Elizabeth's hurried departure emphasised the fact that there was no time to waste. For a second, Tama stood torn between searching for Illya and following the maid right away, before deciding on the latter. As bad as she felt about leaving someone behind, she trusted Elizabeth would find the other magical girl and let her know sooner or later.
"A week?" she said, frowning as she walked beside Honoka.
"We'll make sure she isn't kept waiting any longer. This ruffian you talk about, do you have any idea who they might have been?" For all she knew, they could have been an ordinary human, aware of magic just like Elizabeth was. If the culprit was a dark magical girl, however, she or one of the other lights may know about her.
The group decided that Illya was fine - she was probably dealing with some things at the moment because Yui didn't feel her anywhere near the school's grounds. The green haired magical girl remained grouped with her friends, but was more silent than her usual self. She was very evidently lost in her thoughts. Yui did not have much time to think over what Aegis had revealed to her, but the more time passed the more realizations came onto her, weighing heavily on her heart and mind. She had a sister,
family. Her encounter with Touka back in that alley and what she told her came back to mind...and the sight of it only hurt her even more. Aegis was right, and she would need to speak to the club's leader as soon as possible. But not now.
For now, they were following the maid to Margaret's place and hopefully, a new ally and friend. Yui felt like they would need it if what Aegis hinted at was true...
When they arrived at the address, they would find a hotel with Elizabeth standing in front, patiently waiting for them. It was the nicest hotel in the city, standing high above all the surrounding buildings. It was a ten story building, with a penthouse suite at the top, which is where Elizabeth would be leading them. She quickly ushered everyone into the elevator, pressing the button for the top floor and waiting for the doors to slide closed. As they ascended, Elizabeth cleared her throat quietly, grabbing everyone's attention as she explained their situation.
"So as you may have guessed by this point, Master Margaret and I are from out of the country, we just recently began the process of moving to Japan after Master Margaret had a bit of a falling out with her parents. Nothing serious mind you, but they were of the mind that we all needed a bit of space away from each other. I was the maid who came with Margaret, she does need an adult to accompany her in the end, despite how mature she is for her age."The elevator door dinged, the doors beginning to open as Elizabeth finished her explanation.
"Do keep in mind that it has been a very trying week for her, so she is a bit... out of sorts right now." Once the doors had finally opened, the group stepped through to a scene of
modest grandure. The room itself was quite large, easily taking up the entire floor, with a view of the entire city below visible from the balcony outside. Sitting on the couch in the middle of the room, with legs crossed and tea set out on the table in front of her, was a
young girl around their age. With vibrant blue hair at shoulder length, a petite figure, and emerald green eyes, she would be considered a beautiful young woman by anyone with any amount of sense.
Were it not for those few glaring details that marred her features. Those puffy red eyes, cheeks stained with tears, the fact that her hair looked like a veritable birds nest. Elizabeth let loose a heavy sigh and rushed to her wards side, sitting beside her and pulling out a brush from one of the many pockets on her personage.
"I a-apologize... for my appearance today..." Margaret struggled out as she shakily picked up a cup of tea from the table. Elizabeth began brushing her hair calmly as she took a small sip of tea.
"It has been a very stressful week as you can imagine, but hopefully it will be over soon. May I assume you are here to help?"Honoka bounded over, trying to brighten Margaret's mood with a wide grin.
"Yep!" Putting her hand on her hip, she raised her other arm, making a fist in the air as she posed like a classic anime magical girl.
"The wait ends here! We might not have met before, but we're magical girls, so we're a team. And a team's gotta look out for each other!"Or at least try, she thought, hoping her smile didn't falter. New to this or not, letting down someone so distraught was out of the question.
"Good to meet ya, Margaret! I'm Honoka," she continued, sweeping her arm towards her friends,
"this is Tama, and this is Yui."Tama followed Honoka through the spacious room. This home was easily as grand as her own, but the log fireplace, comfy-looking sofas and warm magnolia tones made it much more inviting than the sterile artifice she lived in. She bowed, eyes filled with concern as she took in Margaret's state.
"No need to apologise," she reassured the other blue-haired girl.
"We'll get right to it as soon as we can, there are just some things we need to know first." A rather blunt and direct reply, but in this situation, cutting to the chase was better than small talk.
"The person who did this... How much do you know about who they are, and where they might be? In any case, what did they look like?""I'm here to help too!"The sound was muffled, followed shortly by a light rapping in glass. It came from one of the many, many,
many windows in the apartment complex of a mansion. If anyone wanted to look, they'd see Miss Tamashi cheerily waving at the group of girls, dangling precariously from what looked like a ladder. Where had she gotten it? Probably magic of some sort.
"Don't think I'm too old to give a helping hand so you can count me in team! And, er, if possible....can you let me in? Hanging up here is dangerous as it is..."Yui could not help but smile at Honoka's readiness.
"Right you are." Yui added as she walked beside their younger member, putting a hand on her shoulder briefly.
"And I also wonder..." she added after Tama's questioning
"...what would do such a thing? And how could they. I don't think the club members would stoop as low as stealing an emblem..." They were Magical Girls themselves. Though she might be wrong, especially about some of them, Yui was under the impression that most of them would gladly have given Margaret a beating, but nothing more.
"I've heard some stran--"Yui's stare, along with possibly everyone else, turned to the voice of the newcomer. Miss Tamashi?! Yui hurried to the window and, after making sure it was alright, opened it up for their Teacher. She had heard about it from Honoka, but...
"...Miss Tamashi? How did...you know?""Oh you know, I've got a knack for magical things in this city, eheheh...." was Miss Tamashi's response to Yui. She then looked at Margaret and nodded for her to continue on with explaining. After all, the girl would be able to pick up her magical signature like the other Magical Girls. There were no mortals in the room here; not really anyway.
Margaret gave a shaky smile as she looked at the group before her, setting down her tea as she prepared to explain.
"Yes, I do suppose it would be best to get straight to the point. It all started about-" She was cut off by someone rapping on the glass, a squeal of terror escaping her lips as she scrambled behind Elizabeth. After Miss Tamashi was let in, she cautiously peered from behind the maid and relaxed as she saw who it was. Well, relaxed as much as one could after seeing a random stranger enter through the window of a ten story building.
"I-I don't believe we've met. But introductions can wait, time is absolutely of the essence now. I have no idea how much longer that ruffian will stay in place, Margaret put in a lot of work to track him down."She cleared her throat and looked at the assembled group, yet slowly her gaze glossed over them as she remembered the events of just last week.
She had checked into the hotel about four days ago, Margaret taking the opportunity to learn about this new city and even go on a few patrols by herself. Tonight was a off night though, she was going to take the time to relax and take care of herself, no sense in going full throttle and burning yourself out.
"Margaret, when will that tea be ready?" She called out to the living room as she put on her blue top, a necklace with a green emerald as the centerpiece dangling from her neck.
"The water should be boiling within a few minutes Master Margaret, the bag is already in the cup." A quick response, nothing less could be expected from her dutiful maid. Yet still, sometimes Margaret wished she would act less like a maid and more like a... a frusturated sigh escaped her lips.
"Master Elizabeth, I'm afraid I need to go check on something at the mansion. It would appear as if someone misplaced some boxes, so I'll have to go look through them myself." Their move had been plagued by all sorts of mishaps and delays over the past few days, honestly they should have been done by now were it not for the constant misfortune.
"I understand Elizabeth, don't worry about me. I can take care of myself perfectly fine, you know that." Margaret walked out into the living room as she said this, watching Elizabeth bow and gather up her things. Soon after that was she rushed out the door, ready to go scold some careless mover for losing yet another box.
"I swear, some people don't know how to do their jobs.""I know right, you can't trust anyone nowadays. It's a shame what the world has come to." Margaret's head whipped around as she looked to the balcony,
a strange man leaning on the railing and looking at Margaret with a smile.
"I mean, you're getting payed for your job right? If you keep fucking up your job, you're supposed to get fired! But no, all the unions nowadays are so strict, it's just the worst. Am I right?""W-who are you? How did you get up here, it must be at least a hundred feet from the ground!""Alright, skipping over the small talk. No biggie, we can get straight to business." The man shrugged, entering the room and walking towards Margaret with hands in pocket.
"My name ain't all that important, especially since you'll probably never be meeting me again after tonight. As for how I got up here, again, really not all that important. If you have to know, I jumped. What is important though, is why I came." He was right in front of her by now, looking her dead in the eyes as he showed off his best winning smile. The smuggest grin Margaret had ever seen in her life.
"I came here to steal that nifty little necklace of yours. You know, the one that lets you transform and beat up all the shadowy jelly monsters." Maragaret's eyes instantly turned serious as he said this, jumping backwards and grasping her necklace.
"I don't know how you know about Magical Girls or Nightmares, but you're not getting my Emblem." She shifted into a defensive position, preparing to transform at a moment's notice.
"Ooh, feisty. I hope you can back up those claims of yours." A black aura flared to life around the man as his eyes widened, he took his hands out of his pockets and began cracking each of his knuckles individually.
"It would be a real shame if you couldn't entertain me after all."
Margaret sniffed as she looked down at the floor, twiddling with the hem of her dress as she finished her story.
"I fought with everything I had. But that man... I could tell, he was barely even trying. He dismantled me within two minutes using only his bare hands." She cupped her hand over her chest, where her necklace once rested.
"After he was done he took the necklace and left, dumping a bunch of my moving boxes all over the floor from thin air. He said it was an even trade, my life and my belongings in exchange for my Emblem. And then he left." Her hands tightened into fists, her eyes scrunched as they brimmed with tears.
"I don't know if you can, but please. Get my Emblem back. I can give you anything you want, but I absolutely need my Emblem. Without it I'm..." It was at this point that Elizabeth hugged Margaret from behind, stroking her hair as she broke down into tears.
"I've managed to track the man down, he doesn't try very hard to hide himself. He tends to loiter around the tallest building in the city, I believe he uses it as a lookout point to find anything else he wishes to steal." The frown on her face was deep, they were their last hope after all.
"As Master Margaret said, money is no object. If you can retrieve her Emblem, we could make sure the rest of your life is completely worry free."Well, this wasn't what Tama had expected. Not just Miss Tamashii's sudden appearance, but the mysterious figure Margaret described. Although she'd met several other magical girls, she'd never even heard of a magical boy. Was the thief one, or was he a being the group had yet to encounter?
"Sounds like quite a different kettle of fish than usual," she replied,
"but if there's one thing we have a lot of experience with, it's the unexpected."Honoka nodded as if Tama's words had bolstered her. That was what the veteran magical girl had intended by the sound of it, but thoughts of the recent chaos rampaged through her mind. Chaos that not even they, the light girls, had been able to completely quell. Still, they had to give this their all, just as Margaret trusted them to do.
"Yeah, and I'm sure the four of us can manage!" she replied, skipping over to the teacher.
"Especially with Miss Tamashii on our side! Yep, she's like us, and not to be messed with!" The redhead held out her fist.
"Alright everyone, team fist bump!"Best to go along with it, Tama decided, lightly tapping her knuckles against Honoka's, although her expression remained one of unease. Maybe that level of positivity would help in some ways, but they couldn't rush in and face an unknown enemy without a plan.
"Hmm..." Her eyes flicked from person to person.
"What would be the best way to go about this?""No, this is no Magical Boy. Only Magical Girls exist in the world," Miss Tamashi muttered, more to herself than anyone else. It was almost as if she knew exactly what Tama had been thinking and her answered all but confirmed they were dealing with something new.
"It seems to me we have a Demon on the loose, one that stole your Emblem to claim as a treasure of his own." Regardless, it was good to see everyone was motivated, especially the youthful ones.
"It would be best to confront the Demon together as a unified force. All darkness flees away from a singular light," Miss Tamashi suggested. She too moved her hand forward to join in the team fist bump they were building up to.
"And with my help, you girls are as sure as punch to succeed!" she said, raising a hand up in a victory V pose over an eye.
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