Seven days ago, several youngsters had received a weird email.

It seemed to be rather nonsense, at first. It spoke of things such as magic, and a weird festival. Maybe it was sent to the wrong email address, but either way, it was probably quickly forgotten by whoever had received it. At least until the weird dream, not too long after.

In said dream, the contacted individuals felt lucid, able to interact with the environment and each other, although they were hardly given a chance to do so, before a tiny, humanoid girl showed up with a stern expression, and immediately launched into a spiel about them being chosen to be magical girls that participate in some silly magical tournament thing. It was all rather sudden, but the fairy wasn't exactly open to interruptions. As soon as she had finished, the glasses-wearing creature had declared "the door to Phantasma will open tomorrow", and just like that, the dream was over.

Certainly, it was a strange event, and almost as easily dismiss-able as the email had been. Although, together, maybe there was some credibility to the stuff about magic?

...Nah, no way. Life wasn't a fantasy story filled with wish-fulfilment. There was no way some 'door to Phantasma' would appear to whisk anyone away to another world.

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Akira stared at the door to Phantasma that had appeared from nowhere with some incredulity.

Having been typing away at an essay for her Japanese Literature class, Akira had no idea how long it had been there, but there it was; a blue, almost ephemeral door occupying what used to be a blank space of her bedroom wall. It seemed to pulse with mystical energy, practically beckoning the diligent student to enter.

Still, she was hesitant to just rush at the thing. It was way too suspicious! It could be a trap by an alien, or a hallucination that meant for her to dive head-first into the very-solid wall! And even if that door really did take her to some magical world full of... magic, and... more magic, what if it turned out to secretly be some dystopian nightmare behind the scenes?!

...Well, that seemed even more unlikely than the present situation. Still, who in their right mind would just walk through a door that wasn't there five minutes ago?

"Gaaaaaaah, this is so dumb!" Akira berated herself, finding that she had wandered towards the weird door and had extended her hand to open it. Freezing in place, the sweet-faced girl conducted a mental conflict: Reason vs wonder, who would win?!
If only that stupid dream fairy hadn't rushed me out of that stupid dream... came the mental grumbling, I'm putting in a complaint about this...

Akira considered herself a realist that didn't tend towards silly fantasies about magic, but... well, if this was a hallucination, it was pretty damn convincing and persistent. The door continued to exist, and when Akira finally reached out to touch the onyx-like doorknob, it felt solid and strangely-warm to the touch.

"...Just a quick peek, I guess..." Akira sighed, and turned the doorknob.

And one sudden and startling flash of bright light later, Akira found herself standing in a wide, near-empty field.

"...Huh?"

Well, this was most definitely not her bedroom. Nor anywhere her hometown. Hell, was it even in her country? Akira gave a nervous glance to her surroundings. There seemed to be nothing but a few animals idling in the distance... and a wooden sign planted in the ground.
Well, it was as good a clue as any. Wishing that she was wearing more than a simple shirt and shorts (another thing; more notice meant she could dress appropriately for inexplicable travel to foreign lands!), Akira approached the sign.



The only other thing there was a doodle of a bunny-eared smiley face. Well, that was pointless. So what, she was stranded there alone? Where was the exposition fairy? That Kaguya person from the email? Where was anyone?!

The answer, of course, was right behind her, as the others began to show up.

The orange-haired girl laid on her stomach. She hadn't even bothered getting fully dressed, sitting in her underwear as she kicked her legs in the air, lying on her bed. In her hands she held her 3DS, playing Pokemon X. Her character, customized to look as close to herself as she could possibly manage, was currently meandering around through a field. She was looking to expand her collection of Pokemon, and get her perfect team... it's not like she had anything else to do. That homework could totally wait, right now it was Pokemon time. Pokemon time was, of course, vastly superior to homework time, which is why it would naturally take up much more of her time as well. Wasn't that just logic? Of course it was.

However, this particular Pokemon time, Michiko felt like something was amiss... glancing to her side, her eyes immediately fell on something that was not among the usual items that belonged in her room. A door. It stood there, very doorlike, away from any walls and generally making a nuisance of itself among its disorganized surroundings. Pausing her game, Michiko sat up on her bed and stared for a moment. That was... strange, to say the least. Why was there a door in her room now? Idly, she wondered if it had anything to do with that weird fairy dream, before swiftly dismissing it. Perhaps even dream fairies found her desirable, but those weren't real and therefore couldn't have anything to do with this door. Still, it was there, and she was awake, so how exactly had this come to be?

Naturally not wanting to head through a random door in underwear, Michiko swiftly dressed herself in a pink bunny t-shirt, a dark red jacket, jean shorts, and striped black and white thigh-highs before clambering out of bed and opening the door to head through.

Beyond was an annoyingly bright light that made her shut her eyes and wince, rubbing them to try and recover her vision... until abruptly it was gone.

And there she was.

In a field.

With some older girl.

Well.

"... Eh?"

Akila was lying on her bed, crying into the pillow. Once again, the band of delinquents that constantly bullied her had cornered her and... not attacked her, but they had tossed her stuff into a muddy gutter, and shoved her down to the ground, causing her to scrape her hands badly, leaving her to bandage them up, and gather her wet papers, and dirty backpack. She now was in her room, at home.

When she had come to Japan, with her mother and brother, she had hoped to meet new friends at her school, and be happy. However, the exact opposite had happened, with her shy nature. Others had viewed it as arrogance, and she couldn't find the words to reach out and tell them. Others, who would have bullied her anyway, did so. And now that she didn't have any friends to support her, she was vulnerable.

Her mother was at work at the diner, and her brother was at a friends' house. Alone in the apartment, the young Arabic woman turned over in her bed and looked at the ceiling. There was a door there. Why was there a door in Akila's ceiling? Did it have something to do with that strange dream a few nights ago? She didn't know, but pulling her hoodie over her head, opened the door, and jumped through.



Akila fell sideways onto the ground, face in the grass. Groaning, she pushed herself up, and saw a sign, with a cute little bunny face drawn on it. Pushing her white hood back down, she brushed off some of the dirt. It was such a nice jacket, wouldn't do if her mom had to wash it again. Looking around, she saw a dull-eyed ginger, and her favorite Student Council member, Yamada. Heading over to her nervously, she said, "U-Um, Miss Yamada? Where... Where are we?"

Kelly finished up washing dirt off of his hands and knees and had got to splash water from the sink on his face. It was rather refreshing after hours of playing footie with the boys in the local park. The day had been hot and sunny for this time of year. A perfect day to go out and play in otherwords. But all day and all through the game he had been notable distracted. It had prompted him to excuse himself and head over to the local public restroom. A small single stall establishment, nothing fancy and honestly a little funny smelling as these public johns tended to be. But it was nice and pirvate and gave him solitude and quite to think about what was on his mind.

First had been that weird ass email. He had figured it was just some ribbing from one of his mates. Set up a fake weirdo email address and send him random spam and crap. He hadn't thought much of it...that was until that damn dream. The one that told him he was going to be some sort of magical girl. He got enough of that crap from his mates (Mostly good natured if annoying ) and from the local bullies ( Much less good natured ).

"Stupid dream..." He muttered as he splashed another handful of water to his face "The bloody teasing everyone is always giving me is finally start'n to get to my subconscious ." before mopping it dry with a towel and giving himself a good hard look in the mirror. Sure he wasn't the tallest bloke, nor was her particularly stout or sturdy. He had what his mother had said was a runners build. Not every lad had to be some rugby looking troll. You could be perfectly manly and have narrow shoulders, fair skin, and soft features. He sighed scratching his head. "Not much sense in worry about it. Was just a dream that was triggered by my wanker friends and their silly prank email. Nothing to get worked up about." he told himself as he finished cleaning himself off.

He turned to exit the single stall and in front of him, where the door out of the cramped little john was a different door than the one he had used to get in. At first he stared in dumb confusion but the details of the dream came back to him. A door way that would take him to the place here he would become a magical girl. He swore under his breath. "No way, this can't be happening." He grumbled. He began to bang on the door and yell for someone to come and open it from their side. Surely if that it wouldn't take him to where ever this door was meant to take him. But it seemed as if magically no one was able to hear what he was doing on this side of the door.

For a good bit he was simply pacing around in the small bathroom, trying to think of his options. Alas the only ones he could think of was to use the door or be stuck in this foal smelling john forever. With a deep breath he made his decision and opened the door. And found himself...well...somewhere. He was briefly disoriented by the wild change of scenery only to see a few people. All girls, a pair Japanese by the looks of them, and another one mixed Asian and something else like him.

"Oi, any of you birds know what's going on?" he said and bit more loudly than he probably meant.

Three other girls had arrived not long after Akira herself. Still somewhat off-balance from the general weirdness going on, her more formal mannerisms were currently absent, replaced by the blushing high-schooler that felt too under-dressed for this nonsense.

There was a dumbfounded looking girl, another that recognised Akira (though Yamada wasn't personally familiar), and finally, one that referred to the others in a strange way. Who called other girls 'birds'? Was it some kind of slang she was unfamiliar with?
Well, regardless, Akira had no idea what to tell her- no wait, him? Maybe? - or any of them, since she was quite lacking in information herself. The dark-skinned girl was also looking to her for answers, which put the treasurer in a very awkward position.

Taking a deep breath, and pushing her embarrassment and confusion aside, Akira put on her best 'student council' face, and addressed the small group as confidently as she could.

"Um... hello there," Akira bowed her head slightly, "I don't really know anything myself, unfortunately. Just crazy theories. ...Although I'm guessing it's not so weird, now."

She turned her gaze towards the expansive fields once more, seeking proper answers. If someone was supposed to be meeting them, then somewhere that didn't seem completely disconnected from civilisation would be nice, too. Well... until they had a better plan, first thing's first.

"Well, My name is Yamada Akira," she informed the group once more, "I came here through a stu- unusual door, if you can believe that," she added a forced giggle at the end, as if to brush off the silliness of her statement, "What about everyone else?"

Cinia had gotten the strange email last night she had actually opened it and thought it was really strange. Whatever kind of joker sent it must have been high at the time or something when they sent it. She herself had laughed it off as she thought it was a pretty funny joke, even ended up posting it to reddit, however it was quickly forgotten shortly after as pretty much no one looked at it.

After the strange dream that night though Cinia couldn't help but think that it would be kind of neat to be a magical girl, not to mention how much fun it would be. She couldn't help but be upbeat, not many people had seen the other side of her personality first hand, but many knew it existed, and often tried to keep their distance as they didn't want any trouble.

Cinia the next morning started to go for her morning stroll through town. If anything she seemed to have more energy than others, though this could have to do with her home town being about 5000 feet in the air, after all Colorado was known as the mile high state. Though as she went on her walk a door seemed to have appeared on the ground of all places. And it was open, without even noticing it Cinia seemed to fall right into it and even rolled straight into a very feminine looking boy. "Ow, where am I?" Cinia asked as she rubbed her head after falling tumbling straight through the door.

"Sasahara Michiko," said Michiko, feeling that her name was all that was required in her introduction. With that, she glanced around at the other girls and... person who could be either that had shown up. Of course, few could ever approach her level of desirability(striped thigh highs, naturally, made her appeal super-maximum one thousand omega supreme). So that was of no concern. However, what was of concern was the fact that this was very clearly not her room, unless her room had somehow become so untidy all the walls fell down and it grew grass. Michiko was fairly certain clutter was not capable of causing such an outcome. The natural conclusion was that the email had been truthful, and the door took her too another dimension. And probably did the same to all those other girls and... person who had appeared here.

After a few moments of muted shock at this revelation, Michiko shook her head. So it was like one of her games. Some of them, at least. Or certain manga. Or light novels. Or anime. Problem Children for example. Did that mean their manager and guide was going to be a hot bunnygirl from the moon? She certainly wouldn't complain if that was the case.

"... Did everyone come through a weird door?" she asked, approaching the sign and gently prodding it with one finger.

Nobody seemed to know what exactly was going on either...and now introductions where happening. Great, no one seemed to know what was going on and he was stuck in some weird ass place with a bunch of strangers. He guessed getting everyone's names was the first logical step to figuring something out. He was personally hoping he was just having a extendedly vivid dream or something. But given how real the sensations of the world around him was and how these girls looked like nobody he knew, this was all probably actually happening. He couldn't believe that he had gotten...what was the phrase his father liked to use for this kind of thing. There was some Japanese film with it as a title. Oh right, he had been 'spirited away'.

He sighed looking over his shoulder another person seemingly popped up out of thin air. He wondered if that was going to keep happening or if this new girl was the last to the party. "My name's Kelly." He said, the frustration in his voice hard to ignore. "And yeah, I came though a weird door. Let me guess; everyone here got a odd email not too long ago either. Something about magical girls and other such junk?" Second step to getting anything figured out was to compare information. If everyone here had gotten the email, the those here weren't randomly picked by some magic door and they were all here for the same reason.