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To Lily’s immense relief, Chloe had accepted her compliments. She was even seemingly positive about the dark magical girl’s suggestion, with a happy smile on her face.
”I’m sure the special someone you'll end up snuggling with wouldn’t want to escape in the first place~” She cheerfully replied, too distracted by the frantic meeting to realize the sinister undertones. She was also happy that Penny reciprocated her feelings of gratitude, though she did notice the uneasy interaction between her and Chloe.
Unlike Lily, Sonia was fully cognizant of Chloe’s thinly veiled reprimand, though the perfect maid did not show a drop of it in her stoic facial expression or the stillness of her movement, even as her jaw was touched. “Understood,” she replied in a monotone voice, unaffected by her boss’s flirting. Pentius-04 on the other hand expressed a seemingly genuine desire to keep Lily safe from such shady folks, and so Lily would not doubt it, trusting her.
She looked up, and greeted the Angel of Hope as she also made it alongside others, glad to see how big of an impact her message had made on the community at large. If so many were willing to unite for the cause of their home, then she had hoped that they would be able to agree on common goals. Even Ruby had joined the meeting with a puff of smoke, surprising Lily for seeing the girl who had once granted her silly wish.
”Yep, and this blessing is all thanks to you!” She replied with arms spread wide to AoH, ignorant of the magical girl’s less-angelic feelings on the matter.
”And don’t worry about, uh, Casper. He’s only here for protection…I hope.”
However, it wasn’t until Magical Dream Princess, a girl she considered a friend to the cause, and a smaller group led by Kayli, had arrived that she felt fully secure with going forward with the meeting itself, having excitedly waved at the sugary girl, her pixie-like pal, and the rest.
Alex was the first to speak on the meeting’s topic at length. The green-haired girl intently listened as he brought up evacuation as their first topic. No matter how awkward she would make things, he was always able to pull things back to ground level, and focus on the things that mattered most. She spoke up when pocket dimensions were mentioned.
”Could we maybe, uh, throw them in Dan’s place? Like the time when we fled the collapsing dimension?”
Justine visibly cringed. ”I would rather find an alternative than rely on that idiot and his weird magic again. Besides, do his islands even have enough space? Even if he were to make another one, we’re talking about close to 800-900 thousand people here.”
Lily bit her lip, and afterwards listened as Alex suggested using runes to form a network over the city.
”I wonder if that’s possible…”
Alicia spoke next, and pointed out the possibility of striking back against Wonderland, though Lily decided to hold on the thought for the moment, feeling it a bit too hasty a move until they’ve learned more. Kayli built up on Alex’ suggestion, bringing up smart ways to evacuate the populace.
”Yeah, that sounds like a plan!”
However, while Lily was onboard with such a ploy based on her positive reaction, Justine was less convinced.
”Sure, it might sound easy, but threatening peas-I mean citizens to flee with gas leaks or even earthquakes is not going to cut it. You’d need to hijack the local news sources, forge the material, and distribute it, all in a short amount of time. Time which I don’t think we have.” She shrugged with a shake of her head.
”I admit it’s at least a better idea than trying to scribble runes all over the city, but we’d need every organization pulling their weight, and that seems unlikely to me.”
Kayli then brought up something that caused Lily to pause. She scratched her head, confused by what she mentioned.
”Nexus? Um…Have I heard that somewhere?” She had a feeling she had heard the term, but couldn’t remember where.
”Oh, the Nexus?” Justine asked, and dropped down from the statue, landing next to her.
”Well, I don’t know too much about it myself, but according to what Father once spoke of it, it is supposedly a place of immense magic. Like a spring that bubbles with pure, unconstrained power. The Horror originally sent me here to find it. But no matter where I looked, I didn’t catch even a whiff of it. And when that plan fell through…” She averted her eyes, finding the memory uncomfortable.
”That bastard wanted to incarnate with the blood moon ritual. The rest you know.”
”I see…” Lily held her chin, deep in thought.
”So…If we could find this Nexus…” She mumbled, not having realized that Kayli had moved on to talk about an army of constructs that could be deployed, and how ultimately Wonderland would only be followed by others. The sentiment was shared by Gaia, who brought up the possibility of bringing the populace to MDP’s pocket dimension.
”Putting them to sleep might actually work, especially if you combine your magic. I can tell from experience that coordinated spells can produce very powerful results. But you’d need a method to travel fast across the city…”
At the time the discussion took place, Lily woke from her thinking, and noticed how Connie seemed to look uncomfortable. She quietly went over to her side, subtly taking hold of her hand in an attempt to reassure her.
”I know this is a lot to take in, Connie. Some stuff goes over my head, too. But still, I’m glad you came.” she said, smiling brightly. That was when something happened to poke the back of her head, and Lily blinked.
”Huh? What was that?”
She turned, and saw that a paper plane ended up stuck between her hair and her tiara ornament. Alarmingly, the paper plane was partially scorched black and smoking from the back.
She took hold of the paper and unfolded it.
”Karakura Town…Important Spirit Zone?” She quietly read the message with a lifted eyebrow.
”I know karakuri can mean mechanism or clockwork in Japanese, but…Uhh…”
Lily visibly strained from trying to think about the meaning behind the mysterious message, and looked around, trying to spot the sender. She sighed.
”It must be an anime reference. Connie, do you have any ideas?” She quietly asked the masked girl to avoid disturbing the larger conversation at hand.
However, it was soon disturbed by Chloe herself, who brought up a shocking proposal in exchange for what she claimed to be vital information. Justine’s eyebrows furrowed, and she grit her teeth. Lily gasped, and absentmindedly handed the piece of paper over to Miko as she moved forward to address Chloe among the others, letting her and Ronin try to solve the riddle, or hand it to Mariette. She figured if any girl here was smart enough to figure it out, it would be Mariette.
”Wait, by conjuration egg, you mean the thing the soldiers were carrying, right?”
Mariette suddenly spoke up, causing Lily to jump as she was startled by her.
”Eavesdrop? On us? Uh…I didn’t realize…” She looked slightly shaken as Penny followed though, clearly not having thought this meeting through.
It was around this time that Ruby had taken Alicia and Kayli away. Justine had noticed this, but decided to ignore it in favor of Chloe’s assertions. Lily was distracted by the proceedings as Valerie pulled her aside. Her initial sarcasm however paved way to information on Wonderland itself, which piqued her attention.
”Not able? Why?” She asked, and scrolled through the intelligence the android girl had sent. While she did see some of the soldier types at Bolorton, getting a more comprehensive look at what they were like put things into perspective to Lily.
I thought the soldier markings didn’t have any meaning. They’re really organized to go this far…
She listened as Valerie further explained that the dimension itself was enchanted, and how the castle was confirmed to be the Queen’s abode, and barred from outsiders. Amanda then introduced her, and Lily smiled in kind.
”I’m Lily Lightning," she said, and offered a handshake politely. She might have crossed paths with the android girl before, but she doesn’t remember introducing herself.
”Just your average friendly neighborhood magical girl. Though I suppose idiot magical girl is more fitting…” She sighed, and started to get more and more worried about the mistake she’s made. Soon enough, she started to panic.
Should we move the meeting somewhere else, like Overcity? But I’d have to make a new Glimmr post, and then Wonderland would find that and-
“Now hold just a moment, cuties~”
Everyone turned to look at Nefer and Akhenaten as she made her presence known, having seemingly appeared out of thin air, with no sign of teleportation or other movement. The golem had crossed his arms, barely moving as it cautiously guarded the eccentric magical girl.
Curiously, a spherical Artifact was floating over her extended palm.
The device was made of multiple interlocking plates, and seemed to emanate an energy field of some sort.
“The Mint cutie here is quite something: pretty as a pearl, but pretty clever too. But before I explain, how about we make this meeting more…private?” She spoke in a playful manner, and grabbed hold of the orb. This was followed immediately by Justine summoning her spear and pointing it at her.
”What do you think you’re doing with that?” But Nefer merely grinned.
“Don’t worry. This won’t disturb your little pow-wow. It just makes it more interesting.”
She casually threw the orb up in the air. As it reached the center of the area it activated: the interlocking plates opened up, and a blue core of magical energy expanded out as a field, passing through the participants harmlessly until it covered everyone in a dome. The dome shimmered a transparent, faint blue, though it didn’t impede anyone as they left the dome. Lily was the first one to try as she poked her head out. But when she did, she noticed upon looking back that everything inside the dome had turned invisible, and blocked sound. Even Mariette’s Absolute Direction, and other magical methods of scrying and detection were nullified by the Artifact. Fortunately, the magic didn’t seem to affect the eyepatched girl’s portals, likely due to her being inside the field.
“Now, we can continue without fear of prying eyes. Hope you Beacon cuties don’t mind if I used a borrowed model, right? I just felt it required a bit of a modification.” She winked at Alicia.
“Of course, this cloak will only hold for a while, so I wouldn’t mind hopping over to hang it somewhere else, like sugar cutie’s bounce pad~” She said, and winked again, this time at Magical Dream Princess. Akhenaten grunted, and Nefer giggled.
“Anyway, Chloe here has consciously revealed the information knowing that Wonderland was spying. In fact, she was betting on it. I’ve dabbled in Mint business before, so I have an inkling she’s got eyes on those facilities, and simply made a call. If the fairytale fellows fret and attempt to move their precious cargo, she will know exactly where it ends up. You see, those conjuration eggs are fragile stuff, real volatile with the magic charge, and can’t be teleported. They also require specialized trucks to move around, and give off enough magical energy to be spotted with Third Eye, so decoy trucks are out of the question. In short, Wonderlanders are screwed either way, and hope that the cutie is lying to us folks. Now, I’d bet my favorite car tires that she’s not intending to risk her deal going south by simply betting on the location of the eggs, so she’s likely honest on that part.”
Nefer then shook her head as she leaned against Akhenaten with one of her arms.
“How do I know all this? Well, I was snooping as usual, you see. But of course, this is all but speculation on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. I’m just here to see which way the wind blows~”
Lily was not sure how to take the sudden appearance and use of the Artifact, but at least it solved the immediate issue of Wonderland finding out about their plans. This left her with the problem of deciding how to go about Chloe’s suggestion. She went over to the dark magical girl, looking serious.
”I don’t know how fair or acceptable your conditions are, but if what you say is true, I don’t want to outright reject them. Maybe we can reach a compromise. But before all that, you have to accept one condition, Chloe: no more crime in Penrose. From you, or anyone else in your organization. If you really, really need to cheat people out of their money, you could set up a way to legally do it, like gacha.“ She blurted out.
Justine sighed, sometimes finding it exhausting to listen to her friend.
"She means gambling. But I agree with her point. If we’re to co-operate in any real capacity, then all the illegal business you’ve done here needs to stop.”
She noticed how Kayli and Alicia had returned, and how Kayli seemed a bit different than before.
In truth Kayli now saw what seemed like traces of magic that shimmered with various hues. These traces seemed to replicate the shapes and movements of magical girls of past present, and possibly even future. Though one particular oddity among them stood out: a trace of a magical girl pinned by another with an iron clamp against the statue, followed by the girl being impaled by her own conjured weapons of light, dying on the spot. As Kayli reached her hand out to that spot, the traces seemed to resonate, glowing brighter as she approached. Those traces then created other traces, leading away from the park, like a footprint of magic itself.
Meanwhile, Lily was still thinking.
”Loot boxes as well, and…Oh yeah, subscription services and microtransactions on full-priced products! Those are still legal too!"
Justine could only roll her eyes, exasperated from her antics.
"It's fine, Lily. I'm sure she got the point…"
Making their way out of Penrose, the Mint operatives knew they were unlikely to exit the city without being confronted. As it was, She had counted on it. The main question was whether they had attracted the right sort of attention, or if their little scheme would be interrupted by people who were butting their nose in where they didn't belong. With this being Penrose there was a pretty big chance of that happening, but this time around fate seemed to favor them.
Whether the Mint girls would have cared about running over some random civilian was an uncertain question. But this was no random civilian, and her presence was deliberate and calculated. The truck did not slow, on the off chance that it was actually some kind of decoy or an illusion. Mac's trick went off without a hitch, and the air filled with the sound of crumpling metal as the truck abruptly stopped.
Airbags popped as predicted, and the driver slumped forward into the airbag. He remained slumped and motionless for now, a nonfactor in what was about to happen.
Anja let out a groan as she pulled back from the airbag, clutching at her head from the jarring impact against Mac. Not that she was particularly surprised by it either, and so there was no shock or time spent wondering. Having recovered, she exited the vehicle with purposeful steps, moving towards Mac as she drew her blade. "I hope you'll be some sort of challenge, since you so rudely interrupted our trip," she said to Mac as she went to move around the front of the vehicle and begin the combat.
In the back of the vehicle, the door rolled up as Seppa and Alma emerged. The truck visibly bounced as Alma disembarked, looming over her companion. "Go time," Seppa said with a visible grin. There was no chance that Mac was alone after all.
