⌈ Outside the Beatrice Plaza  - Mary's Turf ⌋ 

Mary had just crashed into some of the decorative bushes outside the plaza, she slowly stood up shaking off all the leaves and dust from the wall she just burst through, she look at her sides and recognized that she was outside the plaza.

"Are you okay?" A bystander asked Mary as he thought that she was a cosplayer.

"Yeah, I just need to regain my senses" Mary said as she began stretching her body, she thought about how he lost her bag of things she bought and how they are probably ruined.

"Wait, Amy!!" Mary remembered Amy's unconscious face as she was being picked up, she gritted her teeth and began running towards the hole she made with her impact.

"Miss you should be careful!!!" Another bystander said since the scenery around them didn't look good, a bunch of random objects suddenly became sentient and were running amock the event, there were some people fighting them but they weren't enough, local Magical girl was starting to converge on the location to help with maintaining the devil at bay.

Mary was running towards the building when she looked up, on top of the building, a figure stood, it was barely discernible from all the chaos but it was raising its hands in the air, suddenly the sky darkened and a projection slowly started forming some sort of transparent red ceiling.

Mary got distracted looking at the event, the ceiling looked exactly like her barrier but in a tinge of red, the barrier had weird characters that were rapidly changing, and then the barrier started to close down on the building.

"They are encasing us here?" Mary blurted out, The red barrier encased the whole Plaza, not letting anyone through, now they were trapped also outside the plaza, Mary felt a slight warm breeze and she looked in front of her, the Adele devil was charging at her, Mary put a barrier at the last second, the devil pushed the barrier and made Mary back off.

"Thank god!!! another magical girl" the civilians said.

"No she's not!!" Mary cried out, the Adele devil jumped to attack one of them civilians, a little kid that tried to wave at the devil thinking it was a magical girl, Mary made a dome shield around, the devil was wailing its fist at the barrier and Mary kicked it away.

"Get to a safe spot!!! I will hold the devil right here!" She commanded the kid was crying as he got picked up by another person, the person started running away from the chaos that was about to ensue, Mary was new to magical girls, but she knew that this specific devil was more powerful than the average and it could trick people into coming close to it, it was a miracle that it was only intelligent for battling and not for deception.

 "Alright cheap copy, your luck ran out!".

---

⌈ Staff room 'B' inside Beatrice Plaza - ??? ⌋ 

 

I was in a strange dream, I was fighting for my life against monstrous abominations on a rock floor, I couldn't use my earth magic and most importantly, it felt too real, I felt every punch and every hit I landed down to the nerve, I fought and fought against hordes of disfigured enemies resembling random objects, the passage of time was extremely distorted, some times time would fly extremely fast and I could not keep up with anything, while other time the time passed so slow I felt every single punch and all the pain nerves it caused to activate for hours, the time she spent in her dream felt like years to her, but the couldn't do anything, not even speak, eventually, I felt dizzy and sleepy in her own dream, and so I fell to the ground and doze off.

"Wake up sleepy head!" An annoying voice, a modulated one entered her ears, I was still trying to sleep, someone kept shaking me around so I slowly opened my eyes.

"Welcome to the world of the living" I squinted my eyes since my vision was still blurry, I saw a figure with messy green hair and a lab coat was gazing upon me, I slowly started to move my arms and sat up, the ground felt uneven, smooth and cold, I found a wall to lean on and gaze upon the figure again, and recognized it.

"HUI!!" I immediately put my arms up to fight, she just look disillusioned with my actions and stood up, I looked around to see what I could use, we were in an enclosed space, the wall and ceiling were painted a pale shade of red and there were LED stuck on the ceiling.

"Explained yourself!!! where I'm I??" I inquired Hui, she just lean on the wall opposite to me, it was only 8 feet away from me, she pushed her round glasses up and sighed, she ignored me but didn't look aggressive.

[Well this is backward].

I tried using my magic, but noticing what happened, I saw that in reality the whole room was made from some sort of painted metal, I saw Hui's dismissive attitude and put down my guard and stood up, she looked a bit surprised.

"You're not going to beat me up?" Hui asked incredulously, it seems she was joking a bit and expected me to just bash her head in the wall, I just looked around, it was kinda dark and the LED lights were the only thing keeping the place illuminated.

"It seems you woke me up, also don't have a reason to, so I won't," I said, Hui looked at me and chuckled a bit, she then approached me,I just stared at her lab coat that was a bit dirty.

"You're perceptive, I give you that, but it seems you were taken by surprise" Hui said teasingly, I just touched my shoulder where I was hit, the dart wasn't there anymore.

"So like, what are you going to do with me, since you capture me" I reproached, Hui looked startled, her face was a bit pale, and then looked at me.

"I won't do anything, as you can see, we were captured inside this container" she said, I looked at the wall and started feeling the cold metal, it was true that this now really looked like one of those containers that cargo ships carry, I then looked at Hui and saw that she was feeling sad.

"So you were captured?" I asked, she nodded and then walked away, she couldn't go more than 15 ft away since we were trapped.

"More like betrayed, my investigation ended so instead of buying my silence they captured me" She explained, I looked at her and did a wry smile.

[Yeah you're on the wrong side buddy].

"Well, it happens! at least you were not drugged!" I said jokingly, she just looks at me dumbfoundedly.

"I was also drugged" Hui whispered.

"And how did you...? " I asked, she pulled out some syringes.

"I had the antidote and so I used it, if it weren't for my previous preparations I would still be sleeping on the floor, that goes for you too" hui explained, I was confused since she did guess that she was going to be attacked with a weird sedative but she was captured anyway, then I remembered that she was extremely weak and got unconscious the only two times we fought her.

"Well then you have my gratitude, anyway we have to get out of here?" I asked her.

"If there was, I would already found one, I only got to prepare for my capture and couldn't fit in a way to escape this early" Hui explained, she pointed out at the LED lights, and then at the bag of snacks that was snuck on the corner.

"I see, you didn't find white LEDs?" I said the LEDs were colored blue, red, and green, no white LEDs were tapped into the wall.

"No, these are only scraps of the explosion that Comicket had" she said.

"It is pretty smart though, using red, blue, and green light together to give the illusion of white light!!!" I said to Hui, she seemed surprised that I actually noticed, It is known that RGB can produce any color, and so using the 3 at the same time made white light, this is how pixels worked. Hui looked a bit interested in me.

[YES, I got her attention, I knew those youtube videos about CRT and modern TVs would come in handy someday!!!].

"You're not as dumb as you look" hui remarked.

"I get that a lot" I said, I wasn't lying, for some reason people always thought I was either dumb or intelligent, no in-between.

"Can I ask something?" I said, now that she knows that I'm not that dumb, maybe she will take me seriously and answer appropriately.

"As long as I can answer" Hui replied.

"You don't look like a bad person, yet you side with Magda and Ophelia, why would you do that? and moreover, you woke me up, you could of let me sleep for a longer time, you must have something in mind, don't you? What is it?" I asked, Hui looked annoyed at the questions, she took a deep breath to not lose her cool.

"I only ever wanted to research Magic, everything that makes this world has an explanation, so I was interested in the nature of aether and how to use it appropriately, devils were my main lead on but couldn't do anything as a magical girl, so I just started doing experiments on other things, the angels didn't take to kindly on that and labeled me a criminal, so now I'm technically on the run, I had not a lot of options when it comes to shelter anyway so I just passed from group to group as long as I got what I wanted, but this is the first time someone actually captured me" Hui said, she touched the wall of the containers, she looked depressed.

"As for what I had in mind, I expected you to come up with something, and also since I do feel a bit guilty as to what will happen in this event" Hui said, I immediately jumped and looked at her, I had completely forgotten about the event.

"What is going to happen?" I asked Hui, she looked away from me in shame, she didn't look comfortable at all, but I kept pressuring her.

"Our boss Ummm, ex-boss I guess, Marchosias, has the idea of using the aether in the area in order to make high ranking devils and use them as a force to reach one of her goals" Hui explained.

"Define 'Use aether in the area', Doc" Hui look anxious to answer my question, she gulped and decided to finally speak.

"She plans on killing all magical girls present to get their stars, and then extract aether from the civilians by any means necessary" She said, I looked down at the floor, I was in a panic.

[Kill? Kill? no, you can't kill magical girls so easily, right? Mary is still there? even if she wasn't a magical girl she would, I can't tat just slide, I need to get out of her].

I punch the wall with al my strength, I keep punching it to try and make it budge, even with an extremely tough kick it doesn't bend, I keep trying until my fist starts bleeding, Hui grabs my shoulder and stops me from continuing, she picks up her glasses from the floor and looks at me.

"You won't accomplish anything like that!!! you don't even know what to do, even the civilians will eventually suffer, LISTEN" she grabs me, I try to push her away to continue wailing on the wall, she grabs with all her strength and looks me in the eyes.

"THINK CLEARLY AMY, do you think you will make the steel wall budge with that?? you're only harming yourself" Hui screamed at me, she was worried and angry with me, I didn't care at all.

"I NEED TO TRY ANYWAY, HOW COULD I JUST STAY HERE DOING NOTHING!!!, IM PROBABLY MAKING MY FRIENDS WORRIED BY NOT BEING SAFE ANYWAY" I screamed at her, Hui is still trying to hold me, she can't and then, she slaps my face.

"CALM DOWN!!, you're too worked out I do have a reason to wake you up so look at me and answer, the f*ck do you think aether is?" she askes with a conviction, I try not to cry but tears just flow naturally, I gather my thoughts.

"Is a power to make magic occur" I say, I'm sobbing uncontrollably, she gives me a head pat and puts her hands on my cheeks.

"Wrong" Hui says, I'm surprised, she looked extremely calm while saying that, I feel a bit better but I'm still trying to get away from her to continue wailing on the wall.

"This is why I'm even wanted criminal, Angels are just plain stupid and don't even bother trying to explain the actual magic, instead just leave everything up to fate" she rambled on about, I wiped my tears and started to breathe deeply to regain my composure.

"I'll teach what Aether really is Amy, maybe with that, we will get out of here".

 

---

⌈ Outside the Beatrice Plaza ⌋ 

 

Mary and the Adele devil were on closing on melee combat for a while, Mary envelops her fist on a transparent green barrier and punches Adele directly, It sends flying the devil backward, it buries its hand in the ground to slow down and not crash onto a wall, Adele lunges forwards to Mary, she puts a barrier but Adele passes by it and punches Mary.

[How is it so strong? I need to get inside the stupid building, you idiot].

The Adele devil rushes again, she put a tiny barrier and makes the devil stumble and fall to the ground, Mary immediately crushed the devil against the floor, Its strength is enough to slowly raise even with the amount of pressure Mary is applying.

"Why won't you stay down?" Mar shouts, the Adel devil escapes from her barrier does a front flip grabbing a tree branch in the process.

"The f*ck?" The devil Launches the tree branch as a projectile, Mary's barrier gets pierced and she gets hit, the tree branch implodes on impact.

"OW, god it hurts" Mary's left arm got hurt, it is now bleeding and the devil is still unrelenting, Mary holds her fan up, the devil kicks and Mary dodges and grabs the devils leg with her left and swings her fan at the devil, it tried to get out o the way but the fan cut cleanly through its right arm dislodging it from its shoulder.

"Take that!!" Mary laughs and gets kicked by the devil's other leg.

"I get distracted too easily" she spits out blood on the ground, the devil is now staring as it lost an arm, it is shaken a bit.

"Is it feeling pain?" Mary asked herself, she didn't know how to take the devil's reaction, so she just started running at the devil, she was locked onto the idea of ending the combat right now.

"Come at me!!!" Mary shouted the devil responded by quickly accelerating even surprising Mary, the devil trusted it fist towards Mary, she opened up her fan without hesitation blocking the punch, she then swept the legs of the devil with a kick, the devil fell onto the ground and Mary stood up.

"Amaranth Festival"

With a downwards thrusting motion, a barrier in the form of a rod slammed into the devil's chest, it crushed it completely against the ground, the devil was flailing its remaining limbs around, Mary jumped in the air and axed kicked the top of the barrier to further impale the devil, the sound heard of the Magical girl Mannequin being crushed combined with the 'clank' sound of the barrier were heard by the bystanders.

[You get what you deserved].

The bystanders cheered Mary on, she looked at them and smiled at them, she was quite glad, it was like when she was cheered in her football tournaments, she was about run towards the building when she noticed that everyone was running to the same place, Mary approached someone.

"Why is everyone running in that direction?" Mary asked a random passerby that was running to the entrance o the plaza.

"They say that the only openings there if you want to get out you need to go there!!!" the passer-by ran towards the entrance, and was almost bitten by a trash devil, he got protected by Mary, Mary kicked the trashbag devil out of the way.

"Okay everyone, go to the Plaza's gate, I will protect you on your way there" Mary decided that it was probably a better idea to help as many people as possible, and so she began fighting the devil that was attacking the attendants and sending them to the front gates.

"I wonder why does this red barrier has a hole in it?" Mary asked herself.

 

---

⌈ In the Beatrice Plaza Entrance Gates - ??? ⌋

 

"Are you sure you don't want to go further in boss?" David asked the figure that was at the entrance, with a sharp gaze he just shrugged off his comment and started to put his guard up.

"No, only the strong ones will try to come out, so this is a perfect position" Another life-size statue of a magical girl started running towards the figure, it lunged to rip him in half, he only spun his tonfas and stabbed it, piercing it through and holding it in place, the bystanders were amazed to see a student destroying a devil in combat with only tonfas.

"You're weak" Lark swung his other tonfa and completely destroyed the statue, its pieces now spread in the ground, he smiled a bit and started to wait for the nest opponent that tried to cross the barrier and exit the plaza.

"You're crazy, to just destroy the barrier with brute force and make a suitable exit, it just, amazing" David said, He was throwing his cards around piercing lesser devils in the form of bushes and trash cans, Lark simply replied to the statement.

"Those who disrupt order must be punished accordingly, the people are sadly not at fault, so we have to let them go" Lark said.

"I didn't ask you to beat the people running in fear" David replied.

"Evil must be disciplined thoroughly".