The Truth Across the Bay (PMMM/ToL, Homura + Shirley) Title: The Truth Across the Bay Author/Artist:catdevigri Fandom: Crossover - Puella Magi Madoka Magica x Tales of Legendia Pairing/characters: Homura(/Madoka), Shirley(->Senel), Chloe, etc. Rating: PG Warnings: none really (general weirdness?) Word count: 1,548 Prompt/challenge you're answering: Author's comment: This was the first story I started for the 7th round of No True Pair and, as usually seems to be the case, it isn't exactly complete... But as I'm starting to doubt at this point that I'll ever get around to finishing it, maybe it's best to just let you enjoy what I do have? There's art too, and it's finished, it that's any consolation. ^^;
The story that made its way to Homura's ears said that there was another magical girl living in the town below the lighthouse on the other side of the harbor. There was nothing particularly interesting about that part. There were bound to be magical girls of all sorts scattered across the earth. There was no reason why Kyubey would prey only upon their city and on the Japanese. When it came to other magical girls, Homura tended to only be interested in the ones directly around her who could interact with and effect Madoka.
But this "Shirley Fennes" was something different. If what Homura had heard was true- it was impossible to trust her sources, unnamed people on the internet- then Shirley might have one of the answers she was so desperately seeking. Someone called "Gnorma," who seemed to know an awful lot about being magical girl, possibly to the point of being one herself, claimed that this Shirley had transformed into a witch, but had managed to somehow return to her earlier state as a magical girl. It sounded far-fetched, but Homura had replayed these scenarios so many times that she was willing to take a chance on a rumor. Perhaps it would give her a new tool to work with in her attempts to alter destiny and protect Madoka.
It was fortunate that Homura didn't have to venture far outside of Mitakihara to enter the territory of the mysterious magical girl with the flowing, wavy locks. She simply packed a lunch and rode the ferry to Werites Beacon, wandering around the docks for signs of witch activity, gradually working her way further into the town.
Something promising asserted itself off an alley beside several innocuous-appearing houses. And, on cue, a girl matching the online description (and Gnorma's sloppy sketch) appeared. She wasn't carrying any obvious weapons, only a quill pen. Her outfit was a sleek mixture of browns and pinks, made more fanciful by a motif of roses and the sea-foam like waves of her pale blond hair. Her eyes were wide and youthful- the two girls were probably about the same age- but her bearing suggested some sort of strength and authority, befitting of one who might have been to the other side and back. There was no way to know but to ask.
Trust was difficult to come by, even among magical girls. Homura transformed, catching Shirley's eye. "You're Shirley Fennes," she said, completely sure of her conclusion.
"Yes. Who are you? I've never seen you in Werites Beacon. I know all the other magical girls around here."
So there were others in Werites Beacon as well. What density for such a small region. Perhaps there was something about the area that made the local girls particularly susceptible to Kyubey's advances. "I'm Homura Akemi. I want to ask you a few things."
"Certainly. But first we need to take care of this familiar before it transforms into a witch. Do you mind lending a hand?" Shirley smiled sweetly.
"No problem."
They hopped through the passageway, into a psychedelic mess of colors. "It's this way!" Shirley declared. Her self-assuredness gave Homura the feeling that at least word of her experience in this field was not exaggerated. Together they rushed up a spiral staircase with steps that appeared to be made of lashed together blades, although the metal was rusted over and didn't look likely to cut through anything anytime soon. The stairs started inside and wrapped around to the outside of a pink, ivy-covered tower. "Someone's at the top!"
On the platform that made up the top of the tower stood both the fairy tale princess-like familiar, her long hair rising up behind her and swaying like the tentacles of a sea anemone, and a dark-haired schoolgirl wearing a blue beret. "No, it can't end like this!" the girl yelled, a broken wooden practice sword clenched in one hand, "I just wanted to protect Elsa! Why can't I do it? Why am I so weak? I want to be strong like Shirley!"
There at the girl's feet- Kyubey. A bomb would be too dangerous. Homura pulled her gun and aimed. Whish. A flailing segment of the witch's familiar unintentionally blocked the blow. "Is that your wish?" Kyubey asked. Over the noise, his intended target was the only one who heard him.
"Chloe!" Shirley screamed.
"You know her?" Homura didn't take her eyes away from the frightful scene unfolding atop the tower. From the sound of Shirley's shaking breath and tapping feet, her colleague, for all her personal involvement in the event, was steadily running along too.
"Friends from school!" Shirley gasped, "Love the same boy!" She swung back her arm in a drawing motion, releasing a glowing blue butterfly shape. It flew through the air more like a real butterfly than Homura would've expected, but it slapped against the familiar with the weight of a fishing net, dragging down a portion of its dangerous locks, more Medusa than Rapunzel now, and holding them against the stone.
"Yes!" Chloe answered her tempter. "I always thought I was the brave one, but now no matter what I can do, I can't manage anything useful. Shirley could confess her feelings to Coolidge and I was too shy! Shirley became a magical girl to protect the people she cared about believing she could beat the odds, and she did! I refuse to be any weaker than Shirley! I wish I was strong enough to protect all the people I love!"
"Strong enough, hmm?" Kyubey remarked. Chloe's scream ripped through the air as Kyubey tore out her soul, creating for her a pulsing blue and white gem.
"Chloe!" Shirley reached her friend's side too late to change the results of Shirley's true feelings.
"Hello Shirley," Chloe greeted her. All of a sudden, she felt almost preternaturally calm. With a flip of her wrist, the broken weapon became a glowing blade of silver steel. "Don't worry. You, or...your friend," she glanced at Homura. "I can handle this all by myself now."
Transformed, Chloe looked very much the knight she had always longed to be. She raised her sword in a practiced stance, crying out in dojo-style enthusiasm as she rushed forward. "I hope that whatever you've managed to do to save yourself can also help your friend," Homura commented.
"Nice to see you here," Kyubey finally acknowledged the other magical girls' presence.
Shirley winced as Homura blew him full of holes without a word, but the better part of her attention was held by Chloe, slicing off the monster's attacking tresses, evading swing after swing, and once she was in close enough, driving her sword, with a flash of silver light, into the pseudo-princess's visible pink heart. "You won't touch Elsa!" Chloe continued to yell wildly, "Get away from her house! None of you will hurt any of my friends ever again!"
"That's one way to defeat them," Homura observed softly as the otherworld began to fold in around them. Back in the alley, her boxed lunch was still sitting beside the fence where she had left it.
"C-Chloe..." Shirley gasped at this new and frightening side of her friend. "There's still so much," she admitted to Homura, "That we don't understand about what it means to be magical girls."
Chloe was grinning as they transformed back. Homura picked up her lunch and in that amount of time the newly born magical girl had passed out awkwardly into Shirley's struggling arms. "D-do you think you can help me take her home?" Shirley squeaked. Without using her magic, she was almost embarrassingly physically weak, but Homura didn't think anything of it. She nodded and lent her a hand.
Chloe didn't have any parents, Shirley explained. They'd been murdered long before she had come to live in Werites Beacon. But while she struck most of her classmates as mature enough to live alone, she was currently a ward of the mayor. "Hi, Ms. Musette," Shirley's polite smile was half-wince as she tried to explain the situation in a believable manner. "Chloe was out with me doing some extra training for the kendo club, but she was working so hard and hadn't eaten anything for hours, so..."
Something about the mayor's gaze unsettled Homura even as she accepted Shirley's story and didn't favor the pair of them with any less than gentle expression. There was no way she could know about the aliens and entropy and all that...was there? Maybe all this time travel was twisting her perceptions and making her paranoid. The mayor Werites Beacon was just an innocent observer, not an enemy.
Together the three of them laid Chloe down on the couch to recover. Musette offered the girls some tea, but both Shirley and Homura were quick to turn her down (albeit politely). Shirley wasn't sure she wanted to be present when Chloe woke up. They were going to have enough to talk about as it was. She'd prefer that she had some time on her own to think about all the things that had occurred before they discussed it together.
Homura just didn't want her conversation with Shirley put off any longer. No matter what it might seem like to others, she didn't have all the time in the world.