Walking out of another mind-numbingly boring class, Lucy hummed while looking at her phone.

“And with that, Recess starts… Can’t say the prospect of playing with kids sounds fun. What can I do to kill 45 minutes?” Lucy mused.

The thought of exploring the surrounding area of the Sentinel Base briefly crossed her mind, but Lucy rather quickly shut that idea down. As productive as it might be, she didn’t wanna make a habit out of disappearing from school without a trace.

If someone came looking for her and she was nowhere to be found, that’d be a little troubling.

‘Practicing Runecraft is also a no-go. Not while two unidentified mystics are running around.’ Lily sighed inwardly.

Thinking about it again, though, Lucy thought, perhaps not having anything to do is all that bad. These past few days have given her plenty of different emotions. Just… Taking a break didn’t seem like a bad thing.

‘It’s not like I’m alone here. If I were to give a little, those Spectral girls could probably clean up… Right?’

Thinking back on how she was outpacing both of them while playing around and not even using her full power made her rethink that as well, though.

“Lucy, we have a problem!” Came Nell’s frantic voice, echoing throughout Lucy’s head.

“Telepathy? So you can just do that and didn’t tell me?” Lucy raised an eyebrow, realizing what was going on instantly.

“All Agents can do this. Listen, this is a serious emergency!”

Luckily the rest of her grade were more than happy to hang out with each other outside, and the others were still in class, so the hallways were plenty empty for her to have a nice chat with her partner.

“So, what happened? Did something happen inside the base?”

“No… It’s something outside the base…” Nell hesitated to speak.

“I don’t follow. What happened?” Lucy asked, raising her brows.

“Zone… Is missing…”

Taking a deep breath, Lucy’s eyes widened.

“That is an issue… We need to find him quickly.”

Picking up her pace in movement, Lucy activated her Third Eye before continuing to move around the school.

“I can vaguely sense his presence in the school. Even if people won’t be able to understand him, a tiny fox with 3 tails running around is going to raise some heads, and I fear he won’t think to hide his other tails.”

Lucy nodded, picking up her pace further. The amount of places she could look were somewhat limited right now. She could only look in the handful of classes that weren’t in use right now and the club rooms.

The first place she checked was the gymnasium which was closest to her. Glancing in, she saw that the upperclassmen were using it, but with her Third Eye, she didn’t have to get close to tell that Zone wasn’t present.

Continuing on, she checked a couple of janitor closets to no avail and further to the auditorium without any luck.

Doubling back to her homeroom before checking the art room as well, Lucy’s eyes narrowed further as she quickly ran out of rooms that she could easily check.

Even with her top speed, having to check each and every room she could caused her time to tick down.

‘What’s next? The Recreational room? That and the bathrooms, I guess. Please be in the prior, Zone!’ Lucy thought, changing her course to hopefully her final destination.

Growing closer and closer to the room, Lucy quickly opened the door, only for her heart to sink and her mind to start racing to think of an excuse.

Inside the room was Zone! She found him! That was the end of the good news as Sayaka, Silica, and the ahoge boy… What was his name?

Luka! Right, those three were also in the room.

Specifically, Silica was holding Zone close. Luka was making an annoyed expression as he tried to get to Silica or, more specifically, Zone. Sayaka stood between them, trying to defuse the situation…

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Whatever the situation was…

Noticing Lucy’s arrival, Sayaka’s face revealed great curiosity at the timing of her arrival before quickly shifting to that of relief.

“Oh, thank goodness, Lucy! Help me convince Luka to stand down!” Sayaka pleaded.

“That thing is an Alien! Who knows what it’s planning to do at our school.”

Lucy felt her eye twitch as she nearly just threw Luka straight to the window with her full force due to him calling Zone in such a way.

‘I could break him so easily… No, Lucy. Don’t… He’s just edgy.’

Walking up to Silica, Lucy put her hand out for Zone to run on, only for him to shake his head.

“Mmh, she’s comfy! I don’t wanna leave!”

Hearing him speak, Lucy let out a small sigh. To the rest, it sounded like him growling at Lucy.

“Okay, noted. He doesn’t seem to like me.” Lucy chuckled, pretending not to hear what he said.

It’s not like she could just pry him away from Silica.

“Okay so, care to explain what’s happening? That’s one of those Mascots that Magical Girls have, right? Why is one at our school?”

“It’s clearly plotting something. We need to get rid of it!”

“Plotting what, Luka? Why are you so hostile to Sentinels for no reason?”

“How can you not be? I’m telling you, those Sentinels can’t be up to anything good. It’s only a matter of time before they start sacrificing civilians in their war against those Invaders. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Luka scoffed, walking out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

“I don’t like him… He’s scary.” Zone commented.

Lucy was extremely confused, as were the others present so all she could try to do was lighten the mood.

“Situation defused?” Lucy shrugged playfully.

You are phenomenal at this, Lucy…

“That guy… Despite knowing him for years, I just can’t figure out what he’s thinking. Are you okay, Silica?” Sayaka questioned, checking on her friend.

Silica nodded.

“So Lucy. What brings you here? You seemed to be in a hurry.”

“Huh? Oh, I thought I saw something colorful running around, so I followed the direction I saw it in. Guess it was this lil’ guy? What about you, though? Don’t you have class?” Lucy asked, lying through her teeth.

“Skipping. Don’t like P.E.”

“That’s… Fair enough. What about you, Silica? He seems to like you. Are you perhaps gonna be chosen as a Magical Girl?” Lucy teased, causing Silica to blush profusely before typing a response.

Please don’t joke about such things! >.<

Her response got a chuckle out of Lucy, so she decided to back off.

“That being said, I do kind of agree with Luka. It doesn’t really make sense for an Agent to be so openly at our school. At least, I imagine so. If they showed up in public like this, then we’d see them far more often.”

‘Agent isn’t a widely known term. Even on forums about Magical Girls, people rarely use that term unless they’re diehard for using proper terminology. Why does she, of all people, use it? On that topic, I really need to ask Nell what the process of choosing a new team member is like. I doubt my situation could be considered normal…

“Did he perhaps get lost?”

What if he’s already part of a Magical Girl team? And he’s looking around the school while their members are in class or something?

*Cough*

Lucy nearly choked on her own saliva as she read Silica’s hypothesis, causing her to cough furiously.

“Lucy, you okay?”

“Yeah… Fine. Choking on air.” She responded, still coughing.

‘HOW THE HELL DID SHE MANAGE TO NAIL THAT ON THE HEAD? IS THIS GIRL ACTUALLY SUPER RESOURCEFUL OR SOMETHING?’ Lucy panicked inwardly, unbeknownst to her friends…

To Silica, at least.

“Are you implying that a Sentinel is going to our school? If that’s the case, I really hope I can meet them.”

“But you’re the Sentinel? Why would you wanna meet yourself.” Zone purred.

‘WHY ARE YOU PURRING IF YOU’RE A VULPINE’ Lucy cried inwardly, thanking every higher power that wasn’t the Abrahamic God that normal people couldn’t hear Agents.

I know, right?! I’d love to meet them. Even if they can’t reveal their identity, knowing a real-life Sentinel goes to our school would be sososo cool!

Unable to match her enthusiasm, Lucy nodded as the bell began to ring.

“That was a quick break, huh? You two should probably hurry and start heading to classes. Unless you wanna skip and spend my break with me.”

My Parents will kill me if I skip any classes. Sorry!

“My cousin works here, so I don’t think I’d be able to escape the wrath of my family either…”

As much as Lucy adored the thought of skipping those boring classes, there wasn’t any reason to ruin her perfect record on the third day of school.

“A shame. Alright, talk to you guys later. I’m gonna go try to see what’s up with Luka.”

“Good luck.”

Good luck.

Realizing that it was time to go, Zone hopped onto Lucy’s shoulder, surprising her greatly.

“Now you like me?” Lucy rolled her eyes, hiding a smile from Silica.

Heading to their class with Zone eventually slipping away to the Sentinel base, they continued their day as normal.