Chapter Fourteen: *Noon, Wednesday, 16th of March 2011; Zarak’s Palace, Other Side*

*Noon, Wednesday, 16th of March 2011; Zarak's Palace, Other Side*

Sayaka stared at her own reflection in the silver pitcher sitting on the table, inspecting once again her yellow, almost snake-like eyes on the mirroring surface. They were unsettling to look at, a gaze of the predator looking at the helpless prey it could devour, an unmistakable monstrous sign that didn't belong on the face of the girl like her. She had seen the eyes before; there were mirrors in this strange palace, and she couldn't stop herself from looking at the eyes in every reflective object she ran into. Yet, at the same time, the eyes didn't feel wrong as they probably should, and nevertheless, they did. A discrepancy between her memory and her own sensations was even more unsettling than the sight itself, almost like something in her brain tried to correct itself from some unspecified error.

She barely spoke to anyone since she woke up in her own body. She sulked, angry at the Dragon, and angry at what became of her. But there was more to her conflicting emotions than just anger. A crushing realization that brought her to utter desperation when she learned the truth about the Magical Girl, and comparatively, she felt better now than she had been before - the Dragon helped her, in his own way. She was beautiful; she had the future. Kyousuke might like her better this way… no! Sayaka pushed the notion away.

She shook her head violently, almost like she wanted to shake away the treacherous thoughts like the droplets of water, and looked around, desperately looking for something different to focus her tired mind on. Neither the palace's luxurious dining room nor the monstrous attendants that brought them various dishes felt sufficiently alien, despite everything suggested it should have.

She moved the attention to other things. Her friends, or at least some of them, were sitting at the same dinner table. Hitomi was there too; it had surprised her when she first met her here. Hitomi had hugged her, relieved that Sayaka was safe.

And Hitomi was changed too and seemingly got an even worse deal than Sayaka. It wasn't just the transformed eyes for her. Her friend ended up entirely changed legs, oddly shaped, feet into hoofs. Also with a spade-tipped tail, leathery wings, and wicked horns. But she doesn't seem unhappy, as weird as it seemed.

Hitomi sat on the opposite side of the table and didn't look that unhappy as one would expect in her situation. With one hand, she helped herself to a sizable chunk of medium-raw meat she tore with her new, sharp fangs. With her other hand, she fed one of those horrible fox-like monsters standing next to her as her loyal hound. Hitomi, dressed in the new clothes, complete with jewelry, fast friends with creatures around her, looked like one of Zarak's loyal followers, to the point it made Sayaka think hard if that old Hitomi she had known in the school wasn't some demonic infiltrator in disguise who now showed her true face.

Once more, Sayaka tried to remove the notion from her mind with the same gesture, shaking her head. She had spoken with Hitomi briefly, she seemed to be the same girl, the same girl who made a new friend and got a puppy, entirely missing the fact that her "puppy" was a terrible abomination that breathed fire, large enough to act as a riding animal.

But staring deeply at people was proving to be distressing in its own right, too. She felt the pulse in the living creatures, the beating of their hearts, the heat radiating from their bodies when she looked hard enough at them. Convinced her mind was playing tricks on her, she once again struggled to find something else to focus on.

She found it in Kyouko, sitting to her left.

"What?" The former Magical Girl, now also partially monstrous, reacted in the response to the blank stare, pausing from gorging herself on food. Kyouko's changes were the most extreme; they didn't stay at the strange eyes and went far, far beyond that. Large horns at the side of her head, lizard's scales creeping into her relatively human face, a predator's gaze, and monstrous jaws. A large wings, monstrous hands, and legs, sharp talons, scaly tail and all, with scales of the color of burning embers, just like her hair.

"Nothing", Sayaka replied hesitantly, "I just can't stop thinking ... "

"Don't let him mess with your head.", Kyouko suggested with a sharp tone in her voice, then reached for the chunk of meat on Sayaka's plate asking: "You won't finish that?"

Sayaka hissed a reaction that surprised her more than Kyouko and stuffed the steak in her mouth instead of replying. She was hungry, after all. There was something animalistic in her chewing, it was creeping her out, but that terrifying, monstrous part of her liked the taste of half-burnt and half-raw meat. She swallowed easily, wiping the droplets of sauces and blood with the side of her hand before washing everything with the bubbly liquid from her cup. Afterthought gave her guilty thoughts about her table manners, made her feel even less like a human.

"There is plenty more from where it came from if you feel hungry.", offered the voice behind them and added, "Even though some special snacks would have to be picked up from Earth if you want them."

Sayaka looked at her empty plate and dirty tableware in front of her and said nothing, as even though she felt she would certainly eat more, it also gave her a sensation of guilt from behaving like the monstrosity she became.

Zarak's minion, a floating half-tentacle abomination called Sarka, floated into view to position herself at the head of the table. Sayaka scowled at the thought, as the former Magical Girl wasn't exactly feeling any different from those she would once call a monster, and said nothing, letting someone else strike up a conversation instead.

"So, when are you going to let us out?" Kyouko asked

"Out?" the monster girl replied, "You can leave any time. You are not a prisoner. Actually, Hitomi here spent two hours flying around before you woke up."

"Groves behind the city are beautiful! And there are those big six-legged cats with tentacles that disappear when you try to touch them!" Hitomi added to that, excited.

"However", Sarka continued, "If you mean going to Earth, well, I admit there was a little of a problem in the past twelve hours. Lord Zarak had to re-align our realm after a temporal disruption."

"A temporal disruption?" Sayaka asked, confused about the term.

"Not sure about the details. I am afraid that planar alignment mechanics isn't my strong suit.", a tentacled one shrugged, and added, "We lost twenty Kobolds and seven Sikari, even Eliska. She is reforming in Pool of Souls. Radka was wounded in the attack as well but teleported away before the disaster struck. And I don't count equipment lost which will not be recovered."

Sayaka was not familiar with the names mentioned. She only knew about Sarka because Kyouko had told her beforehand, with much of the disdain in her voice suggesting she and the redhead had some past that wasn't explained. Sayaka found that unsettling. She didn't press it further.

"An attack?" Kyouko growled

"Yes, the Magical Girl, Homura, was involved.", tentacled one confirmed while nonchalantly checking the plates left after the feasts with her telekinetic powers, piling the dishes up and throwing a leftover bone to the fox monster.

"I always knew she was evil. A silent, creepy type...", Hitomi quipped and then added in sudden realization: "I should probably speak to my parents, tell them I am OK, they must be worried!"

Sayaka paused before she said anything in reaction to that, as she of course knew the transfer student which later revealed to be a distant, quiet, and nearly emotionless Magical Girl, even though she didn't know that much about her to form any form of positive opinion on her. And even Kyouko wasn't fond of the girl any more than others were, considering the fight they had, and growling the redhead gave as an answer that couldn't be entirely attributed to the transformed girl's now-monstrous nature.

One of those reptilian-looking attendants that crowded this place interrupted a further conversation.

"General, Lord Zarak will see new Divas. 'If they are not resting or eating,' he said." The lizard-like one said, in a strange manner of speech they seem to use.

"I will not call him Lord." Kyouko protested. It obviously startled the assistant, but made Sarka, the General, laugh.

"Neither of us is technically forced to, but don't tell that to Eliska," Sarka said, shrugging.

"Then let's get it over with then.", redhead jumped on her feet, assuming her lower limbs can be called it as she had grasping talons. Sayaka said nothing, as she was still in her inner turmoil from the monstrous transformation. Despite that, she was not only proportionally more human-looking than others but was ironically the most nervous about it.

Kyouko was angsty, but still happy with demolishing the food provided, and Hitomi, except for a few moments of clarity, seemed to be entirely caught by excitement to forget the real repercussion.

Sayaka was last to leave the dining room. The guards waited for her when the rest of the group was several steps ahead.

Guards let them through the spacious corridors and Sayaka spent all that time in silence, burdened by her contemplation, barely noticing the intricacies of the building. Some part of her didn't want to notice anything, almost like she was deeply afraid of the fact she wasn't creeped out by the place anymore. It felt more welcoming now than it had before they agreed to the pact, and Sayaka stubbornly refused to give the notion any ground, at least for the time being.

Finally, they arrived at the cavernous chambers that served as Zarak's throne room, albeit without any literal seat present.

The Dragon laid on the ground. He looked almost like he was sick, or at very least trying to sleep, with his eyes closed, and breathed deeply, almost like he fought exhaustion after some major physical undertaking.

None of this made him any less menacing, though. His aura pulsated with eldritch powers just waiting to wake up, and dark miasma seeping out of his scales became thicker as his armored scales moved as his body adjusted itself, growing stronger again. The former Magical Girl found him no less terrifying, but at the same time, he gained some allure in her now monstrous eyes, something she was not ready to admit.

Next to the head of the seemingly resting dragon stood Blanka, a fiendish girl that Sayaka had met first, touching the dragon's snout seemingly in worry. She was proudly displaying her monstrous features no longer hidden under the hood, even revealing the reptilian legs and scaly tail ending with a white plume poking from under her robe.

Another reminder to the former Magical Girl that here, in this dark realm under the permanent storm, everyone there was a monster, that she in her new form belonged here.

Hitomi, being the most friendly of three former humans, rushed forward, but she stopped when Zarak opened his eyes, but Blanka gestured her closer, anyway.

"Oh, my precious new Divas, welcome to my service. We have great things in front of us, I am certain." The Dragon welcomed them.

"So, you are dying, old bastard?" Kyouko quipped. It earned her quite a few odd looks for her obvious rudeness. Luckily for her, no one sought to punish her for it at the moment.

"Neither of us is truly immortal. But you will soon find out, my new beautiful Diva, that we are much harder to kill than mere humans would be. Or Magical Girls, for what matters.", Zarak answered, his voice still calm yet booming with the little growling undertone added to it, a similar manner of speech he had before.

"So what is it about?", redhead obviously didn't have the patience for it

"Did you know one of your old friends had a power that allows her to travel back in time?" The Dragon asked an obviously rhetorical question, and continued, "Homura tried to use her power, possibly to erase us from history. It failed, even spectacularly so, but it had unexpected consequences as it almost flung my realm back to the Astral Chaos, and aligning it back to Earth was quite a struggle."

"Are you hurt?" Hitomi asked and once again approached the Dragon, her hand outstretched. No one tried to stop her.

"Inconvenienced." The Dragon allowed and then, without bothering to rise from his resting position, gestured towards the large mirror in the corner with his claw.

A reflection on its lightless surface shimmered and twisted before forming a clean image in its center. It showed a classroom, a familiar one both Hitomi and Sayaka had once attended; in the middle of the lesson already in progress, there was no sound, but it was obvious that the teacher was in the middle of the oral examination, calling one student after another. One schoolgirl raised her hand. They all knew who she was: Madoka. She said something and then the teacher waved her answer away and pointed to another for another query. At that moment, both Sayaka and Hitomi froze as they noticed they noticed themselves among the students.

"Not only it would seem we traveled back in time, but we also beat the entropy in the process. I couldn't imagine a better insult to your former patrons." The Dragon chuckled, something sinister and terrible in the way of his laugh. But somehow endearing, Sayaka nervously admitted to herself.

"She looks like me!" Hitomi yelped out while pointing at the scene in the mirror.

"It's you, Hitomi.", Zarak said. With another gesture of his talons, the image darkened, focusing on the glowing wisps of light in each person. Then, once again, the image turned to normal. "At very least, your past self, soul and all."

"But... but...if I am there, then my parents won't be worried I am missing because I am not missing. At least, other me isn't missing.", Hitomi stammered, looking understandably confused and overreacting a little as always, Sayaka dully and silently noted. Even though it can be hardly considered inappropriate for the situation, she thought.

"Can we go back?" Sayaka finally managed to speak up. It was before the realization hit her. She had nothing to go back to. The problem wasn't in her body, no matter how much it changed, like her snake-like eyes. There simply wasn't a place in the world for her. She had no friends - it was the other Sayaka who had friends, one shown in the shifting images of the magic mirror. She had no family - another version of her, down there, out there, was the one who had. It left her paralyzed.

"There is no issue with returning to Earth anymore as our relative position with their plane stabilized. But whether we can return to your original timeline remains to be seen. Still, we certainly have something to do here too." Zarak said, bringing the former Magical Girl from the moment of existential dread. Sayaka wanted to scream at the Dragon, but he gestured again to the scrying surface.

A scenery depicted in the mirror once again swirled and shifted, now focusing on the blonde girl who also sat at the school desk, albeit in a different classroom than the previous one.

"Mami! I saw her die!" Sayaka gasped as memories of the event rushed to her. They carried her away from the depressing awareness of her situation at the moment.

"I am not helping you to turn her into another monster," Kyouko said, crossing her arms and shifting her position on the other leg, even though her expression betrayed the fact that she did care about what happened to the blonde in the picture.

"It would be entirely sufficient if you don't let her die for one." The Dragon answered, seemingly calm and unfazed by the repeated objections from the redhead, before adding a question: "Or do you want her to die?"

"I don't.", Sayaka added herself into the conversation, even if the line wasn't intended at her, and stepped in to grab Kyouko's arm, before insisting, with her following words more directed at the redhead than the Dragon himself: "We won't let her die!"

Memories were far too painful, far too traumatizing, once pushed away to the subconsciousness, but resurfacing again. She couldn't allow Mami to be doomed as well, again.

"And she was ultimately alone, with no family left." Zarak offered, pressing the point further. "Your Earth is a deadly place. If it wasn't for our powers, we would be dead there in hours. Your former patrons have harvested humanity as the cattle for their entire history bringing the human species closer and closer to extinction. I dare to challenge who is a monster here."

Kyouko was silent, obviously gritting her teeth and flexing her newfound claws in agitation, but didn't add anything, as the girl she followed held her. Sayaka imagined Mami with yellow snake eyes staring at her, and something deep inside found no problem with that imaginary. After all, there wouldn't be that much of a difference.' Her own treacherous thoughts convinced her. Mami's eyes were already golden after all. Magical Girls could be taken here, to their realm, and be saved, given new lives than being a zombie enslaved to their Soul Gems. She shook her head wildly once again to cast those notions away, as Sayaka wasn't sure about her own form and now wanted to cast that to others.

But she felt they were alike, both lost girls, with nothing to return to. What else would Mami do than fight Witches, former Magical Girl thought. But what would Sayaka do from now on, she asked herself. Implication almost made her cry.

When no further argument was raised, a brief silence under the Dragon's gaze was interrupted by Hitomi, who decided to join in.

"We must save people! You promised!" She said and reached for Zarak's massive talon, almost like she wanted to grasp the hand without realizing the sheer difference in size. The Dragon appeared like he was merely patient with the petulant child. It was almost disturbing for Sayaka how comfortable Hitomi was with the whole arrangement, not showing any kind of worry other than a few mundane matters she also pushes away far too quickly.

"Of course, my lovely Diva, we will try to save them, but it is not as simple as it appears to you. More still needs to be done. Speaking of which - there is another project I had in mind before Homura so rudely interrupted me." The Dragon said and slightly raised his head before saying to everyone present:

"I want you to catch me a Witch."