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Once again pushing the notifications to the side, as the snake Lucy had been fighting was blown into billions of tiny pieces, she walked over to the untransformed Operator Gaia.
She was just a normal girl with short unkempt hair. She probably had a family, friends, dreams... And she threw it all away for Lucy.
"You called me silly but... Look who's on the ground. Who's the silly girl now, huh?" She asked as tears welled up.
Only now as the adrenaline had settled down did she realize the severity of this situation. Not only was someone she idolized nearly killed while protecting her, all of the other Operators were dead meaning that she was the last Magical sentinel in this city...
She got her wish though! Ever since that day 9 years ago, she wanted to become a magical girl so she could protect people like those rainbow fighters and her mom but not like this!
Nell, whose color had changed to somewhat mirror Operator Chronos' colors hopped onto her shoulder.
"It's not your fault... She wanted this." The now black and purple twin-tailed cat said.
That really didn't make her feel any better.
'With mundane technology, she won’t be able to make it.’' Lucy thought, quickly wiping her tears away.
Although what she thought was true. The fate given to Sora was quite possibly worse than death. Along with the power she gained from the transformation, Operator Chronos had also become extremely sensitive to mana and the things related. She could tell. Even if Sora survived because of her talisman, her Mana core was shattered.
Even if she survived, She'd never be able to use magic again. She wasn't exactly sure what the case was for sentinels but for witches, losing your core was the same as dying.
Steeling herself for what was to come, she only had 1 thing left to do.
Looking at Utopia which caused him to flinch slightly, she picked up Sora and handed her to the older guy.
"You're with the church. Surely you have some connections to get her to a good hospital, right?" She asked.
"Uhm... Yeah, of course. But wouldn't that involve me getting out of here alive?" He blinked twice, taking Sora's near-lifeless corpse.
"You wouldn't have saved me if you planned to call for reinforcements. Me sparing you makes us even, that's all."
Utopia was unsure how to respond to that. It was clear to him Lucy had a good heart and he didn't particularly follow the Church's teachings of Witches all being evil beings who sold their souls to devils. As long as Lucy didn't start trying to harm people with her powers for no reason, he wouldn't have called in backup in the first place.
Well, now that she had the powers of a magic sentinel, he wasn't sure if reinforcements would do much.
"Okay. Do you have a way I can contact you? I'll make sure to give you a location to come visit."
Thinking about it for a moment, Lucy nodded.
"My phone number is 775-x. Send me the cost as well. I'll cover it."
"Yeah, 'cause I'm gonna make a kid pay. Speaking of, shouldn't you be heading to school? Remember to get a chance of clothing, I believe I saw that thing damage your clothing before we... Left."
Lucy merely rolled her eyes.
"This place is becoming unstable. We need to go before we're placed in the middle of the city with a dead body in our hands."
Now that was something Utopia could agree with.
Saying their final goodbyes, Lucy and her newly found black cat companion flew into the sky on her broom.
For once in her life, she felt like a real witch. Even if it was a romanticized version probably created to scare and or give children fetishes. Somehow those things go together way too often...
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That aside, flying casually for about 10 minutes, Lucy covered several kilometers, arriving near her school.
It was quite odd. Lucy just knew how to fly and just knew how to use lightning magic despite never being able to do either before.
Upon becoming a magical sentinel, a base level of information about all her new abilities just appeared in her head. On top of her already knowing the fundamentals of magic, she could quite easily pull off anything an experienced sentinel could do, albeit it'd probably be quite a bit weaker.
That aside, Lucy undid her transformation, realizing just how right Utopia was. Her clothing was barely covering what was important.
It was a good thing she had multiple sets made because she expected to get into some rough fights down the line. Never did she think it'd be on her first day of school.
Avoiding people and finding a private place to change, finally, Lucy could once again be presentable!
"Ah. Nell, will you have a place to rest while I'm at school? It might be a little difficult to hide you."
Somewhat absentmindedly Nell shook her head.
"Magical Sentinels have a pocket dimension that acts as a base of operations and resting point. I'll stay there until you're done with school."
Lucy wanted to get excited at how cool that was but she simply wasn't in the right state of mind for that.
Leaving the spot where she changed, she quickly ran the rest of the way to school, making it just around the time other students entered the gates meaning she wasn't late.
It was to be expected. She left several hours early to get a lay of the land but she lost track of time during the battle and didn't think to check the time afterward. How embarrassing would it be to miss her first day of school in a new city?
Entering the gate she was greeted by a familiar face almost immediately.
Quickly changing her expression, she greeted the face.
"Diana!"
"Lucy!"
The two hugged each other, Lucy near suffocating in her elder cousins... Assets.
Her skin was like chocolate with pure white hair and pale blue eyes. She wore a gentle expression, a white undershirt, and a black suit, the latter of which couldn’t be buttoned up entirely because of how large her breasts were.
The Moonlight Witch, Diana Adams. To get a title like this, you must be considered a genuine threat on the level of a legendary Witch by the church. Whether your destructive power is that high or you're really effective at killing large amounts of people, the context of power varies greatly.
In terms of power, much like Invaders, Mystics are classified into several ranks being Apprentice, Warrior, Knight, Baron, King, Emperor, Legendary, and Grand.
On that scale, Operator Chronos would sit somewhere around the middle Warrior but could probably reach the upper echelon of the Knight rank in actual combat.
"Hey, are you okay? You seem off."
"Am I ever okay? Be a bit more specific please." Lucy chuckled.
"Are you hiding something from me?"
'Sweet Lucifer, she's observant. Can I have one day when you don’t see right through me?' Lucy cursed inwardly.
"You caught me. I got myself a hot boyfriend. I'll introduce you sometime."
Hearing this Diana couldn't help but roll her eyes.
"Don't get yourself killed doing something stupid."
"I would never... Never ever... So, what exactly do I have to do today? I've been out of it all morning."
"Today? It's an assembly and a tour of the school since not all the students have seen it before. Shouldn't take more than a few hours."
Lucy let out a sigh of relief knowing the first day was gonna be slow and easy. She had so much to ponder.
Walking into a large auditorium of sorts with her future schoolmates and some teachers, Diana included, Lucy was pretty zoned out the entire time.
The school itself was a pretty standard private Junior high school and didn't have particularly confusing halls so she was unsure why the students needed a tour but those were details she really didn't care enough about to look into.
Aside from that, she noticed something interesting. She could sense an extremely faint amount of Mana coming from someone in the crowd of students. She couldn't discern what type of Mana so she was completely unsure if they were a Witch, clergy member, or something entirely different but she was sure someone in this school was a mystic.
Ever since she became a magical sentinel, she became extremely sensitive to mana. She could even see and feel each individual mana particle in the air. It was really disorienting and if a normal human experienced it, they'd be out of commission for several days because of the new sensations.
Speaking of becoming a magical girl.
'System?' she called out in her mind, testing to see if those panels would appear again just like in a novel.
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Seeing the list of options appear, Lucy hummed inwardly. It seemed that nobody could see it other than her. Did all Magical Sentinels have something like this? She'd need to ask Nell after school to be sure.
She decided now would be a good time to look this over since who knows what'll happen after or even later during school.
Quickly opening up all 4 tabs, she realized that 3 of the 4 were currently useless to her as they all gave an error message of some kind.
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None of the features seemed that hard to unlock. She'd need to figure out how recruiting people worked but it couldn't be that difficult.
With her other options exhausted, she turned her head to the status panel.