Madoka's house - Homura's got the feeling that something's going to go wrong.

"Where are you going now?" Kyubey asked.

A momentary pause as Homura pondered both what to do and what to tell her new travelling companion. "I'm going to check Madoka's house out." Might as well be absolutely safe, although telling the Incubator might have been counterproductive for that goal.

"Another one of my bodies is closer to that area. I will reconvene with you there." Kyubey walked off with measured strides, disappearing behind a wall. Homura would have followed her, but it was an exercise in futility to catch up to the Incubator when she didn't want you to find her. Instead, she started off at a brisk pace, jogging towards her destination through the streets and planning for tomorrow. She had half expected her breasts and cock to be heaving about with each motion but her uniform managed to control her assets' movement to an appreciable degree. Her ass's ridiculous shaking was pretty much unsalvageable, but the rest of her body wasn't giving her too much trouble. Even sexiness had to bow its head to practicality, Homura supposed.

As she was headed over, she sensed something that made her blood chill: The unmistakable presence of a witch. Well, it wouldn't actually be a witch considering what Kyubey had said, but it was still the same kind of oppressive, unnatural feeling, a kind of coldness that suffused throughout the body and ate away at the will. Immediately, Homura ducked into an alleyway and put a hand to her Soul Gem, already blinking and glowing. She transformed, re-entering her fairly uncomfortable costume, and immediately stopped time. As the world around her halted, she leapt up to the rooftop, leaping from building to building and leaving the time-stop only when she was completely out of sight. Hopefully, no one was watching when she was jumping from building to building, but that was a tertiary concern at best.

She felt a voice in her mind - Kyubey. Wraiths have spawned in the residential area, against the prediction of our models. Around 40 humans are caught in the miasma, including Kaname Madoka and her family. I am entering the miasma to search and possibly to enlist magical girls; communication will be unreliable at best between us. The worrying possibility of a betrayal entered Homura's mind - how could she have possibly trusted an Incubator, of all things? Complacency? - but at this point she could do nothing but trust that the Incubator's cost-benefit analysis favored keeping their promise.

Coming. She kept it short as possible, devoting all of her power and focus towards going just a little faster.

Soon, but not soon enough, she came across the magical distortion signifying whatever equivalent of a barrier there was, and dove into it without a shred of hesitation. She landed, taking a moment to observe her surroundings.

The "miasma" lacked the same personalized touches that a witch's barrier would have, but otherwise seemed functionally identical. Homura was quite thankful for that; it made the experience much less oppressively eerie. Running through the altered city streets, which seemed to be dissolving into dark particles in the distance, she called out both mentally and verbally to see if anyone was listening.

She rounded a corner, and saw what was probably a wraith, a hulking humanoid skeletal figure of pure white, clad in the robes of a Buddhist monk. One of the eyes and about a quarter of its skull was missing, dissolving into magic trails in the air. It was the first thing she'd seen in two days that looked like it wanted to kill her rather than fuck her; she was back on familiar territory. It looked up at and sent a rather pedestrian beam of some energy at her (in comparison to the wide-varying methodology of a witch), but Homura had already stopped time, stepping up to it and unloading an entire clip of the pistol she'd fetched from her shield into its head, just to be sure. She leapt back, time resuming as the bullets slammed home. It dissolved into tendrils of despair, although it was a close thing, with seemingly only sealing the deal. A higher caliber weapon would probably be necessary to take them out as quick as she'd like. A small black cube clattered to the ground - something to pay attention to later, perhaps - but she kept on moving through the eerie streets.

As she moved, Homura instinctively dodged a laser coming in from the side, slowing down to throw off the aim. Two of the wraith's compatriots were closing in, attempting to take ****. One of them had its hand raised, presumably the source of the laser. She pulled an **** rifle out, giving each of them a single burst in time-stop to deal with them, and continued searching.

Again and again the magical girl summarily dispatched her enemies with almost contemptuous ease. Every time a wraith even got close, time stopped, and suddenly the incoming attacker would find several well-placed bullets in its head or a makeshift grenade placed on the ground and summarily dissipate.

After around twenty of the wraiths had been killed, she had arrived to where Madoka's house would have been, but there was no one there. With a snarl, Homura turned around and raced off. The reality-warping effects had displaced all of the landmarks it seemed, tangling and twisting the familiar streets around Madoka's house into unnatural arrangements. Several times, she spotted glassy-eyed civilians, sitting there while wraiths appeared to suck the life out of their body (not from their dicks, somewhat surprisingly), but Madoka was nowhere to be seen. She killed the wraiths, but left the civilians simply on the ground, preoccupied. They probably wouldn't die, considering the rate at which she was going through wraiths.

The prolonged combat wasn't tiring out Homura, but her uniform was becoming quite irritating and distracting, something that she couldn't afford in the heat of battle. Homura ripped open the pantyhose on the run, letting her penis out of its somewhat painful confinement. It almost cost her, only her ingrained paranoia letting her roll out of the way her from a wraith ambushing her from a nearby roof. A lobbed grenade took care of that problem, letting Homura continue running with a newly released dick. Its flopping about was honestly a little bit of a problem, but a lot less of one than its previous state.

The wraiths seemed to be getting more dense, which gave her a bad feeling that she knew where Madoka would be. A hastily planted mine took out a cluster of three wraiths. Although it was somewhat of a waste, Homura was willing to blow through the entire contents of her shield if necessary. Another shot was sent through a slightly larger and tankier variant, emptying her first rifle.

Finally, after heading down a dark fuzzy street that probably didn't even exist, she made telepathic contact with Kyubey. Kaname Madoka is currently in hiding, although wraiths are closing in on our position. If she is unlikely to survive, I will prompt her to contract, but for now she is willing to wait for help. Your relative position is impossible to calculate from within the miasma due to its distorting effects, so I will not be able to provide much more assistance. You will need to make haste.

She headed down a hallway, Kyubey's thoughts in her head disappearing as the magic seemed to shift around her. Wraith after wraith after wraith fell, killed as soon as she spotted them, taken down with **** prejudice. If it was just about combat, it would have been simple, abusing her time-stop and her possession of the initiative to destroy each enemy with the only risk being instantaneous attacks. However, it wasn't just her, it was never just her, if it was just about her she could have given up a long time ago. She couldn't- Homura refocused, pushing the despair-induced thoughts aside. She'd need to purify her gem soon, although there was plenty enough for this fight.

Homura's thoughts were punctuated by the deafening sound of gunfire, punching through the humanoid despair. She would definitely need to restock after this. It must have been at least fifty of them at this point, right? Seventy-five? Counting was a waste of time at this point. Maybe her actions would draw out the rest of them, or at the least divert their attention.

Homura took another turn, and skidded to a halt as she took stock of the situation. Here, the time traveler saw a new kind of wraith, wielding a fiery arrow-javelin hybrid in one hand and levitating above the ground, legs crossed in a meditative position. Its skull-head had separated into halves, revealing an alien collection of triangles, unconnected to one another and hovering in place menacingly. It was surrounded by a small crowd of the lesser ones, around ten or so. They seemed to be looking down at something on the ground - a flash of pink hair. Madoka. The girl was sprawled on the ground face first, probably having tripped somehow. She struggled to get up as they prepared … something, but hopefully Homura would never have to find out. Time ground to a sudden halt again, freezing the upcoming tragedy in front of her. She didn't have any heavy weaponry in her shield; the rest of her pipe bombs and several grenades would have to do. Placing them at the feet of the wraiths, she then turned to the object of all of her efforts, Madoka.

Gingerly, she held her hand out, touching Madoka and bringing her back into motion. The pink-haired girl started, looking up in fear and confusion before recognizing the figure in front of her, holding a long, deadly-looking rifle and wearing some kind of probably weirdly full uniform. "H-Homura-chan?" she stammered.

"Hold on." Homura said urgently, extending out her other hand. When Madoka didn't act, still shocked, Homura picked her up, holding her close against her chest. She felt the girl's heart racing, and the closeness in any other situation would have brought her happiness or at least lust. Now though, she pushed all of that aside, mind completely focused on the incoming fight. Homura carried her to the side road she came in from, hoping that her efforts had cleared out enough to make it safe. "There's going to be a lot of explosions very soon," Homura warned, pointing at the smattering of explosives spread amongst the final group. "Be careful." Madoka nodded. She gingerly set her precious cargo down against the wall, facing away from the clearing.

"What's going on?" Madoka asked, although she wasn't resisting her hurried commands. The magical girl ignored her, letting go of her. The pink-haired girl faded back into the background as she turned back towards her opponents. Time resumed its flow, and the wraiths noticed that their prey was gone and spun around, searching for them. They didn't notice the explosives detonating, which cleared out the smaller fry but left the larger one intact. The flames didn't seem to bother it at all, and it simply turned to meet Homura in combat. Now that she could see it's frame, Homura noticed that its other arm just simply stopped existing at the shoulder, connected to the hand only by several floating squares. Of course, it wasn't immune to stopping time, so she just summarily executed it with the rest of the contents of one - no, it lived through that barrage, hop around the thrown fire saber for a better angle - one and a half semi-automatic rifles, one burst for each of the little triangles and the rest sent through the center of mass. The wall of bullets slammed into the already recoiling wraith, finishing it off. That would be quite problematic in the future if found in greater numbers, although it was just one at the moment. Homura would need an alternate way to damage them, as it seemed explosives would have reduced effect against them. She would much rather face off against one of these than a witch at least, considering it had the common decency to not have a labyrinth specialized to its powerset and preferences.

With the **** of the ringleader, the miasma noticeably weakened. With a nauseating ripple in reality, the roads phased back into their original positions, connecting the way they were in the outside world. How many more were left? She scanned around, looking for more, but it seemed the coast was clear, at least for now. Turning around, she saw that Madoka was watching her from her position of cover, nervously peeking out from behind the wall. "Wow, you, you looked… amazing, Homura-chan." The words came out in a rush, the pink haired girl probably trying to reconcile two competing Homuras she had been presented with. "Umm… so, you're a magical girl like Kyubey-san was telling me?"

Homura closed her eyes, calming herself. "Yes. I am." The terseness seemed to put Madoka off more, and she bowed her head, looking at the ground. Sensing movement in the corner of her vision, the dark haired girl refocused immediately on the backyard where it occurred, but it was just Kyubey, who had apparently hid quite close to the action just behind a fence. Obviously, though, the wraiths had paid no attention to the alien.

As she stood, she spoke to Homura. "I must commend your skill and efficacy, Akemi-san; it is greater than I had predicted. However, there are still several wraiths present, as indicated by the continued existence of the miasma. I suggest you destroy them as quickly as is feasible." Homura's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Kyubey had been given every opportunity to cajole Madoka into making the contract already, so she felt that the risk of her doing so behind her back had lessened.

She started to leave in the same direction she had came in, preparing to finish the job. Madoka began to call out, but apparently thought otherwise, the "Wait!" dying in her throat. She took a handgun out of her shield this time, probably able to save on ammunition now that she had confirmed that Madoka was relatively safe.

The remaining cleanup went by quickly; there must have only been around ten or so total left, and they were easily dispatched with small arms fire. The dark miasma faded, leaving just Homura, Madoka, Kyubey, the **** bodies of a couple dozen civilians, and a small pile of the cubes that were dropped. Returning to the area where she had destroyed that group of daemons with **** prejudice, Homura saw Kyubey answering some of Madoka's questions, talking about how the people would be fine in the long run, albeit remembering nothing that had happened. She still looked quite nervous, but still seemed in a fairly good spot mentally. Turning around at the sound of footsteps, she spotted Homura, still with pistol in hand.

After a pause as she collected her thoughts, looking straight into her eyes. "So, is it true? If, if I make the contract, I'll be able to protect my family? The people that I care about?"

Kyubey spoke before Homura was able to come up with a good answer. "You have a significant amount of magical potential and would be much stronger than the average, although combat on this scale is fairly infrequent."

"Then… should I do it?" Madoka looked at Homura, clearly seeking her advice.