Jeff, the Giantess clockwork girl looked at the strange world she had found herself in. The Earth was above, and it looked like she had landed on some kind of strange plane.
Is this where 'Time' had gone?
She walked onwards, until she found what looked to be a little road. The road was... tiny. Even smaller then if it was for just humans. This made the giant clockwork girl even more curious. "I hope my winding doesn't run down," she said to herself. That would get very awkward, as she had no choice but to wait it out until she charged up again.
She was huge... and a giant... but just so vulnerable, and every much the child she appeared to be. Even if she had been a child for years...
Eventually she stumbled upon what looked to be a curious village. It was made... entirely of doll houses? The giantess approached it, and found...
...she tried not to gag (not that she could... but something inside her did break.)
There were... lifeless clockwork girls, just like her. Littered about the place, pieces of them. An arm here, a leg there.. a wind up key... she picked up one and tried to assemble the pieces of the young doll. She wasn't even sure if they were sentient or not but... they lived in a village! They had to be sentient... these were a people, just like her. It must have been some kind of attack?
Finally she finished fixing up one of the dolls and slowly, tried to wind it.
It was painful... she feared so much that the mechanism to keep it from winding too tightly was broken. So if she misjudged it, the being would... stop. By her own hands, permanently.
Tick.. Tick... Tick... And... there. She dare not turn it any more.
"W-W-Welcome. T-T-o T-time- Town." said the doll staring at the giantess.
Jeff stared back with the same glassy eyes. "What happened here? Please tell me what happened to you!" Her voice was desperate. She had never felt anything like this before. An entire race of tiny clockwork dolls... just like her!
"T-time. Town. The Clock is m-moving. S-Somone S-stole Time. P-Please hel-" and then the doll stopped.
Jeff stared and tried to wind her again... but it was no use. The doll had stopped... and no winding would bring it back. She wanted to find someone who could help but there was nobody... it was just her.
...then Jeff too, realised she was about to stop as her mainspring needed to charge. She slipped into the blissful state of rest, thinking of her poor sisters in this village...
"I'll find out what happened to you"
The angel and fairy continued to follow the metallic wire. Obviously wherever it was going it probably wasn't very far... but still... this was a curious development. Someone from Earth was generating electrical power... or was it electrical? The laws of physics here were different... but that didn't mean someone from Earth with technological expertise couldn't work out how to exploit those physics- assuming they has a basic understanding of it.
Given that the entire Earth became this world's sky, all bets were off on just what the laws of physics were.
It was starting to get late though, as this world decided it was going to be 'night'. It was quicker then what happened on Earth, yet still an incremental gradual loss of light. Looking up, the two people saw a curious sight. A row of fairies, flying as one line, behind them trailing the 'night'. They were lead by one single larger fairy. She had porcelain white skin, wrapped in a clock of shadows... and moved with curious intent, urging the rest of her 'sisters' foreward. In their wake, they left the 'night' behind them.
City lights on the Earth-sky lit up, making an almost starry atmosphere to those who would look up at them.
The two looked up at the row of fairies, quite stunned as they departed without a word, leaving them in the beautiful night.
"Night fairies?" thought Lucas with a little smile. What a.. strange thing. But then how else would night happen on a world, that was the center of itself?
General makepeace looked up with some quiet awe... how did they even fly? It must be some trick."I guess we'll get some sleep" she thought.
The angel Lucas glanced down to her with a shrug. She didn't really need to sleep any more.
Maybe that was the strangest thing from transcending from her original transformation into this new form. (Although how much of it was new?) She felt connected in ways that she never felt before... even though Lucas was not part of a Chorus, she was the Angel of the moon goddess herself... and she never felt alone. She had the power of an infinite number of Angels... Lucas was a chorus of 'self'.
It was in those moments that she realised, how much she had changed from that time so... long ago.
Still, she did want to rest, and with night descending she decided to make camp. It wasn't a lot really, she just laid back on the gentle grass, of a world untouched by humans- those that this world called the 'Ocili'. A strange concepts indeed, and yet the word felt familiar to her...
She glanced down at her new 'ally' General Makepeace, who had squirmed out of her pocket and onto the grass.
The fairy crouched down and started doing push-ups. She tried to do a few sit ups, and winced slightly as her wings crumpled to the force of her body. With a little more practice she folded them close to her back, as she did a number of sit ups. She then jogged on the spot, keeping to what seemed to be a pretty mean regime of exercise until every muscle she had was properly utilised.
"Uh... why are you exercising?" asked Lucas.
The little fairy shrugged. "exercise on sunset and sunrise. I might be a small fairy, but I'm still me. I have a lot of muscle to try and put back on."
Lucas looked at the fairy with some mirthful amusement at that. "What's your first name?"
"Are we on a first name basis now?" Asked Makepeace with eyes that were just too innocent on a military commander. "Well if you Want to know, it's Stanley" She said doing more squats, arching a slight eyebrow at the curious motion of her new body. "This will... take some getting used to."
The.. militant minded fairy continued for some time, before she laid flat out exhausted, a sheen of sweat on her skin. That exercise was difficult, though not due to a lack of muscle. It was just so alien to be... this. "Tell me about your friend if you don't mind."
"Which one?"
"Lilly Gordon?" ventured the fairy.
"You seem to know 'everything' about her already," said the angel icily.
"Not as much as you would think," said Stan. "We know she was part of the magic circle, and was the easiest to gleam... information on. We know she was trying to make an artificial magic girl, using some kind of gem- but failed." getting the information on that project was their highest priority... if the military could make a magically empowered soldier...
Lucas sighed a bit. She was getting worried about her. Maybe she could share a little of her friend. "Lilly- as you know, is Jen's star student. I watched her grow up since she was nine years old- er- again." She didn't envy those that had to start life at such an early age again... but the stone must have had a reason for doing it? "She's... imaginative, and incredibly determined. That squirrel can not give up on anything. I have never seen anyone... with that kind of determination. Not exactly the brightest and best on magical studies though."
"No, That one would be Karyn." Said Stan knowingly.
Lucas raised an eyebrow at that. "Why didn't you go after Karyn then?"
"We... kept an eye on her, of course. But that girl seemed to have a.. sixth sense. She was aware she was being watched and our M-tech scry showed she had an... impressive amount of raw power, even if she doesn't quite know how to tap it. We suspect it was because of her closeness to Jen. Given the nature of magic, it was too dangerous to watch her all the time- especially as she seemed close to Jen. Keeping an eye on Lilly simply.. made more sense. She lacked magical awareness, the protection of the stone, and we had evidence she was capable of potentially great feats. We are aware of her... actions in the final battle with the enemy."
Lucas shook her head. "I thought the magic girl's defeated the Enemy."
"Who's the one keeping secrets now?" chided the general with a little smirk on her tiny head. "We know what each and every one of you did. You all used the powers given by your transformations... all except Lilly. Lilly was just a class two transformee, that 'transcended' into something else. Something completely out of the normal range that should be expected. You know that, right?"
Lucas stared a little as she remembered. That girl born in fury of a moment, when she saw 'Truth'... the enemy opened her eyes to the entire nature of the universe, her friends and even of Lucas herself... it was perhaps, the only time Lucas felt a terrible fear born of being 'rejected'. She never claimed to be perfect, far from it... but she never wanted to subject a child to her imperfections. Yet the Enemy had forced it... what must it have been like, to see the truth of everyone and everything?
"Class two eh?" groaned Lucas. "You and your 'classifications'. what am I then?"
"...unclassified," said Stan. "In military circles, a transformation is given a threat rating. Anything higher then Five is considered a threat to personnel, and property, and class ten would be a world changing transformation akin to a god. For a while we considered you a class ten, but you are clearly beyond that. We're not at all sure what you are. Do you even know what you are?"
"...I'm still working that one out." said Lucas as she leaned back on the tree. "So what's a class five transformation?"
"Uh- something like that." Pointed the general.
Lucas blinked...
