"Commander! Bad news!"

"What? Why are you in such a panic?"

A panicked humanoid creature with 2 heads rushed into his superior's office.

"The Suitman we sent as an advanced scout was dealt with before it could gather any information! What should we do?"

This Commander, a figure who was wrapped in shadows looked up from the paperwork he was doing.

"Oh? It was just a lesser Suitman. Nexus is a high-traffic area guarded by a powerful team of Sentinels so this is to be expected, no?"

"N-no, sir! You got my report, right?! The Operators should have all perished at the hands of the beast corp! It should have taken at least a week for another Sentinel group to arrive."

The shadowy figure raised an eyebrow.

"An unknown assailant?"

"Yes! What should we do?!"

"Send one more attack. Make sure every force attacks in groups of 2 at least. Even if we have to make some sacrifices, we must take control of Nexus and find the girl. That city is far too important of a resource for us to fail!"

"Yes sir!"

The two-headed being ran out of the room, allowing his Commander to ominously rest his head on his hands in contemplation.

"Did the Beast Corps perhaps fail? They were certainly dealing with high-ranking Sentinels so it's not impossible... Mmh, now that I think about it, Darkon hasn’t contacted any of the other Commanders... If I report this to the queen perhaps that old bastard will take quite the hit..." He chuckled.

Huh, instead of scheming against the Sentinel who took down his people, he was scheming against his own colleagues. Even Aliens deal with politics it seems.

...

"Lucy! Good morning. Come sit with us." Sayaka called her over.

Having nothing better to do, Lucy waved back and walked over.

"Good morning... Kawaguchi-san?" Lucy said, straining her memory to remember which suffix meant what in Japanese.

"Just Sayaka is fine." She chuckled, causing Lucy to let out a sigh of relief.

She traveled around a lot. Remembering how to be respectful in every single culture she's been to was something that even she couldn't do.

"You're here so early. You must be quite the diligent girl"

"I think Restless is a better term... Ah, are these your friends? I'm Lucy Lotus I just moved here recently and I'm in the 8th grade. A pleasure to meet you."

Lucy was a little frantic but she managed to say her piece. Talking to normal kids was an odd experience for her. Whenever she talked to others her age in the past they were always the young masters or mistresses of a powerful coven so everyone involved had to act with a certain dignity to them so she was currently figuring out if she should act as she normally would or put on a persona. A mask to hide her true self.

"Luka Adair. I also moved here recently and am in the 8th grade." The pretty boy waved, not looking up from his phone.

'Oh and he's the cold aloof type~ Someone's gonna be a heartbreaker' Lucy snickered inwardly.

As for the final girl in the group. She was... In a panic, she tried to find something in her bag.

"Phone's on the left side," Sayaka stated with a smile.

Pausing for a moment, this girl placed her hand into the left side of her bag and quickly found her phone.

Quickly typing something on her phone, she pointed it towards Sayaka causing her to chuckle more.

Sayaka gave off a weird vibe. Not weird as in creepy but more so that she felt angelic. Too angelic. Lucy didn't like this for rather obvious reasons. Nobody this calm and nice was ever a good person. This was a form of charisma you could only have if you were a deep schemer.

Or Lucy was just paranoid? Both were very plausible.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Turning her phone back towards herself, the girl who had yet to identify tapped away at her phone with an impressive amount of Dexterity. Even Lucy who had trained her entire body to be as dexterous as possible was quite surprised.

I'm Silica Katz! Also in the 8th grade! I like talking about Magical Sentinels and playing games!

'This one doesn't talk, and the other is cold as well as a transfer. How curious.'

Lucy's idle thoughts aside, she perked up whenever she saw Silica mention Sentinels. She was so glad that this Silica girl liked Sentinels. It made everything so much easier.

"Eh? You like magical girls too?! Who are your top 3?"

Silica jumped a little at Lucy's sudden increase in tone and energy but smiled wildly like an idiot while getting back to typing.

Definitely Phantom Dancer, Magica Radiant, and Pride Kitsune! What about you?

"The rank 13 Assassin Phantom Dancer. I see you like the foxy fighters! I didn't take you for a woman of culture! My 3 have to be Deus Ex Machina, Lord White, and... Operator Gaia." Lucy nodded at her own answers.

From the 3 Silica mentioned, all of them were noted to use speed and trickery during their battles hence why Lucy called them Foxy. Pride Kitsune especially as she used Illusions to fight. Truly cunning like a fox, just as her name described.

It didn't take any more for those two to enter their own world.

"Seems they've made quick friends. What about you Luka, aren't you gonna join in their conversation?" Sayaka asked.

Only now looking up from his phone, Luka looked at Sayaka.

"Why would I? Magical Sentinels aren't here to protect us... We're just the inconvenient 3rd party who got caught up in their war with the Invaders."

"Well, that's quite a pessimistic way of looking at it. What about the Sentinels who go out of their way and focus solely on rescuing people?"

"A minority cannot speak for the majority. Sayaka, why are you even trying to put us together? You know I don't like talking to people, much less making friends."

"You can keep lying to yourself all you want but someday you'll be thanking me for opening a gateway for your antisocial ass to make friends."

"Mhm. Sure."

After a while of chatting, the bell finally rang and everyone hurried to their classes. Aside from Lucy somehow immediately making a friend by being a giga nerd, nothing else interesting happened. Classes were covering things she had learned at a very young age and during lunch break, she made little effort to actually try and talk to anyone so the only thing of note that happened was the Radar finishing its construction.

She and Luka were the only new 8th graders and everyone else in their grade had been attending this school for a year so they had their cliques already while Silica was just nowhere to be found.

After school, Lucy, Silica, and Luka along with Sayaka exchanged numbers and created a group chat. Lucy wasn't entirely sure how she convinced Luka but also didn't really care. The more diverse her friend group was, the less boring school life would be so she was fine with whatever reasoning they had to be her friend.

"Aahhh. Well, that was certainly interesting." Lucy sighed.

"How was it? School, I mean?" Nell asked, appearing out of nowhere and resting herself in Lucy's bag.

Not noticing her until she spoke at all, Lucy jumped in terror and instinctively took a combat stance, much to the humor of the few other kids who were near her.

To them, it looked like a cat stowed away inside Lucy's bag and suddenly popped out to give her a heart attack.

"Why?! Why would you scare me like that?!" Lucy complained.

"You should be more aware of your surroundings."

Lucy could only pout at Nell.

"Whatever. Let's just go!"

Before she had the chance to embarrass herself, Lucy and Nell began to head toward the hospital where Sora was being held.

It was quite far on foot but that was fine. It gave Lucy and Nell more time to talk to each other. While they already seem quite close, they've not even known each other for 48 hours yet and they've only conversed for less than half of that. Getting to know each other better was the more important step to becoming strong partners, especially with the fact that for Magical Sentinels, bonds and partnerships are the single most important thing for their power.

"Oh right, Lucille. I have a genuine question for you."

"Hmm? What's up?"

"That skill you have. Demonize. What does it do exactly? The system only gives question marks."

"Hmm? System, view Demonize."

||

"Ah. Demon Element than?"

||

"So Devils are capable of hiding information from the System? That's a Witch moment."

"What?"

"Nothing, I’m just very curious as to how the System actually functions,” Lucy responded.

“Both skills are related to harnessing the power of some form of underworld denizen. Element allows me to use the magical affinities of the demon I’m in a contract with but I can’t really use it because Witch magic is dumb and I need to infuse Chronomancy into it for use. Demonize on the other hand allows you to tap into a portion of their power and also allows them to take control of your body depending on the terms of your contract.” Lucy explained.

She could have gone much further into detail but the specifics seemed unimportant so she decided to leave the smaller things out.

“Wait, what about a contracted demon?”

||

Being forced out of her own mental world from the blaring sound inside her head along with the pop-up Lucy let out a deep sigh.

"No? Why?"