"A support magical girl? Did that thing..."

Lucy was going to ask if that snake managed to kill her team. Considering the things wounds that seemed to be made from several different weapons, it made sense. She managed to stop herself before she fully asked the question though.

In her own opinion, Lucy lacked in many areas of being a Witch. From the fact that she can't even use her own magic for longer than a few seconds, her lack of specialization, or even her ability to do research into the mystic arts.

The things she was confident in were her willpower, combat ability, and deep understanding of how magic worked. Ever since that incident 9 years ago, she had worked herself to the brink of death several times just to cope with the concept of death in which she succeeded. Now, she was completely numb to the concept of death. In fact, she welcomed it somewhat.

The thought of killing someone was still gross which was something terrible for a witch, all things considered. She simply wouldn't. Even in a life-or-death situation she'd still most likely hesitate greatly. Unless something took control of her body, you'd have to do a lot to push her over that edge. No matter how unhinged she was, she was still a young teenage girl.

Sora looked visibly shaken, even from behind.

"Damn, it..."

Lucy let out a small sigh. If she knew this was gonna happen on her commute to school she'd have brought a communication talisman with her. If her cousin was here this thing would get annihilated in moments!

These talismans that she used were single-use magical catalysts. They allowed one to cast spells at a slightly higher cost than the spell would normally take. Lucy had a few prepared for self-defense. Unfortunately, the others she had were for healing spells. Although, even if she had more, it was pretty clear they wouldn't help all that much to the snake since they're so inefficient.

"In there! It will have trouble following us in such a tight space with its size!" Utopia stated, pointing to a rather small building.

"A priest and tight spaces... Just wonderful." Lucy complained as the other two had already begun running inside the building.

Glancing back, the snake was already starting to get back up. They got about a 400m head start but something told her that such a small distance wasn't gonna hold for long.

Rolling her eyes, she rushed into the building after them. Upon entering, Gaia barricaded the door to further buy time.

"Thanks for the save. What were you two doing in the shadow world?" The cat who sat on Gaia's shoulder asked.

"A witch and Priest were in a shadow world together. Obviously, we were trying to kill each other."

Utopia rolled his eyes at Lucy's sarcastic tone.

"If I knew you were a witch before we got forcibly dragged here, then probably, yes."

Both of them glared at each other and clicked their tongues in unison.

Like water and oil, these two really did not want to mix.

Shortly after, only about 10 or so seconds later the group arrived in a room with windows pointing to the front.

Quietly, Gaia looked out the window and saw the floating serpent just... Waiting...

"Forcibly getting dragged into the Shadow World... To think that thing was so powerful..." Gaia sighed.

"Powerful? How does that correlate to us getting dragged in here?" Lucy asked, annoyance lacing her voice.

"Commander class. That snake is at least a commander class. Depending on the class, they can drag more people into the Shadow World." Gaia explained

Gaia didn't know what to do. Her friends were gone and now she was with two mortal enemies who could probably start fighting to the death at any moment.

"A commander class," Lucy muttered.

Invaders are split into 5 categories. Foot Soldier, Knight, Commander, King, and Queen. Each stronger than the last.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"What do you mean? Could you explain to us what happened?"

Lucy nodded in agreement to Utopia's question. She just wasn't gonna ask as this magical Sentinel was already burdened greatly.

Gaia didn't really know how to explain right now. Her thoughts were too chaotic so the talking cat decided to step in.

"I'm Nell and this is Operator Gaia."

Hearing the name Gaia, Lucy perked up.

"Operator Gaia?! The 8th ranked Supporter in America and the girl who placed 40th in the last Magical Girl Popularity poll?" She chimed.

The slight excitement in Lucy's tone had made Gaia sober up a bit.

"E-eh? You know me?"

"Who doesn't! You're among the most versatile supports in the world! Capable of healing, defending, and controlling the flow of battle with buffs and debuffs, you're even an adept fighter! If it wasn't for the fact that normal Magical Girls are greatly weakened without teammates it's said you'd easily rank in the top 3 worldwide!"

Certainly, under normal circumstances, someone of Operator Gaia's caliber would be able to solo a Commander class Invader.

Lucy nerding out made Gaia blush slightly, and Utopia was confused as hell.

"How are you excited right now?! We're in grave danger you know!"

Once again, Lucy glared at Utopia.

"A Priest like you wouldn't understand. You'll never get the worldly matters of us lesser beings."

Well, for a moment Lucy almost managed to lighten the mood with her obsession with magical girls. Her hatred for Christianity was just a bit deeper it seems.

Lucy has danced with death for 14 years. For someone considered incompetent like her, if she's gonna truly die, at least going out after meeting one of her heroes wasn't the worst way.

Better than dying in some random city to the blade of a priest anyway.

"Why you! Why are you so hateful towards the Church!"

"Because all you guys suck! It's not that deep!"

"Children! Stop fighting! We need to think of a plan." Nell leaped into the air and hit both of the idiots with her paw.

With that, Utopia relented and so did Lucy shortly after.

Afterward, Lucy glanced out of the window. The Invader was just pacing around, looking directly at the room they were in.

Despite being so injured he seemed perfectly fine with waiting for them to enter a more open space to fight.

"Ms. Gaia... Mmh, Operator Gaia."

"Please, just Sora is fine. After losing my comrades, I don’t hate the right to be one of the Operators."

"Right... Are there any other Magical Girls in this city?"

Gaia frowned even more.

"No. Unless they've been hiding out this entire time and waiting for us to die out, none have ever revealed themselves."

Looking at her phone, Lucy looked at the time.

'School doesn't start for another 2 hours. If I don't arrive at school Diana will get worried and probably come to find me... No, I can't let her reveal her magic. If the church finds her most of the people in this city could die in that battle...'

As those exact thoughts crossed Lucy's mind it came to her. The only way to get out of this. It was so simple she wondered how she only came up with it now.

"I'll go out and fight it alone. I can buy you guys at least a couple of minutes."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

"Oi, are you insane!"

Hearing the priest call her insane ticked Lucy off quite a bit but knowing that Gaia cared enough to try and stop her from suicide was nice.

"Do we have another choice?" Lucy asked, her tone getting much more serious than before.

"Y-" Gaia was about to say something before realizing she didn't know Lucy's name.

"Lucy. Lucille Lotus."

Lucy had no interest in revealing her family name in front of a servant of God. That was asking for all sorts of trouble.

"Right, Lucy. We can think of another way out. If we just wait until I recover-"

"Possibly... But as you heal so will it and even if we do make it out then what? I and this stupid hound fight to the death anyway? I call reinforcements he calls reinforcements. Half the city's population dies. Either me or the Priest has to die before we leave. I'd gladly ask him to do it but as far as I've seen, every member of any religion I've ever met has been nigh incompetent when it came to combat." Lucy explained.

"Plus... You'll most likely be more useful to this world than I ever could be." She added on at the last moment, her frantic tone softening considerably.

Utopia had absolutely no way to argue that. Lucy could be bluffing about her having reinforcements but he'd rather not test that.

"Fine... You better buy us enough time to escape."

"Well, then you better go now."

Smashing the window in, Lucy looked at the snake and the snake looked back, hissing at her. It sounded angry but it was hard to tell.

'That's its attention acquired. Now how the hell do I get out of here?' Lucy questioned in her mind.

Obviously, she wasn't going to actually fully commit to a suicidal fight. The first chance she got to run away she was out of there.

"Let's dance for a bit, snake."