Chapter 8: Chapter 8: *Evening, Tuesday, 12th of April 2011; Industrial District; Mitakihara, Japan.*

*Evening, Tuesday, 12th of April 2011; Industrial District; Mitakihara, Japan.*

The outburst of Homura's power painted the world in somber grey tilt and everything, save Magical Girl herself, stood still, frozen in time. All movement ceased, from a dance of flames down on the destroyed yard to lightning on the horizon as another storm was blown into the area. The look of the city around her blurred away, almost like everything has turned into an old photograph with its colors faded, everything preserved in the magic of the moment seemingly forever.

The strange monsters that charged Homura were hanging in the air, stuck, suspended motionless, by time-stopping powers, vulnerable and helpless. Cone of the sickly blue flame they released towards the Magical Girl now looked like interwoven tendrils of a glowing smoke, set alight by the unseen source of illumination and then captured unmoving amid the fiery dance

Homura leveled her assault rifle at one of the monsters and pulled the trigger. A burst of bullets froze the moments they left the barrel, ready to be released when Magical Girl's power no longer held the flow of the time at bay.

She repositioned herself and shot again, and then again, and again, so eventually, all the bullets can be released from its temporal prison in one massive barrage to sweep Homura's enemies in an overwhelming force.

Then Homura released her hold over the flow of time, and with a loud bang of dozens of shots coming off at once, movement resumed and the first few monsters crashed down into the building or onto the roof, with loud thuds, some dead, but others whining when suffering injuries. But the death of the few packmates didn't stop them, and neither did the injury; a few still spat their fires at Homura as their last dying acts, while more monsters came crawling over the ledges and then leaping in an attempt for a surprise attack.

Time stopped once more, a split second before an outburst of a sickly blue fire hit its intended target. Homura sidestepped the now motionless attack and produced a new weapon, emptying its magazine into the offending attacker. Then, with the efficiency of the veteran Magical Girl hardened by countless loops, she prepared the same fate for the remaining few creatures in her sight. She, however, didn't notice a slight movement amidst blue burn that defied the ability to stop the flow of time, a seemingly meaningless peck of blazing dust carried by the wind, defiant particles colliding into each other even if they were meant to stay still, slowly cascading into a full scale of the cerulean conflagration that creepingly overtook the dull grey of Magical Girl's power. It was an error that came unnoticed when the time was allowed to run again.

Homura was confident of her triumph as the loud cracking sound of gunshot mixed with deafening explosions signaled her total victory, as the scene was sprayed with blood and viscera of twisted monstrosities, torn apart by superior firepower. The veteran Magical Girl didn't flinch, even if the stench of death was unlike the experience of the Witches' Labyrinths has to offer - the smell of blood and death, and smell of burning, and the sickening smell of sulfur, they all flooded her senses. She struggled not to gag, to keep up her stoic expression, even if there shouldn’t be anyone who would watch Homura here.

Above her, a sound of thunder echoed, almost as the heavens themselves were angry. A storm was gathering, promising the rain to wash the stench of the battle away. But in the distance, blaring sirens were also heard. It was a variation Homura didn’t expect, as Magical Girl rarely attracted the attention of mundane people, but there was no barrier, no labyrinth to hide them here.

Homura didn’t have a chance to think about the noticeability of her actions. A hellish fox, still bleeding from several gunshot wounds, with broken limbs and torn wings, rolled over and released another stream of sickly azure flame at Homura basking in the moment of her seeming supremacy. Her reaction came immediately. She tried to dodge, a split-second call, a perfect reflex gained by her many years of experience. The Magical Girl whipped another gun from the magical storage behind her shield and shot blindly. A high-caliber bullet split the monster's skull, spraying the area with blood.

But it was too late, a gust of unnatural blue flames landed on her costume and lit her sleeve up. She tried to shake the fire off, but immediately after it came in contact with her skin it flooded her body with a sense of pain she didn't experience for a long time.

Her power flared up in reaction to the new, threatening sensation, almost like a defensive mechanism, and turned the world pale again, frozen at the moment.

But soon a blue fire illuminated the sooty scenery as two more hellish foxes descended at Homura's flanks, motes of power preparing in their mouths to release another breath attack, and Magical Girl was certain that something even stranger than the creatures themselves was happening - they moved, even when nothing else should or could. Then came another blast of flames.

She threw herself down off the roof to avoid the wave of scorching energies that engulfed it. The impact that would kill the normal human knocked the breath out of Homura, and the weapon out of her hand. Her power failed, and time flowed again. Homura had to produce another weapon from her magical storage behind her shield, a submachine gun danced wildly in her grip as she sprayed the edge of the parapet with bullets when an ugly snout of the hellish fox peeked out.

The monstrosity took cover immediately, while its partner used the opportunity to release another cone of blue fire at her from a different angle. The agony from the burn was unbearable, and unexpected, as Magical Girl shouldn't be paralyzed by physical pain to stop fighting, and yet, she did. She dragged herself to a better hiding place, under the roof of a reinforced concrete frame of the building, hidden between the construction material pallets.

Gathering storm brought in a stench she felt from the beasts' attacks, just stronger. Above her, on the roof, monstrosities barked. She thought she got the most of them, but now it sounded like there were more than just two remaining around. This wasn’t the behavior of Witch’s familiars.

The Magical Girl considered her options quickly - monsters were getting smarter, perhaps even calling for help to hunt her down, and even her power wasn't reliable anymore. Homura put her hands on her magical shield, ready to spin the contraption to send herself back to the start of the loop, but she stopped herself at the last moment - she had to know more. More about the anomaly, should it appear again. It wasn’t over yet.

Then voices came from above. Not barking or growling of a monster, rather relatively human-like voices, albeit spoken in a foreign language and with a strange pitched tone. She noticed shadows of the flying monsters, jumping between rooftops, but also mysterious, unidentified flashes of energy, slightly more normal footsteps, and clinking of metal.

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Then, a few metallic objects fell from the roof, bouncing off the pavement in front of her.

She activated her power reflexively, and as the world went grey she looked at what came down. Her eyes widened. Grenades. A bit archaic-looking, with wooden handles - but unmistakably grenades she didn’t want to test her durability against.

Homura jumped up and dashed away through the maze of steel and concrete, releasing her hold over time as she ran, saving it for more tactical use now she was hopefully outside the blast radius. Behind her, grenades detonated, with a deafening explosion that was followed by the unmistakable sound of a machinegun firing.

Something broke, this timeline is completely wrong, a brief thought pinged Homura’s mind again.

A few of those winged fire-spewing monstrosities then charged inside in the aftermath of the blast and were immediately after Homura. She used her power, but creatures moved, somehow they couldn’t be shackled by that power anymore. Magical Girl launched herself into the air in the narrow passage in between buildings, throwing her own grenade down her pursuers. Another detonation shook the building as she bounced off the walls between buildings to get herself back at the rooftops, but she was immediately greeted by another gust of azure fire up where she landed.

A sensation of the boiling heat swept her body first, then pain followed - pain she wasn’t used to, as her Magical Girl form freed her from most of it a long time ago. But now, everything is different. A huge vulpine abomination was upon her before she could react, pinning her down to the ground, sharp talons digging to her flesh, forcing her to scream from the unexpected agony as blue flames somehow robbed her of her resistance.

Homura mustered all her strength to slam her shield into the creature’s maw with one hand, and summoned a pistol from her magical storage with another. Thrusting the barrel to the monstrosity’s head, she pulled the trigger again and again. A geyser of fresh blood splashed her over. The strange beast collapsed dead, burying her underneath.

Immediately, Magical Girl gathered all her strength to crawl out from under the cadaver of her newest victim, as new enemies may descend on her while she is trapped under its weight. But with her legs stuck under it, she was paralyzed. She cursed.

A few gunshots rang. Shots ricocheted away from the concrete, or dug themselves into the deceased monstrosity’s body Homura was trapped under, placing her in an unfavorable position, unable to move and surrounded by enemies. On the opposite roof, humanoids, vaguely reptilian in hunched postures, long tails, clawed legs, gathered. Another addition to the strange collection of monstrosities Homura didn’t see before. But they were all dressed in a resemblance of a dark-colored military garb, all armed with rifles. And were bent on using their guns. More shots were fired.

She returned fire, aimlessly spraying enemies gathering on the opposite roof with bullets, at least forcing her opponents to seek cover.

Someone threw a grenade. It bounced off. Even if the dead monstrosity shielded her from the blast and a deadly shower of shrapnels, a loud detonation left Homura’s ears ringing, her vision blurred from all the smoke and dust it blew into the air. And then she was hit, a projectile dug herself into her shoulder, and blood rushed out. A spike of pain, suppressed by Magical Girl’s resistance, went away, but nothing could control the rush of other emotions that flooded Homura’s mind, and something she long-suppressed was once more taking hold inside her brain.

A magically compressed space hiding behind Homura’s buckler provided her with a rocket launcher, a way to blow the clustered enemies to pieces, yet she couldn’t force herself to act. Her hand shook, perhaps for the first time in a hundred cycles she spent repeating the fight against the same enemies. But at this very moment, her previous experiences were blown apart.

The sound of the sirens coming closer was met with the angry rattling of the machine gun followed by the loud crash.

It was wrong, she thought, it was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Despite the lethality of Witches’ Labyrinths hidden under surreal imagery, she was always able to keep a certain level of distance from the nightmare that surrounded her. But now, everything felt far too real. And much deadlier - a stench of blood, smoke, and gunpowder overwhelmed her. She chuckled at the notion where flying foxes that spew fires and lizardmen armed with guns should be considered real. It was absurd. It was more of the cry of desperation than a true laugh into the face of the danger.

With a shaking hand, she let the weapon go and reached for her magical buckler, ready to spin it and with it, wind the time itself back to the point where this madness wasn’t around.

But she wasn’t allowed to as a shadow that appeared suddenly looming over her grabbed her arm.

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