The grandiosity of Alice’s first visit to the Library Magus was somewhat diminished by her being id out face down across the hard floor of the establishment’s entranceway, having not taken particurly well to her sudden relocation from the quiet library they’d been in moments earlier.

  “…o-oh, are you okay?!”

  Gwyn, having finally noticed her guest’s significantly less graceful entrance, scrambled over hurriedly, already reaching down to offer a hand in helping her back up to her feet.

  “H-Here, lemme help…!”

  “I’m fine, just… maybe warn me next time you-- gaagh?!”

  Both of them were cut short, Gwyn being knocked back and away from her fallen companion while Alice was once more knocked completely prone against the ground below, knocking the wind out of her lungs entirely.

  A weight like several cars had struck down on her all at once, every bone in her body feeling as if they were going to be pressed ft, the sensation like sand pouring evenly across every part of her sprawled-out form.

  “Unauthorized entrant to the Library successfully immobilized, moving in to disable and apprehend now.”

  She could just barely crane her head up enough to see the room’s third occupant slowly advancing on them both, an unremarkable looking older women dressed in neatly maintained business attire, a pair of gsses resting atop her nose as she scowled down at Alice, one hand outstretched with middle and index fingers aiming forwards, seemingly marking her as the one currently crushing her to death in the doorway.

  “Urgh… damn, you assholes roll out the red carpet for everyone like this?”

  “Intruder remains cognizant, increasing seal strength.”

  Her two outstretched fingers pressed downwards, the weight on top of her immediately doubling in intensity, a garbled cough being pushed out as she was further crushed in pce by the advancing woman.

  “You little…!”

  “I would highly recommend against further comments, as I have been fully authorized to disable intruders to any degree I deem necessary for continued operation security, and all comments that may be construed as further resistance will necessitate further intervening action on my part.”

  “Yeah? Why don’t I-- nngh --intrude my foot up your intervening ass then?”

  “…you were adequately warned.”

  Adamantly refusing any attempts at peaceful resolution, Alice wriggled her arm into a position where her hand could face upwards, pushing her palm up against whatever invisible force was being leveraged onto her, feeling the weight increasing again already as she spoke up once more.

  Hearing her refer to it as a seal herself and recalling Sclera’s earlier lockpicking, she pressed up against the yer of compressive force as hard as she could in her compromised position, flexing the same muscles she’d felt burning just earlier as hard as she could manage.

  The sudden surge of unpracticed magical exertion tore through her arm, veins popping in sequence as the energy raced through them all, blood spraying from her restrained limb as the energy was directed up and out of her palm, shotgunning outwards as it ripped through the imperceptible yer of pressure atop her just as easily as it had torn through her own skin and muscles.

  Sent reeling backwards slightly as her neatly maintained seal was smashed apart unexpectedly, the other woman’s perfectly neutral expression briefly faltered, as look of annoyance shooting across her features before she recomposed herself.

  By that time however, Alice was already scrambling forward, barely lifting herself off the ground again before rushing forwards like a feral animal, her arm already pulling the torn muscles back together as he reeled back for a hell of a right hook, aimed squarely at shattering the gsses on that infuriatingly neutral expression.

  Unfortunately however, neither the reapplication of the restraining seal nor the irritation-fueled punch would ever get a chance to nd, as both sides found themselves separated from one another by the sudden appearance of an entire, massive tree trunk growing between them, Alice’s fist smming hard enough into the bark to elicit several more especially candid swears.

  “…thank you for you quick response to the incident Ms. Paige, though I must apologize for not warning you in advance to expect our guest here.”

  “Ah, no, the apology would be mine then I’m afraid.”

  The sudden mass of wood that had separated them retracted just as quickly, returning to a small, unimpressive sapling growing in a small garden on the other end of the room.

  Behind the removed barricade stood the woman who had stopped her before, bowing neatly to the room’s newest occupant before standing upright again, turning to face Alice before bowing politely for her as well.

  “I apologize for my hasty actions on intercepting a guest of Mr. Willow’s. Please enjoy your stay at the Library and do try to remain more civilized in demeanor for the duration of that time.”

  “Don’t go telling me to be more civilized after you-- hey!”

  Already turned around and showing herself out, Ms. Paige completely ignored the bloodied girl as she left as quickly as she’d first arrived.

  With her gone, Alice’s attention turned towards the room’s newest occupant instead. Just barely shorter than she was, the young man held himself stoically upright, spine as straight as an arrow as he held a bundle of paperwork under one folded arm, his attire orderly and well-kept, if not as rigidly business formal as the earlier woman’s had been.

  He returned her gaze with a small, courteous smile, like the one a schoolteacher would have when meeting new students.

  “Judging by your… very honest and forward demeanor, you must be our newest magical girl. A pleasure to meet you, miss.”

  “Wish I could say the same, but your fucking bouncer almost killed me. You do that with everyone the first time…?”

  “The Library Magus generally follows a very strict introductory process for extending invitations to our hopefuls, and your very sudden transition to your current condition has caught most of us here wholly off-guard I’m afraid. Thought from what little I am aware of, I believe it would have taken much more than that to kill you, no?”

  “…it still fucking hurt.”

  He ughed politely, adjusting his carried load of papers slightly.

  “Well, Ms. Paige has always been very enthusiastic about her duties here, so I imagine it must have. But I believe you came here for reasons other than simply testing our security staff, did you not…?”

  “…oh, right, yeah.”

  “Wonderful! If you’ll follow me then, we should be able to make time for your introductory meeting right away.”

  His head turned slightly to the side, gazing over at the mess they’d made of the entrance hall, and more specifically, to the very concerned and stunned girl who’d been sitting there in silent panic for some time now.

  “Oh, and will you be joining us, Ms. Lapin? I believe your guest here would be well served by having a fellow greenhorn present.”

  “O-O-Oh, um… i-if that’s okay, then, I mean…”

  Gwyn stuttered and stammered as she tried to speak, still not managing to stand back up again yet as embarrassment at the situation she’d thrown Alice into boiled her thoughts alive.

  Her trickle of unfinished thoughts and half-comprehensible apologies was cut short as a hand was shoved directly into her line of view, almost all of the blood that had been on it now wiped off, Alice patiently waiting on the shocked girl to let her help her back to her feet.

  “Come on already, get up. Everything’s fine now anyways, yeah?”

  “B-But I…”

  The outstretched hand coiled up briefly, reeling back her middle finger before releasing it, flicking Gwyn hard right between her eyebrows.

  “Ow!”

  “I just said it’s fine, dumbass. But maybe cut the surprise next time you drag me out somewhere, okay?”

  “I… o-okay…!”

  Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she finally managed to small, sincere smile again, the easily shocked girl taking the proffered hand as Alice pulled her back to her feet again.

  Willow stood waiting by one of the exit doors across the room, picturesque stature not faltering whatsoever as he paused for the duo to catch up with him.

  “Right then, all set? If you’ll follow me, then.”

  Spinning on his heel, he stepped through the open doorway, setting a brisk pace for the two of them to keep up with.

  The three of them walked on and on and on, the long, narrow hallway stretching onwards for an eternity, winding past door after door after door, the occasional hurried person rushing past them without paying any of them much mind at all.

  Eventually, Willow stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall, nearly sending Alice and Gwyn both walking straight into him as he turned to his right, pushing open one side of a pair of ornate double doors and gesturing them both in.

  “After you.”

  Alice managed a half-nod as she slipped past, Gwyn thanking him profusely before following in after her, the man pushing the door shut again as he joined them, immediately slipping past them both once more as he wandered further into the space.

  It was a very rge room, about as big as the entranceway had been, the open area primarily occupied by a single, long table situated squarely in the center of the room and the matching tall-backed wooden chairs encircling it. Several smaller tables lined the exterior perimeter of the rectangur room, each sporting a pair of cushiony couches rather than the stiff seats the center table had.

  Willow directed them towards the nearest of those side tables, setting aside his bundled papers before seating himself, legs crossed as he fiddled with his attire, fixated on straightening a misaligned bit of his colr.

  Gwyn carefully sat herself down across from him, Alice flopping gracelessly into the plush seat with a relieved sigh, wriggling like a cat as she made herself comfortable.

  “Now then, we would generally begin with our usual opening expnation of the basics of your new circumstances, but… well, from your rather abundant combat experience in the st day or so, I believe we can skip over some of the nitty gritty, no? Rather, I’d like to request we begin with some simple introductions if I may. After all, for all the times I’ve looked over the security footage we received, I don’t believe I’ve even gotten your name yet.”

  “It’s Alice. Uh, Alice Decaras.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Decaras. Willow Bora.”

  The same practiced, achingly polite smile returned to his face once more, his hand extended outwards over the paperwork-den table between them, prompting Alice to lean forward enough from her comfortable resting spot to shake his proffered hand.

  “Pleasure’s mine…?”

  His handshake was fairly limp, Willow clearly not having expected as firm of a grip from the woman sitting across from him, pulling away again as quickly as she released him and staring at the speckles of her earlier spilled blood now dotting his own palm.

  “…ah, right, of course. I’d meant to move next to trying to assist both ourselves and you with attempting to properly quantify your newfound magical ability. Which if I may add, you seem to have very strong affinity for, even if it seems a bit… messy in practice.”

  He gnced back at his mildly blood-specked hand once more, pulling a handkerchief free to dab at it idly as he looked back to her.

  “I assume you mean all the… meaty, regrowy stuff?”

  “The rapid self-healing ability and extremely above-average bodily autonomy, yes. You seemed to be exceptionally capable at both almost immediately. If I may ask, have you experienced any sort of previous magical inclinations? Perhaps some manner of personal studying or tutege?”

  “Huh? Not… really? I’ve seen magical girl stuff on the news and stuff but never really like… looked into it beyond that.”

  Nodding slightly to himself, he reached into the pile of loose paperwork he’d brought with him, carefully extracting a single folder from within and holding it open in front of himself, pulling free a pen before hastily jotting down something on one of the pages inside.

  “No… previous… experience… alright then, duly noted. I may take it then that your previous outings were more of a… spontaneous affinity for your acquired talent, then?”

  “I guess…? I dunno, it all felt pretty natural after the first time, nothing I really had to think about too hard.”

  “Fascinating… life-aspected magical abilities are generally some of the more complex to master in my experience, so to be able to wield yours mostly effortlessly is quite the feat. You have a special kind of talent, Ms. Decaras.”

  “I guess being pretty good at not dying is a nice talent, yeah.”

  “If I may ask, have you experienced any other significant changes to your physiology recently? Abundant usage of such abilities should, to some degree, affect your overall bodily memory to some degree, at least. And, I apologize if I may be prying somewhat, I cannot help but notice you’ve kept your right eye covered since you arrived here.”

  “…oh right, already forgot I was wearing this thing, sorry about that. Yeah, that’s probably tied to the whole meat thing.”

  “Would you mind allowing me to see the changes? If that’s alright, of course, I understand entirely if not.”

  “Sure, no problem at all.”

  Alice hooked one finger under the lower edge of her eyepatch, brushing up against the smooth enamel poking outwards from the retrofitted socket, pausing for a fraction of a second as a thought raced silently through her mind.

  “Don’t say anything.”

  “Hm…? May I inquire as to why not? The entire purpose of this excursion was to meet with and accept a position with this organization, yes?”

  “Yeah, but… I dunno, I don’t like how much this dude is prodding me for info. I wanna see how much he can tell on his own.”

  “...a valid precaution, I suppose. Very well, my silence is promised until we leave.”

  The entire internal conversation took pce near instantly, the pair sharing thoughts effortlessly in the time it took Alice to finally lift the cloth pad upwards, revealing the toothy aperture to both of the others present.

  “Ta-dah.”

  Gwyn peeked over at Sclera’s revealed mouth, studying over it with quiet appreciation, as if she’d not already had a full conversation with them just earlier today.

  “I-It still looks really cool… don’t you think, Mr. Wil-”

  By the time she’d excitedly turned to her superior, he was already looking away from the twisted, repurposed orifice, one hand covering his mouth as he attempted to conceal an obvious gag response to the sight of the twisted, fanged maw burrowed into where an eye should have rightfully been.

  “…mmph. That will be enough, thank you for sharing. You may re-cover it now.”

  Alice shrugged, releasing the patch and allowing it to snap back down into pce to conceal Sclera’s mouth once more, Gwyn looking slightly embarrassed after seeing Willow’s reaction.

  “Not what you were expecting then, I guess?”

  “No, no, it does fall in line with what we have seen of your ability thus far. Some… minor corruption of bodily memory is to be expected after unpracticed use of self-afflicted reforming magics.”

  He adjusted his posture, turning once more to face his guest as the unpleasant eye situation was once more removed from view, practiced composure already reestablished, attempting to continue as if nothing had happened.

  “You keep mentioning that ‘bodily memory’ thing, what’s that about?”

  “Ah! My apologies, it is, of course, terminology you would be unfamiliar with.”

  Leaning forward, Willow sat his pen and paper aside for a moment, instead carefully lifting a small potted flower from the table between them, holding it aloft so all present could have a clear view of it.

  “Take this pnt, for example. It has grown in such a manner that has caused it to appear the way it currently does. Its natural appearance, one might say.”

  He raised his other hand now, extending one finger outwards towards the pnt, slowly raising it upwards. And as he did, the pnt rose with him, stem extending upwards at an unnatural speed, petals multiplying atop it as the roots too began poking out of the soil it was pnted in as the entire organism grew rapidly.

  “With the direct application of substantial amounts of life-aspected magics, this natural appearance can be altered or enhanced in any number of ways, allowing almost full control of every aspect of how it functions at a basic level.”

  As it rose to almost two feet in height, he finally stopped raising it higher, his outstretched hand dropping away from the overgrown flower. Without the steady stream of magic being poured into it, the now massive flower began to slowly shrink back down to its former size once more.

  “However when an organism ceases being doused in that magic, it will eventually attempt to revert back to that same ‘natural’ appearance once more… albeit, with some minor changes altering it more permanently if the speed or amount of magic applied exceeded what the organism was capable of holding within itself.”

  He sat the flower carefully back down from where he’d lifted it from, the pnt now noticeably a bit rger even still, the number of petals uneven on one side as it leaned slightly off to the left.

  “That is the concept of ‘bodily memory’ I was referring to. And perhaps an accurate expnation of your… unfortunate eye situation.”

  Alice leaned forward herself, curious, lifting the tested pnt and examining it herself now. She raised her own hand, pointing at the flower with her own hand as she exerted her muscles slightly, trying to match the same thing he’d just done.

  The flower remained wholly uncooperative, not budging an inch at all as she flexed at it, irritation slowly strengthening her exertion, pouring more and more energy out towards the unresponsive bloom until energy boiled over the top. A shotgun bst of energy burst forwards an incredibly short distance, cracking the pot itself as the flower was knocked backwards, her recently healed veins popping once more, spttering droplets of blood across herself, the table, and the poor, abused flower before they were once more pulled back inside of her skin.

  “Ow, shit!”

  She shook her hand as if she’d pricked a finger on a thumbtack, the pain already mostly subsided by the time she’d noticed it, carefully setting the newly damaged flowerpot back onto the table.

  “Uh, sorry about the flower. Didn’t mean to, uh… yeah.”

  “Aha, no worries at all. As I mentioned, life magics are exceedingly complex, and most other magical girls don’t share my natural proclivity towards maniputing pntlife, even after being trained to wield their abilities more efficiently.”

  “I guess that’s fair, yeah… wait, what’d you mean, other magical girls?”

  “Hm? As in, magical girls who are not myself…?”

  “But, you’re…?”

  Alice’s head cocked slightly to the side, having simply expected Willow to be some manner of administrative staff or simir.

  “…ah, ‘magical girl’ is simply a term used for all in our line of work. Risen out of a simple statistic of those who were awakened to their own magical ability being predominantly female. The term was adopted by the civilian popuce at rge and simply stuck to a degree that it wasn’t worth trying to change. Though I do imagine most of the city does in fact believe their beloved Bloom Free to be a woman at this point, aha.”

  “Huh… and that doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “It did at first, if only somewhat, but gender is hardly anything to fixate on too much. I would rather simply be a protector or simir in the eyes of those I work tirelessly to safeguard in this city, and other details are wholly unimportant. A magical girl’s image is everything, after all.”

  “Hm. I can respect that, yeah. Fair enough.”

  “And speaking of that image… has Ms. Lapin here already familiarized you with that little aspect of our line of work yet, pray tell?”

  Willow turned his attention off to the side, directing his gaze towards Gwyn, who had fallen silent once more as she simply contentedly listened to the extended expnations, snapping back to attentiveness as she was addressed.

  “O-Oh, um… I thought I might have mentioned it? B-But thinking about it, I… no, I-I don’t think I thought to bring it up before, no…”

  “Eh…? Image?”

  He sighed, leaning back in his seat once more.

  “That’s alright, you yourself are still very new, Ms. Lapin, I cannot yet expect you to remember everything new members would need to be familiar with.”

  Gwyn dropped into her own seat like a scolded puppy, avoiding making eye contact with either of them.

  “Hey, she’s done a damn good job of handling shit so far, cut her some sck.”

  “…it’s o-okay Alice, you don’t need to--”

  “No, c’mon, you’re doing great, okay? You got me here and you helped me a ton st night, and you bough me food. That makes you cool in my book, yeah?”

  Her face warmed slightly, shamed expression melting slightly as a tiny smile crept back onto her face.

  “…i-if you really insist, ehe…”

  Alice spped Gwyn’s back a few times encouragingly, before finally turning back towards Willow, her own expression notably less warm than it had been before.

  “So, what about that image stuff?”

  “…right. Well, magic is a system that is fueled in two parts. One part you are familiar with already, the internal part. Self-fueled ability, applied via one’s own desire and willpower together. Magic is a system of realized intent, after all, so no magic can occur if one does not consciously exert themselves towards it. I believe you to be quite familiar with this half already, given your very… direct methods of using your ability.”

  That was in line with everything she’d done so far… reattaching her hands and feet, using her bowels like extra hands, turning her blood into a sort of force-shotgun, it’d all just been part of her trying to do something else and her body cooperating with her.

  “Yeah, you want stuff and it works, I figured that bit out already myself.”

  “You are… partially correct. Self-actualization of that manner is indeed important, but it is only one of the two parts of the system.”

  “The other being…?”

  “One’s image.”

  “…what, like… how you look controls what you can do?”

  “Not wholly incorrect, bu that’s an overly simple way of expining it that misses some of the core meaning behind it. I trust you’re familiar with the abundance of advertising that is done for magical girls? Not just in this city, but globally?”

  “Of course I am, shit’s pstered everywhere. Toys, billboards, radio shows, fucking everything everywhere is magical girls.”

  “And do you know why that is something we’ve gone out of our way to do?”

  “I dunno, you gotta make money for this shit somehow, I guess? Can’t imagine superhero gigs pay all that well. Though I kinda assumed there’d be like… government subsidies or whatever.”

  “Well, the additional income we get from such things is a rge part of how we finance operations, yes. But that isn’t why we maintain them to begin with.”

  “Just gluttons for attention, then?”

  Willow smiled that same painfully polite smile, refusing to respond to the barbed jab whatsoever.

  “We go out of our way to publicize ourselves to the masses because the other part of magic is fueled by outward influence, to counterbance the other inward influence.”

  “Outward influence…?”

  “To put it simply, magical girls are quite literally fueled in part by public perception. We preen our feathers for the cameras and make sure our citizens can look up to us, and in turn, their admiration and respect for us allows us to be stronger for them. As I said, our image is everything.”

  “Wait wait wait, but… you’re selling action figures of yourself because it’s supposed to make you do magic better? Really?!”

  “It’s really quite straightforward, actually. A hero that no one feels protected by isn’t going to be a very good hero, now are they? A rge portion of the training we do here is explicitly for the purposes of teaching our members how to make themselves more easily acceptable to the masses, as a ways of hastening their magical growth. Ms. Lapin here has taken exceptionally well to that aspect of her training from my notes, as most onlookers found her conjured missiles to be, though quite simplistic, quite pretty to look at.”

  “It’s true, i-in practice they mentioned that the broken crystals made the room look r-really nice, even when I missed the targets…”

  “That’s not… shit, that’s not how you teach someone to fight!”

  “On the contrary, Ms. Decaras, I believe it’s the most reasonable way one can learn to use abilities that could otherwise be very easily construed as dangerous and unnatural. We’re here to give people a sense of security, not to give them even more to be afraid of.”

  “What the hell’s supposed to make me feel secure about someone spending more time selling their goddamn image than actually protecting people?!”

  “We ‘sell our image’ as part of protecting them, Ms. Decaras. Though I suppose your outrage at this is at least somewhat understandable, given public opinion of your specific manifestation of abilities.”

  “And what the hell’s that supposed to mean, huh?!”

  Without even realizing it, Alice had stood up, voice raised loudly in the previously dead silent room, echoing off of walls that felt custrophobically tight even in this cavernous space.

  “Really now, you could try to calm down some. After all, you cooperated with Ms. Lapin just st night, so surely you could see some merit in practicing a more acceptable image--”

  “Yeah, Gwyn helped a ton yesterday, but because she fucking helped me fight and helped take care of me after, not because she was good at posing for a goddamn camera!”

  Willow sighed deeply, snapping the folder he held shut and setting it neatly beside himself, resting the pen carefully atop it.

  “Yes yes, I’m sure you have some very strong feelings on the matter of having a good public image. And that is, in truth, a rge reason I wished to speak with you here today about… well, all of this.”

  He looked upwards at her, professional courtesy shaping every corner of his practiced, maintained, and exceedingly punchable face.

  “You came to the Library seeking acceptance into our organization, yes?”

  “I considered it, and now I’m unconsidering it.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you how to feel about how we handle things here, that would be unreasonable of me. But I can, at least, tell you that a conclusion was reached on your acceptance here before you arrived.”

  “And that conclusion would be…?”

  Willow remained seated, legs crossed perfectly, his posture impeccable as he spoke up once more.

  “Ms. Decaras, as your status as a magical girl, and a very gifted one at that, is indisputable, the Library Magus will of course allow you free usage of our facilities and equipment, with your access being as open as any new member’s would be.”

  “Aw, I’m touched--”

  “However. The particurs of your manifestation and abilities are… upsetting, to say the least, both to the public at rge and to other members of the Library. And as such, your presence would serve only to worsen the image of those of us associated with you.”

  He stood abruptly, gathering his paperwork once more as he slipped past the two women sitting opposite him, sparing them not even a second gnce as he headed for the door they’d entered in from earlier.

  “As such, it has been decided that your membership will be in name-only, and the Library cannot risk public associations with you at this time. Please try to understand, and if possible, refrain from working too visibly with our other members in the future.”

  “The hell do you--”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Decaras. I hope we can meet again under more positive circumstances sometime soon.”

  Fshing that same achingly polite smile one st time, he slipped out the door, leaving Alice and Gwyn both alone in the deafeningly silent room.