"I understand, Lady Maria," Fantine said, while looking at Maria's bloody hand. "Eponine has also warned me against contracting, though sometimes I wish I could share your burdens. But that would only make Eponine worry even more."

---

While Eponine was jumping branch to branch, one icy branch broke under her weight. As she fell, she hooked one end of her hammer onto a branch to catch herself, fortunately, though the branch strained, it did not break. Eponine watched as the branch that had broken continued to crash downwards into the infinite sky, as the terror of falling forever seized her. She shakily puled herself back up, using a bit of magic to compensate for upper body strength that she did not have. Once secure on the branch, she took a few breaths to steady herself. In this slow, dangerous manner, Eponine finally made it to one of the factories that spewed out endless streams of smoke that turned into snow that fell upwards. The branch she was on was close enough to a window of the factory, so she threw a hammer through it, creating a loud noise as glass shattered into the factory. Without thinking, she threw herself through the open window, glad to finally have something stable to stand on, though her jump was less than spot on, as her arm slid against a broken shard of window pane, and the ceiling of the factory was a lot further from the window than she thought. She plummeted down and landed hard on the ceiling. Things in her body felt horribly wrong, slight pain mixed with the memory of more intense pain she could no longer feel stabbed through her as she got back to her feet, shambling forward for a few moments like a zombie until she fell back to the ground. Even though her magic was defensive and even though she could not feel pain, it didn't mean that she didn't sustain damage normally, nor did it mean that she healed any faster than other magical girls. She lay there for a while contemplating her stupidity, as she healed. However now that she was closer to the center, there was a pretty high likelihood that she would be running into familiars, or even the witch itself fairly soon. She hoped her bones had knit by then.

"I understand, Lady Maria," Fantine said, while looking at Maria's bloody hand. "Eponine has also warned me against contracting, though sometimes I wish I could share your burdens. But that would only make Eponine worry even more."

"And for a good reason," Maria said as she used her magic to rip the shards off and reopened her wounds, causing a bit of blood to sprinkle on the two of them. Maria didn't flinch, and continued without hesitation: "The path of a magical girl is filled with nothing but despair. Only those with a strong will last for long once changed by the Incubators, and even then they would have to survive the numerous witches and other magi that they will inevitably meet in battle. But here you are safe, free from the fires of war. The moment you contract you will lose that freedom forever. Remember that," Maria said, before she left the dining hall and went to clean herself up.

Alice knew she screwed up when it suddenly snowed. She looked at her surroundings to see glass trees and forests of ice. Alice sighed realizing she was in a witch's labyrinth probably due to the grief seed Violetta had on her. She wondered if the other girl was around though it was highly likely. There was no way she could have gotten away. Well...what should I do if I did run into her in here? Alice wondered if Violetta would actually think about working together in this particular situation. Alice noticed she was standing on quite a thin branch and it looked just about to drop. She jumped to a branch that looked bigger and stable. There was no way she was going to find out what was at the bottom of the labyrinth...if there even was a bottom. It was then she realized the labyrinth seemed upside-down and wondered what kind of witch was in store for her in the labyrinth.

Violetta aside...the most important thing I need to do is locate the witch, defeat her and then get out before Violetta can start round two. There was no way I was going to have another fight with her so soon. I don't see any familiars around...maybe its due to the labyrinth being new. Alice decided to locate the witch and finish it off as soon as possible. If Violetta shows up, she would worry about it when the time comes. Alice then proceeded to the centre of the labyrinth. It has not been long since her last witch extermination and Alice wondered what kind of girl whose conjure such a labyrinth. She wondered if the girl was killed by Violetta...if that were the case, Alice shook her head. She needed to focus on getting out.

"This has started to be quite an eventful day...hopefully, there are no more surprises after this..."

Halfway through her second wad of chewing tobacco, Violetta looked up and glanced around. She narrowed her eyes, and if she could've flexed her ears like a dog she would've. Something had gone crash, some distance away. In an infinitely large place of trees, the sound of glass and stone was definately an anomaly. She spat, and the black gob flew down and away into the sky, following a branch. That was new. Had that been there before? Violetta turned, trying to guess where the thing had came from. She picked herself up, and pocketed the wad of chewables, before leaping from tree to tree like she was trying to kick them down, like a manic pinball going for the highest score, all in an attempt not to fall into the abyss. It worked, and she'd covered some decent ground before she'd reached the end of the treeline. There was a building there, a brick chimney place with one conspicuous window that had been smashed open. She perched on the windowsil, and looked inside.

It was her. The black bitc- The Hellhound of Aurora. The lady didn't seem to want to trust her anymore, (Not without reason, Violetta's conscious added) so she'd apparantly decided to send her pet hamster to control her. She fumed, internally, and kicked aside some of the glass still in the sil. Her shadow was blocking the light into the place. With any luck, she'd look menacing and intimidating and not as pissed off as she felt. She opened her mouth, and began talking.

"Oi." She began. That seemed suitably dismissive." This is a Valkyrie operation. If you want something, go wait outside and we'll get to you when we can."

Yume took a few steps back, slightly put off by this girl's behavior. "Well, Chloe, I don't necessarily believe in 'destiny'." she shrugged. "Although my previous experiences with other magi have given me some doubt." a slight smile appeared on her lips. "What about you, miss? Do you believe yourself, or are you just playing with me?" Her fingers twitched, ready to defend against a possible attack. Chloe didn't seem threatening at the moment, but Yume had to be prepared for anything.

@Ariamis

"I understand, my Lady," Fantine said and bowed slightly as Maria left.

@The book of bad juju

Eponine looked up at Violetta, and spoke, in a dry, robotic tone that sounded almost as monotonous and boring as an end-user license agreement, "I hope my presence is not taken as insult. My Lady merely lost contact with one of her operatives namely you; and as is common procedure, sent someone to investigate, namely myself. Though now that your safety has been determined, and you have also expressed confidence in completing the mission on your own, I do not wish to leave the barrier as I would personally rather not have to go through that inverted forest again, so if it's all the same to you, I will aid you in taking down this witch, which I believe is the fastest way to get us both out of this labyrinth. You can keep the grief seed, I will simply report to my Lady that you are well and in process of completing your mission." Eponine stood back up, having almost completely healed, though she did pop her neck in an unsettling manner.

Violetta jumped down onto the ceiling, and glared at the other girl while the bi- the Hellhound launched into her prepared shtick about what she was sent to do. She listened with half an ear, not even deigning to give the girl her full attention. The edges of the rooms were covered with work posters, half obscured with the darkness. The only real light in the room had been the hole in the window she'd freed up, filling the room with a single beam which little clouds of dust danced and made little words in the clouds. She tried to read one, but it vanished and changed as soon as she made sense of it. Witch logic. A little pop brought her attention back to the girl blending in to the darkness. She stifled a grin, trying to stop the joke about not being able to see her in the dark, and tried to keep a straight face while she briefed her.

"Well, fine. Just so long as you don't try to stab me in the back. Oh, and just so you know, there's a magical girl in the labyrinth the boss wants dead. Try to take her down, silent-like, if you can. Blonde, purple dress. Should stick out like a sore thumb around these parts."

_{@The book of bad juju@Stern Algorithm@TrixyTrix}

The wait that had gone by unbidden was now over, and all those currently inside the Witches Barrier would soon notice as Familiars began to appear. They were drawn to the magical energy given off by the various girls when they were in their current form, though returning to simple human would act as a disguise. But at the same time though, it would obviously make them less able o defend themselves if they were to be attacked.

White snow bunnies hopped along, almost cute if it weren't for the razor fangs and glowing red eyes. Their form seemed uncertain though, shifting and shimmering in the light, making it difficult to tell exactly where they were in this whole mess of white and ice, though not impossible by any means.

So they arrived, hopping along the ceiling and moving towards the three girls that had dared to intrude, even if one of them was directly responsible for the formation of the Witch in the first place. The time to talk was over. If they wanted to survive this experience, they would have to fight. And even now, the Witch had yet to enter into her full glory.

"Well, fine. Just so long as you don't try to stab me in the back. Oh, and just so you know, there's a magical girl in the labyrinth the boss wants dead. Try to take her down, silent-like, if you can. Blonde, purple dress. Should stick out like a sore thumb around these parts."

"Another magical girl?" Eponine asked. "I was not informed of this. My Lady said that this was simply a recon mission. Did my Lady specifically order this magical girl destroyed, or is this a result of your own judgment? Did she pose a threat to you, or is she perhaps connected to the location of interest in some way?"

A rabbit familiar leapt at Eponine, who flourished her hammer and loudly pounded the familiar into a bloody pulp in the ceiling. She turned to Violetta, "Also, I don't do 'silent-like'."

@Stern Algorithm

Was that a joke? It was so hard to tell, in the darkness. Violetta blinked, unsure of what exactly to say. Then her brain came up with something good.

"She attacked an officer of Aurora City Authority." she began, gesturing vaguely to her hip. There was nothing there, between all the waiting, but it got a point across. "Assault on an officer of the ACA, Resisting Arrest, Conspiracy to Commit Criminal acts, Unauthorized Invocation of Witches..." She went on, the capital letters slotting easily into place. They had a magic all of their own. They could make you believe what you thought was wrong. She counted on her fingers, trying to sell the lie. "Attempting to deceive an ACA agent in the Execution of their Duties- these aren't petty crimes. We cannot allow such things to be done against the Lady's name, entendido?"

Eponine did not mean her question accusatorily, she merely wished to resolve the information discrepancy. "Understood. Such a criminal should be brought down at once." Eponine sighed, she'd had enough dealing with rogues for one day. "Were you able to ascertain her affiliation, if any? You also mentioned Unauthorized Invocation, so she was responsible for this witch?" Eponine asked this just to connect the pieces, though to someone who was lying, it may have come off as if she were questioning the validity of the statement. The rabbit familiars kept coming, so Eponine assumed her default formation as frontline tank, using her powerful melee and defensive magic to stave off enemies, while allowing Violetta to do ranged area control.

Chloe pursed her lips, looking up in the sky with her hands in her pockets. "Destiny, huh..." It was a question she had to think about, and that made her anxious. After everything that had happened today, she had out herself in a valuable, if dangerous, position. Was that destiny? Or luck?

"Nah, I suppose you're right. Destiny's just made up." The only acceptable conclusion was that Chloe reached her position through skill, intuition and hard work. Everything else was just passing the buck.

"So, that brings us back to my original question. I dunno who you are, and that's dangerous. Haven't even told me your name yet, and that's just rude. I feel like you're just jerking me around. I don't like that much. Been jerked around enough today. And now I'm tired and frustrated. Need a stress relief." Chloe's sentences got shorter and more terse as she continued speaking, and her muscles tensed in her arms. It wasn't visible, but she was gripping the brass knuckles in her pockets tightly, squeezing them like a stress ball as she worked herself up. She wasn't even that angry at this stranger, but something inside her had shifted gears, putting her in 'fight mode.'

"You've admitted that you're a magi, so that means you won't die if I hit you, right? Right?"

With a dull flash, she pulled her hands out of her pockets, her brass knuckles turning into her signature giant magical fists, and her headphones shined with a dull light that signified their transformation as well as she changed fully into magical girl form. With her huge hands, she pointed a finger at the girl in front of her.

"I'm nice enough to wait for you to transform today, so consider yourself lucky. In exchange, if I beat you, you're gonna tell me who you are... or else I'll kill you."

@Stern Algorithm

The shifty white blob things were pouring into the building, and the conversation was cut short by the Hellhound turning and pounding a rabbit into so much veal mince. Good thing, too, because Violetta had already drawn her weapon in order to teach the annoyingly curious girl a lesson. Her little pre-act of anger was hidden in all the rush, and presumably the other girl had just assumed she'd pulled it out to fight. And all the better, because now there was a whole bunch of punching bags to take her anger out on. Humans were boring to kill. They screamed, and ran away at the slightest little burn, and the smell always made her hungry. Even witches rarely did more then sit still and throw stuff. She grinned, the fire dancing behind her eyes already, glancing around the room, and taking stock of sightlines.

Screw ranged combat.

She took a pose like a sprinter at a marathon, and charged. She went at a cluster of the things, staying low, her arms cradling her weapon of choice as it spewed out a spray of hellfire to her right. For a moment, it caught the shaft of light, turning the globules into a greasy oil-slick rainbow in the sky, before the pilot light stole the greens and blues, leaving only the red greasy fire. Violetta slid across the inverted ceiling, knocking out a cluster of the hideous things without even slowing down. That was important. You slowed down and you died. She hit the wall, and bounced off it, repeating her maneuver from earlier.

Yume merely shrugged and transformed, a long white and pink dress flowing from her chest down to the hem and replacing her regular clothes. She summoned her main axe and propped the handle on her shoulder before speaking. "Very well then. If you want a fight, than a fight you shall have." She let her eyelids drop into a lazy, carefree position that matched her smile. "You could have just asked for my name, you know. But since you seem insistent on this outcome, I'll save that for later."

"'Nice enough', what a joke."

Eponine saw Violetta dash forward in a furious frenzy of flame, completely disregarding the team combat set-up that Eponine had intended to prepare. Eponine had hoped that they could push through these familiars together, but Violetta blazed ahead by herself, leaving Eponine to slowly golf the familiars around her away from herself. Eponine tried to run after the scorching trail that Violetta had burned out but more familiars kept piling in, closing the path between Eponine and Violetta. One of the rabbit familiars lunged at Eponine, but given the danger of thesituation, her force-field was already active, so the rabbit simply bounced off. Eponine continued to walk forward, hoping that they would reach the witch soon, swatting away familiars that stood in her way, muttering "reject" to activate the force-field wrapped around her hammer in order to launch familiars that came in contact with it away at tremendous force. She was severely irked by Violetta's lack of cooperation.

'If you want a fight,' she says. No doubt about it, this girl's passive nature had a way of getting under Chloe's skin. It wasn't that she wanted to kill her or anything, it was simply that she had grown bored, and fighting was fun. Even if Chloe was at risk of death in this fight, boredom was its own death to a certain class of being.

Without another word, Chloe cracked a wide grin and slammed her fists onto the ground, using the force to aid a forward lunge at faster than normal speed. Before closing the distance between the two of them, she extended her hands forward, fingers outsretched, aiming for the other girl's weapon, which seemed to be a large axe. Weapons like that were a threat to a fistfighter like Chloe, but if she could get her hands on it, they would be on more even ground. If she could grab hold of the girl's weapon or even her weapon-arm, things would follow from there, and it would be exceedingly difficult to stop Chloe's momentum from that point. And speaking of momentum, if her lunge was blocked, the force should be enough to drive the girl backwards or perhaps knock her off balance.

"Aggressive, aren't you?" Yume thought as the girl launched herself at her. She quickly swung her axe out in front of herself and grabbed one end in each hand, feeling Chloe's momentum slam into her. She was pushed several feet back as a result of the older magi's superior strength, and had to dig her heels into the ground to prevent herself from slipping farther. Grinding her teeth in effort, Yume stepped to the side, attempting to set Chloe off balance.

^{@Stern Algorithm@The book of bad juju}
The inside of the factory became a maelstrom of fire and combat as Violetta cut lose with her flamethrower, sending gouts of fire about. With her and Eponine working together, ostensibly even though there was no sign of it, these familiars didn't stand a chance. All they had going for them was their numbers, and that didn't mean much in the fact of what was being thrown at them.

Soon enough the Familiars had been burned out or destroyed, leaving the two in the on fire factory. The sound of creaking metal could be heard as fire licked at it. Even with the foes gone, they didn't seem to be out of danger just yet. And if they wanted to get out, or to find the Witch, they would have no choice but to move on from this factory and back into the dazzlingly twisted, snowy labyrinth.

---

^@Ariamis
Time passed by relatively undisturbed for Maria once she had finished her meeting with Chloe, having come a step closer to furthering her plans for eventual rule. If there was a conflict or fight she would hear of it, and in the meanwhile she would be merely forced to wait for some news from Eponine, if her subordinate was in a position where she could give it.

For now though, the time of the month that she most likely hated rolled around. Specifically, that point where she would have to make the trek to the center of the city and Alexandra's base of operations, to pay tax from the Grief Seeds she had collected from her territory to her ruler. Much as she might despise it, it was a duty she had to fulfill.

And she would have to get a move on soon if she wanted to make it in a timely fashion. Being late could be taken as an insult, which would not do well for her if she was trying to keep her head down until the time for her coup came. But in the end that was her decision.

Water splashed in a sizable tub as Maria was taking a relaxing foam bath. She was thinking about what she spoke with Fantine, and made bubbles.
She realized she went a bit overboard with showcasing her powers since she made quite a mess of herself, but she assured herself it was good for keeping discipline. Fantine has been a while in the household, but she hasn't really seen the extent of her magical powers until now. She lifted her leg, and sighed.

After she was done, Maria had her clothing fly out of the drawers and cupboards, and dressed herself in a fashion reminiscent of a transformation sequence, her dress and socks flying into place without a moment's reprieve. She went to the basement, and beyond the grotesque "Playroom" and jail cells was a sturdy door. Maria placed her hand on a scanner, typed in the password, and the door opened to reveal a storage room containing rows of crates. A black sun was marked on the sides of the crates.

We've fallen back a bit on the quota, so that makes only 3 or so possible deliveries before I've run out. But it won't matter in the long run, of course. I have just enough to make my dreams reality.

With a flick of her fingers, many rows of crates started to float, led on by her finger as she rolled out of the basement and outside, where pick-up trucks were waiting along with their drivers and the guards, who saluted in sync once they spotted her coming. She placed the crates inside the vehicles, and had herself and her wheelchair moved into the green van at the front, which was accessorized and rich-looking.

"To Alexandra's tower," She commanded the driver.

She bounced and bounced and bounced for a while before she noticed the area was considerably less bunny-infested then it had been. She stopped, which is quite hard to do when jumping from wall to wall while cackling and spewing flame everywhere. She ended up pointing the flame machine in front of her and using the recoil to slow her down, even if it meant getting her twintails singed. She glanced around, pointedly, trying to not let the hellhound get behind her. She trusted her amount as much as she could throw her hammer, even if nominally they had the same employer. Oh yeah, that reminded her. She pulled out her soul gem from it's hiding location and glanced at it, before putting it back somewhere undisclosed, where it wouldn't be sniped at. No real drain. She'd still have enough to kill a witch even if the Valkyrie's did arrive on time. There was only one enemy left, in her hamster ball. She waved at the transluscent shimmering shield, and spoke up.

"You finished in there, Hellhound? Some of us have a witch to kill."