Tokiko couldn't help but look a little smug as Hikari kept on asking questions. "You do realize I don't have to tell you any of this, right?" Then she sighed. "Fiiiine. I guess it wasn't your fault that fairy left you in the dark like that. But you better pay me back for this, okay? Buy me lunch tomorrow... or something." She turned a little red. "Ah, whatever."

With that, she launched onward into more exposition. "So shades are the reason we have magical girls in the first place, see? They're what happens when you take all the bad juju, the negative emotions and stuff that humans produce everyday, and clump them together until they manifest a physical form." Her hands waved in the air, gesturing to accompany her words. "They're kind of like these creepy... black... things. You could think of them as monsters, I guess, even if that's not exactly right. Most of the smaller ones act kind of like ghosts, haunting a specific place and making people feel gloomy or angry, sometimes stealing and breaking things. The bigger ones act more aggressive, though. They'll start stalking humans and even attacking them, and people can get seriously hurt." She shuddered. "Thankfully they mostly only come out at night, but even so... The strong ones can be really scary, and since they're just clumps of emotions, you can't kill them even if you shoot them with a gun." 

Her voice had lowered slightly as she spoke, as if she were telling a spooky story. Which, in a way, she was. Tokiko figured that a lot of the old legends, about ghouls and monsters and man-eating giant spiders and stuff, were probably a result of ancient humans interacting with shades. [i]Maybe there were fewer magical girls back then...[/i]

"But!" She suddenly brightened up, pointing one index finger at herself and the other at Hikari. "Shades are super weak against magic! So the fairies choose pure-hearted girls to become magical girls, so we can hunt them down and get rid of them before they grow too big and dangerous. We're like guardians, protecting our home towns against the monsters in the night and keeping everyone safe and happy! Though Tokyo is a big town, so you obviously need a lot of magical girls here."

She fell quiet for a moment as they passed an older couple on the street, then went on. "I could honestly go on all day about the details, but that's not so important for Hex Night, so... Archtypes and Concepts, then." She scratched her head, trying to figure out how best to explain.

"An Archetype is simple: every magical girl has a weapon, and that weapon is their Archetype. For you that's probably your hammer, and Tsukimi had her spear... but it can be a wand, a book, a machine gun, or even a living creature." She gestured at herself with that last part. "What your Archetype is depends on your Concept, which is like the general 'theme' of your power. See, every magical girl gets a power and costume based around an idea." She waved her hands vaguely in the air. "So, uh... Naoko's Concept would probably be 'Oni,' and mine is 'Mad Scientist.' I'm not sure about you or Tsukimi, though, or Sonya... A Concept can be almost anything, but I think the requirements are that it has to be 'something specific enough to crystallize as a unique idea,' and 'something existing in the public consciousness of humans.' For instance, a fictional story could become a Concept, but only if it's been published and read by enough people."

She shrugged. "That's getting into my theories, though. The important thing is that your power is based on some kind of idea, and your weapon is something related to that idea. Archetypes can have their own abilities as well, though it's usually easiest to use them if you know what they actually are. Like your hammer, maybe..." She stopped, shaking her head. "...never mind. It's probably best if you figured that part out for yourself."

She took a long breath. [i]Aaaaah, that was a lot![/i] She'd probably been a bit more long-winded than she needed to, as well, since she was kind of a nerd about these things. She turned to Hikari with a slight look of concern. "I... That all made sense, right?"

[@VitaVitaAR]