17th September, a Wednesday of 11508
The world darkens. Clouds couldn't be seen, naturally the sun was completely concealed too. People stare on in immense fear, confusion and anxiety take root. A calamity has arrived.
*Super sattelite class calamity has appeared, alert to all magical girls. Super sattelite class calamity has awakened.*
A inorganic voice coldly echoes in the ears of magical girls, this was the first time such an alert even existed. Even magical girls who have lived for a couple hundred of years have never known such a thing to exist. An unprecedented threat has come to lay waste, was this warning coming from the threat itself? With how foreign the warning system was, few come to trust it readily.
Only when it is too late-
A blinding light inverts the world's colours for a fleeting moment, like a fallen petal it marked the beginning of the end. In what could not be described as sound, a reverberation sweeps into the sky as the shock waves escape the grasp of gravity.
"... Bad news. I checked out the location with {Swap}..." (Sariel)
Arin gazes silently at the sky, her teeth clenched as she kept the boiling cauldron fo emotions inside. What was she thinking at this moment? It looked to be more similar to anguish at this moment, Sariel thought. After all... She was just a magical girl like the rest of us. Sariel's heart stopped for a moment, reorganising her the mess in her mind.
"W-what is it!? Spit it out! You can't just leave us in dispense!" (Lastia)
She was wondering why it had been more than week since a Trace last appeared. Checking the logs in her diary, they seemed to be peaceful and uneventful. School life carried on as per normal. She was starting to suspect that something was amiss. In the past month when Lastia became a magical girl, it might have been unnaturally odd for Traces to appear so often. According to Sariel, once per week was the normal frequency, but Trace occurences nearly doubled or tripled when Lastia arrived.
Finally, it call came crashing into her. Her doubt, her peace, her naivety. Sariel took a few moments to composed herself, but she finally seemed about ready to speak. Her left palm readily clasped around her throat, as if ready to squeeze the words out if necessary. She instinctively felt more comfortable this way...
"Zone 2...2...2B... It's...s... Gone!" (Sariel)
She shivered uncontrollably as if teeth lost coordination, chattering ceaselessly against each other. Lastia was afraid that they would fall out with how much she was clashing them together. An unbelievable report, and a sight much stranger and harder to accept. A barren wasteland of charred civilisation. The... Traces have finally begun making their move.
No one knows where they come from, the naming scheme suggests that the person who came up with the naming at least had a hint to the source of all Traces in the world. But as things stood, Traces were more like a natural law of this world, just like physics. They naturally appear in urban environments, attempt to prey upon human lives, trigger an 'Event' and become subjugated by magical girls.
An endless battle of destiny between 2 factions, one with a possible hint of coordination and working together for the greater good, and one without any semblance of socialising. Traces were more like wild animals that happen to wander into farms, they are born in human civilisation and hunted in human civilisation.
Unlike usual shows of magical girls that suggest some force of evil is at play, or that there is some extra dimensional homeland for these invaders, there was no evidence pointing to such a notion. In fact there was more mounting evidence for the spontaneous creation of Traces in urban centres and the motive for such a thing. A person or a force of nature could be creating these Traces endlessly across the globe, putting one in each residential zone ward at an average of once per week.
This was the current state of reality, the common sense that every Lastia has been taught. Yet... What was that? It looked like it came from space, an inorganic magical warning that plays inside the mind of every magical girl... All of it points to the enemy being an alien who instantly wiped out a residential zone with their arrival alone. The magic fueled game like warning couldbe a machinatiom by the alien to lure in unsuspecting prey in the form of magical girls... It was hard to tell what was the right move here, and it was also difficult to get right into action with how little information everyone held.
No one could tell if their zone would be next, the magical girls of zone 2B... They were obviously dead. Amidst the man made alerts circulating among the humans themselves, having seen that calamity with their very own eyes, news reports and pictures of the site have surged all over the net. The global network was still around and still actively improved upon in this age, multiple global news channel broadcast disseminated the information in multiple remaining languages that have yet to merge with the global lingua franca.
There was a heavy sense of panic thicker than the smoke filled atmosphere brought about by the calamity. Flashing house lights, residents running in public like headless chicken, ear piercing screeching by numerous infants. What was supposed to be a peaceful noon had already turned into a disaster, with what little authorities exist attempting to put their disaster relief plans into practice. The safest thing to do was to get every citizen into their houses as quick as they could. The heavily armed police force were stationed in many core points of commuting routes to route the citizens.
It was during such an evacuation that the three managed to sneak out and transform into magical girls, before hiding out on the school rooftop. Arin was awfully quiet as Sariel made her report, a solemn expression had neatly wrapped itself around her face. Arin was showing rare emotion while keeping her gaze to the dim skies. That's when Sariel realised the ugly grimace taking over her own cheeks, she twitched and turned her face to the ground as fast as she could. She didn't want Lastia to see how ugly she could get, even if it was too late.
"Super satellite class... How strong is that in comparison to The Observer?" (Lastia)
"Stonger... Not enough to annhilates the moon, but close. This thing can wipe the earth's surface if it had a suitable technique to channel all of its energy." (Arin)