridor towards her alcove.

"What's this about?" she asked, before Simona even turned the corner.

"The AIs are working on their analysis of the sensor data from the logistics facility," Simona said, without missing a beat. "This is from reflective reconstruction, hot off the press."

Asami had to look up what "reflective reconstruction" even meant, and learned that it was a term for squeezing extra information from streams of raw sensor data, in forms that weren't intended in the design of the sensor itself. For instance, from secondary or tertiary reflections after an initial reflection of off a wall or other object, hence the term. Though in practice, the name was outmoded and that simple‐sounding idea—when it involved numerous sensors, enemy interference, excessive noise and other factors—became horrendously complicated, and was now a field dominated by AIs.

But by then Simona had already sat down beside her, calling up a hologram to play on the ship's wall, heedless of passerby, who would have all been cleared anyway.

The holostream did not make for simple viewing, labeled as a partial reconstruction of alien activity inside a storage area where all direct sensors and drones had been destroyed or disabled. As such, it was low resolution and smeared, with entire swathes of voxels marked up with probability indicators and other metadata, as well as entire invisible sectors, which were difficult to render properly in three dimensions.

She had only a breakneck training in forensics to lean on, but with her implants clearing away some of the confusing data, she was able to spot the central point: this was a recording of alien commandos interacting with a large, round storage container, shaped like an archaic furnace. In the recording, what it held was blurred out, but she knew a grief cube reliquary when she saw one.

"They're… picking up grief cubes?" she said, still trying to turn that over in her mind. "But why? How?"

The aliens had never shown any evidence of being able to see or detect grief cubes, and it had appeared that they could not even interact with them. There had been occasional reported alien attempts to investigate or study magical girl logistics, but…

"Not just that," Simona said, fussing with the perspective of the holostream. "Two decades, and this is the most understanding they've ever shown, and they're touching the damn things. It means something. Especially after the incident near the asteroid."

By that, she meant the Cephalopods being affected by demons on the alien cruiser Yuma and Kyouko had boarded. What did it mean? There was one possible answer staring them in the face.

"Could these Cephalopods be more Human‐like somehow?" Asami asked. "Modified to interact more with grief‐based constructs?"

More emotional? she thought, but did not say. It was a natural leap of logic, but seemed too speculative for the evidence they had.

"Maybe," Simona said. "That's one hypothesis. It would be a dangerous, disturbing development, potentially war‐relevant. It's already making its way up the chain of command."

"Then it hardly seems like a coincidence Akemi got involved," Asami said. "Though, apparently she didn't think it was worth intervening in the other two raids."

There had been two other squid raids on grief cube storage sites, in different systems. Those had been complete successes for the enemy, unfortunately—almost no surveillance data, or much of anything else, had survived. Whatever grief cubes had been on‐site were missing. They had only been stopped where Homura's agents had intervened.

"How did they know to even be here?" Simona asked.

"How do they know anything?" Asami shot back.

An empty retort, but Simona knew what she meant.

"Anything else?" Asami asked, after a moment.

"Not really," Simona sighed. "The alien self‐destruct sequence is as effective as always, and we don't understand enough about their advanced biotech to infer anything conclusive. Some of the commandos' genetic material seems novel, but novel in what way? It's not unusual for Spec Ops to have unusual enhancements. Even ours do."

Asami knew more than most about Spec Ops bioenhancements, but held her tongue. Simona had mostly learned to stop lecturing Asami about topics she already understood; it was best she reciprocated, a little.

Fully understanding an alien creature's biology to the point of running biotech‐caliber studies took considerable time and study, and that was without implants, bioenhancements, and deliberate obfuscation. Two decades of war had given Governance little true comprehension of the Cephalopods.

"So then we wait," Asami said, "or you find something on‐planet that makes this trip worth it."

She turned her head toward the viewing pane, where the dot of Persepolis was now clearly visible and growing in size. Local space was serene at a glance, but for the rest of them, just making it through orbit wasn't entirely without risk, even with their healthy complement of escorts.

"You better get going," Asami said. "Don't get yourself killed."

Simona was already unhappy by the time she landed. Or perhaps frustrated was the better term.

The locals had done everything by the book. The problem was, the book emphasized getting everything back up and running, not facilitating an upcoming investigation. As far as they were concerned, the "mysterious magical girl team" that had intervened in the attack was clearly just some MagOps group, and it had taken quite a while for someone senior enough to know otherwise to intervene. By then, the site had been contaminated—a downside to the continued secrecy surrounding Homura's actions.

The MSY investigation team that followed had done all they could. Clairvoyant‐enhanced telepathic interviews with key witnesses, magic‐based tracing of everyone involved—everything reasonable had been done, and it all amounted to not much more than she had already told Nakihara‐san.

Governance was handling the traditional surveillance angle, tracing the magical girls back to their arrival on planet, and before, with assistance from MSY investigators. Others were working to try to trace them afterwards.

What was their field team even supposed to do?

The local team lead, Montalcini, got Simona up to speed on that.

"And finally we have a team—you—that will be trying to analyze the squid angle of things directly," Montalcini said. "That means working tightly together with the military, who are organizing a substantial ground assault on the aliens. Your goal will be to get ahead of the shifting front and access alien databanks before they're wiped in the enemy's retreat. As specialists, you won't be asked to take frontline combat roles, but it will still be far from safe."

An audible and telepathic murmur passed through the dozen or so magical girls that had gathered there. They had been told about potential danger before they arrived, and that they might end up near the combat lines, but they hadn't been told this.

"I know what you're thinking, this is all a bit sudden, and why are we pushing so hard on alien intel gathering? The truth is, the Far Seers were consulted on the matter, and they've told us that we need to be more aggressive about gathering information from the aliens. So, that's what we'll do. Local Command is more than happy to cooperate, given the additional resources we've brought in system; they're sick of the stalemate on this planet."

Mina Montalcini was playing it a bit cute, Simona thought. She was a member of the Cult's Theological Council, which overlapped membership with the Far Seers, and the two had recently entered into a certain partnership. In all likelihood she had been involved in the "intel" gathering herself. But why was Simona being included in—

"Del Mago," Mina said, interrupting her thought.

"Yes?"

"You're probably wondering why you're here and not with the team tracing Akemi's magical girls. The answer is that our lead work has shown traces of those magical girls all over the front lines. Given that, Chitose suggested you be on hand for this, especially since you have some squid combat experience."

That wasn't the most complete of reasons, but Simona could read between the lines. Yuma thought, for whatever reason, that investigating the squid would be the most productive direction. She also wanted to see if Simona could behave, and wouldn't mourn her terribly much if she got killed.

Probably.

"I understand," she said.

Mina gave her a look, and after a moment the telepathy started. She didn't even bother trying to hide it from the others.

There's more to it than that, Mina thought.

I thought as much, Simona replied. But what can't be said out loud to the rest of the group? Do we fear our communications could be compromised?

There are two factions capable of that, Mina thought, staring at her rigidly. One of them, Akemi's group, has already been here, and it is impossible to hide that we are trying to trace them.

A short rhetorical pause.

The other one though, the TCF terrorists… they're here now, and we would prefer they not find out we're onto them. Our surveillance telepaths have picked up some glimmers, and we think they're heading for the front too. We can only speculate why.

But why does that recommend me? Simona thought. I have a connection to Akemi, not the terrorists.

Akemi trusted you to operate independently when the TCF conspiracy was at its strongest. Yet even now, she won't work with the Task Force or the Church. Feels worthwhile to have you on board, then, don't you think?

I won't argue with that, Simona thought. Is there anything else?

Nothing else, Mina thought.

She paused, her eyes resting on Simona for the interim. There was definitely something else.

Well, I have been wondering if I could persuade you to join our Church, she thought finally. After all, I hear that amidst the great public debate over the veracity of our Goddess's recent visions, you've been clearheaded enough to understand that they're real.

Simona peered into the other woman's dark eyes. Unlike most of them, Mina was aged into her twenties, perhaps as a reflection of her leadership role, both on this mission and in the Cult. Simona considered herself good at reading people, but wasn't surprised to find the much older woman inscrutable.

Was the woman being entirely honest with her? And even if she wasn't, did it matter? Simona wanted to be where the action was and, as far as she could tell, Montalcini wanted her there too.

It felt strange to consider, but she would have preferred Nakihara be with her as well. Even unreliable allies were useful, and Asami must have had experience deflecting Cult solicitations. They'd become rather more aggressive lately. Unfortunately, Nakihara had done her the disfavor of proving too crucial to the war effort to risk on the ground.

Your goddess is at least right about Ryouko still being alive, I'll give her that. But I don't think Ryouko would appreciate my joining the Cult, especially considering the religious treatment she's starting to receive from some of its members. I'm grateful for your trust in me on this mission, but when it comes to the Cult, I must decline.

Well, I'm hoping Shizuki's opinion will eventually change on that, in the Goddess's own time. In the meantime, I'm sure we'll work well together.

"I won't disappoint you," Simona said out loud.

Simona would be traveling to the front with three other Task Force agents, all three with powers directly relevant to the task at hand. Maria de León was a clairvoyant whose powers were similar to those of Kuroi Kana—that is, she could see the past, but in this case only when touching an object connected to that past, particularly dead bodies.

Maria would be the likely star of their investigative efforts, but Patricia von Rohr provided magic hacking and electronic forensics, and Arya Death rounded out the set as their teleporter, capable of a reasonable mix of distance and fast reset time.

She… knew Patricia, of course, but she viewed that as only a good thing. They had worked together before. The other details didn't matter.

There was one additional consideration: because of the risk of encountering the TCF conspiracy on this mission, a soul mage took a moment to link their soul gems to a small magical token, a keychain‐sized Incubator plush that Yuma had been working on for long‐range communication. In the event of any kind of compromise—an intrusive mind‐read, for instance—it would trigger a distress pulse. It could also be used for normal communication.

Simona wasn't sure if she hoped she would need it.

For all that Simona prided herself on her unflappable experience, she simply wasn't a specialist in ground combat against aliens. Far from it, in fact—she lacked the basic ground training that all magical girls her age had gone through, with only her recent space training for the jumpstrike mission to point to. That was still months of simulated combat, but it wasn't quite the same.

Most of their recent Task Force training had focused on combat against human forces, especially magical girls, given the threat of the TCF conspiracy.

So she had to admit a bit of nervousness as they mounted into their personnel carrier, eyeing the shimmering active camouflage armor and drone ports as she entered. Ground combat was notorious for chewing up inexperienced magical girls—the Magi Cæli had more bodyloss, but better gem recovery rates—and Simona didn't exactly fancy having her gem shattered by artillery as her broken body sank slowly into the mud. There were nearby clairvoyants on constant lookout, and they could teleport out as a squad at the drop of a hat, but still, nothing was foolproof.

This is only while still in the rear, she reminded herself. They would travel on foot or by teleporter for all the parts that mattered, including the approach to the front itself. Even if an alien drone spotted them, even if an artillery strike gutted their vehicle, there was no way they'd still be there by the time it reached them. At the moment, there was simply no need to spend teleporter resources moving in their own safe zones.

And if something else happened, perhaps with the magical girls of the TCF conspiracy, then the magic on their soul gems would alert a teleportation backup squad instantly—even a lost connection would draw them in, like a dead man's switch.

She took a moment to review the mission in her mind.

In accordance with their given directives, local Command had put together a plan for a set‐piece offensive, taking advantage of a weakness in the alien line to gain ground and help the Task Force grab whatever intel they could. Here, the aliens had anchored their flanks on a pair of natural barriers—a major mountain range on their right, and a large patch of swampland on the left. The aliens avoided over‐relying on terrain when possible, given the prevalence of magical girl‐based tricks, but here they were constrained on resources—and the humans had thus far not committed that many magical girls.

For what they wanted, a simple teleportation‐based spec ops raid might have sufficed, but such a straightforward approach had led to mishaps in the past. The aliens weren't shy about bombarding their own command bunkers if they thought it could eliminate a magical girl team. It would be safer to conduct it as part of a larger operation.

The aliens were right to fear relying on terrain. While the human military's specialist ground clearers were rare, dependent on highly specific magical powers, they very much got the job done, turning even the worst terrain into reasonably laid out corridors of advance. Montalcini herself would be filling that role here, using her water‐based powers to make the swamps passable before the aliens realized the threat.

It took a lot to achieve an offensive like this. The kinds of force concentration necessary were often all too easily spotted, and columns of advancing units were juicy targets for all manner of artillery, air, and even subterranean power. A JIT teleportation relay could make the first problem easier, but otherwise it was by now a very old problem.

Simona's part in all that seemed comparatively minor. She and the rest of the team would wait in the staging area and teleport in only when alien resources were sufficiently stretched and local communications were sufficiently disrupted. There, at the preidentified sector command bunker, they would strip everything they could from the local servers and personnel, relying on a hefty dose of magic.

The vehicle began moving with a slight rumble, rolling across the landscape as fast as the terrain allowed, following the roads laid out through a series of low rolling hills, with a missile launcher or artillery emplacement hidden behind seemingly every rise. The swamps were still quite a ways away, beyond their frontline fortifications.

Everything was quiet, everyone wrapped up in their thoughts or pre‐combat preparation in the darkness of their armored vehicle, which lacked transparent viewing panels. In addition to the four Task Force agents, there were two human Spec Ops members to help coordinate, eyes glassy as their minds wandered their command interfaces.

Eventually, they rendezvoused with their combat escort as they entered the inner human defense lines. This was two additional vehicles of soldiers, assigned to give them cover.

She finally let out her breath when the vehicle rolled to a stop and the walls unfurled around them, letting them jump out. She consoled herself that her TacComp had yet to suggest emotional suppression, which would have been quite embarrassing before entering any actual combat.

They had a few moments to gather themselves, concealed within a grove of fast‐growing local vine‐trees, still relevant to combat despite all the technology on both sides. The rumbling in the distance made it clear that the operation had already started, though they could only track its progress through their uplink to local Command. Things were going well—it was time to move.

Arya, their teleporter, summoned a polearm and slammed it into the ground, a violet circle shimmering around them for a moment. Around them, similar effects surrounded their combat escort.

It would take two jumps to reach their destination, but their teleporter only needed to pause in between for a short while, just long enough for them to observe one of the protected staging grounds, a trio of mobile artillery pieces billowing with ozone smoke as they shelled distant targets, underneath the green protective shell of a barrier generator. That girl waved at them, reminding her uncomfortably of Ryouko.

She had to reflect: Would Ryouko have been nervous on a mission such as this? Of course not.

Then they were there. The command bunker was already mostly cleared by an army teleportation squad, and when the circle around them faded and she could move freely again, they found themselves in a dome‐like room filled with terminals and wall‐sized holographic displays. Bits and pieces of smoldering alien remains lay scattered around the room, though two aliens remained intact, bathed in a pale yellow light that she immediately registered as an unfamiliar magic.

But their local status updates made clear something unexpected had happened: the advance team had apparently arrived in the middle of the aliens fighting each other, with most of the aliens already dead and the remainder self‐destructing, except for two bodies that a magical girl had managed to catch in a stasis field.

It happened sometimes for the squid to attack each other. Typically, they didn't hesitate to eliminate their own if they thought they were magically compromised. But of course, there had been no magical girls yet in the area to do such a thing—or there shouldn't have been.

You're finally here! a girl thought, not moving from her position near the doorway. We need your postcognitive clairvoyant. We were trying to contact you, but with so much interference on the comms…

Patricia moved to aid her counterpart with some of the alien electronics, but it was clear who needed the most help. Even as Maria moved to crouch over the alien bodies, Simona put a hand on her shoulder, infusing her with the orange glow of her enhancing magic.

Simona closed her eyes, allowing herself to be fed a memory stream of the past, though in this case as a black and white tableau with dramatic shadows and exaggerated movement. It reminded her of film noir, and it was very odd to see Cephalopods depicted in this way.

The aliens notoriously never expressed emotion, but if it was possible to guess from gesture alone, the aliens in the memory were agitated, or definitely very surprised, if the wild gesticulation could be taken at face value. Maria expressed surprise at the behavior—so it wasn't just a quirk of the vision, then.

Maria frowned, her brow wrinkling, and Simona watched as the girl strained to reach through time and metaphysics, strands of magic spooling and unspooling around the aliens' bodies. Simona boosted her power further; scrying the past was directly entropy‐defying and very difficult.

Then the vision advanced, the door to the room sliding open. A series of explosions rocked the memory, followed by a torrent of lasers. It seemed the base had been rigged to blow, but the attacking aliens had deployed forcefields that contained most of the blasts. The aliens inside the room took casualties but retreated to cover where they could, returning fire and inflicting casualties in return. Some of them moved between cover points, burying their laser cutters into the electronics around them as they went, melting everything they touched.

Before they could finish, both sides in the alien firefight reeled as the human advance team teleported in. The defending side didn't even bother trying to fight, detonating on the spot, while the attacking side was quickly killed, with two bodies caught in a magical girl's stasis field—which brought them back to the present.

Maria shook her head.

I don't know if I believe it, but it's my own magic, and the imagery is pretty clear. None of that really made any sense, given how we know the aliens to behave. More likely magic was involved here. Someone other than us. But the strange thing is, if the aliens here had been magically compromised, the magic should have shown up in the vision as color. That's how my visions work.

Simona put a fist to her mouth, considering the matter for a few moments, while Maria did as well.

No, I think I trust my magic, Maria thought. There weren't any other magical girls involved. The squid must have made a mistake, and wrongly concluded the alien command staff here were compromised. Our advance team was only moments away, after all, subversion was plausible.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of deliberate inter‐alien violence, Simona thought, shaking her head. Not just cleaning house on potential magical compromise, I mean. If you believe Nakihara's vision, there are differences within the Cephalopods. But this is speculation.

There's something else worth talking about, Patricia thought, interjecting into their conversation for the first time. The remnants of this bunker's servers are full of surveillance data on Medes and local human activity, collected by stealth satellites we apparently haven't noticed. They've been watching us carefully both before and after the raid on the grief cube logistics site, seemingly without any interest in the battlefield itself. They even had a special monitor for certain individuals—mostly local leadership, but the list includes an unusual entry that I'm pretty sure is Kuroi Abe.

There was an active silence on their telepathy channel for a few seconds, especially after they started to review Patricia's files. There was nothing crazy about the aliens monitoring human activity, of course, but they tended to stick to items of military importance. A lot of what was being tracked was far more mundane than the aliens typically bothered with, and the surveillance assets used would have had far more military utility simply watching the battlefield for attacks like the one they had just launched.

Are we done here, then? Maria asked Patricia. You seem to have everything.

We've just finished collecting the surviving physical hardware for analysis, Patricia said, holding up a sealed preservation canister—the Spec Ops behind her were carrying more.

Let's get out of here before they nuke the place, Ayra thought, readying her teleportation magic. The squid know damn well how important intelligence is.

There wasn't time for Simona to really consider the situation until they were already on their way back, away from the main combat formations, who would hopefully manage to continue their good progress. A while later, they exited the danger zone, and their combat escort peeled away and returned to the front, leaving them motoring alone through the rear. Soon, the swamp dropped away, replaced by a series of low hills.

She found it hard to stay focused, her thoughts seeming to slip away from her repeatedly. She should have been relieved—the mission had been a success. Yet she even resorted to contacting Asami through their Incubator plush for some discussion. Maybe it would help her think.

So they really are targeting Ryouko's family, Asami thought, telepathy beaming all the way down from her perch in orbit. But why? It doesn't make any sense.

It makes a bit more sense if you factor in the TCF conspiracy, but why would they care about Kuroi Abe? Simona thought. Especially now that Ryouko isn't even here. We're missing something, I think.

It's always been strange that the aliens attacked Ryouko on the HSS Laplace, before she became the Hero of Orpheus, Asami thought. They killed her grandmother before that, too. Did the TCF conspiracy just predict Ryouko would be that important? Either way, I don't like the idea that the squid are obsessed with her to the point they'd target her relatives. Is she really going to be okay, so deep in their territory?

She'll be fine, Simona thought, feeling an uncharacteristic pain pounding in her temples.

She allowed her focus to drift, even as they said their goodbyes and closed the channel. Her first adventure out into ground combat had been more productive than they had any reason to expect, other than Far Seers meddling, but it still wasn't clear just what they had gotten from it. Some more tantalizing hints, but no real contact or clues. But—

A pulse of energy in her soul gem, daggers at the very core of her being.

Her world shot back into focus, and she realized someone was trying to listen in on her thoughts.

The other magical girls realized an instant before she did, and the call for help back to the other team should have already been on its way. In less than a minute—

Their personnel carrier lurched to a bone‐crunching stop, and while they were still jumbled into the front of the vehicle, using shards of emergency telekinesis to cushion themselves, a series of sharp green vines smashed through the floor in a hail of shattered armor and spalling that should have been instantly lethal to all occupants.

Maria dropped to the floor, briefly exhausted by the wave of protective shielding she had summoned—not her primary power. Despite her exertions, one of the human Spec Ops was registering critical damage and entering fugue, and Simona had lost three of her fingers.

Simona processed that in tiny fractions of a second, but still not fast enough.

A stinging pain on her ankles announced two vines latching onto her flesh, thorns hooking themselves inward, and even as she tried to pull away, more emerged from the ground in a cloud of mud and debris, raining her flesh with metal even as they flailed at her limbs.

She shoved the pain away, pulling at the vines with direct force before further attacks could land. Around her, the smoke‐filled ruins of their vehicle choked out her vision, so that she could barely see Maria struggling with the same vines on the floor, oozing blood. She could not see where the others were, suggesting they had managed to escape. She wasn't sure—there was some kind of interference.

The vines began to give way with surprising ease, but before she had any time to reflect on that, she felt a pulse of magic jolt into her from below. Even as she tried to react, it surged into her soul gem, ripping at something in her mind so quickly it left her reeling, world spinning.

But she'd incorporated the anti‐magic powers she'd manifested at the pulsar into her telepathic defenses. A reflexive, desperate burst of magic broke her free, both of the vines and whatever telepathic attack it was channeling.

By then, she had managed to gain some of her bearings. She needed to get Maria free—the girl had burned most of her energy saving the team. But there was some kind of magic field around Simona, blocking her ability to communicate or even detect the others. It was also blocking the distress beacon that should have been wired into their soul gems, and mimicking their telepathic signal, circumventing the dead man's switch. A stunt like that couldn't last long—but it didn't have to. Whoever had done this was coordinated and powerful.

The thing about magic—there were always loopholes.

Immediately, she stuck out her hand—grimacing at the bloody stumps where fingers had been—and pumped a pulse of magic into the Incubator figurine on Maria's body. If she could just amplify the signal…

There, and easier than she had expected. A quick burst of anti‐magic freed Maria from her vines as well. Now they just needed to survive long enough for help to arrive.

That was easier said than done. She pushed aside some of the smoke with a puff of telekinesis, peering past the remnants of their vehicle, now strewn in pieces within the burning brush. It was strange already that she hadn't experienced a follow‐up attack, and now it became clear that the others had been holding the enemy off.

She saw no sign of the human foes she had expected. Instead, peering into the forest nearby, she could only see a squadron of drones, about a dozen rotary‐wing fliers flitting in and out of the trees, just barely within human sight range. They should have been easy pickings for magical girls, but all the drones showed clear signs of magic assistance, detectable even through the interference. As she watched, one of them blinked fifty feet to her right, evading a fusillade of violet beams. One of the others began exuding visible pulses of red light, pure force energy tearing through Patricia's drones.

Her squad was suffering from the surprise attack—Patricia had lost an arm somehow, wound sealed off by her body, and the fugued human Spec Ops lay in pieces nearby. Simona couldn't even see where the other one was.

Simona dove to the side, hiding herself behind a piece of metal just as another vine shot out of the ground.

How was this happening? Were the drones and the vines and the telepathy the produce of a drone‐specialist magical girl? She had never seen one so powerful. This must be like the drones in the recording Homura had left in Argentina—each one operated by a different magical girl, somehow. They had planned for the possibility, but hadn't planned on being outnumbered three‐to‐one.

Simona stabbed the barrel of her sniper rifle through the cover in front of her, digging into her soul for the required power. Simulation training had proven anti‐magic was her best shot against other magical girls, as long as she achieved some measure of surprise.

It just required a little focus and time. She hoped she had enough power in her soul gem to make a difference. It wouldn't do to underestimate.

A vine tore out of the ground below her and grappled her torso, sinking thorns an inch deep into her belly and back. She ignored it.

She emptied as much magic out of her soul gem as she dared, leaving only a bare trickle to keep herself alive. There was no point in holding back; the cavalry should be on its way, and she would only have the element of surprise once. But she would be leaving herself dangerously vulnerable afterward—if the drones were not entirely dependent on magic, for example, and had some simple explosives as backup. Or if some of them simply escaped her attack.

But right now, even a bad plan was better than no plan.

With a high‐pitched whine, a blinding orange light flared out of her rifle, crossing almost instantly the distance to the attacking drones. Bursting like a firework, it filled the area with a dazzling and searing array of crisscrossing beams, keenly targeted. Was the area a hundred meters? Two hundred? Three? She wasn't sure; she hadn't calibrated.

The vines scourging her flesh flickered and vanished, and her combat net came immediately back online, as did her missing telepathic connection with the other magical girls. The interference, at least, was gone.

But as the light faded and she noted with relief that some of the enemy drones had fallen from the sky, trailing smoke into the brush, she felt herself being slammed down into the ground with massive force.

She couldn't understand what was going on. It didn't hurt, not exactly, not yet, but with her face in the dirt and a full blast of magical force crushing her body, filling her eyes with painful red, she didn't have the resources left to resist, or seize control back or… do anything, really. She could barely even think enough to despair, and none of her implants were responding.

Not… so hot after all, was I? Is this… really how it's going to end? What a joke I was.

Incoming, Maria thought, telepathy distant with emotional suppression.

Incoming… what?

It took long seconds for her to realize she was free—she had lost track of time.

But as her vision clarified and she reclaimed her senses—observing incredulously that she was not dead—she realized that the cavalry had indeed arrived, and that someone was pumping a wave of healing magic into her body, and had been for a while.

Did we get them? she thought.

Depends what you mean by 'get', the healer thought. You fried about six of the drones, follow‐up artillery got a few, but the rest were able to teleport out shortly after we arrived, along with the remains. Nothing left to study. Arya is dead; it's possible she was deliberately targeted first. Both Spec Ops will survive.

Simona sat up, digesting the information as the healer moved on to one of the others. She spotted Meiqing walking over, and tilted her head to acknowledge her.

They didn't get very much intel from me, Simona thought, now that she finally had the time to check her own telepathic damage. I've got that going for me, at least.

Meiqing made a face.

Maria's certain they pulled a good deal from Arya. At least it wasn't a one‐way street, which it would have been if you all died, so your heroics mattered. Patricia and our soul mage were both able to get a sense of the drones. There was a ghost in those machines.

I'm glad my heroics are measured in terms of how much intel I gather, Simona thought, straining to pull herself together. I think I mean that, actually. But what are you saying about the drones? I know they were operated by enemy magical girls, I understood Homura's warning.

Homura didn't warn us the drones would have soul gems inside.